Following its crushing defeat in the 2024 election, the Democratic Party might finally face its day of reckoning. The party markets itself as the champion of the working class and a bulwark against the party of the plutocrats. But this has been a lie for at least three decades. The Democratic Party has partnered with... Read More

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

The “big club� that “you ain’t in,� as George Carlin famously put it, is increasingly visible as the presidential election rolls on toward November. Politicians and the donor class that controls them have made it known to the public that they are not representatives of the majority but rather the small elite minority. Nomi Prins,... Read More

“It was not the highly visible acts of Congress but the seemingly mundane and often nontransparent actions of regulatory agencies that empowered the great transformation of the U.S. commercial banks from traditionally conservative deposit-taking and lending businesses into providers of wholesale financial risk management and intermediation services.� — Professor Saule Omarova, “The Quiet Metamorphosis, How... Read More

Once upon a time America had a capitalist economy. Bank deposits were used for loans that expanded productive ability. America produced its own goods and grew its own food. America’s currency was backed by gold and inflation was nonexistent. New technology brought into play by new investment improved the productivity of labor, and living standards... Read More

Luca Placidi: Welcome, everybody. It is a great pleasure and honor to have with us today Professor Michael Hudson. For those who still do not know him, Michael is a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and he is a researcher at the Levi Economics Institute at Bard College. Just to mention... Read More

In the first seven months of Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, net interest (payments minus income) on the federal debt reached $514 billion, exceeding spending on both national defense ($498 billion) and Medicare ($465 billion). The interest tab also exceeded all the money spent on veterans, education, and transportation combined. Spending on interest is now the... Read More

In Part 1 ( ), I reported that we already do not own anything. The immediate response from readers is: what can we do to avoid dispossession? Offhand, the answer might appear to be debt-free property and gold and silver in personal possession. However, if the goal is that we own nothing and are controlled... Read More

Last week it happened that God and the United States Treasury managed to underwrite a record issue of Israel Government bonds to continue the war against the Arabs in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq – and Iran if necessary. The war financing comprised $2 billion of five-year bonds, and $3 billion each of 10... Read More

In 2017, Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive, made the establishment of a public, state-owned bank a centerpiece issue during his run for New Jersey governor. He regularly championed public banking in speeches, town halls and campaign commercials. He won the race, and the nation’s second state-owned bank following the stellar model of the... Read More

Blackstone, Apollo, and a handful of other firms are demolishing the US economy for short-term gain, and leaving workers and communities in the wreckage. Private equity firms are buying up the US economy and stripping it for parts. From healthcare to education, utilities, and more, massive firms like Blackstone and the Carlyle Group have acquired... Read More

Political economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson discuss the rhetoric and reality of Bidenomics, and how good US President Joe Biden really was for the economy. Transcript RADHIKA DESAI: Hello and welcome to the 23rd Geopolitical Economy Hour, the show that examines the fast-changing political and geopolitical economy of our time. I’m Radhika Desai. MICHAEL... Read More

The “protected class� is granted “safe harbor� only because their bets are so risky that to let them fail could crash the economy. But why let them bet at all? his is a sequel to a Jan. 15 article titled “Casino Capitalism and the Derivatives Market: Time for Another ‘Lehman Moment’?�, discussing the threat of... Read More

All’s fair in love and war – this is a 500-year old English proverb but it isn’t in the Geneva conventions on war crimes and genocide, much as the US and US-backed Israel claim it is. In the war of US, NATO and their Asian allies against Russia, it is turning out that almost all... Read More

Harry Dent is a bearish financial journalist and trends forecaster, who early last year, insisted that there would be an epic crash in June. In a recent interview, Dent seemed almost irate about markets taking so long to crash. Basically Dent said that if the bubble does not burst this year, he will retire from... Read More

Reading the tea leaves for the 2024 economy is challenging. On January 5th, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said we have achieved a “soft landing,� with wages rising faster than prices in 2023. But critics are questioning the official figures, and prices are still high. Surveys show that consumers remain apprehensive. There are other concerns. On... Read More

The derivatives bubble is often estimated to exceed one quadrillion dollars (a quadrillion is 1,000 trillion). The entire GDP of the world is estimated at $105 trillion, or 10% of one quadrillion; and the collective wealth of the world is an estimated $360 trillion. Clearly, there is not enough collateral anywhere to satisfy all the... Read More