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Robinson: Michael, you've been studying the history of debt and the collapse of civilizations for many decades now, at least going back to your time at Harvard’s Peabody Museum. I'm wondering if you were initially interested in this topic because of its historical interest or more because of its implications for the present.[1] Michael: I... Read More
RADHIKA DESAI: Hello and welcome to the 21st geopolitical economy hour, the show that examines the fast-changing political and geopolitical economy of our time. Welcome also to a new year that promises to be nothing but rocky, so let’s help rock it in the right direction. I’m Radhika Desai. MICHAEL HUDSON: And I’m Michael Hudson.... Read More
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“Rather than collecting taxes from the wealthy,” wrote the New York Times Editorial Board in a July 7 opinion piece, “the government is paying the wealthy to borrow their money.” Titled “America Is Living on Borrowed Money,” the editorial observes that over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), annual federal budget... Read More
Its role always has been anti-democratic
Vested interests create “checks and balances” primarily to make political systems non-responsive to demands for social reform. Historically, therefore, the checks are politically unbalanced in practice. Instead of producing a happy medium, their effect often has been to check the power of the people to assert their interests at the expense of the more powerful.... Read More
The need for system change
RADHIKA DESAI: Hello and welcome to this 12th Geopolitical Economy Hour, the fortnightly show on the political and geopolitical economy of our times. I'm Radhika Desai. MICHAEL HUDSON: And I'm Michael Hudson. RADHIKA DESAI: And today we are joined by Anne Pettifor to discuss an urgent issue of our time, that of the third world... Read More
BEN NORTON: Hi, everyone. I’m Ben Norton of Geopolitical Economy Report, and today I have the great pleasure of speaking with a friend of the show, the economist Michael Hudson, and I’m very excited to be discussing his newest book, The Collapse of Antiquity: Greece and Rome as Civilization’s Oligarchic Turning Point. This book is... Read More
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Prof. Michael Hudson’s new book, The Collapse of Antiquity: Greece and Rome as Civilization’s Oligarchic Turning Point is a seminal event in this Year of Living Dangerously when, to paraphrase Gramsci, the old geopolitical and geoeconomic order is dying and the new one is being born at breakneck speed. Prof. Hudson’s main thesis is absolutely... Read More
Colin Bruce Anthes Welcome to theAnalysis. I’m Colin Bruce Anthes. In a minute, we’ll be taking a first look at Michael Hudson’s new book, The Collapse of Antiquity. Michael Hudson When the emperors cancelled the debts, it was largely cancelling the debts of the wealthy. Sort of like the recent bank bailouts of Silicon Valley... Read More
The Collapse of Antiquity, the sequel to Michael’s “...and forgive them their debts,” is the second and latest book in his trilogy on the history of debt. It describes how the dynamics of interest-bearing debt led to the rise of rentier oligarchies in classical Greece and Rome, causing economic polarization, widespread austerity, revolts, wars and... Read More
Intro [00:00:06] Luke Parcher: All right. For those who might not know me, I'm Luke Parcher, I'm a student and activist. I volunteer with Real Progressives. I'm on our leadership team and I also do a show on Sundays covering politics and current events, and I do some interviews throughout the week and things which... Read More
A few billion here, a few billion there – and suddenly we are looking at real money. Even more important, real inflation. Governments all over have been spending like drunken sailors in a desperate attempt to counteract the ruinous effects of the Covid pandemic and resulting closures. We have seen panic spending accelerate as governments... Read More
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D. L. Jacobs On July 15, 2022, Platypus Affiliated Society member D. L. Jacobs interviewed Michael Hudson to discuss his new book, The Destiny of Civilization: Finance Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism or Socialism (2022). An edited transcript follows. D. L. Jacobs: Can tell us about your background regarding Marxism and how you came to political economy?... Read More
And to ALL the Debt-Enslaved Nations of the World ~ You Are All About to Be Fleeced Once Again!
Look out, Ireland! Financial debt-bergs, dead ahead! The Irish “external debt to GDP” ratio is currently at 609%. In December 2010, it was well over 1,000% (1,091.5% to be precise). No other nation on Earth carries this much external debt to its GDP. The United States, the world champion of all debts for sure with... Read More
RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 465 TRANSCRIPT, September 17, 2022. Tom Morello: I'm Tom Morello and you're listening to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan, along with my co-host, David Feldman. Hello, David. David Feldman: Hello, Steve. Steve Skrovan: And of course,... Read More
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BEN NORTON: Hey everyone, this is Ben Norton of Multipolarista. I’m joined by one of my favorite guests today, the brilliant economist Michael Hudson. And there are a lot of things that we plan on talking about today. We’re going to address the partial student debt relief in the United States, and the problem of... Read More
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Why it lacks resilience, and What will take its place
Paper presented on July 11, 2022 to The Ninth South-South Forum on Sustainability. THE COLLAPSE OF MODERN CIVILIZATION AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY. The greatest challenge facing societies has always been how to conduct trade and credit without letting merchants and creditors make money by exploiting their customers and debtors. All antiquity recognized that the... Read More
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What are the real roots of Western Civilization?
