RSS
TRANSCRIPT
Ibrahima: [00:00:00] Good morning or good evening, depending on where you are located and welcome to the Henry George School. My name is Ibrahima Drame and I’m the director of education. It’s a great honor to have you with us today for another joint webinar co-organized with the International Union for Land Value Taxation with two great thinkers, Professor Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar to discuss the emerging economic world order.
I’d like to, thank Michael and Pepe for accepting to share their ideas with us my friend Alanna Hartzok co-founder of Earth Rights Institute, who will be moderating the session this morning. So, before I hand it over to Alana, I’d like to ask all attendees to keep muted until we open the Q&A session. And of course, in the meantime, you are free to use the chat and, please do so responsibly. So, Alanna, please go ahead and introduce our speakers.
Alanna: [00:00:55] Yes. Happy to do so I’m also an administrator for the International Union for Land Value Taxation, and we are on the web@theiu.org. I’m so delighted to have Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar join us once again for “In Quest of a Multipolar World Order”.
Michael Hudson is an American economist and professor of economics at the university of Missouri, Kansas City and a researcher at the Levi Economics Institute at Bard college. He’s a former Wall Street analyst, political consultant, commentator, and journalist.
He’s also teaching at the University for Sustainability in Hong Kong. Michael was the author of J is for Junk Economics, Killing the Host, The Bubble and Beyond, Super Imperialism: the Economic Strategy of American Empire. And he has a new edition of that coming up now. Also, Trade Development and Foreign Debt ,and The Myth of Aid, and others.
Those books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, German, Spanish, and Russian, and they are very popular in China right now, I might add.
Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil is a correspondent editor at large at Asia times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture, Moscow. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East Pepe is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War, Red Zone Blues: a Snap of Bagdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to the Empire and the Crescent. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and T he Raging Twenties: Great Power Rivalry Meets Techno Feudalism. Pepe is also associated with the Paris based European Academy of geopolitics.
He does have a new book out, The Raging Twenties, which is a collection of his excellent essays and articles for the several publications, for which he writes. So, when he’s not on the road and covering the New Silk Road, he is living in Sao Paulo, Paris, and most recently in Bangkok. So welcome both of you.
I must say that, for the chat, if you have questions, viewers, listeners, please ask your questions in the chat. And then we will ask them at the end of the conversation between Pepe and Michael. Thank you. Go right ahead.
Pepe Escobar: [00:03:38] Michael you want to start?
Michael Hudson: [00:03:41] Oh no, I don’t know what to talk about.
Pepe Escobar: [00:03:44] Come on now you should start. OK, why don’t you start with your last revised chapter for Super Imperialism.
Michael Hudson: [00:03:51] All right. 50 years ago, I wrote Super Imperialism about how America dominates the world financially, and gets a free ride.
I wrote it, right after America went off gold in 1971, when the Vietnam war – which was responsible for the entire balance-of-payments deficit – forced the country to go off gold. And everybody at that time worried the dollar was going to go down. There’d be hyperinflation. But what happened was something entirely different.
Once there was no gold to settle U.S. balance-of-payments deficits, America’s strong armed its allies to invest in US Treasury bonds, because central banks don’t buy companies. They don’t buy raw materials. All they could buy is other government bonds. So, all of a sudden, the only thing that other people could buy with all the dollars coming in were US Treasury securities. The securities they bought essentially were to finance yet more war making and the balance-of-payments deficit from war and the 800 military bases America has around the world.
The largest customer – I think we discussed this before – was the Defense Department and the CIA. They looked at it as a how-to-do-it book. That was 50 years ago. What I’ve done is not only re-edit the book and add more information that’s come out, but I’ve summarized how the last 50 years has transformed the world. It’s a new kind of imperialism. There was still a view, 50 years ago, that imperialism was purely economic, in the sense that there’s still a rivalry, for instance, between America and China, or America and Europe and other countries. But I think the world has changed so much in the last 50 years that what we have now is not really so much a conflict between America and China, or America and Russia, but between a financialized economy, run by financial planners allocating resources and government spending and money creation, and an economy run by governments democratic or less democratic, but certainly a mixed economy.
Everything that made industrial capitalism rich, everything that made America so strong on the 19th century, through its protective tariffs, through its public infrastructure investment all the way down through world war two and the aftermath, was that we had a mixed economy in America. Europe also had a mixed economy, and in fact, every economy since Babylon has had a mixed economy.
But in America you’ve had something entirely different since 1980. Something that was not foreseen by anybody, because it seemed to be so disruptive: namely, the financial sector saying, “We need liberty – for ourselves, from government.” By “liberty” they meant taking planning and subsidy, economic and tax policy, out of the hands of government and put into the hands of Wall Street. The result was libertarianism as a “free market.” In the form of a centralized economy that is concentrated in the hands of the financial centers – Wall Street, the City of London, the Paris Bourse. What you’re having today is an attempt by the financial sector to take on the role that the landlord class had in Europe, from feudal times through the 19th century. It’s a kind of resurgence of feudalism.
If you look at the last 200 years of economic theory from Adam Smith and Marx, onward, everybody expected a mixed economy to become more and more productive, and to free itself from the landlords – and also to free itself from banking. The expectation was to make land a public utility, the tax base, and to make finance basically something public. Government would decide who gets the funding. hus, the idea of finance in the public sector was going to be pretty much what it is in China: You create a bank credit in order to finance capital investment in factories. It means the production of machinery, agricultural modernization, transport infrastructure of high-speed trains, ports and all of that.
But in the United States and England, you have finance becoming something completely different. Banks don’t lend money to build factories. They don’t create money to make means of production. They make money to take over existing assets. Some 80% of bank loans are mortgage loans to transfer the ownership of real estate.
But of course, that’s what created a middle class in the United States. The middle class was able to buy its own housing. It didn’t have to pay rent to landlords or absentee owners, or to warlords and their descendants as in England and Europe. They could buy their own homes. What nobody realized is that if you borrowed the money to take a mortgage, there’s still an economic rental value. Most of it is no longer paid to the landlords. It’s paid to the banks. And so in America and Europe, the banks now play the role that landlords played a hundred years ago.
Just as landlords are trying to do everything they could through the House of Lords in England and the upper houses of government in Europe, they’re trying to block any kind of democratic government. The fight really is against government that would do anything that is not controlled by the 1%, and by the banks. Essentially, the merger between Finance, Insurance and Real Estate – the FIRE sector. So, you have a relapse of capitalism in the West back into feudalism, but feudalism with a financialized twist much more than in medieval times.
The fight against China, the fear of China is that you can’t do to China what you did to Russia. America would love for there to be a Yeltsin figure in China to say, let’s just give all of the railroads that we’ve built, the high-speed rail, let’s give all the factories to individuals and let them run everything. Then Americans will lend them the money or buy them out and thus control them financially. China’s not letting that happen. And Russia stopped that from happening. The fury in the West is that the American financial system is unable to take over foreign resources and foreign agriculture. It is left only with military means of grabbing them, as you are seeing in the Near East, and you’re seeing in Ukraine right now.
Pepe Escobar: [00:10:40] Well, as an introduction, Michael that was perfect, because now, now we have the overall framework, especially geo-economic and historically, at least for the past 70 years. Let’s put it this way.
I have a series of questions for you. I was saving one of these for the end, but I think I should start really the Metallica way. Let’s go heavy metal for a start, right? So considering what you describe as a new kind of imperialism, and the fact that this sort of extended free lunch cannot apply anymore because of sovereigns around the world, especially Russia in China. I tried to formulate the idea that there are only three real sovereign powers on the planet, apart from the hegemon: Russia, China and Iran. These three, which happened to be the main hub and the main focus of not only of the New Silk Road but of the Eurasia integration process, are actively working for some sort of change of the rules that predominated for the past 70 years.
So my first question to you would be, do you see any realistic possibility of f a Bretton Woods 2.0, which would imply the end of dollar hegemony as we know it? These petrodollar recyclings, on and on and on, with the very important presence of that oily hacienda in Saudi Arabia. And do you think this is possible considering that president Putin himself only a few days ago reiterated once again that the US is no longer agreement-capable. That destroys already the possibility of the emergence of the new rules of the game, but do you think this is still realistically possible?
Michael Hudson: [00:12:47] I certainly do not see any repetition of a Bretton Woods because as I described in Super Imperialism, Bretton Woods was designed to make American control over Britain over Europe total. Bretton Woods was a US-centered system to prevent England from maintaining its empire. That was okay. It also was to prevent France from maintaining its empire, and for America to take over the Sterling Area. The World Bank was to prevent other countries from becoming independent and feeding themselves, to make sure that they supported plantation agriculture, not land reform. The one single fight of the World Bank was to prevent land reform and to make sure that America and other foreign investors would take over the agriculture of these countries.
Very often people think of capitalism, certainly in the sense that Marx described in Volume One, as being limited to the exploitation of wage labor by employers. But capitalism also is an appropriation of the land rent, the agricultural rent, the natural-resource rent, the oil and mineral rent. The idea of Bretton Woods was to make sure that other countries could not impose capital controls to prevent American finance coming in and appropriating their resources. The aim was to make the loans to governments so that they would not create their own money to promote their own social development, but would have to borrow from the World Bank and the IMF. That essentially meant borrowing from the Pentagon and the State Department in U S dollars. They would dollarize their economies and the economic surplus would all be sucked abroad. The economic rents from oil, agriculture and mining would all be sucked into the United States.
That kind of Bretton Woods cannot be done again. Since Bretton Woods was an idea of centralizing the world’s economic surplus in a single country, the United States, no, that can never be done again.
What is happening? You mentioned the world of a free lunch That’s was the theme of my Super Imperialism: When America issues dollars, and these end up in central banks, what can these banks do with them? All they really can do is lend them back to the United States Government. So America got a financial free lunch. It can spend and spend on its military, or bump up corporate takeovers of other countries. The dollars have gone out, but foreign countries can’t cash them in for gold. They have nothing to cash them into. All they can do is finance the U S budget deficit by buying more and more Treasury IOUs. These are the liabilities side of the balance sheet of foreign military bases and related operations.
What’s is ironic now is what has happened in the last few years in the fight against Russia and China. America has killed the free lunch. It said, okay, now we’re going to have sanctions against Russia and China. We’re going to grab whatever money you have in foreign banks, like we grabbed Venezuela’s money. We’re going to excommunicate you from the SWIFT bank clearing system. So, you can’t use banking. We’re going to put sanctions against banks that deal with you.
So Russia and China have seen that they can’t deal with dollars anymore, because the United States just unilaterally rejected their use by any country that does not follow its military and financial diplomacy. If countries do have dollars as reserves and lend them back to the United States, it’s going to spend them on building more military bases around Russia and China, to make them waste their money on military defense spending. So, America itself has ended the free lunch, by the way in which it’s fighting against China and Russia.
And now Russia and China, as you pointed out, are de-dollarizing. They’re trading in each other’s currency. They’re doing the opposite of what Bretton Woods tried to create. They’re inspiring monetary independence from the United States. Bretton Woods sponsors dependence on the United States, a centralized system dependent ultimately on Wall Street financial planners. What China and Russia are trying to create is an economy that’s not run by the financial sector, but run by, industrial and economic engineering principles.
At issue is what kind of an economy we need in order to raise living standards and, wages and self-sufficiency and preserve the environment. What is needed for the ideal world that we want? Well, for starters you’re going to need a lot of infrastructure. In America and Britain, infrastructure has been privatized. It has to make a profit. And railroads or electric utilities, as you’ve just seen in Texas, are natural monopolies. For 5,000 years, infrastructure in Europe, the Near East and Asia was kept in the public domain. If you give it to private owners, they’ll charge a monopoly rent.
China’s idea is to provide the educational system freely, and let everybody try to get an education. In America, to get an education you have to go into debt for between $50,000 and $200,000. Most of whatever you make is going to be paid the creditor. But in China, if you give free education, the money that students earn will be spent into the economy, buying the goods and services that they produce. So the economy will be expanding, not shrinking, not being sucked up into the banks that are financing the education. The same avoidance of privatized financialized or monopolized rent-seeking applies to the railroads, and also to healthcare.
If you provide healthcare freely then employers do not have to pay for it. In the United States, if companies and their employees have to pay for healthcare, this means that employees have to be paid a much higher wage in order to afford the healthcare. They also have to be paid more in order to afford the privatized transportation that gets them work, or auto loans in order to drive to work. Such costs are free or at least subsidized in other countries. Their governments can create their own credit. But in the United States and Europe, governments feel that they have to borrow from the wealthy and pay interest. China’s government doesn’t need to borrow from a wealthy bondholding class. It can simply print the money. That’s Modern Monetary Theory. As Donald Trump has explained in the United States, we can print whatever we want. Dick Cheney said that deficits don’t matter, because we can just print what we need to invade Iraq or bomb Libya. And of course, Stephanie Kelton and my other colleagues in MMT at Kansas City for many years have been saying that.
The banks fear this because they see that Modern Monetary Theory no longer gives them control. They want the rich One Percent to be able to have a choke point on the economy, so that that people cannot survive without borrowing and paying interest. They want to control the choke points to extract economic rent. So you have the West turning into a rent-extractive economy, a rent-seeking economy. The ideal of Russia, China, and other countries is that not only of Mar, but also of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and even Ricardo in the sense that the aim of classical economics was to free economies from economic rent. The American economy is all about extracting rent through the real estate sector, the financial sector, the health insurance sector, monopolies and the infrastructure sector.
The US economy has been Thatcherized and Reaganized. The result is a fight of rentier economic systems against China and Russia. So it’s not simply a fight between who makes the best computer chips and the best iPhones. It’s over whether we are going to have a fallback of civilization back into feudalism, back into control by a narrow class at the top of the economy – the 1% – or are we going to have democratic industrialization? That used to be called socialism, but it also was called capitalism. Industrial capitalism was evolving toward socialism. It was socialized medicine, socialized infrastructure, socialized schooling. So, the fight against socialism is also a fight against what made industrial capitalism so successful in the United States and Germany.
What you’re seeing now is a fight for what direction civilization will follow. You can’t have a Bretton Woods for a single worldwide organization, because the United States would never join what it can’t control. The United States accuses a country trying to make its labor force prosperous, educated and healthy instead of sick with shorter lifespans of being communist or socialist. That means independent of the U.S. financialized “Free World” austerity economics.
Pepe Escobar: [00:21:40] Well, you put it very starkly. The opposition between two completely different systems, what the Chinese are proposing, including, from productive capitalism to trade and investment all across Eurasia and beyond, including Africa and parts of Latin America as well. Recognizing the rentier obsession of the 0.01% that controls the U S financial system, in terms of facts on the ground: Are we going slowly but surely and ominously toward an absolute divorce of a system based on rentier ultra-financialization, which is the American system, not productive capitalism at all?
I was going through a small list of what the U S exports. It’s not long, as you know. Agricultural products, always privileging US farmers. Hollywood? We are all hostages of Hollywood all over the world. Pop culture? That’s not the pop culture that used to be absolutely impregnable and omniscient during the sixties, the seventies, during the Madonna, Michael Jackson era and in the eighties? Infotech? And that’s where a big bet comes in. This is maybe the most important American export at the moment, because American big tech controls social networks all over the planet.
Big pharma? Now we see the power of big pharma with the whole COVID operations, right? But Boeing prefers to invest in financial engineering instead of building decent products. Right? So, in terms of being a major superpower, the hyper power, that’s not much. Obviously, buyers all over the world already noticed that. So, what is China proposing in terms of the New Silk Road? It is a foreign policy strategy, a trade investment and sustainable development strategy applied not only to the whole of Eurasia, but beyond Eurasia to grow a great deal of the global South. That’s why we have global South partners to the New Silk Road. 130 and counting as we speak. Right?
So, the dichotomy could not be clearer. What will the 0.0 0.1% do? They don’t have anything seductive to sell. To all those nations in the global South to start with; the new version of the non-aligned movement, the countries that are already part of New Silk Road projects. We could see this by the end of last year when the China European union agreement was more or less sealed. It’s probably going to be sealed in 2021 for good.
At the same time, we had the Regional, Economic and Comprehensive Partnership at the ASEAN 10, my neighbors here, the Association of South East Asian Nations, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. So, when you have the China -EU deal, and when you have R C E P, you have China as the number one trade partner on the planet, no competition whatsoever.
Every one of these players wants to do business with China. They’re privileging doing business with China to doing business with US, especially with a country that once again, according to President Putin is non-agreement-capable. So, Michael, what is your key economic view of the next steps? Are we going toward the divorce of the American financialization system and the Eurasia-and-beyond integration system?
Michael Hudson: [00:25:51] Well, you you’ve made the whole point clear. There is a basic incompatibility between a rentier society controlled by the finance and real estate interests – and military interests – and an industrial democracy. For industry in England and Europe in the 19th century, the fight for democratic reform was to increase the role of the House of Commons against the House of Lords in England and other lower housse in Europe was a fight to get labor on the side of industry to get rid of the landlord class. And it was expected that once you had capitalism free of the landlord class, free of something that wasn’t really industrial capitalism at all (it was a carry-over from feudalism), you wouldn’t have this overhead of the idle 1%, only consuming resources and going to war.
World War I changed all that. Already in the late 19th century the landlords and the banks fought back. They fought back largely through the Austrian School of individualism and the English marginalists, and they euphemized it as free markets. That slogan meant giving power to the monopolists, to the oppressors, to violence. A free market was where armies can come in, take over your country, impose a client dictatorship like Pinochet in Chile or the neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Americans call that a free market. The Free World was a world centrally planned by the American military and finance. So, it’s Orwellian double-think. The dynamic of this world is shrinking because it’s polarizing. You’ve seen with the COVID pandemic in the United States, the economy has polarized much more sharply between the 1%, the 10% and the rest of the economy.
Well, as opposed to that, you have economies that are not run by a rentier class, and that do not have a banking class and landlord class controlling the economy. The kind of arrangement that you had in Germany in the late 19th century: government, industry and labor coordinated. The question was how to provide the financing for industry so that banks can provide not only industrial capital formation, but public funding to build infrastructure and uplift the population.
China is doing just what made America rich in the 19th century, and what made Germany rich. It’s the same logic of industrial engineering. This plan is based on economic expansion, environmental preservation and economic balance instead of concentration, so this is going to be a growing economy. So, you’re having a growing economy outside of the United States and a shrinking economy in the States and its satellites in Europe.
