If you look at the track record of the interventionists you might think they would pause before taking on more projects. Each of their past projects has ended in disaster yet still they press on. Last week the website Zero Hedge posted a report about hacked emails between billionaire George Soros and Ukrainian President Poroshenko.... Read More

A responsible financial institution would not extend a new loan of between 17 and 40 billion dollars to a borrower already struggling to pay back an existing multi-billion dollar loan. Yet that is just what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) did last month when it extended a new loan to the government of Ukraine. This... Read More

Washington’s EU vassals might be finding their backbone. Britain, Germany, France, and Italy are reported to have defied Washington’s orders and applied to join the Chinese-led Asian Investment Bank. Australia, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and Luxembourg might also join. Washington uses its development banks such as the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, along with... Read More

A serious depression is pending as a result of austerity, says Professor Michael Hudson, October 17, 2014 SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore. On Wednesday this week, the S&P 500 took a dive and then partially recovered itself in what stock market... Read More

In April 2014, fresh from riots in Maidan Square and the February 22 coup, and less than a month before the May 2 massacre in Odessa, the IMF approved a $17 billion loan program to Ukraine’s junta. Normal IMF practice is to lend only up to twice a country’s quote in one year. This was... Read More

Just as happened in Greece, the IMF is causing problems. Why does the Washington consensus continue to make prices more rather than less expensive? A short news piece on RT news.

From RT news Western support will allow more IMF and European lending to prop the Ukrainian currency so the Ukrainian oligarchs can move their money safely to British and US banks, economist and author Michael Hudson told RT’s Truthseeker. RT:Could you summarize for us the tried and tested steps that will lead from IMF loans,... Read More

Latvia’s Neoliberal War Against Labor and Industry Published in The Contradictions of Austerity: The socio-economic costs of the neoliberal Baltic model Edited by Jeffrey Sommers & Charles Woolfson This article examines how neoliberal policymakers trained in the United States captured Latvia’s economic policy to impose pro-rentier, pro-bank, anti-labor tax and financial policies. Latvia’s national interests... Read More

History will register his plane struck by lightning on the way to Berlin, no fancy kisses, and asparagus with veal schnitzel on the menu. This is the way the eurozone ends (or begins again); not with a bang, but a ... lightning strike. Merkollande - the new European power couple drama interpreted by French Socialist... Read More

Hudson on Lauren Lyster’s Capital Account discussing the upcoming Washington Consensus meetings.

Michael on the Keiser Report, discussing the role of finance in the EU debt crisis. How does Wall St and the IMF fit into the picture? Michael comes on at the 14 minute mark.

French Finance Minster Christine Lagarde has emerged as the front-runner in the race to replace ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. She is a champion swimmer, an accomplished attorney, and a competent bureaucrat. She's also a friend of Wall Street who will ferociously defend the interests of big capital. Here's how The Guardian summed up Lagarde's resume:... Read More

So Osama bin Laden won't be the main character in the trial of the century after all; by a simple twist of fate, that role will be played by Dominique Strauss-Khan (DSK), the all-powerful head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), now languishing at "Alcatraz" Rikers Island in New York. The fact that this acronym... Read More

Dominique Strauss-Kahn is effectively finished as a political force, even if he doesn’t draw a guilty verdict in New York, where a 32-year-old maid says she was attacked and forced to perform oral sex on him. He’s finished as IMF chief and his candidacy against Sarkozy also looks to be in ruins. The IMF chief... Read More

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.� “The Rich Boy,� by F. Scott Fitzgerald The 30-year campaign of the wealthy to rig our economic system – especially the tax component – for their own benefit will accelerate with the GOP capture of the House of Representatives and... Read More

Most of the press has described Europe’s labor demonstrations and strikes on Wednesday in terms of the familiar exercise by transport employees irritating travelers with work slowdowns, and large throngs letting off steam by setting fires. But the story goes much deeper than merely a reaction against unemployment and economic recession. At issue are proposals... Read More

Michael appears at the 13.40 minute mark.

As an illustration of how the IMF and China really don’t get along—despite Beijing’s interest in the IMF in a source of gold and SDRs—I've written a piece for ATol entitled China’s copper deal back in the melt, on a high-profile tussle in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The IMF is openly lobbying the Congolese... Read More