It may seem strange to invite an economist to give a keynote speech to a conference of the social sciences. Economists have been characterized as autistic and anti-social in the popular press for good reason. They are trained to think It may seem strange to invite an economist to give a keynote speech to a... Read More
The debate was monitored by Lynn Parramore, and introduced by David Graeber’s widow, Nika. Transcript: Nika: Hi, I'm Nika. I'm David's wife. This is an event in the honor of the first anniversary of David Graeber's passing, and then the spirits of his rejection of academic arrogance, and our urgent need to get out of... Read More
Paul Jay Hi, I’m Paul Jay. Welcome to theAnalysis.news. Thank you to everybody who has clicked the donate button. And if you haven’t, maybe you might do it this time. If you’re watching on YouTube or our website, click the share button and subscribe and we’ll be back in a second with Michael Hudson. U.S.... Read More
Guests Michael Hudson & Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove: April 21, 2021 (transcribed May 3, 2021): Jim Vrettos: So, Michael, Jonathan. Thank you so very, very much for being here. Jonathan, you're from... We're looking at you from North Carolina there and Michael is in Queens. You've both had tremendous influence in your respective fields. Spiritual economic activist... Read More
Transcript Jussi: Welcome Michael. I just give a brief overview of the agenda and then I get back to you with a few questions. I just show you this picture, what we want to do today is this: Today we will get a long-term view on money debt and the economy, including the different power... Read More
Out of habit, American economists worry about federal debt. But federal debt can be redeemed by the Federal Reserve printing the money with which to retire the bonds. The debt problem rests with individuals, companies, and state and local governments. They have no printing press. We have explained that the indebtedness of the population means... Read More
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I Know You’re Lying…but I Trust You with My Life!
Investing trust in the wrong people and policies can be ruinous. How much dishonesty does it take before the public stops putting blind faith in debt dealers, corporate crooks and the servile politicians who do their bidding? The widespread acceptance of ‘healthy’ inflation, monopoly patent rights, the ‘retirement’ trap and enslaving corporate ‘benefits’ would suggest... Read More
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The U.S. is Saving the Financial Sector, not the Economy
Before juxtaposing the U.S. and alternative responses to the corona virus’s economic effects,[1] I would like to step back in time to show how the pandemic has revealed a deep underlying problem. We are seeing the consequences of Western societies painting themselves into a debt corner by their creditor-oriented philosophy of law. Neoliberal anti-government (or... Read More
Michael Hudson’s landmark 2015 book “Killing the Host” exposed how the empires of finance, insurance and real estate captured the global economy through neo-liberalism and sold us down the road to neo-feudalism. Michael returns to the show to describe why the current global economic demise is the fruit of consummate greed, crony politics and rapacious... Read More
Michael Hudson: Well, I think you’re quite right in organizing the conference to point out that today’s pandemic crisis hastens and intensifies the internal contradictions that have been building up. Many of these contradictions are going to be blamed simply on the virus. But there is an underlying problem that the virus is exposing and... Read More
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Can we cut the faux Outrage over ‘The Fed’ and the evil ‘One Percenters’ and focus on illicit Counterfeiting and...
With the national debt reaching absurd heights and personal home/auto/college/credit card debt sucking the joy out of life, it’s long overdue for a fresh look at this ancient topic. If your understanding of financial matters is informed by mainstream news and/or subsidized academics, I’m guessing you may have missed some key points—since both groups love... Read More
What do we make of it all? I just read an article in the New York Times that reports that President Trump lied and hid from the public the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic . On the other side, I encounter endless Internet rage that Covid-19 is a hoax, that New York city’s hospitals are... Read More
The answer to the question is “YES.” The large bailed-out creditors will end up with the property of the non-bailed-out debtors who are being pushed deeper into debt with “bail-out loans” and fees and penalties for missed debt payments. Write-offs for the One Percent, and more indebtedness for everyone else. Turn your mind to the... Read More
Below are an interview I gave to the Herland Report prior to the coronavirus explaining our precarious economic situation and Michael Hudson’s article today explaining that the way out of the economic crisis is a debt jubilee. As the debts cannot be paid, it makes far more sense to forgive them than for all of... Read More
Even before the coronavirus appeared, many American families were falling behind on student loans, auto loans, credit card balances and other payments. America’s debt overhead was pricing its labor and industry out of world markets. A debt crisis was inevitable eventually, but covid-19 has made it immediate. Massive social distancing, with its accompanying job losses,... Read More
Martin: Today Debt and Power. I’m Martin North from Digital Finance Analytics. Welcome to our latest post covering finance and property news with a distinctively Australian flavour. Today it is my pleasure to introduce Michael Hudson, American Economist, Professor of Economics and author of “Killing the Host” and “and Forgive Them Their Debts”. In the... Read More
Rees Jeannotte [00:00:05] Hello and welcome. I'm Rees Jeannotte, and you are watching Know Your Stuff. Joining me today is economist and anthropologist Michael Hudson. He is a professor of economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and an author of many books, including Killing the Host, J for Junk Economics, and his most... Read More
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IMMR CoffeeHouse Discussion Forum # 8 Full Transcript (EDITED VERSION) Thurs. Dec. 19, 2019 Michael Hudson on how debt money has pushed the US and European economies to their financial limit. Followed by an open discussion forum. INVITATION: I’m sure you have many discussions of bank money causing problems. My focus is on how banks... Read More