Europe had a choice: Either it could shrink and be an American satellite economy, or it could join the growth. Europe has decided unanimously to forego growth and become a set of client oligarchies and kleptocracies. It is willing to let its financial sector take over just as in America. That’s a “free market,” because I’m told by American officials that they can just buy the European politicians, they’re bribable. Being up for sale is what a free political market means. That’s why when President Putin says that America and Europe are not agreement-capable, it means they’re just in it for the money. There’s no ideology there. There is no idea of overall social benefit. The system is based on how to get rich, and you can get rich by being bribed. That’s why you go into politics. As you can tell in America with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling saying that politics can be personally financed.
So, you’re having two incompatible systems. They’re on different trajectories. If you have a system that is shrinking like the West and growing in the East, you have resentment. People who obtain their wealth in crooked ways, or without working, by inheritance or by crime, by exploitation, they will fight like anything to keep that. People who actually create wealth – labor and capital – they’re not willing to fight. They just want to be creative. So you have a destructive military force in the West, and basically a productive economic growth force in Eurasia. The clash now is occurring largely in Ukraine. You’re having the United States back the neo-Nazis.
Pepe Escobar: [00:30:40] The old Nazi movement!
Michael Hudson: [00:30:41] Yes. It’s the same swastika carrying group that threatened Russia in World War II. This is like waving a red flag before a bull. Putin continues to remind the Russians of what happened with the 22 million that died, in World War II. He said that Russia was not going to let it happen again.
You can be certain that Russia is not going to be sucked into invading Ukraine. The United States has its military advisors that the Vineyard of the Saker has a very good report on. America’s trying to needle Russia into fighting back against the terrorist groups, but Russia has no desire at all to do that. There’s nothing that Russia has to gain by taking it over. It’s essentially a bankrupt country.
The United States is trying to provoke a response so that it can accuse Russia of attacking the West. The result will probably be that Russia will simply provide arms to the Eastern Ukrainians to fight back the invasion. You’re going to have a wasteland in Western Ukraine and Poland. This wasteland may be the new buffer state between Europe and Russia. Already you have maybe 10% of Ukrainians having moved to Russia and the East, the other 10% are now plumbers in England and Europe. They’re in flight, and they’re beginning to look like Latvia and other neoliberalized countries. If you want to see their future, look at Latvia, Estonia and Greece. That’s the American plan. Essentially, an emigration of skilled labor, a sharp reduction of living standards, a 20% decline in population. Although it may appear to have more income, all this income and GDP is essentially interest collection and rents paid to the FIRE sector – as if these payments were for “real product.”
All the American GDP growth is essentially payment to the banks, to the landlords and the monopolists. The population and employees are not sharing in the GDP growth. It’s concentrated at the top. High finance is like the Roman Empire: “They make a desert, and call it growth.”
Rome was a predatory economy held by military force that ultimately collapsed, and America is on the same trajectory as Rome. And its managers know this. I have spoken to American policymakers and they say, “We’re going to be dead by then. It doesn’t matter if the West loses. I’m going to get rich. I’m going to buy a, farm in New Zealand and make a big bomb shelter there and live underground,” like a cave dweller. The financial time frame, the predatory rentier timeframe, is short-term. The Eurasian time frame is long-term. So you’ve got the short term burning what wealth it has, as opposed to the longer term building it up.
What you can see in the COVID bill that President Biden just got passed in the Senate. They call it a stimulus bill, but if you’re starving, if you haven’t been able to pay your rent, if you’re six months behind in your rent and you get enough money to pay the landlord, at least one month back rent, that’s not a stimulus, that’s survival. And it’s a one-time payment. This kind of “stimulus” checks that America’s sending out are sent out every month in Germany and parts of Europe. The whole idea in Europe is, “Okay, you have a pandemic, you have business interrupted. We’re going to proclaim a pause: You don’t pay the rent, but the landlords are not going to pay the banks. And the banks are not going to be in arrears. We’re just going to have a pause so that when it’s all over and cure people, we’ll go back to normal.” Well, China and Russia are already pretty much there and where you are, in Thailand, already back to normal.
They don’t have an abnormal thing, but America has pushed anybody who’s renting or who’s bought a house on mortgage credit, or who has credit-card debt or personal debt or automobile debt – they’re way behind. These stimulus checks are just being used to pay the banks and the landlords not to not to buy more goods and services. All they’re trying to do is to get out of the hole that they’ve been dug into in the last 12 months. That’s not a stimulus. That’s a partial, desperation payment.
This problem never existed, in other civilizations. You have the whole tradition of the ancient Near East. That’s what my book “… and Forgive them their Debts” is all about. The whole idea is that when there is an economic interruption, you don’t leave people in debt. You wipe out the arrears that have mounted up. You simply wipe out the tax arrears, the rent arrears and other payment arrears.
So once the crisis is over, you can start from a normal position again. But there’s no normalization in America. You’re starting from a position, even more behind financially than when you went in. The foreign economies of China and Russia don’t have a backlog of arrears as a deficit. So, the West is beginning with 99% of its population deeper into debt to the 1%. That polarization between the 1% and the 99% doesn’t exist in China. And in Russia, Putin is trying to minimize it, given the legacy of the kleptocracy that the neoliberals put in. He’s still trying to deal with that, but you really have a difference in economic systems and the direction in which these systems are moving.
Pepe Escobar: [00:36:27] I’m really glad that you brought up Ukraine, Michael, because US foreign policy – even, before Trump, and now with the new Biden-Harris administration – basically boils down to sanctions, sanctions, sanctions – as we know, provocations, which is what they’re doing to Greece and certainly in Syria. They already did that with bombing a few days ago.
In the case of Ukraine and Donbass, it’s absolutely crazy, because NATO so-called strategists, when you talk to them in Brussels, they know very well that each state or whatever they weaponize and financialize to profit Kiev to mount some sort of offensive against the Donbass. Even if they would have like 300,000 soldiers, like 30,000 in Donbass. If the Russians see that this is going to get really heavy, if they intervene directly with their bombing, with their super missiles, they can finish this story in one day. And if they want, they could finish the whole story, including invading Ukraine in three days, like they did in 2008 with Georgia, and still keep the provocations loosely acted on by people from inside the Pentagon. So we have sanctions, we have nonstop provocations, and we have also a sort of fifth column, elements inside or at the top of government. I would love to have your personal analysis on the role of super Mario “Goldman-Sachs” Draghi, now in Italy, which is something I had been discussing with my Italian friends. There’s more or less a consensus among very well informed, independent Italian analysts that Draghi may be the perfect Trojan horse to accelerate the destruction of the Italian state. That will accelerate the globalist project of the European union, which is absolutely non-state centric. That is also part of the great reset. So, if you could briefly talk to us about the role of Super Mario at the moment.
Michael Hudson: [00:38:55] Well, Italy is a very good example to look at. When you have a country that needs infrastructure and public, social democratic spending, you need a government to create the credit. But when Americans – and specifically the University of Chicago free-market lobbyists – created the Eurozone financial system, their premise was that governments should not create money. Only banks should be allowed to do that, for the benefit of their stock and bond holders. So, no European governments can run a budget deficit large enough to cope with the coronavirus or with the problems that have been plaguing Italy for a decade. They can’t create their money to revive employment, to revive infrastructure or to revive the economy.
The European central bank only lends to other central banks. It’s created trillions of euros just to buy stocks and bonds, not to spend into the economy, not to hire labor, not to build infrastructure, but just to save the holders of the stocks and bonds from losing money from falling asset prices. That makes 1% or 5% of the population richer. So in practice, the function of the European Central Bank is to create money only for the purpose of saving the wealthiest 5% from losses on their stocks and bonds.
The cost of this limitation is to impoverish the economy and to basically make it looking like Greece, which was a dress rehearsal for how the Eurozone was going to reduce Europe to debt dependency. Under feudalism, everybody had to have access to the land by becoming a serf. Well now you’re in debt peonage, modern, finance capitalism’s version of serfdom.
So, Italy says, “We’re going to need government spending. We’re going to need to do in our way what China’s doing in its way, and what Russia is doing in its way. We’re going to have some kind of government program. We can’t just let the economy be impoverished simply because the University of Chicago has designed a plan for Europe to prevent the Euro from being a rival to the dollar. If there’s no European Central Bank to pump euros into the world economy, then only dollars will be left for central bank reserves.
The United States doesn’t ever want a rival. It wants satellites. That’s what it’s basically turned Europe into. I don’t see any response outside of Italy for an attempt to say they can’t be a part of this system and so should withdraw from the Eurozone. When I was in Greece years ago, we all thought it might join with Italy, Portugal and Ireland and say that the system wasn’t working. But everybody else said no, no, the Americans will just simply get us out of office one way or another. And in Italy, of course, if you look at what happened after World War II, the great threat was Italian communism. You had the Americans essentially say, “Well, we know the answer to communism. It’s fascism,” and you saw them buying politicians. They did every dirty trick in the book in order to fight any left wing group in Italy, just as they did in Yugoslavia, and just as they did in Greece. They wiped out the partisans, all the leading anti-Nazi groups from Greece to Italy to elsewhere. All of a sudden, they were all either assassinated or moved out of office – and replaced by the very people that America had been fighting against during World War II.
Well, now Italy is finally coming to terms with this and trying to fight back. You’re having what’s happening there, between Northern Italy and Southern Italy, the same splits as in other countries.
Pepe Escobar: [00:42:53] Yeah. Well, I’m going to bring up, perhaps an even more extreme case now Michael, which is the case of Brazil, which at the moment is in the middle of an absolutely out of this world mix of telenovela and Kabuki theater that even for most Brazilians, is absolutely incomprehensible, because it’s like a fragmentation bomb exploding over and over again, a Groundhog Day of fragmentation bombs.
In fact, it’s completely crazy. Lula is back in the picture as well. We still don’t know how the guys who run the show, the Brazilian military, are going to deal with him. I bring up this case because it’s happened in the past 48 hours. It has convulsed Brazil completely, and large parts of Latin America, because it is a telenovela with one cliffhanger after another, sometimes in a matter of minutes. But it encompasses all the basic themes of what really interests the 0.01%, which we can identify as a class war against labor, which is the system in Brazil since the coup against Dilma. A war against mixed economies, economic sovereignty, which is something that the masters of the universe of the 0.01% cannot wage against Russia in China. But that was very successfully waged against Brazil and implemented in Brazil. In fact, in a matter of two years they completely devastated the country in every possible sense, industrially, sociologically, you name it…
And of course, because the main objective is something that you keep stressing over and over again: unipolar rentier dominance. So, Brazil, I would say is the extreme case not only in the global South, but in planetary terms. Let’s say, the last frontier of the rentier economy is when you manage to capture a country that was slowly emerging as a leader in the global South, an economic leader. Don’t forget that a few years ago Brazil was the sixth largest economy in the world, and on the way to become the fifth. Now it’s the 12th, falling down nonstop and controlled by a mafia. That includes, not by accident, a Chicago boy Pinochetista minister Paulo Guedes, who is implementing in the 21st century something that was implemented in Chile in the seventies and in the eighties. They were successful. Apparently, at least so far, Brazil is so disorganized as a nation, so shattered so fragmented and atomized as a nation that basically it depends on the re-emergence of a single political leader
In this case it is Lula, to try to rebuild the nation from scratch. Even in a position where he cannot control the game, he can interfere in the game, which is what happened 24 hours ago when he gave a larger-than-life press conference, mixed with a re-presentation of himself as a statesman. He said, look, the whole thing is shattered, but there is some light at the end of the tunnel. But still, he cannot confront the real masters of the universe that have allowed this to happen in the first place.
So just to give an example to many of you who are not familiar with some details of the Brazilian case, it involves directly the Obama-Biden scheme or the Obama-Biden larger operation. When Biden was vice president in 2013, in May he visited Brazil for three days and he met with president Dilma. They discussed very touchy subjects, including the most important one: the absolutely enormous, pre-salt oil reserves. Obviously, the Americans wanted to be part of the whole thing, not by accident. You know what happened one week later: the start of the Brazilian color revolution, and this thing kept rolling and rolling and rolling.
We got to the coup against Dilma in 2016, we got to the carwash operation landing Lula in jail. And we got to the election of Bolsanaro. And now we are in a place where even if the military control the whole process, even Bolsanaro is becoming bad for business. But will he become bad for the rentier class business, for the 0.01% in the US that has all the connections in their new, large neo-colony in the tropics, which has enormous strategic value, not to mention unforeseen wealth resources? So, this is an extreme case, and I know that you follow Brazil relatively closely. So, your geo-economic and geopolitical input on the running telenovela I think would be priceless for all of us.
Michael Hudson: [00:48:50] Well, this problem goes back 60 years. In 1965 João Goulart, the former president of Brazil, came to New York and we met with each other. He explained to me how the U.S.-backed military got rid of him in 1964 because he wasn’t representing the banking class. He said that they built Brasilia, just in order to be apart from the big industrial cities and their constituencies. They wanted to prevent industry and the democracy and the population from controlling the government.
So, they built Brasilia. He said, “Maybe they’ll use it as an atom bomb site. It certainly doesn’t have economic value.” Well, fast forward, in 1982, after Mexico defaulted on its foreign debt in 1972, nobody would invest in Latin America. And by 1990, Brazil was paying 45% interest per year to borrow the dollars to be able to finance its deficit, which is mainly flight capital by the wealthy. Well, I think I’d mentioned before here, I was hired by Scudder Stevens and Clark to create the first Sovereign Debt bond fund. Brazil and also Argentina were paying 45%. Just imagine that. That’s a fortune every year. No American would buy it, no European would buy it. Who bought it? The Brazilians and the Argentineans bought it. They’re the government, they’re the central bankers. They’re the president’s family. They’re the 1% – the only people that would hold Brazil’s dollar debt. So when Brazil pays its foreign Yankee Dollar debt, it’s paying its own 1% who are holding it offshore, for instance in the Dutch West Indies where the fund was located for tax-avoidance purposes. They pretend to be American imperialists, but actually are local imperialists.
Toward the end of Lula’s rule the Brazilian Council of Economic Advisors brought Jamie Galbraith, Randy Wray and me down for a discussion. They were worried because Lula, in order to get elected, had to meet with the banks and agree to give them what they wanted. The banks told him “We can see that you have the power to be elected. We don’t want to have to fight you in dirty ways. We will let you be elected, but you’re going to have to support the policies, certainly the financial policies that we want.” Lula made a kind of a devil’s agreement with them because he didn’t want to be killed, and they were willing to do some good things.
So, he was sort of a Bernie Sanders type character. Okay, you have to go along with a really bad system in order to get something good done, because Brazil really needs something good done. Well, the fact is that the financial groups couldn’t take even the little bit he did, because one of the characteristics of financial wealth is to be addictive. It’s not like diminishing marginal utility. If you give more food to an employee or to a worker at the end of the meal, you’re satiated, you don’t want much more. If you give enough money, they buy a few luxuries and then, okay, they save it. But if you give more money to a billionaire they want even more, and they grow even more desperate. It’s like a cocaine addict. The Brazilian ruling class wanted it so desperately that they framed up and controlled the utterly corrupt judiciary. The judiciary in Brazil is almost as corrupt as it is in New York city
Pepe Escobar: More, even more.
Michael Hudson: They frame them up and they want totalitarian control. And that is what a free market is: Totalitarian control by the financial class. It’s freedom for the financial class to do what they want to the rest of the economy. That’s libertarianism. It’s a free market, it’s Austrian economics. It’s the right wing’s fight against government. It’s a fight against any government strong enough to resist the financial and real estate interests. Brazil is merely the most devastating example of this, because it takes such a racial turn there. Brazilians want to make a fortune tearing down the Amazon, cutting up the Amazon, selling the lumber to China, turning the Amazon into soya production to sell to China. But for that, you have to exterminate the indigenous population that wants to use the land to feed itself. So you see the kind of race war and ethnic war that you have, not to mention the war against the blacks in the Brazilian slums that Lula tried so much to overcome.
So you have a resumption of the ethnic war there. On Wall Street I had discussions with money managers back in 1990. They saw it as a lnog=term burden, and wondered whether that’s going to be a model for what’s happening in the United States with the ethnic war here.
Essentially, it’s a tragedy what’s happening in Brazil, but it’s pretty much what happened in Chile under Pinochet, which is why they have the Pinochetista and the Chicago boys that you mentioned.
Pepe Escobar: [00:54:07] Absolutely. Coming back to China, Michael, what we had a few days ago, they are still discussing it. It goes on until the 15th of March, the approval of the five-year plan, which is not actually the five-year plan. It’s actually three five-year plans in one, because they are already planning for 2035, which is something absolutely unimaginable anywhere in the West. Right? So, it’s a different strategy: productive investment, expansion of social welfare and solidifying it with technological improvements. I would say by 2025, China would be very close to the same infotech level of the US, which is part of the Made in China 2025 policy, which is fantastic. They stopped talking about it, but they are still implementing the technological drive in all those standard areas that they had codified a few years ago. And I found this notion particularly fascinating, because it is on one sense socialism with some Confucianist elements, but it’s also very Daoist. The dual development strategy, which is an inversion and expansion of domestic investment and consumption, balancing all the time with projects across Eurasia. Not only affiliated with the Belt and Road, with the New Silk Road, but all other projects as well. So, when you have a leadership that is capable of planning with this scope, amplitude, breadth and reach, compare that to the money managers in the West, whose planning goes not even quarterly in many cases, but just for 24 hours.
So our dichotomy between rentier capitalism, financialization, industrial capitalism or whatever we want to call it, and state planning with the view of social benefit, is even starker. I’m not saying that the Chinese system can be exported to the rest of the world, but I’m sure that all across the global South people are looking at Chinese policies, how they are planning long-term, how they are always fine tuning, and what they develop and discuss.
For instance, this week there were over 3000 recommendations coming from different counties and villages and regions and local leaders, et cetera. Some of them are incorporated into the five-year plan as well. So this, as you said in the beginning, is a frontal shock of two systems. Sooner or later we’re going to have the bulk of the global South, including nations that nowadays are still American vassals or satrapies or puppets or poodles. They’re going to see which way the wind was blowing. Right?
Michael Hudson: [00:57:27] Why can’t the Chinese system be exported to the West? That’s a good question. Let’s suppose how would you make American industry able to follow the same productive path that China did. Well, for one thing, the biggest element in workers budget today is housing: 40%. There was one way to get rid of the high housing prices that essentially are whatever a bank will lend. The banks lend essentially the economic rent. There’s a very simple way to keep housing prices down: Tax the land rent. Use the tax system not to tax labor, because that increases the cost of labor, and not tax industrial capital, but tax the land, the real estate and the banks.
Well, suppose you were to lower the price of housing in America from 40% to 10% like China. This is the big element in the cost-structure difference. Well, if people only had to pay 10% of their income for housing, then all the banks would go under, because 80% of the bank loans are mortgage loans.
