On the flat tax, the more you compress the tax rates, the more you untax where the income is really made, at the top of the pyramid.
MICHAEL HUDSONRussia was under the impression that the neoliberal advisors were going to make Russia as rich as the United States. What they really did was create a kleptocracy that was virtually tax-free.
More Michael Hudson Quotes
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Either you can save the economy, or you can save the One Percent from losing a single penny.
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People are putting their money into treasuries because they worry that the risk of putting their money into the bond market, the stock market or even the money markets is very high.
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Elites play the role today that landlords played under feudalism. They levy interest and financial fees that are like a tax, to support what the classical economists called “unproductive activity.”
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It’s amazing that Europe says, “What are we going to do with these refugees?” It’s as if it doesn’t realize that being part of NATO and bombing these countries forces them to choose to live by fleeing, or to stay and get bombed.
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You’re having government spending on the economy being cut almost everywhere. That means that the only source of spending for growth has to come from borrowing from the banking system.
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When you say “bank,” a bank is a building, a set of computers and chairs and things.
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America needs an ineffective president. That’s much better than an effective president that’s going to go to war with Russia, that’s going to push for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that’s going to protect Wall Street, and that’s going to oppose neoliberal austerity.
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When you say “paying the banks,” what they really mean is paying the bank bondholders. They are basically the One Percent.
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To save the banks, you would have to turn the entire Eurozone into Greece.
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Deflation is a leakage from this circular flow, to pay banks and the real estate, called the FIRE sector – finance, insurance and real estate. These transfer payments leave less and less of the paycheck to be spent on goods and services, so markets shrink.
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So we are in for years of debt deflation. That means that people have to pay so much debt service for mortgages, credit cards, student loans, bank loans and other obligations that they have less to spend on goods and services. So markets shrink.
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Paying debt service to banks leaves less income to buy goods and services.
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To the deficit commission, a depression is the solution to the problem, not a problem.
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There are so many currency exchange rate problems that people are buying gold as a safe haven. Right now, gold looks like a safe haven if international exchange rates break down.
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The companies aren’t hiring, because consumers don’t have enough money to buy the goods and services.
MICHAEL HUDSON