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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.”

Michael Hudson

The economy is being run primarily by the banks for their own interest.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Economy Interest Running
I guess the main thing that came out of the Panama Papers was that Ukrainian President Poroshenko had promised to divest of his chocolate company and instead, he simply moved it into an offshore account.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Chocolate Country Guess People Promised
When you say “bank,” a bank is a building, a set of computers and chairs and things.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Bankers People Running
Every government, from the Obama administration right through to Angela Merkel, the Eurozone and the IMF, promise to save the banks, not the economy.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Administration Government Promise
Small banks that lend to consumers are fine.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Banks Consumers Fine Small
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
When I say the economy is shrinking, it’s the economy of the 99%, the people who have to work for a living and depend on earning money for what they can spend.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Gone People Shrinking
The companies aren’t hiring, because consumers don’t have enough money to buy the goods and services.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Consumers Enough Hiring Services
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
New investment and employment fall off, and the economy is falls into a downward spiral.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Downward Economic Employment New Spiral
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
Textbooks don’t teach people how to avoid paying any income tax. But that’s what an army of tax lawyers and corporate tax accountants do.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Army Income People
The essence of the global financial bubble is that savings are diverted to inflate the stock market, bond market and real estate prices rather than to build new factories and employ more labor.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Bond Employ Estate Market More Season
A bubble is only called that after it bursts, after the insiders get out, leaving the pension funds and small investors, Canadians and other naïve investors holding the bag.
MICHAEL HUDSON

Bags Fund Leaving
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 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

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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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.”

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Michael Hudson Quotes