The function of housing in a financialized economy is to force new buyers and renters into debt to the banks, so that the banks end up with all of the lend rent that the landlord class used to get. That’s their business plan. This is what’s preventing America from being like China.
What if America would try to develop a high-speed railroad like China? Well, then you need the right of way. You’d need to you have to have the railroads go in a straight line. As we’ve mentioned before, they need a right of way, which it doesn’t have because that would conflict with private property and most of the right of way is a very expensive real estate. So, you can’t have high-speed rail in the United States, like in China.
Suppose you would have a low-cost public education. well then, you get rid of the whole means of siphoning off labor’s income to pay for education loans. Suppose you had public healthcare, and prevent Americans from getting sick like they do in, China and Thailand, where, where you are. In that case the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies wouldn’t be able to make their interest and dividend payments. So, you could not have America adopt a China-type industrial program without what would be really a revolution against the legacy of monopoly of a private banking, of finance and all the fortunes that have been built up financially in the last 40 years, since 1980.
Pepe Escobar: [01:00:22] So, what’s going to happen in the short to mid-term in the US, Michael? We are seeing the corrosion of the whole system, not only externally in terms of foreign policy and the end of the free lunch, but internally with those 17 million plus deplorables being literally canceled from public debate, from the impoverishment of the middle classes, with over 50 million people in America, which are becoming literally poor. Obviously the American dream ended a few decades ago, but now that it’s not even a glimpse that there could be a renewal of the American dream. So we have a larva of civil war situation degrading on a daily basis. What’s the end game? What exactly does Wall Street, the American ruling class, the guys who have lunches at the Harvard club – what do they ultimately want?
Michael Hudson: [01:01:31] Well, what you call a disaster for the economy is a Bonanza for the 1%. This is a victory for finance. You look at it as a collapse of industrial capitalism. I look at it as the victory of rentier finance capitalism. You’re having probably 10 million Americans that are going to be thrown out of their apartments and their homes in June, when the moratorium on rents and mortgages ends. You’re going to have a vast increase in the homeless population. That will probably represent an increase in people who use the subways. Where else are they going to live? A large number of private capital firms have been created in the last year of wealth accumulation. They’re looking forward to great opportunities to pick up real estate at bargain prices, for the commercial real estate that’s broke, and all the buildings and restaurants that have to be sold because they can’t meet their mortgage payments or rents, all the houses that are going under. Private capital can come in and do what was done after the Obama evictions.
Private capital can do what Blackstone did. It can buy them out for pennies on the dollar. So they’re looking at their own 20-year plan. Their 20-year plan is to grab everything!
Pepe Escobar: [01:02:51] What’s going to happen with the surplus population Michael, we’re talking about tens of millions of people. It reminds me of those, the projection of those World Bank projections in the early 1980s, when the World Bank projected that the global economy could actually work with only 20% of the global population implying that 80% of the global population was expendable. Are we watching this happening in the West in the next few months and years?
Michael Hudson: [01:03:22] It’s being compressed into a very short time frame. I heard this from the Club of Rome back in the 1970s when I was with the United Nations UNITAR. Their idea was that the world had too much population and needed to cut it back. It was a giant austerity plan. That was what really spurred Liberation Theology. The Catholic Church saw that cutting the population meant vast birth control. At a Chase Manhattan meeting I talked to the former head of the World Bank, John McCloy, who was also the chairman of Chase Manhattan. I asked him what he thought about Robert McNamara and his population control. And he said, “He just wants to stuff it up women. He doesn’t care if they get sick.” McCloy added, “He’s not a Wall Street boy.” I could see that he was appalled by it, but I wouldn’t use his words for the record, because he used little more vulgar language for just where McNamara was trying to stuff up the population control.
Liberation theology was backed by the Catholic church advocating land reform to feed the population if we’re not going to cut it back. Well, of course the result was that America defined a free market as being when its Special Forces go in and shoot the nuns after raping them. They killed liberation theologists. They killed indigenous leaders. They recognized that you can’t have a free market Chicago-style without being able to kill everybody who disagrees with you and who thinks that the market is for the people, not for the 1%. In my talks with the Catholic Church, I mean, it’s sort of hilarious given my background, which is not exactly religious. But I was working very closely with them at that time, because they were the only ones with an economic plan for how you can avoid this population collapse. The wealthy elite only need a few people. This was before mechanization, already in the 1970s. So, there was this idea that there were too many poor people that don’t make enough money for the rich people. We’ve got to get rid of them.
Many liberals supported them. Bob Heilbroner at the New School criticized me for working with some Liberation Theologists. It was the Catholic Church that published my first book, and articles. So, what you’re seeing today is an almost cosmic inversion of everything that people wanted until about the last century. Every country wanted more population. The idea was that population was the source of an army. It was a workforce to produce more goods and services. But now in the West, a population is who you want to get rid of. All you need is an economy that only has a few people and the rich. China, Russia, and Asia want to use the population and essentially, how to enrich the population so we can all have a world of prosperity and leisure.
Pepe Escobar: [01:06:12] Absolutely. I’m glad that you brought up Russia and China, because they are not on board. They diplomatically made it very clear that they are not on board for the great reset. Herr Schwab’s absolutely ominous idea and concept, which is supported by the IMF, by the World Bank, by Prince Charles, by big multinational corporations, et cetera. It’s very crazy, because eugenicist ideas are at the heart of the great reset. We’re not only talking about that strange character, Bill Gates; it goes much deeper than that. It’s eugenicist ideas in terms of culling of population by all means necessary. So, we are back to the same scenario that you were discussing decades ago.
Alanna: [01:07:06] Michael, when you said importantly that we could get the cost of housing down from 40% of income in the United States, can you give more detail on what people can do?
Michael Hudson: [01:07:22] The problem is what we can do without a revolution. In the United States you have Ms. Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress having a new voting law that tries to prevent any third party from being developed in the United States. So there can only be one party, the duopoly between the Republicans and the Democrats. You can’t have a Green Party. That’s being essentially ruled out. You can’t have any political alternative and you cannot have a parliamentary system like you have in Europe’s representative voting. The only choice you have is what flavor of oligarchy you want. You can have a Republican white oligarchy, or a mixed identity politics Democratic party, but none of this identity can have to deal with wage-earners, debtors or renters. So there’s very little, that they can do. If you need housing, you don’t have an alternative. You rent or go into debt to a bank to outbid other people who are trying buy the house, and the house is worth however much a bank will lend.
The Federal Reserve has flooded the economy with such low-interest credit that banks are able to lend more and more against housing. There’s been a huge increase in mortgage refinancing here. People have been able to get through the pandemic by borrowing more money against houses whose market value is rising, because banks are lending so much more debt to equity. So, what people think is making them rich is the housing that’s going up in price. Well, it’s actually the debt that has been going up. They think that they’ve been getting rich, but they’ve been more and more having to go into debt as a condition to get housing, just as they have to go into debt as a condition for getting an education and getting a job, or to get a car to drive to the job, or just to break even and feed themselves.
So unless people have an idea that there is an alternative, they’re not going to be able to create a political movement to create one. And in the United States, if you study economics you’re only taught University of Chicago neoliberal mainstream economics. There’s no more history of economic thought, so you don’t read Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill or Marx. There’s no economic history. So, you don’t know what’s the fight against feudalism was all about. You don’t have an idea that there’s an alternative. As Margaret Thatcher said, There Is No Alternative.
Well, of course there’s an alternative, but if people don’t know that there’s an alternative, they’re going to fall for this line, that there’s no alternative to the “free market” controlled by the 1% – freedom only for the 1% and debt peonage for the 99%. Unless they know that, I don’t have much hope that the people here can do very much at all.
Alanna: [01:10:26] So Michael, what about one city that it’s desperate that could be educated, that there is an alternative with clarity about a land value tax system and a public bank. For instance, the city of Baltimore that desperately needs a new economy. Can you give us some hope that we could focus on a city level and begin building a template for how cities and like Sao Paulo where Pepe is born from the cities that desperately need change? Michael, can you give us some sort of template?
We know the federal government is hopeless for us now for we, the people. Texas is having a vote to form the Republic of Texas to secede to have a beginning conversation. There are other growing secessionist movements in the United States. Could we imagine that there could be an implosion away from centralized control to the us to a regional and city level. Michael, give us some hope.
Michael Hudson: [01:11:30] I can’t give you hope. I am all in favor of public banking and I’m on Ellen Brown’s board of directors for her group. However, supposing you had a public bank in Baltimore and the public bank said, we want to provide credit for Baltimore people to be able to afford homes. They would still have to out create enough credit and enough debt to outbid what commercial banks are lending other people that want to buy houses there. So, you can’t have an Island of efficiency and public banking in a system that basically is still financialized. The problem is systemic.
It goes to the courts. You talk about seceding. Then of course it’s possible. And people in Texas were talking about seceding in the 1840s when it was largely a German population. There were more publishers publishing German language books in Texas than there were English language books. But now, I think the way Texans think, if they were to succeed it is not going to be along the lines of public banking that you want . It would be a private bank owned by the oil companies that calls itself, a public bank. We’re in a world of Orwellian rhetoric.
What can the Americans do? They already have voted. We have democracy, they’ve voted for what they wanted to do. What did they vote for? They want shorter lifespans, lower wages, less education and less public services. Their choice is to get these things by a Democrat or by a Republican. But that’s the only choice they have. Other countries have a choice to emigrate, as the Ukrainians and the Greeks and Latvians have done. But I have no idea where Americans can emigrate to.
Alanna: [01:13:21] Perhaps they could emigrate to some of Bill Gates, who now owns more agricultural land. He’s a top agricultural landowner in the United States. So, there are plenty of vacant lots all over our cities. What about some direct land-rights movements? Michael, what about depositing the land rent in Baltimore in a public bank and generating a local based economy?
Michael Hudson: [01:13:45] I think that’s unlikely as long as the city is controlled by the landlord interests. Almost all cities are controlled by the landlord interest. This is what Thorstein Veblen wrote about in Absentee Ownership in 1923. As long as you have the system that already was pretty clear a century ago, it doesn’t help to build up a few vacant lots and say, okay, we’re not going to tax that, because pretty soon you’re going to have people selling out the vacant lots and they will be gentrified.
A hundred years ago you had communities that were founded by followers of Henry George. They had the idea that, just that you have, we’re going to collect the land rent. They’ve all now become bourgeois, gentrified yuppie communities.
It’s a fight of economic systems. It’s a systemic fight. You can’t fix it at the margin. The problem goes deep to the core.
Alanna: [01:14:40] Well, the city of Allentown, Pennsylvania voted in land rent to shift largely to land rent. That was a vote. Can the people not vote in an economic democracy once they have the understanding of how to do so. And the landlord population is after all the majority. The minority is that landlord ownership. Can we not have the majority vote in a land rent system?
Michael Hudson: [01:15:05] Good question. If you said, okay, we are now going to tax all of the land rent, the problem is that as of right now, most land rent is pledged to the banks as mortgage interest. The banks have lent money against the rent-of-location – the fact that some houses and some properties and homes are in a better location than others, near parks and schools. Suppose that all of a sudden the owners would have to pay the full land tax that you and Henry George’s followers want. How are they going to pay the banks? Are they going to pay the land rent on top of the mortgage interest, or are they going to default?
The reality is you would have massive defaults and foreclosures by the banks taking over the properties of families and cities that had collected the land rent for themselves. You can’t have the same rent paid to two different parties. You have the land rent either paid to the government or paid to the banks. If you pay it to the government, then you’ll take it away from the banks. And the banks will use American law to say that this is appropriation of property without compensation. You really would need a new constitution, and that would need a revolution. A revolution is a step function, a discontinuity. You cannot have a continuity to make a rational economic system pasted on to an irrational economic system at the margin. You have to have a revolution.
Alanna: [01:16:33] The template needs to be for a nonviolent revolution based on the Jubilee principles that you teach so well Michael, of debt cancellation and restore the land for the people.
Michael Hudson: [01:16:46] You may be non-violent. But the bankers and the landlords are not. One group will be non-violent and the other will be violent. Who’s going to win?
Alanna: [01:16:56] That’s where getting the military to understand the new system comes in.
Michael Hudson: [01:17:01] Well it’s true that much of the military did defect to Russia’s Communists in October 1917. But I’m not sure today’s military is like that. They’ll have special advisors, Blackwater or whatever that group was in Afghanistan. We don’t have as much military as we have the advisers that we’ve hired, or we’ll just bring our foreign legion in. We’ll bring ISIS and they’ll fight for the landlords.
Alanna: [01:17:31] Well, it’s the same thing globally. It’s the same thing of what this discussion is Pepe and Michael about “in quest of a multipolar world” the hegemon up against up against three rivals as Pepe points out Iran, China and Russia, trying to be sovereign. We are again at a violent point.
Michael Hudson: [01:17:56] Yep, absolutely.
Pepe Escobar: [01:17:58] Yep. I think people want to ask a few questions. So, before we move to the questions, I selected one particular sentence, which more or less encapsulates where we are at the moment geopolitically. I don’t know if you agree with me. So I’m, throwing this fragmentation bomb out. Zbig Brzezinski in the famous, The Grand Chessboard published in 1997. I think this sentence is more or less the definition of the empire of chaos in the modern era until now. So, what was Zbig saying? The three grand imperatives of Imperial geostrategy are:
To prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals. So a security dependence among vassals – so far, basically Germany and Japan, which are the key hubs in the Rimland and to control the heartland and isolate the Heartland. If America could control two key hubs in the Rimland they will get the job done, which is more or less what happened for decades, right?
Continuing with Zbig. Tributaries, pliant and protected. Then we can go all the way from Latin America to the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia, right? And to keep the barbarians from coming together. So when he wrote that in 1997, he meant the barbarians, obviously Eurasia, like the old rear Asia of the golden horde invading Kiev in the 13th century. But he meant essentially Russia and China. So, what do we have now? We have the three sovereigns getting together. Iran Russia and China. We have a strategic partnership between peer competitors, Russia and China, which was a Brzezinski and his acolytes’, supreme nightmare. The Americans need to prevent the emergence of a peer competitor in Eurasia.
Now they have a strategic partnership. So now, what that means is that Pax Americana in a nutshell is completely unraveling. That’s when we reached the possibility of a sort of Samson option by the 0.001%. They are little by little being expelled from Eurasia. So, this could create the conditions for an absolutely demented Dr. Strangelove kind of adventure, which even some generals in the US are already saying they are. These people are completely nuts. They are talking about the possibility of a nuclear war without advising the population of the United States and the rest of the world that the next war is going to be the last. So, this is where we are at the moment, I would say an incandescent crossroads, all of our history. And even if we look in real-politic terms some of the possibilities are beyond the ominous, right?
Michael Hudson: [01:21:21] Well, if you’re China or Russia, I think you’re saying that there was a kind of inversion of the direction of barbarism of the Golden Horde. Today, Europe is the barbarian trying to break into the Eurasian core. Think of what Brzezinski said about how the barbarians can prevent their own allies from working together in Europe. I think your point is quite right. If it’s an atomic war, and it will wipe out the world. As you know, I worked with Herman Kahn for many years. He said that there are going to be some survivors. I think that in Russia the other day President Putin said if there’s any missile of any kind coming in, it’s assumed to be atomic. And they’re going to retaliate in kind.
I can imagine Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden getting together and saying, “Look, I know that you’re trying to provoke us. We are going to respond militarily, but let’s not fight against each other. We have 20 atom bombs. We’ll take out England and London, Manchester and Frankfurt, but not Berlin because that’s East German; but Munich, Stuttgart, and certainly Brussels and Paris just to show you what can be done. You can try to use your defense to stop it, but let’s agree we’ll only knock out each other’s proxies. We won’t go to war with each other.”
I can imagine the Americans saying, “Well, that’s fine. No more Europe. So now we will be the leaders. We won’t have Europe to contend with anymore. We will just have ourselves. This will sort of stabilize things for the next 50 years. Europe will be devastated, and we can help rebuild it like we did after World War II. And this time, we’ll lock in our control even more. Russia and China can go their own way. And then, in 50 years, we’ll see whether there’s any kind of relation that we can have.”
I can see them making a deal like that. The Americans want war. The people that Biden has appointed have an emotional hatred of Russia. I’ve spoken to government people who are close to the Democratic Party, and they’ve told me that there’s a pathological emotional desire for war with Russia, largely stemming from the fact that the Tzars were anti-Semitic and there’s still the hatred about their ancestors: “Look what they did to my great-grandfather.” And so they’re willing to back the Nazis, back the anti-Semites in Ukraine. They’re willing to back today’s anti-Semites all over the world as long as they’re getting back at this emotional focus on a kind of post 19th-century economy.
I’ve met these people. Their emotion is one of hatred and anger. You can look at their face and see what they’ve become. This is really dangerous. They are crazy. And Putin is quite right. America has got its power by breaking contracts. It broke all of the contracts with the native Americans to take their land. It’s broken the Iranian contract. It broke most recently the Ukrainian Minsk agreement, and the JCP before. So what’s the point of making an agreement with any Americans, if they’re going to say, “Okay, now that we’ve got a compromise. You’ve given me and we’ve given. Now, let’s take that as a beginning point. We’re going to break that old agreement and we’re going to ask you for yet more.” They call that salami tactics. Slicing and slicing and slicing. So, I can see that essentially America telling Ukrainians, “Let’s you and Russia fight – to the last Ukrainian.”
And I think it would be Western Ukrainians, the people who used to be part of Poland.
Pepe Escobar: [01:25:00] And we, we call it, Bandera Land. Perfect. Okay.
Questions and Answers
Alanna: [01:25:06] Now David Spangler once said that the “role of the prophet is to preach the doom, to wake people up”. And that we’re certainly preaching, showing the doom right now. And the role of the priest is to show the new way, the new direction. So do we want to have another half hour or so for this? Can Pepe and Michael stay on because we do have some questions from those who’ve been listening. I see Ed Dodson’s hand is up, and then Tom Rossman, and then I’ll be looking at the chat questions.
Ed are you able to talk with us now and ask your question?
Ed Dodson: [01:25:46] Okay. As I’m listening to you, Michael, and not to you Pepe so much, but Michael’s gloom and doom, I keep thinking that the one opportunity the people of the world have is to go back to Proudhon and the whole concept of mutualism to create societies within societies. With all the positive components that have been raised, public banking and labor organizations, I just wonder. I know you have a relationship with Richard Wolf, Michael, in your conversations with him, he’s so positive about the socialism attached to the cooperative movement and places like Mondragon are these avenues. And Pepe you might want to comment on this, about countries other than the Western democracies. Is this an opportunity for people to come together under a common philosophy, a set of principles that would operate independent of the nation-state?
