It is said we are in post industrial capitalism, but it really is a return to neofeudalism says Michael Hudson, where people become debt slaves, i.e, surfs to the overlords, the rentiers, the 0.001%, who extract all, but produce nothing.
I have tagged this video on below but it is just a summery of everything we know here, so nothing new, but at the end Michael Hudson predicts another economic crash. If you like Michael Hudson it's a good summery.
11 comments:
“Michael Hudson predicts another economic crash”
Non-specific doom forecast....
Some takeaway points from Hudson’s discourse:
[1] What corporate media outlets celebrate as America’s “strong economy" is the growth of Wall Street at the expense of Maim Street. The financial economy expands, while the real economy shrinks. This is called a "strong economy."
[2] When most economists today worry about “inflation,” they mean wage inflation (which does not exist) not housing price inflation (which is extreme). There is no wage inflation, since their are no wage increases. Workers dare not go on strike, lest their myriad debts, late penalties, and interest rate penalties cause them to be thrown onto the street.
[3] The end of industrial capitalism has not given way to socialism, but instead to feudalism, in which the 99.999% are rentiers and debt slaves to the .0001%.
[4] The Dow Jones “recovery” is mainly in banking, which collected $56 billion in profit during the first quarter of 2018. Bank stocks are now called “industrial” sticks. The main product of this “industry” is parasitical debt, which is killing the real economy. What the corporate media outlets call “economic growth” is the growth of this debt, i.e. the growth of Wall Street, plus the death of Main Street.
[5] The largest sector of the American economy is real estate. Bank-owned properties are not taxed. Hence the tax burden falls on industry and labor. Banks are causing America to be priced out of world markets. This game will only continue as long as foreigners continue to accept dollars in exchange for their goods and services.
[6] Republicans and key Democrats continually pass bills to decriminalize banker theft. The latest example is S. 2155: The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which Trump signed into law on 24 May 2018. In the Senate, all Republicans and 16 neoliberal Democrats voted for it. In the House, all Republicans except Walter Jones of North Carolina voted for it, plus 33 neoliberal democrats voted for it.
NOTE: The money powers don’t care how politicians vote, as long as the overall vote results are “correct.” With S. 2155, many of the usual neoliberal democrats face elections in November, and hence they voted no (e.g. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer). (Bernie Sanders voted no.) Meanwhile 16 of the newer democrats in the House, and 33 in the Senate voted yes so they could demonstrate their obedience to Wall Street, and thereby rise in Congress.
[7] There is more private debt and corporate debt today than there was in the third quarter of 2008, just before the crash. Not only debt has gone up, but the arrears as well (i.e. late payment penalties, and interest rate penalties). Perhaps the most notorious debt is student loan debt, and sub-prime auto loan debt.
[8] Offshore accounts are not offshore. That money is held in U.S. banks on behalf of offshore companies.
[9] Corporations are using their profits to buy back their own stocks from the market, in order to boost the stock prices, and hence the CEO bonuses. Corporate media outlets pretend that higher stock prices mean a stronger economy, when in fact they mean a weaker economy, since corporate money is used for stock buybacks, not for industrial development. America’s entire economy runs on lies, delusion, pretense, and bullshyte. Today that actual gamblers in the stock market are mainly hedge funds.
Thanks for that, Konrad.
Kevin
"Non-specific doom forecast...."
Only non specific in regards to the time it will happen but not non specific as to how and why it will happen. Consumers overburdened with debt will start defaulting due to rising costs (healthcare, housing, education... you know all those things not included in CPI) and stagnant or falling incomes.
Konrad summed things up quite nicely I think. Wall St is the ONLY barometer that matters to our sociopathic leaders.
The problem with such non-specific forecasts (Keen, Hudson) is TPTB control the game since they control the debt and they can and do relax the reins a bit to keep the game going much longer than it would if the rules were followed closely.
And they control the government aspect of the system through legalized bribery and the revolving door wrt government agencies like the Fed board.
So a rotten system can last a long time and when it fails then the people responsible can be assured of being made whole since they control the system.
It's corrupt through and through.
@Tom Hickey:
“The problem with such non-specific forecasts (Keen, Hudson) is TPTB control the game since they control the debt and they can and do relax the reins a bit to keep the game going much longer than it would if the rules were followed closely.”
In theory yes, but I don’t think that’s what actually happens. It seems to me that bankers and financiers are unalterably programmed to attack and consume their hosts until they kill their hosts. Even if they wanted to slow down, the demands of various forces (e.g. stockholders) would drive them on. They must continually increase monetary profits at all costs -- even if it destroys the world (i.e. kills the host).
To paraphrase Darth Vader talking to his son Luke Skywalker: “You don’t know the power of the greed side. I must obey.”
Everything is now accelerating. Refugees. Homelessness. Climate change. Abject decadence in the arts. Abject corruption in politics. Debt, poverty, inequality -- and more debt.
What will we find on the other side? A new and more positive world, or a permanent dystopia? We’ll soon find out.
@ Konrad
Off course, the bankers don't mind is the host is killed because they will be made whole from the public purse, which they know is infinitely deep.
The danger to them is not actually killing the host but touching off an overwhelming immune response from the host that kills them.
Thus, TPTB do all in their power to control the domestic intel services and security services. Recall what happened with Occupy Wall Street. They never actually made it to Wall Street and were eventually successfully suppressed, sending a strong signal in the process that dissent will not be tolerated.
But that only works as long as the host's immune system doesn't go into full mobilization.
Of course, the other alternative is that the host actually dies and its parasites along with it. It's called civilizational collapse and Western civilization is heading toward it, like the Hellenistic and Roman.
History is cyclical rather than linear and similar mistakes are repeated that have ancient names, like hubris, which calls forth a dialectical response as nemesis.
@Tom Hickey:
Immune responses don’t help much when the disease is terminal cancer (i.e. bankers and debt).
“Off course, the bankers don't mind if they kill their host because they will be made whole from the public purse, which they know is infinitely deep.”
Under the idea that, “I don’t feel like a winner unless I reduce everyone around me to a loser,” I think that Wall Street parasites enjoy seeing America in ruins, as long as they don’t have to personally live with the consequences. The bigger the sea of homeless people grows, the more the parasites feel like gods. They are motivated by vanity, arrogance, and selfishness. This is why they favor gratuitous austerity, even though federal social programs do not cost them one penny. They want to reduce the world to a wasteland, so they can laugh down at it from Olympus.
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Paul Craig Roberts:
“Jobs offshoring destroys the domestic consumer market. It can be kept going for a period by an expansion in consumer debt, but the process stops when the consumers cannot carry any more debt. Once consumers can't make the minimum credit card payment, the process stops.”
“Jobs offshoring has decreased the tax base for state and local governments, thus creating a vicious cycle. As state and local governments cannot print money with which to pay their bills, their ability to meet pensions and other obligations is declining. Cutbacks in pensions, for example, further reduce consumer purchasing power.”
“Corporations think short term, since senior executives only have a few years by the time they reach senior ranks to make their fortunes by driving up their bonuses and the value of their stock options.”
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201807071066143172-us-debt-dollar/
There have been some policy changes at Treasury and the Depository institutions since 2008...
“Cutbacks in pensions, for example,”
The higher policy rates the Fed is pursuing will increase investment returns to the pension funds ....
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