Michael Hudson Lecture series Global Financial Empire. Watch this before it gets censored out of existence.
The Political Economy of Globalization
As of this posting, only three parts of the lecture series have been released.
The 3rd in a 10 part lecture series for the Global University for Sustainability, Hong Kong.
Michael Hudson has published the article Finance Capitalism versus Industrial Capitalism: The Rentier Resurgence and Takeover.
Abstract
Marx and many of his less radical contemporary reformers saw the historical role of industrial capitalism as being to clear away the legacy of feudalism—the landlords, bankers, and monopolists extracting economic rent without producing real value. However, that reform movement failed. Today, the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sector has regained control of government, creating neo-rentier economies.
The aim of this postindustrial finance capitalism is the opposite of industrial capitalism as known to nineteenth-century economists: it seeks wealth primarily through the extraction of economic rent, not industrial capital formation.
Tax favoritism for real estate, privatization of oil and mineral extraction, and banking and infrastructure monopolies add to the cost of living and doing business. Labor is increasingly exploited by bank debt, student debt, and credit card debt while housing and other prices are inflated on credit, leaving less income to spend on goods and services as economies suffer debt deflation.
Today’s new Cold War is a fight to internationalize this rentier capitalism by globally privatizing and financializing transportation, education, health care, prisons and policing, the post office and communications, and other sectors that formerly were kept in the public domain. In Western economies, such privatizations have reversed the drive of industrial capitalism. In addition to monopoly prices for privatized services, financial managers are cannibalizing industry by leveraging debt and high-dividend payouts to increase stock prices.
This article explains so much of what we and our politicians need to understand to govern the USA.
Here are a couple of excerpts that hint at all that is in the article.
The economy as a whole has suffered. Debt-fueled housing costs in the United States are so high that if all Americans were given their physical consumer goods for free — their food, clothing and so forth — they still could not compete with workers in China or most other countries. That factor is a major reason why the US economy is deindustrializing. Thus, this policy of creating wealth by financialization undercuts the logic of industrial capitalism.
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Another reason for deindustrialization is the rising cost of living stemming from conversion of public infrastructure into privatized monopolies. As the United States and Germany overtook British industrial capitalism, a major key to industrial advantage was recognized to be public investment in roads, railroads, and other transportation; education; public health; communications; and other basic infrastructure.
The last paragraph from above explains why the policy of privatizing old infrastructure to “pay for” new infrastructure is so insane. We seem to have no understanding of why we built the old infrastructure, and why we need to add more.
This article is from the first chapter of the upcoming book «Cold War 2.0. The Geopolitical Economics of Finance Capitalism vs. Industrial Capitalism»
YouTube has the video The Obscene Obstacles to Global Vaccine Distribution.
Lori Wallach, of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, and Jayati Ghosh, economics professor at UMass Amherst, discuss how first world countries are protecting pharma companies’ exorbitant profits, at the expense of vaccinating people living in the Global South and thereby also endangering everyone in the world.
This issue could be the death knell for the USA empire.
Nerd Farmer Podcast has the episode Getting to Know Modern Monetary Theory (MMT): Nerd Farmer Academy — Dr. Fadhel Kaboub, Denison University — #136.
Today’s #NerdFarmerAcademy episode is a conversation with economist Dr. Fadhel Kaboub, Associate Professor of economics at Denison University and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. He is a noted expert in Modern Monetary Theory, heretofore MMT. MMT is an economic theory that posits our approach to debts and deficits is just wrong. MMT economists believe that the concerns frequently expressed about the US debt are basically economic concern-trolling. They note that because the US government, unlike you and I, is a currency issuer, rather than a currency user, the limits on government debt are much higher than most of us have been led to believe. They call on the government to use debt to do great things. MMT-ers believe we can afford a much more generous government that can make a meaningful difference in the lives of working people.
Fadhel Kaboub gives you the most painless introduction to MMT that you will ever hear. In less than an hour he tells you all the fundamentals you need to know and explains why you need to know them.
Fadhel Kaboub might be just a tad harsh in his judgment of Paul Samuelson. Over 50 years ago, I took my first college level economics course. It used Paul Samuelson’s book Fifth edition 1961. Somewhere I learned of the teachings of John Maynard Keynes. I presume it was from Paul Samuelson’s book. There are 7 entries on Keynes in the index of Samuelson’s book.