Michael Hudson: [01:26:57] There are many areas where a mutualism works. Farmer’s markets, distributors and small factories like in Mondragon. However, how are you going to have a mutual oil company? That’s very capital intensive. How will you have mutualism in a high-speed railway transport system? How will you have mutualism in building a system of foreign ports? Like what China’s doing with the belt and road extension.
Mutualism is very good when labor is the main element of all this. But once you have a strong capital element, and where it’s very capital intensive with not much labor, it’s very hard to see where the mutualism is. Suppose an oil company 10 oil producers making $10 million a year in profit. Are they going to just give each other a million dollars each? What about the rest of the economy? One mutual group can be cut off from another. In fact, when I went through the Basque country (I was brought over by the labor unions) some of the unions were complaining that Mondragon doesn’t want labor unions.
Yes, it’s a cooperative, but they don’t want a labor union. So, mutualism can only work as a particular sector of the economy. It can’t be the economy. Proudhon wrote a lot about compound interest. He said that debt is going to grow so large that it can’t be repaid. You’ll have to be able to deal with that. So you can’t really have a mutual banking based on compound interest and everybody getting deeper and deeper into debt. Proudhon-style also wanted to tax the land and Marx wrote a long discussion explaining why a Proudhon mutualism wouldn’t work. In The Poverty of Philosophy, a response to Proudhon’s Philosophy of Poverty, he pointed out what was progressive and predominant to a point, became unprogressive after a point.
Alanna: [01:28:49] Okay, thank you, Michael. I want to read this from Carl Sanchez in the chat. He says that the purpose of the federal government is to form a more perfect union. Do you think it’s possible to rally the reds and blues into a coalition of purples to reassert those government goals?
Michael Hudson: [01:29:17] Well, you already have them together we already have a purple. You have the blue Wall Street and the red oil industry and mining industry. You have both kinds of the rentier 1% all together in one happy purple rentier duopoly controlling the political system.
Alanna: [01:29:34] Well then, relevant to the impossible task. Walter wants to know what’s the new HR 1 law, Michael that you mentioned that prevents or will prevent third parties.
Michael Hudson: [01:29:43] I think it’s 700 pages. so I can’t go through the whole thing. But there’s a lot of discussion in today’s Internet about it. If you look at Naked Capitalism, the site run by Yves Smith, she has a citation of articles that explain why it’s aimed to prevent the green party or any other kind of reform party. The idea is to prevent any alternative to the hardline democratic pro-Wall Street, pro-pharmaceutical industry. Essentially you’re going to have Obamanomics with a sledgehammer, particularly against the Black and Hispanic populations.
Tom Rossman: [01:30:29] Great. Thanks Alanna. So your comments about the war reminded me of an Albert Einstein quote. He said, I do not know with what weapons world war three will be fought but world war four will be fought with sticks and stones. So, it kind of reminded me of that. And so, my question is you know, based on the fact that, you know, it’s pretty, pretty well established that narratives really drive people’s economic behavior.
What is the type of narrative that can kind of shift the Overton window in the direction that we all seem to want to go? And if there isn’t a narrative that could shift the Overton window, is the only alternative then revolution – potentially violent revolution.
Michael Hudson: [01:31:11] Well, my narrative is about how civilization has developed. I published the first volume of “… and Forgive them their Debts” to show how civilization took off, and narrates how the idea was to create resilience in an economy – how you would wipe out the debt, you would wipe out of the debt bondage, you’d restore free liberty to the people. That worked for thousands of years.
I’m just finishing now the second volume, The Collapse of Antiquity. That’s about how Greece and Rome, and hence subsequent Western civilization, made a complete break from the Near East. They didn’t cancel the debts. Western civilization was oligarchic from the beginning. There never was really a democracy here except for a very short revolution in the seventh and sixth centuries BC, catalyzed by the “tyrants.” What you think of as democracy, the rule by the people overthrowing the oligarchy, was called tyranny in Greece. In Rome it was called “seeking kingship,” because what did kings were able to do. Kings kept the oligarchs in place, just as the tyrants redistributed the land and cancelled the debts in Corinth and other Greek cities, and finally Solon did that in an Athens after Sparta did it . So if you see that our civilization doesn’t have to be this way, that Western civilization has taken a wrong turn – and it’s a rentier turn that earlier civilizations didn’t have – then you can see there is an alternative. And once you see there is an alternative, you have a narrative that can show the kind of future.
Well, Marx had one kind of alternative like that worked in the late 19th century. The classical economists had an alternative leading into Marxism. I’m now publishing my long lecture series in China on The Fight for Civilization: Rentier Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism or Socialism. I’m trying to show what is positive in China system and still needs to be done. There are plenty of alternatives, but the fact is that the West – as Pepe and I’ve described – are set on fighting against an alternative that would make other people prosperous. They fought against the Soviet Union in the Cold War. You have the ruling classes in America and Europe wanting to concentrate all the wealth in their own hand. They’re against the whole wave of democratic reform that the 19th century was all for. The 19th century was for a land tax. It was for public banking. It was all public infrastructure to lower the cost of doing business. This was taught in the business schools in America. But all that has been expurgated from economic history and from the history of social thought – into the memory hole, as George Orwell would say. So, you have to let people know that there’s been a whole suppressed history, not only of civilization but as recently as the 19th century concerning where civilization was going. There has been a counter-revolution. In America you have people saying anything that promotes democracy, anything that’s antiwar is a propaganda for Russia, because who’s trying to avoid war Russia. So, if you believe what Alanna believes and you want a peaceful world, then you’re pro-Putin.
Alanna: [01:34:33] David Lee has a question for Pepe. He says, what do you think are the possibilities that Lula can (A) be allowed to win an election in Brazil, and (B) return Brazil to the BRICS?
Pepe Escobar: [01:34:50] Wow. Assuming he would run and win an election, the first things he will do of course, is to get the back to BRICS. That is what Lula would do in terms of policy, because he believes in it. And because he was one of the main drivers of the BRICS union, but because Putin and (as I get from our connections in Moscow, in Beijing, they are dying for it to happen. Obviously, their ministry of foreign affairs cannot express this in public, especially the Chinese, because the Chinese are very reactive and very cautious in terms of emitting their opinions on internal policy, even if they’re their allies.
I’m trying to get some feedback from Russian analysts in the next few days about what happened in Brazil in this past few days, and to see how the Kremlin and the ministry of foreign affairs view the possibility of Lula being back in the game. But the most important thing is whether he will be allowed to be back in the game. Considering the Kabuki telenovela configuration moment that’s a major if. This would only happen if there is a deal cut in the shadows. Lula is very good at cutting deals. He’s a master negotiator, probably in terms of an international statesman, he’s the number one master negotiator in the world for the past two decades. But this is very, very complicated because it involves the military, who run the show in Brazil. It involves the Brazilian ruling class the 0. I would say the 0.00001% in Brazil. You have no idea in terms of an absolutely rapacious, ignorant, arrogant, and absolutely disgusting ruling class. I had the displeasure to meet these people when I still lived in Brazil years ago. So, if they think that Lula might be good for business, which means their own exploitation business, rentier business inside Brazil, allied and as subordinates to the masters of the universe in New York and the beltway, they would allow it.
But then, Lula will have to convince more than just these people. He’ll have to convince the military and he’ll have to convince the market – you know, this entity that rules Brazil and is reaping all the benefits of the destruction of Brazil. And the fourth component is the media. In Brazil that means the Globo network, which plays a role that in the US would be equivalent to all the major US networks, plus CNN, Fox and all that, but concentrated in only one media and buyer. This is very complicated because they have the same interest of the Brazilian ruling class. They have the same interests of the military, and they have their own monopolistic interests in terms of controlling the flow of public information to the mass of Brazilians. But now at least there is a counter movement, which is via social networks and the internet.
So they have been losing ground, but still, if you look at the 8:00 PM newscast in Brazil, every night people who are in the middle of the Amazon or in the deserts, in the Northeast, they are tuning to Globo and they get their news from Globo Open TV, not paid cable. So if Lula wins, wow, this is titanic. If he’s able to navigate all of these interests and prove to them that he is good for their business, this means that you have to make a lot of concessions, just like Michael explained to us in the beginning. He had to make concessions when he was first elected . And even with that, he managed to turn a little bit of the game around in Brazil, in terms of bringing 30 million people out of poverty. In terms of having a more decent minimum wage, you name it, and basic income for a lot of people in the middle of nowhere. So to have this back under negotiation, it is going to be much harder than it was in the early two thousands, right before Shock and Awe, by the way. It’s, crazy to remember that the first Lula government came to power two months before Shock and Awe, which we’re going to have the anniversary next week,. So, it’s complex. It’s extremely complicated to explain this to an international audience. The complexity of the game in Brazil is absolutely mind boggling. And the absolute majority of the Brazilians have no clue what’s going on because it’s one fragmentation bomb after another, like a semiotic free for all. It’s completely crazy, but if there’s only one person that could pull that off, that would be Lula.
Alanna: [01:40:10] Well praise be Lula. This is a question and a rather long comment that will draw out more on this “in quest of a multipolar world”, and it’s for both of you to respond because he mentioned both of you. This is from Zach for Pepe. What, what do you believe is the future of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization? Will it become stronger and work a closer Alliance between its member States, sort of like NATO, or it will keep being a loose association? And then, where is India going to orient to? He’s also curious about the Bretton Woods and how it was established, was it the brainchild and one or two economists, like Keynes? Was It designed by a genius? How are we going to relate to this Bretton Woods? Are we going to be able to break free? Are Russia and China clearly going to break free?
Michael Hudson: [01:41:08] That’s what the talk is about you know. I think the first discussion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the Western media was an op-ed I did for the Financial Times of London. Nobody was mentioning it.
The idea was that it was only marginal, it’s going to go away. There was always a sense of denial in the West that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization could develop a different economic philosophy of development. And that’s what we’re really talking about. It’s not simply an organization of people wanting to help each other. It’s the way they’re trying to help each other. It’s a mode of development. It’s the idea that any rent-yielding resource – banking, land, natural resources and natural infrastructure monopolies – should be in the public domain to provided basic needs to everybody freely. That essentially means that the private sector won’t have to pay for services that should be available to everybody, at the minimum cost. If you privatize them as in the West, they’re going to be provided at a financialized maximum cost, including interest rates, dividends management fees, corporate manipulation for capital gains, and stock and bond buyback programs. It’s a whole different economic philosophy.
Well, there is no need for China or Russia or Iran to go to war to do this. They’re doing it. They can do it quite simply. They don’t need a revolution to do it, because they don’t have a vested interest fighting against them and killing them if they do it. If the West wants to resist this, and all the West can do is number one, kill its own leaders who want to do something like this. If they have a Latin American leader, if you have Venezuela trying to use this oil wealth for the public good, then you isolate and attack Venezuela. If you have a Honduran president who wants to distribute the land, you have a coup d’ etat and give it to the drug dealers to run. They’ll be pro-American. If you have anyone in the West who tries to do something productive, you marginalize them and prevent them. And if there’s a threat of China and Russia and Iran growing, then you try to do what Americans did to Russia in the 1920s. You will fight it militarily you at their borders, you fund color revolutions, so that they have to dissipate the wealth that they create in military overhead to match the military overhead of the United States. The dream today is to make Ukraine Russia’s Afghanistan.
Pepe Escobar: [01:43:53] Yeah, absolutely.
Michael Hudson: [01:43:55] Yeah. The difference is what gives China and Russia the advantage. Defense is only 10% as expensive as offense. America needs a huge offense, and it needs huge corruption. To be offensive, America has to corrupt European politics, corrupt the labor union, the corrupt the whole educational system, corrupt the media into junk media and junk economics.
And it has to have enormous profits for the military-industrial complex. That is America’s version of industrial capitalism. All China and Russia have to do is develop high-speed missiles, the defensive missiles to stop it. So they’re not being bled. It’s not going to be Russia’s Afghanistan. It’s America’s Afghanistan all over again.
Pepe Escobar: [01:44:47] I was just the one to compliment one minute what Michael said and answering the question as well, in terms of the importance of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It has changed so much in the past few years. I remember years ago, I used to mention the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to people in Brussels, the European Union or European commission. They were saying, “No way. It’s not important. It’s ridiculous. It’s a talk shop, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Years ago, in fact in the early 2000s, it was essentially Russia, China and four of the central Asian states against terrorism, against separatism. And then, little by little, they started to evolve. Now it’s also a trade and investment cooperation organization. I went to some of the round tables of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, for instance, in the St Petersburg Economic Forum. There’s always a meeting of the SCO and it’s absolutely fascinating. You have Russians, Chinese and a lot of central Asians (not a single one Westerner) discussing trade deals. They are not only discussing terrorism, but also discussing the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan allied with the Taliban, that kind of things. They are discussing business. And now it’s even more important, because now with the expansion you have Russia, China, the Central Asians, and India and Pakistan as well. And sooner or later, not only as observers, but as full members, you’re going to have Turkey and Iran.
So, this means every single major player in the Eurasian arc, in the heartland in fact, is part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. To give a practical example, the solution for Afghanistan is being debated by them for years now. The Russian solution for Afghanistan was discussed with China and the other central Asians, especially Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, which are neighbors of Afghanistan.
They want an SCO-brokered Asian solution for the Afghan problem. So what the Americans are proposing –or the American plan B’s, or C’s with the same Zalmay Khalilzad – they know this thing’s never going to work. And they have a direct conversation with Afghanistan, because Afghanistan is an associate member of the SCO as well. So it makes total sense. We see them all converging. You have the original economic union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Belt and Road initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – everybody’s converging and following more or less the same path. Later, you’re going to have a total integration of these organizations working for a common purpose in terms of security, of course, but also especially in terms of business.
Michael Hudson: [01:47:57] So the question is, why are other people not discussing what you and I are discussing? Why are people only talking about this on the web? Nothing in The New York Times or other mainstream media.
Pepe Escobar: [01:48:06] Nothing Michael. You will never read something like this in the Washington Post or The New York Times. They don’t even know what the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is.
Alanna: [01:48:19] Well, there’s more questions and comments coming in on chat, and we’re not going to be able to handle now, but I’m thinking maybe I’ll just copy and paste what everybody’s asked, and we’ll have another session with all the questions may be a good idea.
Pepe Escobar: Fantastic I think that’s a very good idea Alanna.
Alanna: Okay, great and thank you both, this has been sponsored by the Henry George School of Social Science. Please go to their website. They’re doing a lot of online courses on land rents and the land rent problem. The International Union for Land Value Taxation, iu.org. Please also sign up for our newsletter and connect with people around the world. We’re looking for socializing the land rents.
We’re now starting a conversation with the public banking Institute with a focus on Baltimore, which is why I had those questions. So again, I’m going to copy everything from chat. And then we’ll talk about having a session that will start in with the questions. I think has been a great overview.
We know we’re at a dangerous point. We know that we, the people, have got to get it together and provide a really clear direction now to the world. We are the people who are really thinking and concerned and, in many ways, privileged. I think we’re going to need to get to the military and get to those kinds of power people, and get them to think in terms of who are they protecting?
What are they protecting? What side are they going to be on? Because clearly, we do need a nonviolent revolution, we’re at a dangerous point. So, thank you, Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar. Thank you so very much all the best of both of you forever.
Pepe Escobar: [01:49:56] Thank you, Michael. Thanks a lot. Thanks everybody.
Ibrahima: [01:49:59] Thank you all very much. And we hope to see you again.
Pepe Escobar: [01:50:04] Absolutely.
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
Wow!!! An enormously important article by two important men, one with the top world-wide perspective and one, as the great economist PCR has told us, is the world’s top economist. Wow!!! Huge, will take me a month to read it, but thanks!!!
And this work with others tells us of the enormous importance to the world of the Unz Review. Thanks, Ron!
Home run hit, Mike.
It’s almost an insult to add it was retrogressing toward feudalism. Old time feudalism at least had fealty of the nobles toward the peasants, often. After the Yuppie 80s invented Globalism, the plutocrats have a nation of their own, far above us madding dirt people.
Several Western-centric take-aways from this rather long but very informative transcript:
1. The USA as the heart of the American Empire is on an inescapable trajectory to implosion.
2. We can do this the hard way, or the harder way. The only short-term exit is violent revolution.
3. The rest of the American Empire’s spineless vassal states are screwed – as goes the Empire, so go the vassals. The only thing that might inspire the lickspittle minions to emphatically decouple from Empire is if the USA citizens rise up in revolt against the 0.0001% and take their country back.
That is my choice. Once the Deep State is destroyed…America must be rebuilt as a Meritocracy.
Why not watch the video?
” America’s strong armed its allies to invest in US Treasury bonds, because central banks don’t buy companies. They don’t buy raw materials. All they could buy is other government bonds. So, all of a sudden, the only thing that other people could buy with all the dollars coming in were US Treasury securities.”
1–Means other countries can buy only more future dollars with these current dollars .Thats what buying bond is . Now a trade deficit of 1000 dollars mean US has to give 1000 dollars back . Recioeint country can keep these dollars and buy cement or mangoes from another country meaning value of dollars go up. Next time the trade deficit of 1000 will possibly become 900 dollars . Despite printing money ,dollars will go up in value for foreign countries . Domestically more dollars mean more inflation and less value of commodity and services. This inflation leads to narrow trade deficit because USA sales at inflated prices now. It is feed forward cycle .
2 Treasury takes the dollars from foreign countries meaning treasury basically has bought the foreign commodities and services with printed money . This money is vulnerable to seizure in times of political crisis . It now causes dollars shortages giving rise to balance of payment problem for countries losing the dollar to arbitrary seizure by USA causing starvation and depleted grocery shelf.
Even without seizure ,the printing of money basically leads to more and more impoverishment of other countries because printing is not limited by any outside foreign factors but by domestic reasons
Domestic inflation surges but is managed by cheaper imports of foods and commodities and even the services- like-now offshore services like fixing remotely TV or answering calls. Only when supply chain is disrupted we start paying more to the foreign suppliers.
3 This is an inherent permanent exploitative system embedded in the exclusive rights of printing the money . Only alternative international payment nt system can save the third world from it.
Regarding BRICS- Indian economy is managed by those who are also very deeply embedded with pro American world view and American economic policies. SCO and BRICS have an Indian problem.
