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Now, suppose that a homeowner puts down only 3% of their own money or 3.5% for the FHA. That means if prices go down by only 3%, the house will be in negative equity and it would pay the homeowner just to walk away and say, “The house now is worth less than the mortgage I owe.

Michael Hudson

Most people think of the economy as producing goods and services and paying labor to buy what it produces.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Country Real Thinking
The reason is that every recovery since 1945 has begun with a higher, and higher level of debt. The debt is so high now, that since 2008 we’ve been in what I call, debt deflation.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Debt Deflation Higher Reason
Mathematically, debts grow exponentially at compound interest. Banks recycle the interest into new loans, so debts grow exponentially, faster than the economy can afford to pay.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Debt Economy Pay
The only way people can repay the debt is by cutting their living standards very drastically. It means agreeing to shift their pension plans from defined benefit plans.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Cutting Mean Pension Plan
You could say that the vote to withdraw from Europe is, it’s really a vote of the British middle class, the working class, to withdraw from the U.S. neoliberalism that has been running Europe for the last ten years.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Middle Class Running Vote
The parasite can’t simply come in and take something. First of all, it needs to numb the host. It has an enzyme so that the host doesn’t realize the parasite’s there.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Make Over Parasite Something Take
You have to pay medical care, you have to pay the banks for your credit card debt, student loans. Then you only have about twenty-five or thirty-five percent, maybe one-third of your salary to buy goods and services. That’s all.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Good Loans Percent Salary Student
The United States and Europe are in a state of debt deflation, where people and businesses have to pay banks instead of spending their income on goods and services. So markets shrink, sales and profits fall, and the stock market turns down.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Country Deflation Fall People
Seventy-eight percent of millennials are worried about not having enough good paying job opportunity to pay off their student loans. Seventy-four percent can’t pay the health care if they get sick.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Eight Jobs Opportunity
Paying debt service to banks leaves less income to buy goods and services.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Debts Goods Income Paying Services
The problems of 2008 were never cured. The Federal Reserve’s solution to the crisis was to lend the economy enough money to borrow its way out of debt.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Balance House People
Europe is creating the flight of refugees that’s tearing it apart politically, and leading rightwing nationalist parties to gain power to withdraw from the Eurozone.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Country Creating Party People
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.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Gold Haven People Safe
The United States Government has fought against creation of an international court to adjudicate the ability of national economies to pay debts.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Ability Creation Economy
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.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Country Fleeing People Person
The myth is that if housing prices go up, Americans will be richer. What banks – and behind them, the Federal Reserve – really want is for new buyers to be able to borrow enough money to buy the houses from mortgage defaulters, and thus save the banks from suffering from more mortgage defaults.
MICHAEL HUDSON

House Suffering Want

Now, suppose that a homeowner puts down only 3% of their own money or 3.5% for the FHA. That means if prices go down by only 3%, the house will be in negative equity and it would pay the homeowner just to walk away and say, “The house now is worth less than the mortgage I owe.

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Now, suppose that a homeowner puts down only 3% of their own money or 3.5% for the FHA. That means if prices go down by only 3%, the house will be in negative equity and it would pay the homeowner just to walk away and say, “The house now is worth less than the mortgage I owe.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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