The Real News Network has another segment of the ongoing series. This one is Is Financialization Necessary for a Modern Economy? – Costas Lapavitsas on Reality Asserts Itself (5/8).

LAPAVITSAS: I know. But let me just get this stuff on households a little bit clearer.

So what have we got here? We’ve got a system in which households have got to depend on private finance, basically, and they’re sucked into the system, and their wages and salaries and savings become a social profit for banks. We’ve got a direct transfer. I would call that financial expropriation. It’s a kind of secondary exploitation of households. Our incomes, our savings become a social profit-making for banks. And predatory lending is just the extreme case of this. Right?

JAY: So you’re not only making–you’re not only getting taken, if you want, on you buy something, and usually there’s a profit made when you buy the thing; but they’re skinning you twice, ’cause they’re getting you on the credit card interest.

LAPAVITSAS: Well, that’s it. That’s it. And you’re getting–and there’s interest that comes out of your income, which goes to the private financial system, or other fees, commissions, and so on. For what?

The interview also covers international capital flows and whether or not the big banks are actually helping the world economy.

Both aspects of this segment are fascinating.