“Pepe Escobar: [01:06:12] Absolutely. I’m glad that you brought up Russia and China, because they are not on board. They diplomatically made it very clear that they are not on board for the great reset. Herr Schwab’s absolutely ominous idea and concept, which is supported by the IMF, by the World Bank, by Prince Charles, by big multinational corporations, et cetera. It’s very crazy, because eugenicist ideas are at the heart of the great reset. We’re not only talking about that strange character, Bill Gates; it goes much deeper than that. It’s eugenicist ideas in terms of culling of population by all means necessary. So, we are back to the same scenario that you were discussing decades ago.”
These policies were codified by Henry Kissinger in 1974 when he was Secretary of State in the infamous Memorandum called NSSM-200 (Implications of Worldwide Population Growth For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests(THE KISSINGER REPORT)December 10, 1974)
in which Kissinger stated clearly that the population of 13 countries should be dealt with by “All means necessary”. The countries targeted for depopulation were: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria,Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia and Columbia.
The document was declassified in 1989 and I helped a newspaper to start spreading the news in Montreal. I remember one politician in Ottawa who was informed of the existence of the document asking his aide Not to mention it publicly.
You can access the PDF of the document at
https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PCAAB500.pdf
Fighting ‘yesterday’s battles’?
‘We’ have ten years?
“ . . . our best estimate is that the net energy
33:33 per barrel available for the global
33:36 economy was about eight percent
33:38 and that in over the next few years it
33:42 will go down to zero percent
33:44 uh best estimate at the moment is that
33:46 actually the
33:47 per average barrel of sweet crude
33:51 uh we had the zero percent around 2022
33:56 but there are ways and means of
33:58 extending that so to be on the safe side
34:00 here on our diagram
34:02 we say that zero percent is definitely
34:05 around 2030 . . .
we
34:43 need net energy from oil and [if] it goes
34:46 down to zero
34:48 uh well we have collapsed not just
34:50 collapse of the oil industry
34:52 we have collapsed globally of the global
34:54 industrial civilization this is what we
34:56 are looking at at the moment . . . “
Louis Arnoux.
Video Link
Political processes of separation from colonization was not accompanied by the economic separation or even economic understanding of the colonization. To the new master, it was just the transfer of power which was important . Obviously it was most important and possibly exclusive of any other thoughts or considerations to them. The leaders of these newly developed nations believed or it suited them ti believe that the new order or the new reality would have no economic part that needed to be analyzed understood and dealt with. New order was still joined in hips with UK and by extension to USA.
China Vietnam Cuba and few other saw a different future and paid the price through sanctions and wars .Other countries were slowly engulfed by the Chicago Economy .
This brings us to Afghanistan . It is trying to free itself from US bondage . But does it has any economic understanding and any economic program? In Afghanistan demand and fight for liberty and freedom are portrayed as religious duties but the economy is not . This is where Afghanistan will stumble . A lot of muslim countries automatically look up to Saudi as example to follow .This is another barrier .Pakistan and Turkey is also in the same situation.It might severe relation with USA at political level but unless they implement, overhaul and reorient the ownership and the distribution of the economy ,nothing substantial will occur within the country.
My own read of the situation is that as long as enough of the skeleton of the original republic remains more or less intact, there’ll be 50 ways to leave your Empire…
Angelo Codevilla maps the playing field, and some of the more peaceful (and I daresay more realistic) paths that the Deplorables can explore in taking at least some part of the geographical USA under their control.
Bone saws have been hacking at that skeleton for a while so time is most emphatically of the essence, but one can’t fail to note that pathfinder parties are already out scouting. The “S” word (secession) is in the air, and a few States have expressed and acted in open defiance of federal diktats.
Only if those parties are ambushed and the oligarchy doubles down violently would I expect the spectre of violent revolution to rise. Instead, I expect more states to recall their constitutional powers and, like mutually repellent fluids in a beaker jar, America’s various populations to separate and find their own.
Of course, that’s unlikely to make America “great” again, but it may make part(s) of it great to live in again. For non-Americans, the upside is that a diabolical oligarchy will have lost their consolidated control over a continent’s worth of resources and with that their megalomaniacal dreams of “world leadership” will dissipate. A massive geo-political re-orientation will ensue, but the necessary structures are largely in place and much of the re-orientation is already underway.
Thanks for an insightful assessment of the evolving situation at Empire Central.
From the outside looking in, given the American elite’s penchant for being ruthless and playing dirty, that seems like a mighty small “if”.
Until there is some sort of accountability and severe penalties enforced for the West’s litany of war-crimes and genocide over the last half-century or so, I fear even that may not be enough to kill the beast.
The FULL SPECTRUM of our worst fears came to fruition regarding Covid, it’s real purpose and what both Pepe and Dr. Hudson spent some time talking about with the Western Financial System, it’s 1% Elite and their intentions for many millions of Western citizens.
We strongly recommend everyone read the most pertinent facts about HOW the 1% are an indomitable power that sees no need for large populations to even exist. This concept goes all the way back, as Dr. Hudson points out, to the Kissinger, McNamara Era. You can hear that discussion about one hour into the dialogue.
Fast forward to the 1% owning 90% of all power and money…….and what is dropped on our landscape………Covid, injections, more injections, lockdowns, more lockdowns and bio-metric “passports.”
Without a doubt in our minds, this latest terror tactic, was sponsored, fueled and executed by the 1% Western Elites.
I have the greatest respect for Michael Hudson, both as an economist and an economic historian, and I especially admire his ability to talk authoritatively and coherently ‘on the hoof’ when interviewed (not nearly so easy as writing a book or article, when one can take one’s time and make corrections as one proceeds), but in this interview he does slip up badly in a way no-one so far appears to have noticed.
When he adumbrates the possible parameters of any forthcoming nuclear conflict, and describes a possible ‘stitch up’ between Biden and Putin, whereby Russia and the USA agree not to target one another directly, he omits to inform us just where he imagines America’s nukes are going. He’s clear enough where Russia’s missiles might be heading, citing London, Manchester, Stuttgart, Munich, Paris and Brussels (at least I hope he’s not suggesting any of these targets might be hit by the USA!) So where, exactly, does he think American nuclear missiles might be heading in such an exchange? He appears not to have thought through the circumstances of any such ‘deal’. Surely he cannot imagine that America sits by and watches Russia lobbing missiles at those European targets, when it is the ‘crazy’ Neo-Con Americans who are so determined on war in the first place?
And this leads me to the second non-sequitur in his provisional scenario, in that having specifically pointed to the almost unhinged state of those (by implication Jewish) American politicians who, as he tells us: “have an emotional hatred of Russia…there’s a pathological emotional desire for war with Russia, largely stemming from the fact that the Tzars were anti-Semitic and there’s still the hatred about their ancestors…I’ve met these people. Their emotion is one of hatred and anger. You can look at their face and see what they’ve become. This is really dangerous. They are crazy” he then appears to sketch out a war scenario in which these people’s desire for revenge on Russia is completely side-lined, and Russia sits back and escapes any form of attack even though it has annihilated much of Europe, thus presumably compounding its imagined evil.
None of this is logical unless Russia is actually ‘nuked’ in its turn in order to ‘satisfy’ these crazy Neo-Cons’ blood lust; in which case, Mr Hudson’s speculations regarding any such Biden-Putin ‘deal’ is exposed as meaningless.
Yes….western “elites”…….
the collection of Pollards…..shitting their pants because white people are waking up.
The Indian elites signed a Satanic deal with the Zio elites of the West. Nandan Nilekhani of the Indian IT giant Infosys was involved. He is the same guy who pushed the NWO bio-metric Aadhar Card system on India. The similar Pakistani bio-metric system as well the Indian system, in both the cases the hardware for bio-metric data acquisition for both Indians and Pakistanis are being handled by the same company, Saffran, a French CIA company.
According to the deal, since India had a huge unemployment problem, the West would import or outsource to, millions of Indian IT Engineers (the aim being to screw and destroy the Western White Middle Class) and in return, American corporations would get access to the Indian market. Indian farmers, like White Middle Class Engineers got the most screwing out of this deal but it benefited the educated Indian (mostly upper caste) elite crowd and the big Zio corporations.
There is a possibility that Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi was not very keen in his part of the deal of allowing the big corporations into India (but he wanted Indian IT folks to be employed). That along with his interference in Sri Lanka, where the Israelis were selling weapons to both sides (LTTE /TELO and the Sri Lankan Army), might have played to his assassination which had the finger prints of Indian foreign agency RAW, the Mossad as well as Indian holyman Chandraswami. After Rajiv Gandhi’s death, the Indian economy was immediately opened up to the Western Zio Corporations. Chandraswami was a black magic holyman who was highly involved with Adnan Khashoggi, the Arab arms dealer as well as top American Generals, British Elites etc… Even the Filipino leader, Ferdinand Marcos, a Catholic, was a disciple of this slimeball Hindu tantric guru! Tantra is to Hinduism, what Kabbalah is to Judaism. One more person who was most likely involved in the assassination was Subramanyam Swami, a CIA agent, lecturer in Yale University whose mission was to wean India away from its traditional Soviet/Russian sphere of influence to the American sphere of influence. That is why he and the BJP target the Nehru Gandhi family, as Sonia Gandhi the Italian wife of Rajiv Gandhi as well as her father were close to the USSR/Russia and KGB. There is constant propaganda among Indians against the Gandhi family that they are “agents of the Vatican” and will sell India to “Christians Imperialists”. But this is most likely CIA propaganda to get India towards the USA.
One of the problems of American Labor is got dumber.
Long ago, most people didn’t go to college. Times were hard, and even many smart people became working class folks. Even Jews too. Back then, Big Labor could rely on smart people in their own ranks.
But as times got better and as more kids went to college, the smarter kids of the working class families become white-collar, and the working class pool became more and more drained of smart people.
By the 70s and 80s, the working class was pretty much devoid of smart people.
The Bretten Woods system was a American Wall Street – Soviet creation, check out Soviet spy Harry White’s major role in it. The aim was to destroy the European Empires, to push decolonisation. Douglas Reed has written about it in details how the Wall Street bankers financed nearly all decolonization movements working in tandem with the Soviets, Communist Chinese and Communist Koreans who provided weapons and training. The Colonial metropoles themselves were infiltrated with Globalist forces who want decolonisation.
The aim was to replace the honest White Colonial officer or in some cases the honest Japanese colonial officer with corrupt brown black natives who would be controlled more easily. CIA stooge and Stalin lover, American President FDR hated the British Empire (and also the German third Reich, Japanese Empire and Fascist Italy) and especially the British Imperial preference System and wanted it gone. He promised a new age of prosperity for the Global masses led by the USA (Wall Street). Once the Colonial Empire protection was gone, the Hitmen of Wall Street came on the scene for the lootings. Dumb brown black masses were celebrating decolonization but they were picked on for the lootings by Wall Street. Remember when Britain left the Indian subcontinent both India and Pakistan had zero debt but now under the Wall Street led World India, Pakistan and Bangladesh drown in debt. The World has become more destabilised after decolonisation in this American (Wall Street) led world.
Now these new “independent” countries were allowed to be socialist for some time so that they would develop their populations with education, modernisation etc… to prepare them for the eventual Global liberal financial world order which took speed in the 90s, after the USSR collapsed. Post Colonial Studies was financed in elite Universities so that all the blame would fall on Europeans and Japanese, while the big Zio elites escape Scot free, this would also aid White genocide by mass migration. Because most of the Brown Black and even other masses hate Whitey due to jealousy factors, Whitey seems “posh” etc… (I am a brown man and I have seen this emotional phenomenon 1000%, it is a sure phenomenon), they took the bait hook, line and sinker. the Satanic Zio elites play on these Satanic tendencies of darkies and even Chinese to deflect their attention while they get looted.
But the long term aim of the Wall Street elites is Global Communism. Capitalism leads to Communism eventually. Eventually we will be enslaved by a Global Communist distribution system of goods and services where we will be fed only if we obey. The final aim is only power, money is a means to get there for the elites. Absolute power over us all. Money today is just paper!!
It goes like this: Economy based on work (the honest system and the foundation of the German Third Reich NS economical model) —> Economy based on gold and Silver (still honest, recommended by Islam) —> economy based on paper currency (easy to inflate and hence loot the people)—> Digital Economy (more dishonest, money is now bits on computers, inflation more easy)—-> Communist style distribution system/ You are fed if you obey and thus under control by the elites.
Sorry, I meant Wall Street Stooge.
I forgot to add that if some of these native leaders would come out smart like Qadafi who stood up to the Zio elites, they could be destroyed.
You will not be allowed to own anything which goes along with the Jewish view of Goyim as cattle. Cattle do not own land or furniture. Due to many Internet companies like Uber, furniture hire companies, time share etc… they will slowly promote people not owning anything, any property, any private car, whatever. We would be pushed softly towards Satanic Global Communism where there will be no Private Property rights. So the Government would be in a position to take away everything you have if you decide to revolt against the Government, you will be naked and hungry in some cell. Because the Government legally owns your cloths including your underwear and all food is distributed. Remember: You Get Fed If you obey.
Also surveillance and bio metric information, mark of the beast chips implanted in human bodies etc.. Orwellian World. We see that in China and many parts of the World today. The UK is not far behind in this Orwellian Government video surveillance than P.R. China.
We are moving towards Corporate Communism where eventually the Big Corporations and Big Global Government will eventually merge into One in the future.
I can’t imagine blood soaked and power drunk Washington giving up one square inch of territory to succession without some sort of violence. Unless! It’s done only in words, and the territory still remains a duty bound tax base.
Can you secede just by leaving the U.S. and moving to another country?
Answer: Yes and no. Yes you can find more liberty and freedom in other countries easily. No, in the sense that if you are an American citizen the IRS is never far behind – in fact when you open a bank account in most other countries in the world the IRS demands access to that account through electronic back doors. Exceptions are America’s enemies, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea etc..
How to really secede? Dump that American passport. Singapore is the preferred one for the semi affluent. For the billionaire oligarchs New Zealand is the place to reside with their underground bunkers, and Philipino maids.
Nevertheless, I would like to see secession tried. The deplorables deserve something better.
We have a ‘multipolar’ world. The Five Eyes, Israel and NATO are enough. Good, decent, White, Western, Judeo-Christian ubermenschen. The ‘mere Asiatics’ have forgotten their place and will be punished for theirimpudence.
As an Austrayan who has watched the country go down the sewer since the USA overthrew our one decent, intelligent and principled Government, that of Whitlam, in 1975, I have long desired that we get our just desserts. Our groveling subservience to The Real Evil Empire, the USA, our readiness to join every Imperial aggression and genocide, our racist arrogance, our detestable abuse of the Indigenous, our rape of the natural world in pursuit of greedy excess, our mass stupidity, our overweening self-satisfaction, our role as one of the principal saboteurs of global action on climate destabilisation, our filthy hypocrisy in attacking China, our great benefactor who NEVER did us any harm, and myriad other abominations demand some comeuppance. I know it will harm the remaining good and the dull as dish-washer middle numbskulls as well as the teeming ranks of greedy, stupid, ignorant, racist shits, but it’s inescapable. Climate destabilisation, for a start, is already wreaking havoc, and it has barely begun.
That is Judaism-hatred in action. Those Jews who free themselves from the millennial indoctrination into xenophobic hatred, are generally the ‘self-hating’ type that the Talmudists and Zionazis abhor.
The Zionists also disposed of Kevin Rudd in a ubiquitous fashion of all others who don’t kowtow to the chosen people. What followed was total subservience.
The Indian elites signed a Satanic deal with the Zio elites
—————————————————————–
Interesting – Gandhi always knew the jews were up to no good.
Gottfried Feder — Manifesto for the Abolition of Enslavement to Interest on Money (1919)
Video Link
Economy can be driven only by increasing living standard of the people.
All other attempts are false and futile. Accumulation of wealth in the one percent is slowing down the economy. And it is also slowing down the circulation of money which is mortal danger to economy.
There is a whole lot of cash being run thru the USG, their agencies, their international crime organizations, and their buddies in the Federal Reserve type banks through out the world , but none of it makes it to the treasury for the country. And this has been going on for decades. This makes the looting of the Soviet Union like kindergarten economics. Just the dope money alone could keep another army or two in men and arms – for a long time . Even the word Treason – isn’t close to the real definition of this Crime.
“Chandraswami was a black magic holyman who was highly involved with Adnan Khashoggi, the Arab arms dealer as well as top American Generals, British Elites etc… Even the Filipino leader, Ferdinand Marcos, a Catholic, was a disciple of this slimeball Hindu tantric guru! Tantra is to Hinduism, what Kabbalah is to Judaism.”
Chandraswami was a Jain. Jains are a conniving lot. A Hindu maybe everything else but he is not without belief in God. In fact, he believes in way too many gods. The Jains, unlike Jews with whom they shares mercantile instincts and traits are a notoriously godless people.
It behooves an internet scholar like you (based on the copious amounts of copying and pasting you perform on UNZ) to spread falsehoods to viewers who either biased already against all things Hindu or India. If you have an ax to grind based on your personal experience or view of the Subcontinent, please add a warning to your tirades.
M.K. Gandhi was already dead by then and Mahatma Gandhi most probably had a homosexual relationship with a German Jewish architect Dr. Hermann Kallenbach.
The Indian Government purchased the Gandhi-Kallenbach Archives to prevent their auction by Sotheby’s in July 2012. The Indian government’ has stated that the purchase of the private correspondence of their cultural and socio-philosophical leader was to prevent it from being auctioned for profit, though there is speculation that this purchase was made due to a concern that these letters would reveal that Mahatma Gandhi may have been homosexual.
BTW the Gandhi I am talking about, who was trying to protect India from Zio Corporations and was assassinated by Mossad was Rajiv Gandhi who was the grandson of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Rajiv Gandhi’s Mom and Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi who too PM of India herself was married a dude (Rajiv’s Dad) with surname Gandhi unrelated to the Mahatma.
This is Rajiv Gandhi, who was not genetically related to Mahtma Gandhi but was the Grandson of Nehru, India’s first PM. Rajiv Gandhi was the last real defender of India from exploitation by Western Zio Corps. He was assassinated and immediately after that, the Indian market was soon thrown open to Zio Corps.
I’m not interested in the Mahatma’s sexuality. I was only pointing out that he saw the jews for what they were, real bad people.
This wealth-transfer scheme is systematic an deliberate within the USA, too.
Every crisis is used as an opportunity by the Federal Reserve to create money that goes in priority to the insiders within the financial industry, allowing them to extract and transfer to themselves ever-increasing wealth taken from the rest of the productive part of society.
https://wolfstreet.com/2021/03/19/i-truly-believe-that-we-the-rich-will-emerge-from-this-crisis-stronger-and-better-as-we-the-rich-have-done-so-often-before-jerome-powell-in-wsj-op-ed/
I met Michael Hudson at a conference in 2012 in Croatia and have great respect for him (he is referenced in my phd dissertation).