From what I have read since then, later additions of Samuelson’s book may have de-emphasized Keynes. Fortunately, I was out of college and didn’t get tainted by those later editions.
Live Science has the article What’s happening inside Simone Biles’ brain when the ‘twisties’ set in?
A complex system in the brain that keeps gymnasts balanced can get out of whack.
I had a chance to experience this when I was learning SCUBA diving. I was doing somersaults in the water when I suddenly lost the ability to feel which way was up. I had to stop all motion to recover. If I hadn’t been wearing SCUBA gear, I might have run out of breath before my senses recovered. I never did somersaults in the water again.
This article is something we non-athletes need to understand before we criticize athletes. Max Blumenthal’s recent remarks about Simone Biles are so reprehensible, that I may not be able to listen to him ever again. It’s like I have the twisties about Max Blumnenthal.
YouTube has the video Marianne Williamson: Capitalism Is Killing Us | The Jacobin Show.
Author and activist Marianne Williamson joins Jacobin to discuss the Democratic Party’s rot, her presidential run, and why capitalism makes us all so miserable. Matt Bruenig of the People’s Policy Project also joins us to discuss the benefits of monthly checks from the government
The headline and title are way too narrow to explain the depth and breadth of this show.
Marianne Williamson comes on in the last hour of the show. It is a great interview with her. There were also three segments before Williamson’s appearance that were very enlightening and enjoyable.
The Institute for New Economic Thinking has the podcast (and transcript) Myths and Landmarks in US Economic History
Economic historian and INET board member Richard Vague, talks about his latest book, The Illustrated Business History of the United States, which reveals a number of misconceptions and myths about the development of the US economy
An early comment by Rob Johnson astonished me in how much he had missed the issue.
It’s not a question of whether or not the financial system should have been bailed out in 2008. The issue is what should have been bailed out. People mix up financial institutions with the executives that ran them (into the ground). We could have bailed out the institutions and jailed the executives.
YouTube has the video Warren Mosler on MMT, CBDC, bitcoin, bonds, interest rates, inflation, taxes and unemployment.
MMT founding father, Warren Mosler, explains Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). He says it’s about sequence. Governments don’t need to borrow or tax before they spend, if they issue their own currency. The economy needs the government money, not the other way around. Most politicians don’t understand how the monetary system works, also for example the way how banks create money.
As this interviewer shows, it is quite possible to talk to Warren Mosler and still not agree with nor understand what he is saying. The mind with preconceived notions is very hard to change. As this interviewer implies, “Yes, Warren Mosler, Modern Monetary (Money) Theory changes everything, but all the ideas I have had before knowing MMT still hold.” It is just so funny to hear it. I am sure I suffer from the same problem.
A wewsite that warren mentions is moslereconomics.com. Mosler also mentioned Money on the Left.
How & How Not to do Economics is an 2019 INET series of 11 lectures that are about 15 to 20 minutes in length each. I have made it through 4 so far. It is not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing as it is a matter of being exposed to a broader range of ideas. I studied or read about many of the historical figures mentioned here, but at the time I didn’t have enough context to really understand what I was reading. The more I hear lectures like this, the more I realize what I missed when studying these things over 50 years ago,
Interestingly, the various people I listen to who talk about the history of economics don’t always agree on the significance or lessons of the various historical figures that they discuss.
I think it was Taleb who said that you are on the firmest grounds when you just describe what happened, and on much more unstable grounds when you try to explain why things happened the way they did.
I have learned that even discussing what happened is fraught with interpretation. So describing why something happened must be on less firm ground if you can’t even agree on what happened.
Here is the fist lecture. See the link to INET above to get to all the lectures.
Bill Mitchell’s blog has the article The role of bank deposits in Modern Monetary Theory.
You can read this article and still be confused by the word play. I think this sentence in the conclusion settles it for me.
Deposits do not fund loans. But they are one source of funds that the bank has available to ensure that its role in the settlement process is not compromised which would require borrowing from the central bank.
I get a lot of pushback from people who have read about MMT when I try to make the above point. Mitchell’s article discusses the myriad ways that a bank can raise the money it needs. He discusses the different costs that a bank might incur by employing any of these methods. That discussion leads to the above concluding sentence mentioning two of the alternative methods.