I don’t think that governments should permit speculation in raw materials, because they’re what the economy basically needs.
MICHAEL HUDSONI don’t think that governments should permit speculation in raw materials, because they’re what the economy basically needs.
MICHAEL HUDSONIf you’re a wealthy heir with a trust fund, and you sell stocks, make your 10% gains since Donald Trump, and then you buy other stocks, you can avoid paying taxes. And if your accountant registers your wealth offshore in a Panamanian fund, like Russian kleptocrats do – and as more and more Americans do.
MICHAEL HUDSONSmall banks that lend to consumers are fine.
MICHAEL HUDSONThe other dynamic keeping the stock market up – both for technology stocks and others – is that companies are using a lot of their income for stock buybacks and to pay out higher dividends, not make new investment,.
MICHAEL HUDSONIf 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 HUDSONThe 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 HUDSONDeflation 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.
MICHAEL HUDSONThe United States Government has fought against creation of an international court to adjudicate the ability of national economies to pay debts.
MICHAEL HUDSONIf the bank goes under, they get to keep all of these salaries and options – and the government will bail out the bank. These guys will take their money and run, which is pretty much what they’re doing now.
MICHAEL HUDSONSomehow most people believed they could get rich by going into debt to borrow assets that were going to rise in price. But you can’t get rich, ultimately, by going into debt. In the end the creditors always win.
MICHAEL HUDSONJunk economics denies the role of debt and denies the fact that the economic system we have now is dysfunctional.
MICHAEL HUDSONTrump’s junk economics is the illusion that if we cut the taxes on the wealthiest brackets, it’ll all trickle down. But it doesn’t trickle down.
MICHAEL HUDSONMost of these charges that people pay are economically unnecessary. There’s no real cost behind them. There’s no real value behind them. So, they’re what the classical economist called empty pricing. Prices with no real cost value.
MICHAEL HUDSONOne of the big problems in America’s economic polarization and shrinkage is that pensions can’t be paid. So there are going to be defaults on pensions here, just like Europeans are insisting in rolling back pensions. You can look at Greece and Argentina as the future of America.
MICHAEL HUDSONThen, all of a sudden, the Fed can raise interest rates, let the stock market prices collapse and the people will lose even more in the stock market than they would have by the negative interest rates in the bank. So it’s a pro-Wall Street financial engineering gimmick.
MICHAEL HUDSONNormally, if someone goes bankrupt, you wipe out the debt and get a fresh start. But that’s not permitted with student loans. So the effect is to impoverish many graduates with very high debts.
MICHAEL HUDSON