But he is wrong in my opinion when he discards Bretton Woods outright. At least if that includes Keynes’ proposal for an International Clearing Union, issuing a global currency, the “bancor”.
It seems that Hudson thinks that this needs to be a global currency only. My point is that China could and should launch a regional bancor type currency between cooperating partners.
I present this proposal here, slides from a talk.
First describing why the EU ought to convert the euro according to Keynes’ proposal. But then to why the EU won’t do this. So, finally how China could establish such a currency. Which then may gradually encompass more countries.
A most interesting pair of linked remarks sir. What especially struck me is something that I have written about at length on here, but which very few people are aware of or seem able to grasp, which is that, as you rightly say, Capitalism leads to Communism eventually.
Until very recently I would not have gone so far as you regarding, for example, the masses not being allowed to own anything and only being fed if they comply with all the party’s ordinances. This is, of course, pure Nineteen Eighty-Four. I note that Andrew Anglin has been pushing this same line almost since the start of the Covid nonsense.
I am now beginning to dread that he and you might just be right.
The big thing about Breton Woods was Bancor. It was a system of payment made between nation and nation on behalf of a nation’s industries. It obviated the need for one nation’s currency, such as the US dollar, to become the world reserve currency. If Bancor had been adopted, as proposed by Britain, then the world would not be in the abysmal financial state it is now.
The US, however, wanted to adopt the Ponzi scheme we have today, which was always designed with financial implosion ultimately. Hence today’s crisis, brought about by both the rentier and dollar Ponzi scheme was planned right from the start, long before Breton Woods was even suggested.
Interesting that Hudson purposely does not mention the excellent Bancor scheme, which rather suggests he is obfuscating and deviating from the true facts of the matter.
Also telling no mention of Cecil Rhodes and the modern day influence he has through the Rhodes Scholarships. Rhodes was THE Imperialist who founded all the worst financial aspects of both the Rothschild Empire, (funded entirely by the Rothschilds that you know as the British Empire) and the USA.
Very interesting that Hudson knows what side his bread is buttered on by not mentioning either Rhodes or the ultimate greed merchants the Rothschild Banking Empire.
Pepe Escobar is out of his depth on this one and I feel he should stick to journalism and travel writing, which is his forte. Pepe is well meaning so we should give him the benefit of the doubt, but Hudson is being disingenuous in bit stating the obvious.
Despite this interesting article. I always prefer the transcript which allows you to concentrate on the facts and not get distracted by personality.
What are you? a low IQ bafoon? He might have been born a Jain but the guy was a Tantrik holyman. Jains might be godless or not, Jains and Hindus mix seamlessly now a days, most Jains worship Hindu Gods along with Mahavira. And Tantrik is close to Hinduism, it is esoteric Hinduism.
And as far as Chandraswami having nothing to do with Hindus, you lie again. Remember all that Ganpati/Ganesh idols drinking milk craze which took over India decades ago, when the rumour spread around India and even Nepal, that Hindu Elephant God Ganesh was suddenly miraculously drinking milk. Millions of Hindus lined up in front of temples (my grandparents included) to feed Lord Ganesh idols milk, like a bunch of low IQ idiots.
Well, guess who started that rumour? Jain boy Chndraswami. He may not be Hindu but he surely knew how to fool us. Chandraswami was to be arrested so he started this rumour to make some social scene to escape. And the rumour became much more successful than even he expected, we are dumber than he thought!
Video Link
The ‘milk miracle’ that brought India to a standstill
Falsehoods? You need to get your head out of your smelly ass I write against Islam and Christianity too, most of my comments have nothing much to do with Hinduism and India.
If you wanna be such a hero for Bharat mata why don’t you debate with guys like barr or KA on Unz, who deny the Islamic genocide of Hindus. I have met many like you before on Unz like sher singh attacking me for not giving a perfect image of “Bahrat mata” and “Hindu Dharma” infront of these mlaeccha foreigners but when guys like KA were denying Hindu genocide by the Muslim invader hordes to India, all of them ran away peeing, leaving me along to fight for Hindus. They were like Hindus were perfectly happy under Islamic rule LOL, when pointed to Islamic writers themselves writing about genocide, the slimeballs changed tone and claimed “they were exaggerating’.
Or why don’t you debate the huge anti-India Chinese Wumao army on Unz with guys like showmethereal, denk, ddan, Chinaman etc… Again desi folks like you whom I had encountered on Unz, ran away peeing in their pants when facing the CCP Wumao Army, leaving me alone to take them on.
More Michael Hudson Hogwash, backed up by Pepe the marxist Escobar.
Earth to Michael Hudson: From 1918-1990 it was “The USSR” not Russia. The USSR was one giant Judaic Communist Death Camp for Christians. Hudson’s beloved Jews killed far more Russians than “Nazis” ever did. Today, the “Neo-Nazis” in Ukraine are cardboard cutouts who are paid by and under the control of the very same jews that Germany tried to free the USSR from. Escobar and Hudson are a couple of circus clowns paid by their jewish circus owners.
Not sure about that. The problem has now become much clearer: it is not the use of the USD as world reserve and trade currency which was the problem, but rather that the USD was debased by first ceasing its convertibility to gold in 1971, then inflating its quantity to levels incompatible with productive economies.
What Keynes wanted was to promote the British Pound as part of a basket of currencies used for international settlements, to preserve Britain’s power. But Keynes also was all for money creation by the central banks insiders, so they can transfer wealth to themselves from the productive sections of society.
It is greatly because of Keynes, the charlatan and ideological minion of the financial oligarchy, whose theories justified insane money creation, that Western economy reached its current disastrous situation.
The problem is US elite malevolence, end of story.
M. Hudson speaks well of Modern Monetary Theory but MMT is what they have in the USA, is he not happy with how MMT is working in the USA?
I like the self-description-bafoon. Half buffoon, half baboon. India is stuffed, by Hindutva fascism, Islamophobia in league with the Zionazis, caste viciousness and trying to suck up to the White Boss altogether too obsequiously.
Looks like immiseration for the masses to me.
… And we’re off to the races! Lots of nattering, question-begging and hand-wringing about how people who own the world run the world — which according to reactionary USA libertarians is exactly how things should work, so I can’t figure out why is there so much fussing about it here…
If only we knew… [Insert 70 years of Chomsky discourse on linguistics and political economy]
Finish up with a boilerplate disclainer:
(This content was lifted from Henry George School of Social Science and so far no one has said take it down)
Then the real reason for this fussing appears; it’s always in the comments, if not otherwise sluiced into the article itself:
Unz readers: Space-lizards have used their silencing rays on Hudson (Oh noes!) and Pepe! (Whew, thank god). Who is going to confront the space-lizards? This injustice must not stand!
The problem is not that owners of the world run the world, but the outrageous event that un-white dudez are the owners!
And there we have it, another lazy day at the races.
I don’t get how a guy who seems so bright, Hudson, can’t see past the Talmudic nonsense. Unless, of course, they are greasing him like they do with Pepe.
I notice none of the Reds on Unz ever address the issue of Big Tech and Papa Xi building and perfecting a surveillance state in China then bringing it to America to ‘protect’ us from ‘evil white supremacists’. No, they will never admit Xi is doing that.
I don’t buy that Putin or Xi are my enemy. I’m much more concerned about Pres.Netanyahoo and the Jew Looting Operation run from London and NYC.
Now if Hudson, Pepe and the Reds want to take Vulture Judaism Inc. to trial for RICO, mass murder-911, 7 countries, Gaddafi’s gold and genocide I’m all in. Let us wipe the Debt World wide.
Jubilee for everyone.
Suddenly, there would be a lot of formerly wealthy people looking for rocks to hide under. Thag would be pretty funny to watch, especially Bibi and Gates.
China and Russia will make their own destiny.
The Jews are a paper tiger which can hurl a lot of bodies into the furnace but they’re doomed to lose.
That’s it.
I think that one has to understand that Michael Hudson is a man who has carefully nurtured his career, and who therefore understands that he cannot ‘touch the third rail’ – which, as we all know, means naming the Jew. Anyone who does so in today’s Jewocracy commits career suicide. In fact, this interview is the first time I have ever heard Hudson so much as hint at any negative factor in which the finger of blame might be pointed at Jews, where, speaking of the Neo-Cons, he says “there’s a pathological emotional desire for war with Russia, largely stemming from the fact that the Tzars were anti-Semitic and there’s still the hatred about their ancestors”. That’s about as close as I’ve ever heard him come to naming the Jew.
Yes, Hudson is a man of the Left – very possibly influenced by his father, who was very much a Marxist. But that does not detract from the accuracy of his insights into economics, and especially with regard to the American strategy since 1945, which has been deliberately to subjugate the rest of the world to a particularly exploitative, unsustainable, callous, cruel and indeed vindictive economic hegemony that we might think of as the Neo-Liberal world order, enforced by the Jewish mafia that croaks triumphantly by night and day in the Great Prepuce-free Swamp on the Potomac.
What I think we have to take away regarding Hudson, is that he is the one leading economist who not only understands that ‘something is rotten in the state of Denmark’ but who is prepared to risk quite a lot in saying so. He’s no Hjalmar Schacht – and certainly not a political figure around whom we might rally our banners – but he’s a jolly sight better than anyone else I know of in today’s economic field.
I usually at least skim anything Hudson writes, but I always find fault with something he says within the first few sentences, but you are correct that he is often right on target. To give him the benefit of the doubt, his heart may be in the right place, but his brain is hopelessly damaged by judeo/marxist/communist dogma. There are many talented authors on the left who fall into this same genre. In general they do practice what they preach and are not hypocrites, so I must at least give that acknowledgement.
Unlike someone of equal stature on the right, Hudson and Escobar are continually provided a paid platform for passing on their white washing of history. They never get banned from twitter, facebook or youtube. They constantly get coverage in media like Huffpo or Dailybeast. I guess we could call this “greasing”.
For all their complaining and faux protests about “capitalism” and “the right”, you also never see them take a strong, principled stand against voices from the other side of the political spectrum who have been taken down or “cancelled”.
It is a blood feud the Western Occident has with Russia. The slaughter of the Czar and his family has yet to be avenged among our fading autocratic members of Old Western Europe. They now sit quietly behind the scenes in Lichtenstein, Windsor Castle, Spain, Monaco and southern France. The centerpiece of this one hundred year old (not seventy years) hatred can be crystallized with a single word, Bolshevism. It has a remnant in Russian society today but not within the circles of their apparatchiks or intelligence services. Putin is a billionaire and so are his close associates, even a musician friend or two…
The bombing of innocent children in Iraq left many to wander the streets in shock, some still remain among the living, a youth who will forever be, blind, deaf and dumb from explosions and blast waves…Putin had to witness the brutal annihilation of Libya’s economy and civil order, the sodomizing and murder of Qaddafi, these events provoked him and more importantly the techno savvy spirit of Russia, symbolized by that first satellite in space-Sputnik.
ASIDE: Not to wander too far off my original point but I’m old enough to recall the USA’s initial reaction; if they can send a radio beacon from space then they can drop an A-Bomb on us from space! Typical Pentagon thinking and shows a retrograde group who belong to the sons of Cain.
Now Pentagon officials are in awe of the most recent Russian Electronic Warfare achievements. A reaction, in direct response to our ground troops use of EW devises during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A remarkable learning curve for the Russians who, with a meager two trillion dollar economy now haunts NATO by deploying Borisoglebsk-2, Krasukha-2 EW and associated battle line vehicles that will leave our land and air forces, blind, deaf and dumb.
Again, what was the Pentagon response? not an urgent request to engage in negotiations by representatives within the DC beltway. Rather, to park new and extremely dangerous hyper sonic missile deployments aimed at Moscow-delivered to the target within five minutes without any warning time given or Russian EW counter available.
Yes, the tears of many victims were heard above and as they were left hopelessly crippled, so are we with advanced weaponry of Russias’ EW. Perhaps the Lords response? (for non believers) a cosmic intervention and re balancing of great power(s) on Earth. In any case, a fair warning not to abuse the authority vested in us, USA and Western Occident powers-by default, since WW II. I extend a similar warning to certain Zionists who hide behind Gods favoritism gifted to the offspring of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. That is, do not misuse the greater intelligence and worldly powers I the Lord, have bestowed on and entrusted to you; this preference was not intended for the darkness of domination and control, lest Israel finds itself dis-inherited, abandoned, left without wisdom high intelligence or place!
MMT run by the Banksters is “all for my pocket“, while MMT run by responsible politicians is “all for building the country’s real economy“.
This is the difference between MMT in the USA and MMT in China, but Pr Hudson cannot say it for fear of being labelled an “Anti-Semite”.
Sorry but this article is nonsense. Hudson and his side kick Escobar refuse to tell truth about the Jewish control of America and the World’s economy. From the Fed to the economic pathways of European nations all money runs through the Jewish Bankers and it will never change. Gaddafi tried to screw with the Jewish bankers by organizing the oil producing nations of Africa and forming their own group and using the gold standard. Obama and NATO destroyed all of Libya. Perhaps the worst foreign policy decision in recent history but Israel always gets what it wants no matter what harm it does to the rest of the world. Check Killary Clinton’s emails about Gaddafi.
Nothing will ever change with Hudson because he’s in their pocket. No one can objectively look at the world’s economy and not see what is going on unless you can’t handle the truth.
“What are you? a low IQ bafoon? He might have been born a Jain but the guy was a Tantrik holyman. Jains might be godless or not, Jains and Hindus mix seamlessly now a days, most Jains worship Hindu Gods along with Mahavira. And Tantrik is close to Hinduism, it is esoteric Hinduism.”
It’s you, most likely, a mongrol half breed, who is most akin to a “a low IQ buffoon!” Jains don’t mix with Hindus, go read up on their petition to the Indian Supreme Court to classify them as a distinct and separate creed. The only thing they worship out of the Hindu pantheon are Ganesha and Laxmi and not for right reasons. It’s their innate greed that makes them pay obeisance. Their “temples” are dedicated to twenty four individuals who did NOT have virgin birth. Tantric practice, a foul one at best, may be from some dark corner of the Sanatan Dharma and might have been practiced by the Jain con artist like Chandra-fucking-Swami or that other Jain- fuck, Rajneesh (he of fifty Rolls Royce fame in Oregon… luckily, the CIA took care of his ass while he was in lock up in Charlotte, NC) doesn’t make either of them Hindus.
Just like a Jew remains a Jew regardless of his conversion to the Christian faith (which he does either to undermine it or to hide his true identity when committing nefarious acts thus morons blaming Christianity not Judaism) a Jain is always a Jain irrespective of his conversion because his intentions are wicked. Back in the 90s, when I was at UNC, some Jains crooks were caught selling drugs with a Jamaican gang but when the time came to disclose their creed, they answered, (can you guess?) Hinduism. Imagine practicing Jains pretending to be Hindus so that their thieving community won’t be blamed at large. So don’t you be selling no snake oil around here because I smell your bullshit all the way up the Hudson Valley!
Very interesting read. I’ve noticed that among many Americans, the belief in a free market or capitalism turns into a quazi religious fervor where nothing can be questioned or real world application appraised. Many people won’t admit that, like most systems, a free market capitalistic system is still open to abuse and corruption. It IS possible for powerful and greedy actors to take advantage of the system and drive others into debt slavery and general marginalization. OF course, this does not mean that socialism or communism are the answers; But people need to get out of the mindset of simplistic, one size fits all answers to complicated problems.
As far as private vs public, some things like clothing should obviously be private. Some things like roads and utilities, should be public. Where you draw the line in each situation is of course, open to nuance and fine tuning. But almost all functional and prosperous economies in history had a strong element of private AND public ownership. Wealthy, greedy people must be restrained from destroying everything and everyone.
I look at these writers as part information, part disinformation. They certainly have some valid and good points, but they beat around the bush alot, or wallow in disgusting praise for China and Russia, or anything non western. Why can’t they rightfully point out the problems in the west, and still see that the east is also ruthlessly tyrannical and corrupt as well?
The idea of them “greasing” pepe makes me chuckle. Maybe that is why he is always squinting with a look of pain on his face. LOL
Do all Indians practice suttee?
I agree, this is a deep and wide discussion by two very knowledgeable people. But they are being cautious. My solution – nationalize the Fed, and put the bankers who currently own the Fed in prison for the largest financial fraud in history. An expanding economy needs an expanding money supply, and the US Constitution gives Congress the right to create that new money. But criminal bankers have bribed and blackmailed Congress into borrowing that new money from private bankers behind the screen of the so-called “Federal” Reserve Bank. Thus, these bankers get needlessly rich, and the taxpayers go needlessly into debt. This scam was instituted with the creation of the so-called “Bank of England”, and replicated in America two centuries later (on the third try). The City of London remains the center of this banking clique, with Wall Street as its primary tentacle. The principle men in this clique are Talmudists, which is why Israel’s wars are their pet project, and why they treat goyim like livestock to be milked and slaughtered. A sketch of how this hidden Nation of Israel conquered the British Empire, first the financial sector, then the press, then the politicians, and then conquered American with the same strategy, is given in
“War Profiteers and Israel’s Bank”
https://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com/p/war-profiteers-and-israels-bank.html
Free market is great.
59 Americans own more wealth than half the country and the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans have more than the rest of 99% combined.
I agree on the root of the problem (see my parallel comment). But I don’t think Hudson is in their pocket because he sneaks in too many statements they would not want said in public. I think he’s being cautious, but trying to move the discussion toward the truth while maintaining his professional credibility. That credibility is a useful tool in this process. And nobody wants to end up like JFK or White House aide John Wheeler.
Bingo!
The Indian regime has been notably treacherous, but that, I believe, is the influence of Hindutva fascism, Zionazi suborning through mutual Islamophobia and the influence of the Overseas Indians, particularly in the USA. Upper caste delusion that they can join the club of ‘Chosen People’, doesn’t help, and then there is rage at China so completely outperforming them. Sad. Perhaps, if humanity survives….but enough of day-dreams.
They do leave out the JQ, and other important factors like the extreme tyranny and corruption of the east. However, I don’t think it is fare to say that the article is nonsense. Hudson does do a good job of explaining elements of the neo feudal rentier economy, and how (((finance))) ruins everything it touches. I’m with you about Gaddafi and he state of the global system in general, but I don’t think Hudson in particular deserves such a harsh condemnation. He does make a number of valid points. Also, WASPs and other wealthy, greedy whites share much of the blame for the state of things with the Jews.
