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To the deficit commission, a depression is the solution to the problem, not a problem.

Michael Hudson

Economists often define their discipline as “the allocation of scarce resources among competing ends.” But when resources or money really become scarce, economists call it a crisis and say that it’s a question for politicians, not their own department.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Crisis Discipline Politician
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
To save the banks, you would have to turn the entire Eurozone into Greece.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Country Eurozone Greece People Turns
Once the speculative demand ended, all of a sudden the added production facilities that had been brought into production by the high prices went out of production again, and there was a glut.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Demand Ended Glut Once Production
It thought that if it could subsidize banks lending homeowners enough money to buy houses from people who are defaulting, then the bank balance sheets would end up okay.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Homeowner Money Okay People Sheets
This is not really currency that circulates. It’s like the old joke about expensive vintage wine. Wine prices will go up and once in a while somebody will buy a 50-year-old bottle of wine and say, “Wait a minute. This has gone bad.” The answer is, “Well, that wine isn’t for drinking; that’s for trading.”
MICHAEL HUDSON

Circulate Drinking Like Somebody Wine Years
The economy is being run primarily by the banks for their own interest.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Economy Interest Running
Wages for the ninety-nine percent have gone down, steadily, since 2008. They’ve gone down especially for the bottom twenty-five percent of the population.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Blue Mean Nine Ninety
If you look at payments to labor as a proportion of national income or gross domestic product, you find profits going way up, investment and savings going up.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Income Investment Looks National Savings
The problem is indeed that one party’s debt finds its counterpart in some other party’s savings. Not paying debts therefore involves annulling some other party’s financial claims on the debtor.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Annulling Counter Financial Problem
To the deficit commission, a depression is the solution to the problem, not a problem.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Deficit Problem Solution
What do the 5%, or the 1% actually use their money for? They lend it back to the economy at large, they load it down with debt. They make their money by lending to the bottom 95%, or the bottom 99%.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Giving Government Income
That’s the “magic” of double-taxation treaties: you can shop around for the lowest taxer.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Magic Taxation Treaties
If you want to see where Trump is moving, look at what the United States neoliberals advised Russia to do after 1991, when they promised to create an ideal economy.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Country Moving People United States
The bankers are the people running these banks. They’re the chief officers, and they push the loans because they don’t care if they go bad. For one thing, they may package these bad loans and sell them off to gullible institutional investors.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Banker Loan Package Running Think
This is the sector that backs the political campaigns of senators, presidents and congressmen, and they use this leverage to make sure that their people dominate the Federal Reserve, Treasury and the federal housing agencies.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Conbgression Make Sure Treasury

To the deficit commission, a depression is the solution to the problem, not a problem.

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To the deficit commission, a depression is the solution to the problem, not a problem.

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