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There are certain moments in history where each person—and eventually the larger community—must decide which path to follow, ultimately leading us in vastly different directions. With the U.S. student debt fiasco now approaching $1.6 trillion and 45 million borrowers, we seem to be rapidly advancing towards such a moment. At present, one of the biggest... Read More
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In 1989, the Jewish screenwriter and journalist Frederic Raphael was invited to deliver the 25th Anniversary Lecture at the University of Southampton’s Parkes Institute for the study of Jewish/non-Jewish relations. Founded by Rev Dr James Parkes (1896–1981), a neurotic Church of England minister who made a career out of the promotion of philo-Semitism in Christianity... Read More
As school children my friends and I were very interested in archaeology and ancient civilizations. We read all the available books. My best friend intended to become an archeologist and to explore ancient ruins about which we imagined more than we actually knew. As far as I can discern these days no one in the... Read More
Solon, the Wise Lawgiver of Athens
A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson About His Forthcoming Book The Collapse of Antiquity
Note: Michael Hudson published … and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure, and Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year in November of last year. It is the first volume in what will be a trilogy on the long history of the tyranny of debt. I have interviewed him extensively as he writes... Read More
How the Bronze Age saved itself from debt serfdom
There has been an explosion of discussion about whether to cancel student debts. Critics of the idea point out that wealthy people would be the main gainers, posing moral hazard. The debate has has quickly slipped into a discussion of modern economies and whether it was moral to cancel the debts of people who are... Read More
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A Review of Michael Hudson’s new book AND FORGIVE THEM THEIR DEBTS
To say that Michael Hudson’s new book And Forgive Them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure, and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year (ISLET 2018) is profound is an understatement on the order of saying that the Mariana Trench is deep. To grasp his central argument is so alien to our modern way of... Read More
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Introduction and Transcript: Left Out, a podcast produced by Paul Sliker, Michael Palmieri, and Dante Dallavalle, creates in-depth conversations with the most interesting political thinkers, heterodox economists, and organizers on the Left. In this episode of The Hudson Report, we speak with Michael Hudson about the implications of the flattening yield curve, the possibility of... Read More
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The West’s Finance-Capitalist Road
May 5-6, 2018 Lecture Second World Marxism Conference Peking University, School of Marxist Studies Volumes II and III of Marx’s Capital describe how debt grows exponentially, burdening the economy with carrying charges. This overhead is subjecting today’s Western finance-capitalist economies to austerity, shrinking living standards and capital investment while increasing their cost of living and... Read More
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The history of debt cancellation and Jesus's economic justice activism 
Left Out, a podcast produced by Paul Sliker, Michael Palmieri, and Dante Dallavalle, creates in-depth conversations with the most interesting political thinkers, heterodox economists, and organizers on the Left. The Hudson Report is a new weekly series produced by Left Out with the legendary economist Michael Hudson. Every episode we cover an economic or political... Read More
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The idea of annulling debts nowadays seems so unthinkable that most economists and many theologians doubt whether the Jubilee Year could have been applied in practice, and indeed on a regular basis. A widespread impression is that the Mosaic debt jubilee was a utopian ideal. However, Assyriologists have traced it to a long tradition of... Read More
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Real Vision Interview Transcript with Steve Keen
Steve Keen: Often you'll see somebody who's a public speaker – or back in the old days, a public speake, who'd start with saying, “Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking.” Well, this is literally true for me this time, because I'm Professor Steve Keen from Kingston University. And I'm very much unaccustomed to being... Read More
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Socrates on debt, and Ibn Khaldun on the cyclical rise and fall of societies Last week I attended a wonderful conference in the university town of Tübingen, Germany, on “Debt: The First 3500 Years,” to bring ancient historians together to discuss David Graeber’s book Debt: The First 5000 Years. I was enlightened by two papers... Read More
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I’m Bonnie Faulkner. Today on Guns and Butter, Dr. Michael Hudson. Today’s show: The Slow Crash. Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, a Wall Street financial analyst and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City,... Read More
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SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to the Michael Hudson Report on The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore. The Euro is slipping against the dollar, and the European financial markets are in flux, expecting Greece to fail on its 1.6 billion Euro repayment due to the International Monetary Fund... Read More
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Karl: Welcome to the Renegade Economists with your host, Karl Fitzgerald. This week we’re stepping back in time, way back some 10,000 years BC into the world of archaeology, Egyptology and Assyriology. Yes, it’s time for another special with Professor Michael Hudson. That’s right, Michael Hudson back on the show, he’s got a new book... Read More
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