Do all followers of Odin practice the Scandinavian version of the same? If they don’t then my guess is that that pernicious practice was limited to the so called martial people of Rajasthan, who were in the forefront of Muslim invasions back in the day. If it happens today then it could be for financial reasons, just like opioid addicted Whites break into their mothers’ houses to satisfy craving but aren’t really thieves (or are they?). Do let me know, gotmituns!
It’s almost as if they don’t need the ‘useless eaters’ anymore, and expect them to disappear.
Dear Trond,
Good to hear from you. I’m all for Keynes’s bancor. but that’s not how Bretton Woods ended up, as I describe in Super Imperialism. So we really don’t have an argument. (I’ve misplaced your e-mail from our earlier correspondence.)
He just keeps telling us that the %1 are exploiting the %99 through a financial economic system that the %1 created and perpetuated for the benefit of the %1.
OK! Mike. I get it. You have written and spoke untold thousands of words telling us about the evils of the financial economic system.
Now for once could you write or say a few words about what and how something can be done about it.
How do the %99 go about changing the financial economic system.
Voting??? for a change. Really!
You are essentially calling for Revolutionary change in the political economic system.
Again. Please say something about how that happens.
You are steeped in history back to Babylonia. You must have some idea about how the poor and disenfranchised make a revolutionary change in a political economic system.
@Mulga Mumblebrain
I would be very interested to know what you mean by the reaction “Troll”. You seem to use it in for me inexplicable ways, when I do not see anything indicating that the commenter is a shill for anybody or trying to disrupt the forum, but is simply expressing his own opinion. If representing or supporting some ideology consistently is being a “Troll” then are we not all “Trolls”? If you mean by it that you disagree, then should you not use the more appropriate “Disagree” button?
In any case, you could do worse than follow Malla’s suggestion of reading Douglas Reed (Zionist Controversy). It might change your view of Malla as being a “Troll”.
Rather than deal with the problem when they should have, post WW1 or the 30’s, the can got kicked down the road. Now look at the mess.
Declare money a public utility that is analogous to water.
No one gets to sh@t in the well, pee in the well or poison it.
I did the same thing – lol. But yeah it’s always great when these two guys get together. Sadly – the majority of the populace won’t hear them.
Jun 5, 2020 The Great Reset Launch | Highlights
“The Great Reset” will be the theme of a unique twin summit to be convened by the World Economic Forum in January 2021. In-person and virtual dialogues will address the need for a more fair, sustainable and resilient future, and a new social contract centred on human dignity, social justice and where societal progress does not fall behind economic development.
Video Link
Nov 13, 2015 The Technocratic Agenda: Sustainable Development and Climate Eugenics
Today Patrick Wood of Technocracy.news joins us once again to discuss the upcoming COP21 Climate Conference in Paris and how it plays into the technocrats’ plan to control the world’s resources and implement genocidal eugenics-based austerity.
Video Link
Yeah that is true, Worship Laxmi and Ganesh, to make more money, I agree.
I agree Jains are a distinct people than us Hindus, they always have been. Sure Chandraswami was born a Jain, I was not even aware of it until you pointed it out. Thanks. Even Rajneesh/ Osho was born a Jain.
But compared to all other religion folks, Jains and Hindus get along better in India.
Well I am not a big fan of the Hinduvadis on most things and they have a thing for Jews and Israel but Hinduvadis have nothing to suck up to Whitey. I do not know why many Muslims and Chinese commentators push this idea which is false. Hindutva is as much anti-Western and anti-Christian in nature as it is anti-Islamic. Agree with this or not, it is a native movement, a Indian movement which looks at Abrahamic faiths (not Jews) as alien to the Indian subcontinent and which needs to be scrubbed clean from the subcontinent or become Hinduised or “Indianised”. That is how they look at themselves, as a native movement trying to scrub off “foreign things” or to “Indianize” them.
Even though I am not a fan of them, I see many Chinese and Muslims here lying about them. What you forget is that though the Hindutva RSS organization did not take any part in anti-British activities, the anti-British movement after the 1900s was particularly Hindu and based on “Hindu fascist” ideology. Many of the revolutionaries who attacked British officers and proudly went to the gallows were influenced by Hindutva like ideas of Mother India and Vande Mataram. Read Sir Valentine Chirol’s excellent book “Indian Unrest” on this subject. Some like Bhagat Singh was influenced by Communism (yet the anti-Communist Hinduvadis own him as their own LOL) and sure there were Muslims who took part. But most Muslim ulemas were writing love letters to the British Government to not weaken British rule when the Jew Samuel Montague was working to internally dissolve British Raj. This was obvious as they Muslims were a minority, they were falling behind Hindus in education and after the mutiny the British had (wrongly) solely blamed them fro the mutiny and destroyed Islamic power in India. So for Muslims, British rule meant security from the Hindu majority.
The Chinese look at themselves as Revolutionary heroes fighting Western Imperialists and try to fit everyone in that conception which is childish. Anybody who does not go along with them is automatically put in “White ass kiss” territory. And Muslims support this with gusto as anybody who gets close to the West is now a days seen as evil and despicable and many Muslims would LOVE to put us there.. But this does not fools Hindus. India does what it does for her own interests/security though I agree there are pro-American forces in India. Hinduvadi is no way White ass kiss. In India, the Chinese are (rightly or wrongly) seen as Imperialists just like White people are.
Right you are.
Biden did spend 2 trillions on covid, and now he wants 2 trillion for roads and bridges.
That is 4 trillion in in one months. From where he gets the money?
Obviously he will borrow it from 1%. I do not think that US will ever pay back the national debt.
But cheerio to Biden. He will screw the 1% really hard. He will never pay back the trillions.
“When America issues dollars, [] what can foreign central banks do with them? All they really can do is lend them back to the United States Government. [] The dollars have gone out, but foreign countries can’t cash them in for gold.”
I see this repeated everywhere, but I really don’t understand it. What is there to stop individuals, countries, and banks buying gold with their US dollars? In Thailand, anyone can walk into a gold shop and buy pure gold, for THB, USD, or whatever. In Brown’s Bottom, Tony Blair’s gang sold half of Britain’s gold at rock-bottom. Couldn’t any central bank have scooped up a few kilos in exchange for paper dollars?
Point out the specific disinformation if that is the claim. Or you just don’t like that they are more eastern oriented?
You made a good point about SCO and BRICS. India doesn’t know what it wants to do. If you are truly “non aligned” then you can’t join western led gangs. That said – they did agree with the other BRICS nations to use the New Development Bank to make loans in local currencies – which is happening. But it is a valid question as to where they go from here.
Good talk. I heard Hudson mention Operation Gladio. Lots of people here should go read about that one.
Not a big fan of Lula but he is a good example of why commies tend to be a little violent and “authoritarian”. What choice is there, kill or be killed. Even a center-right social democrat like Lula will be overthrown and thrown in prison by the capitalists, if they’re lucky.
Drug epidemic is a eugenics program. Opioids, crack, all of it a CIA, capitalist eugenics program. Probably a big part of the reason for Covid and them intentionally letting it spread.
Yall think having these capitalist monopolies on information, media, and speech is unfair, wait until they have complete control over your food and water, not too far off..
War is coming, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the big cities these days
Whats this deep state that we keep hearing about….?
http://whale.to/a/sars2.htm
Is it possible to get rid of the “rent” at all? People do accumulate wealth by all sorts of means which are invented for discovered by people in the powerful position but also to some extent by hard work and or luck. This wealth will sit idle or be used to generate more wealth or power new discovery research or commerce or even war . This has been human history and this will remain so. A few of the many ways rentier economy can be controlled are by applying anti trust laws ,preventing monopolies ,allow competitor or create competitors and allowing patent to expire in 10-15 years and by applying the national security clause . Big is not beautiful nor healthy for democracy or for republic.
Capitalism has so quickly degenerated into current decrepit state because it has allowed many inconsistencies ,contradictions at CEO level ,at the board of director levels ,and by allowing “insider”manipulation through the revolving door -based nexus between private and public ,by allowing the money and not expertise (also not relevance ) dictate merger and acquisition .Why will an oil drilling company be allowed to by a media or steel company ? Why a health care business be allowed to be bought by a defense lobbying firm or hedge fund that deals with movie industries or media or invest in derivative market?
Capitalism is normal human instinct and behavior. Precisely for that reason ,its success depends on nurturing ,regulation control and transparency.
If I heard him correctly , he appears to be suggesting that the US is only interested in its own survival and will willingly sacrifice its European allies. It probably won’t come to that , but do you honestly put it pass our ruling elite!
Theoretically, the Romans could have nipped this gang in the bud.
The way to make money a public utility is to nationalize the money creation process, i.e. nationalize the Fed. As the economy grows and an increased money supply is needed, the government (the people) would create the new money, as per the Constitution. They would spend it on infrastructure and other projects to benefit the public, i.e. the “commons”. Infrastructure would be created, and people would be hired to do those jobs. That’s what they did in England before the banksters wangled their Bank of “England” into existence. The new money is then owned by the public, and spent to benefit the public. It is a “public utility”. The current system of letting private bankers create the new money, then having the public borrow money from them for infrastructure, and then pay it back, with interest(!) is an Alice in Wonderland level of insanity. It’s disguised behind economic jargon from economists funded by the banksters. It’s like the cigarette companies funding scientists to tell us that smoking cigarettes had nothing to do with lung cancer. Deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra would say.
This is the folly that, unless reversed by some miracle, will rightly condemn Australia to a century or two of poverty-stricken irrelevance, if not worse.
You nailed it.
Rudd wasn’t a shadow of the statesman that Whitlam was, and in fact I couldn’t stand the pompous little bastard.
But at least he had the right idea, and within the limits of his abilities he tried to lead Australia into a deeper engagement with China.
When Gillard knifed Rudd in the back, people thought it was all about Julia Gillard becoming Australia’s first female Prime Minister.
No it wasn’t.
Suttee ended more than a century ago.
Suttee is different from Jauhar. Hindu and Sikh women committing suicide jumping into fire with their children to avoid falling to invading Muslim armies to be raped or enslaved was Jauhar. It was common among Rajput and Sikhs and after their wives and children committed collective mass suicide, the Rajput menfolk would go and fight the Islamic invader armies to the death, this practice was called Saca . Though most of this was common in the North west, there had been few cases of Jauhar in Southern India too.
Muslim kingdoms actually tried to stop suttee of Hindu women in their realms but were half assed in their prohibition. Sati was finally stamped out only with the British.
Well I did not read your whole answer.
Is that what you call your mom, you stupid diseased slut.
I am not selling no snake oil, you stupid smelly monkey. Among all the populations in India who outsiders would not be able to make apart from Hindus are Jains.
But thanks for that Jamaican example anyways. It is very interesting. That is real Jew type behaviour by those Jains
Jains are mostly Gujrathis and Marwaris. But I have come across Maharashtra Jains and Kannad (Karnataka) Jains too but they are a minority. Gujaratis and Marwaris either Hindu or Jain have a reputation of being mercantile, miserly and blood suckers. Even Muslim Bohra Gujrathis have a reputation for being good businessmen and most mercantile Parsis are from Gujrat as well.
That is why I mentioned Tantra is to Hinduism what Kabbalah is to Judaism. Tantrik Hindu gurus are a plenty and many of them are involved in some form of black magic. But right handed Tantra is not black magic but only the left handed one. Just recently in South India a family killed their own children for some black Magic ritual because some Hindu holymen convinced them that they would be reincarnated. These kind of guys are a plenty in India. You have lived in the USA for too long.
Video Link
Two young women in their 20s were killed allegedly by their parents inside their three-storey home in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district, the police said. Both were apparently participating in a puja ritual and were hit with a dumbbell, the police said, adding that it seems to be a case of occult practices. “The scene of crime suggests some rituals were carried out; the women were clad in a red saree and the parents appeared to be highly delusional,” police officer M Chidananda Reddy told media.
The belief that there can be a solution without a violent revolution at some point seems very much a pack of wishful thinking. It takes organization and a point of view to justify that organization to push forward social and political change. We are in this situation now because the opponents to the rentier class are a bunch of wimps.
Michael Hudson has a body of economic thought that can serve the same role as Marxism in the 19th century. The problem is the same now. That body of thought needs to step out of the academic world and take on a life of its own as did Marxism. Passion and conviction will have to inform it, and the passionate will have to take up the mission, commit to the demands of revolution and push for change by all means available.
This will mean war. The consequences of that war will be beneficial and destructive at the same time. We will not get a clean solution, but we may get a solution. Hard people most likely without a clear understanding of the theory but strong motives to implement it and the organizational skills to do it will have to come forth. I do not doubt that Michael Hudson and the rest of the above participants will be horrified by the direction people who claim this work will move if Hudson’s thought becomes the basis of an economic and political revolution.
MMT is essentially tautological, it is circular reasoning around sectoral balance, that’s the reason why it could be realized as MMT for the bankers or MMT for the rest, it covers everything so it says nothing.
Also, you write “responsible politicians”. Come on Iris, in western democracies that creature is less real than the unicorn.
MMT conceptualizes the State as the origin of wealth. MMT believes that the State creates wealth and then delivers it as spending and removes it as taxes. MMT believes that taxes are the reason why people want money. Those are absurd propositions. People create wealth, the State sucks it from people. That’s how things work. MMT is just another silly concoction put together by leftist economists and applied by neoliberal statepeople.
Hudson is worried about debt and write books about debt, he praises MMT, and MMT says debts are not important for the sovereign, wtf? Maybe he harmonizes the contradiction by thinking that the sovereign pretends to be constrained by debt, in order to help neofeudal finance lords?
Their praise for China and Russia (you can throw in Iran if you wish) is by no stretch of the imagination ‘disgusting’. These countries sit in exact counterpoise to the Zio-American Western hegemony, in that Zio-America espouses Finance Capitalism, whereas China and Russia practice Industrial Capitalism – the two being implacable foes. Therefore, Hudson et al ‘rightfully point out the problems in the west’ without vilifying the East for a very good reason.
One must bear in mind that the West exterminated Industrial Capitalism’s 20th-century political manifestations in a war for Finance Capitalism’s future. Had the German and Italian National Socialist/Fascist models prevailed, it spelt the end for that future. They knew they had to wipe the German and Italian models off the face of the earth, and then bury them beneath a moraine of propaganda that must never for one moment let up, lest the people would come to see just what these vermin had done and how they had been tricked into fighting their own salvation, and ‘winning’, at huge loss of blood and treasure, a ‘victory’ that was nothing less than their own nemesis.
Imagine that for a moment: the people had willingly swapped their salvation for their nemesis because of Jewish lies and trickery. Then imagine a world in which this became common knowledge. Then look at ‘Chopkins’ (as Mefobills recently re-named C J Hopins) here at Unz Review, with his unending invocations of ‘the ebil Naaazzziiis’ in each and every one of his propagandist offerings. He is a dissembling rogue, who hides his anti-Fascist’ (read ‘pro-Finance Capitalism’) agenda under the cloak of railing at modernity’s Orwellian face. If we might stick with Orwell for a moment, he is very like O’Brien in Nineteen Eighty-Four: pretending to be a dissident, while all the while luring the likes of poor Winston Smith into the clutches of ‘The Party’, and ultimately a visit to the dreaded ‘Room 101’.
China, and to a lesser extent Russia and Iran, are contemporary manifestations of Fascism/National Socialism. To the unutterable horror of the prepuce-free swamp on the Potomac, Hitler and Mussolini sit reincarnated in Beijing and Moscow. These are not developments that I, for one, find ‘disgusting’. Quite the contrary.
Any country in the world could, at a mere signal of intent, join with these exponents of a new world, whose beneficiaries will be ordinary people, in the SCO/BRI ‘Great World Island’ that is Eurasia. It is surely the very deepest irony that in Nineteen Eighty-Four ‘Oceania’ (that’s America and the UK plus Australasia in Orwell’s terms) had, as the novel makes clear, ‘always been at war with Eurasia’! (Except for when it was at war with ‘Eastasia – the two between them comprising China, Russia and the rest of the East).
Michael, good to hear from you, too!
I have to admit that this was my suspicion. But I chose to interpret you a bit critically in the hope that you would respond. So we are on the same page regarding Keynes’ International Clearing Union/bancor proposal. And of course, I agree with your view on the actual result of Bretton Woods.
The problem with Keynes’ excellent 1944 idea was that it was an all or nothing proposal. Which was quite understandable, considering that the agenda was to establish a world monetary system.
Today however, this may perfectly well be achieved by doing it regionally, for the EU (which sadly won’t happen as I explain in my presentation ), or organised by China (see the final pages), which I predict will happen (I hope Pepe Escobar will write about this, or has he already?). This would be an immense boon for the world, both economically and geopolitically. South East Asia and Russia would probably join, and then it could spread further.
Btw, you and I both know the good guys in the Modern Money Theory (MMT) crowd. I am an MMT supporter myself. But the leading MMT people seem to be stuck to a dogma of “flexible exchange rates”. Which results in opposition to bancor-type proposals. Because there exchange rates are set by the supranational Clearing Union, following a feedback rule. (Even being economically a [Norwegian] nationalist, I have no problem with that sort of supranational arrangement.)
_____
* Since my field is control systems, this shines through, but hopefully it is readable for the interested anyway.
Exactly so, as China did for the last 4 decades, with the process leading to the extraordinarily successful developmental effort that has transformed that country beyond recognition.
China’s success definitely isn’t an “Alice in Wonderland” type de delusion; it highlights the incompetent and criminal nature of Western political classes, who had at hand the same economic tools, only to lead us in the situation of abject failure and economic disaster we are in.
And now, after “extending and pretending” for 50 years with sterile exponential money creation directed mostly at their Bankster patrons, they will keep up the trick show going a little longer by manipulating the Covid19 situation, probably created and blown out of proportion for that purpose in the first place.
They will engage in some bogus economic “Reset” based on the pillars of tackling climate change and preventing future pandemics, which real purpose will be as ever to extract more taxes and fund more insane imperial military operations against China, Russia or both.
A “Reset” planned and managed by the same criminals who got us in the socio-economic disaster we found ourselves in; truly an “Alice in Wonderland” level of insanity.
“But compared to all other religion folks, Jains and Hindus get along better in India.”
I would not dispute the accuracy of that statement.
The so called Gujarati, Marathi and Kannada Jains are all Marwadis who had migrated out of the G-d forsaken desert of economically deprived land of the rajas, i.e. Rajasthan over eons.
But more importantly, Hinduism is full of faults and it should be blamed for it but not for economic and other egregious misdeeds of non Hindus because they can pass for Hindus and then take cover under it.
If a Jew commits a crime, no one blames Christians for it though both have white skin. Both Harvey Weinstein and Bernie Madoff were sent to jail and neither of them tried to pass themselves off as Christians; they took their punishment like real mensch!
Great transcript of a great interview. Many thanks. Transcription of these interviews surely spreads this material further by many magnitudes. I wish others would transcript their podcast interviews. I just don’t have the time to listen to them. 16k-plus words, easy. Hours-long podcast not so much.
There is one example. The modern US orchestrated coup is NOT the descendant of the WW2 Germans. I was speaking more generally though about Hudson, Escobar, Saker, Karlin, etc. They often omit important facts like the Chinese one child policy, the hundreds of millions of abortions in Russia since 1955, the social credit system, covid response, etc. The East is perhaps not on the same team as the west per se, but they are tyrannical and EVIL in many ways even worse than the west.
And they all have to go back to ww2 and glorify the soviets. The soviets were dogs and the enemy of actual Christian Russians. They exterminated millions of their own people; they were NOT great warriors and lost 5 to one casualties even against tiny Finland. the Endless demonization of the nazis plays right into the hand of the NWO jewish oligarchy.
So their not all wrong, and they do make some good points. But by lying abut some things, and omitting or distorting others, they are certainly part disinformation.
Oceana is also Atlantacism, which in turn is globo-homo.
America became fully part of Oceana by the time of Teddy Roosevelt’s great white fleet in 1907, or rather was challenging Britain’s right to mercantilism and taking rake offs on “international banking credit.”
Teddy was also involved in the Spanish American War (1898) as the “rough rider.” He was also a useful idiot for our (((friends))) when they funded the Bull Moose party, to then split the ticket from Taft in 1912.
America was both land power and atlantacism, in a tug of war. The worlds future actually hinged on this battle of ideologies, and of course the “bad guys” won. They consolidated their win by forcing America into WW1.
McKinley would represent industrial capitalism (sovereign credit)/rail roads/army. America wasn’t the world island, but instead was a continental land mass in McKinley’s world view. And this land mass was to join up to Russia with a rail link.
Teddy would be an avatar for Atlantacist/rim theory/deep water navy/finance international.
I strongly disagree. The Saker, Escobar, Karlin, Hudson, Godfree Roberts, etc have a habit of painting the East as the good, free alternative to the West. This IS NOT reality. Maybe they forgot China’s one child policy, or the hundreds of millions of abortions in russia since 1955. Maybe they forgot the Soviet’s war of aggression and occupation of half of europe for near half a century. Maybe you are all forgetting the draconian covid response in Russia were they had lockdowns across the country, the same as ZOG controlled america. Maybe no one knows that Iran, while opposed to the zionist agenda, also practices torture, murder, and brutal repression of it’s own people. Almost all of these writers have to loop back to vilifying the nazis at every turn, despite the fact that the Allies killed millions of civilians (this actually happened, unliked the holohoax). The allies killed more civilians bombing FRANCE than the Germans killed bombing the UK.
I understand and constantly am saying that the West is terminally corrupt. But the East is not the good alternative at all. Granted, in some respects they certainly are better than the west. But historically, and even currently, they are also very bad in many respects. The covid response should have been an eye opener to anyone who thinks that the Russians and the Chinese are going to save us from the jews and the NWO. People have this ridiculous response where they look at everything as binary; and since the East is the alleged antagonist to Washington, and washington is bad, then the East must be good in all respects. This is False and I like to call it the “idiot binary” approach.
So while on some issues I do appreciate aspects of their writing, especially Hudson, I think that as a whole they omit and distort too much to be taken without a major helping of salt. And much of their writing consists of constantly bashing the west and the 1%. While true, this is old news and preaching to the choir for the most part.
“Sorry but this article is nonsense. Hudson and his side kick Escobar refuse to tell truth about the Jewish control of America and the World’s economy.”
Wrong! It is a brilliant discussion. it is not Hudson’s or Escobar’s fault if you could not comprehend the truth in plane sight. Everything they mentioned about Rentierr economy be it banks, real estate, Hollywood, monopolies, warmongering refer to the groups you die to see them named. It is so obvious. Can’t you understand things without seeing the J-word written in Caps?!!
I did not know that. Thanks, we learn something everyday.
Agree 100%.
BTW, Sorry for my harsh words.
Since when has Judaism been monolithic? There have always been factions.
The core of Talmudic and even Torah Jews is to operate the usury mechanism.
The simple rank and file sheeple jews are often used as a shield. They are maneuvered to turn and bleet as one.
Antisemitism is actually useful to Jewish leadership to then keep the jew sheep afraid.
We have every right to point out the psychopathic doctrine that is ✡ Judaism.
At the same time we can use discernment toward simple minded Jews. Does the Jewish leadership reciprocate toward the simple minded Goyim?
Oh wait. The goyim are animals to be harvested.
See how it gets back to doctrine.
I agree, but do not see secular Jews, and those whose religion is less xenophobic and supremacist as the Talmudic original, as dangerous to the extent of others. Being a member of an intensely narcissistic, chauvinistic and supremacist community is difficult for one who does not share such beliefs, but is bound by ties of family and custom. The Holocaust religion has made matters worse, as has the campaigns to label any deviants as ‘self-hating’ or even ‘antisemites’ themselves, for crimes such as opposing the destruction of the Palestinians. And many Jews, for example Chomsky, the Menuhins etc, are actually humanists, not the fascistic dregs like Nuttyyahoo et al.
I believe you are right and it could be verified statistically.
Don’t forget about the using of Jewish sheeple as a cloak and shield.
So even nominally innocent jews become unwitting pawns in the machinations of tribe’s leaders.
“BTW, Sorry for my harsh words.”
Remember the old adage, ‘Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me’.
Wrong! They have control of all those inputs including the war mongering and they will never give them up because no one stands up to them. They are destroying our culture, our country and the world under guise that they are the chosen people and can never be criticized. They now have control of many of intelligence agencies including the FBI. Do you know how much money we give Israel in various forms?
Their power has only increased not decreased. They attack anyone in the media in this country and the world who even mentions a negative thought about them. They are the inventors, and controllers of the cancel culture which may send this country into a Civil War. Johnathan Pollard the spy who was supposedly the worst in our history is a hero in Israel and stated that all Jews should have dual loyalty and spy for Israel. And Israel is our ally….right. Amongst all this control of all pathways, media, institutions, and governments you expect things are going to get better by not mentioning who runs the game.
Nice try.
LOL
‘Malla’ always ‘sided’ with ‘wumao’ against India , he’s also a fervent apologist for anglo imperialism.
Any veterans here should know that already.
Some Indian posters even called him a self hating desi who reams whitey’s ass….except he’s a wasp ! 🙁
Here he threaten to turn desi nationalist against us ‘wumao’ ,
https://www.unz.com/article/nike-condemns-the-chinese-says-theyre-not-using-products-from-xinjiang/#comment-4559260
See,
malla the ‘desi’ can speak outta both sides of his mouth, depending on his mood of the day…..;-)
I agree with everything you pointed out here 100%! My only disagreement with you was the characterization of the important and informative discussion as nonesense, and the suggestion that Hudson and Escobar are not revealing the culprit in all this. My point is that it is so clear to anyone who is familiar what is going on, without necessarily writing the J-word in block letters.
“My only disagreement with you was the characterization of the important and informative discussion as nonesense, and the suggestion that Hudson and Escobar are not revealing the culprit in all this.”
You’re right! Pepe and Michael both being Jews are up against the mighty (((Sanhedrin))) for speaking out about the misdeeds of their coreligionists and it takes a whole lot of courage to face the whirlwind knowing it may cost them their livelihoods. Bravo!
Let me tell you something.
Every story has a protagonist.
Every protagonist must have some ideal.
You can’t make wishy washy protagonist and tell the story. It NEVER worked and it will never work. That’s how humans respond. Dissection of the problems, tell the critical portion by pushing all other peripherals aside, that’s the human history.
Go back to 20th century and reread all the article’s talking about American exceptionalism and how mighty this country will usher every citizens of the world to a new era. You won’t even bat an eye on America’s KKK, Jim Crow, CEA, all the bad things and people just migrated here en masse.
Was the New World an oasis place that all the historians claimed to be?
Get a grip.
If Karlin can remember “Pepsi Cola” idea was stolen and America made it as its own invention, you’re just a sour grape of digging up the mud and throwing “See? it’s dirty” muckrakers wannabe.
That’s very interesting about China. Whatever else China may be doing that we may or may not like, it’s a contrast that we should be able to learn from.
Apologist? What apology? why apology? Apology for stopping slavery? Apology for improving the lives of millions? Apology for building the largest irrigation system in the world to help poor brown farmers? All these needs apology by your standards?
Denki, word of advice if someone calls ya, uncle tom, gunga din etc… it means something denki. It meanz, dat you be speakin the uncomfortable truths. And that is pissing some people off. Some of those types (who accuse others of self hating, court Jew, Uncle Tom etc..) also project their own weird sexual fantasies on others. Just some one here on this page, projected his his own ass reaming fantasies on someone else. A most unfortunate habit. Can you spot the person, denki?
Clue: posts with a name which starts with ‘d’ (d for dumb), followed by an ‘e’ (e for egotistical), then a ‘n’ (n for nitwit) and it ends with a ‘k’ (k for kinky, you know ass reaming and all that disgustin shit). Can you spot the person denki?
Denki you become old and stupid (too much ass drillin, sorry reamin fantasies), need to improve reading comprehension or get new glasses. What I said in that link was I am becoming more desi nationalist myself. There was nothing about turning anyone against anything. Go read the link again.
denki, you immediately take ancient Indian Ayurvedic medicine. Take Brahmi twice a day with honey. It is will make your brain better. And Get Jesus in your life and stop thinking dirty sexual stuff. Stop sinful thoughts and repent.
Hehe denki, the (kinky) snake.
I was quite disappointed to read your opening three words, as I’ve read many of your comments with interest and regard you as basically ‘sound’. As I read on, however, I realised that you actually only partially disagree with me. Moreover, that I, for my part, strongly agree with your comments regarding ‘Nazi-bashing’ and the despicable Allied war-crimes (to say nothing of the equally despicable war that they were determined to prosecute against the Axis). Furthermore, I also agree that ‘the West is terminally corrupt’ and that the ‘Soviet’s war of aggression and occupation of half of Europe for near half a century’ was hardly the most glorious chapter in world history (although it must always be borne in mind that Stalin was only partly to blame, and that FDR and Churchill ought to shoulder most of that blame).
So what, exactly, do we ‘strongly disagree’ on? By the evidence of your comment, it is mostly the matter of contemporary Russia and China being – by your own implication – unsuitable as an alternative to today’s West. You cite their response to the covid nonsense – I confess that left me a little puzzled, as I was not aware that they made such a mess of it as the West did. It is not so much a question of ‘binary idiocy’ as one of preference. Right now, were I a younger man, I should not hesitate to ‘pivot east’!
This is a very interesting article about the current differences in the comparative economic dynamics between the US and China, by Scott Ritter, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and nuclear inspector.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/520016-china-biden-ambition-infrastructure-late/
Ritter explains how far ahead of the US China now is, both in terms of its economic dynamics and projection in the future. However, too many Americans, starting with the US government, refuse to acknowledge such lag, actually refuse to acknowledge reality.
Chinese achievements in building a productive economy, improving the lives of its people, developing science and technology, and establishing mutually-beneficial relationships with other nations are simply extraordinary.
These achievements are dismissed by the delusional West because they are the “a contrario” proof that the West is run by incompetent and criminal scoundrels, who, with the same means, achieved opposite results: destroying the real economy, destroying the middle class, enriching the rich, and waging countless and unjustified wars abroad.
Anyway, who cares about the West now, if not for its nefarious capabilities. Delusion always was the liquidator of civilisations.
Kevin Rudd was extrememly ambitious and popular with women voters, and also a complete dope.
He was axed a couple of days after announcing that Climate Change and a Carbon Tax was going on the backburner for a few years.
Gillard had been making the decisions in the Government since it was elected on 24/11/2007 anyway, Rudd was no more than a popular figurehead.
Rudd was booted because he went off script, no other reason.
TBH I can’t understand what they saw in him. Total narcicist and micromanager.
In hindsight, he was smart enough to learn and speak Mandarin relatively fluently – something unknown in the history of the Five Eyes.
We agree on this general point, though the relative import of the various scripts he was challenging, and exactly whose feathers around the world were being ruffled, remains questionable.
I think that we are on the same page about many things. I object to the one sided account of the East as is presented by many writers on Unz. I think that many westerners are so disgusted with the post- Christian west in general that they have a knee jerk reaction and overlook or even endorse many of the bad things about the East.
Every civilization has pros and cons, although some are better than others. It is important to differentiate and neither endorse bad things, or do the opposite and throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, and it can be a question of judgement in many cases.
Thanks for the reply!
Are you trying to say that pointing out the glaring evil of the East is the equivalent of nitpicking? All the things I mentioned are by no means minor details or insignificant blemishes. Because simple and mentally lazy people hold oversimplified and binary views does not make REALITY simplistic or binary.
No nation is perfect. However, it is not correct to overlook all the MAJOR FLAWS and outright evil of the East, as much as you may despise the west and yearn for a free, just alternative. Your comment is almost illegible. Please work on your writing’s format and content.
Let me get this straight: so Lula, like Obi-Wan Kenobi, is our only hope? And he must “rebuild the nation from scratch”? But then again… he can’t really “confront the real masters”? So what is Pepe saying? I can’t really tell — it all sounds rather schizophrenic to me…
Lula basically led the PT-mafia takeover of Brazil and handed the country off to the lamp-post Dilma, who continued the pillaging: just look into the big schemes like “mensalão”, Porto de Mariel in Cuba (USD 60 Billion from the BNDES wasted!), Odebrecht and Angola, Pasadena… the cases are so many and so blatantly egregious, that only the intellectually dishonest would not mention them. And now Pepe wants Lula to come back? To save the country, no less? You must be joking, my dear Pepe.
There is no one “saviour of the fatherland”, Pepe. Brazil does not depend on the “re-emergence of a single political leader” — please keep such a monster away from us! And above all, we don’t need Lula, that bearded-frog leading a legion of criminals back to (re)plunder the state. So many of his partners in crime have been behind bars: Dirceu, Delúbio, Palocci, Mantega, and the bearded-frog himself.
All of them and so many others are criminals and should have stayed in prison, but with our dysfunctional court system all of them have been set free. Yes, this impunity is depressing as hell, but even more depressing would be to have the PT-mafia back in power. And I don’t really care about the fake Folha de S. Paulo voter opinion poll results, because you get better prognoses from Nordeste taxi drivers. And despite the fact that this region was Lula’s electoral stronghold, what even the people there have been saying is this: LULA WILL NEVER BE ELECTED PRESIDENT AGAIN.
I would love to hear Mr. Hudson’s view of Bitcoin, and cryptocurrency in general.
Fascism is still strong in Brazil. Undoubtedly our little storm-trooper means that the Army will intervene, if the US does not rig the election results properly.
Rudd was such a narcissistic imbecile that he thought messing with the Zionazis ie expelling a MOSSAD agent from the Zionazi Embassy as a result of repeated Zionazi theft of Australian passport identities for one of their Kidon death-squads (recommended by Australian ‘intelligence’ no doubt to set Rudd up)and changing our votes at the UN to be more sympathetic to the Palestinians, and not joining in the US war preparations for attacking China, would go unanswered.
So the US got its ‘protected assets’ in the Parliamentary Labor Party eg Shorten and the NSW Right sub-fascists, to knife Rudd in the back. Simples. The NSW Right also love kissing Zionazi posteriors when they get tired of American ones. Such is the corpse of the once quite adequate Australian Labor Party.
The culprits are not ‘India’ in India’s decline and imminent fall. It is the Hindutva fascists led by Modi. It is the Overseas Indians who fancy themselves ‘honorary Whites’. It is the caste zealots. It is the supremacists (the Hindutva hardcore) who fancy India not a great civilization, among others, but the greatest of all, and ally themselves to other similarly deluded supremacists ie the Exceptionals, Five Eyes Anglos and the Zionazis in hating China for comprehensively outdoing them. Climate destabilisation will render much of India uninhabitable, due to the wet bulb temperatures exceeding the lethal hyperthermia level, in a few decades, but famine, weather catastrophes and pestilence will arrive even earlier. And they won’t be alone.
These guys, Michael Hudson especially, are way off base on some things. There is no “war on blacks” in Brazil or in the US. In fact, the opposite is true, as for reasons that don’t bear repeating blacks are favored by the elites. When a black thug died in Porto Alegre after attacking two security guards at a megamart, Brazil’s TV Globo launched a pro-black propaganda campaign that is even more nauseating than the American one. The reality is that blacks are not fit to compete in any modern, knowledge-based economy because their IQs are too low. Consequently, many of them resort to crime to obtain what they can’t through honest labor.
These guys are right about some things, but since they are not racial realists all their analysis must be taken with a huge grain of salt.
If imaginary climate change is India’s biggest problem, then they are on the way to being a superpower. Not really, though, because their real problem is an average IQ of 82, lower than that of such a dim group as African Americans. India is destined to remain an overwhelmingly poor country with only small pockets of wealth and productivity.
How would you create a new economy in Baltimore? Start by getting a new population. A city whose population has an average IQ of 85 cannot possibly be a prosperous place. In fact, Baltimore is as rich as it is, instead of being at the level of a Yaounde or a Port-au-Prince, only because it’s part of of a country that, for now, is majority White. That allows its obtuse inhabitants to leech off the work and talent of Whites. Michael Hudson is right about a lot of things, but in order to fully explain the present situation a major factor needs to be accounted for in addition to exploitative economics, and that factor is race.
Low IQ people do not run Fed Reserve, Pentagon , CIA, FBI, top 200 universities of USA . They don’t run Wall Street , Citi, Chase , BoA, shadow bank – Hedge fund and Amazon or Apple or Microsoft .
Blame them .
The nation ‘s economy has been ENRON ized.
Foreign nationals have been buying US Bond
Now they are buying Stock.
Fed is pumping into stock through giving money to high IQ Primary Dealers .
The money is going to stock.
Great Ponzi Pyramid .
Another icing on the cake for those who hunt for low IQ
People on food stamp cost US 43 billion per year .
People in jail support thousands of companies .
USA launders drug money . Now and then banks pay some fine . End users low IQ go to jail and contribute to the money laundering scheme .
Some of them get entrapped in terrorism which is another cash cow for high IQ.