Friday, March 1, 2019
Jimmy Dore - How Wall Street Gave Us Trump w/Michael Hudson -
Jimmy Dore says how the housing market collapsed in 2008 and the banks were teetering on bankruptcy, so the government, i,e, us, bailed them out. After they got their money the banks then repossessed 5.6 houses - a double whammy. Quids in!,
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I saw this. When bank fraud caused severe bank debt, the US government bailed out the banks and bondholders, while leaving the debts of ordinary people intact. As a result, 10 million Americans were thrown out of their houses. Banks have become bigger and greedier than ever, while average Americans have become more indebted than ever.
Jimmy Dore says the masses saw more of the same in Hillary, so she lost the election. He notes that we are spending more than ever on war, but there is “no money” for Universal Medicare.
Hudson notes that ancient Babylon understood that debt always grows faster than GDP, such that society will collapse without periodic debt jubilees. Hudson says the first society to totally do away with debt jubilees was ancient Rome, and that this eventually led to Rome’s collapse. He says that a few Greek kings tried to have debt jubilees (e.g. Agis IV pf Sparta and Cleomenes III of Sparta), and were therefore murdered by creditor-oligarchs. The same thing happened to the Gracchi brothers in Rome, and of course to Julius Caesar.
Which reminds me: I have many problems with Julius Caesar, but I reject all claims that Caesar “ended democracy.” Republican Rome was not a democracy. It was an oligarchy, in which creditors sought to get richer at the expense of society, just like today. Julius Caesar’s reforms made him very popular with the masses. Hence the creditor-oligarchs murdered him. After that, most of the emperors treated the masses better than the oligarchs had treated the masses. The false claim that Republican Rome was a democracy is a product of today’s illusion that the UK and USA are democracies. This is a farce. (Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase, calls himself a “Democrat.”)
Greek society fell because Greek creditor-oligarchs allied with Rome in order to deal with increasing pressure from the indebted masses. The oligarchs also allied with Rome because the Antigonid dynasty of Macedon, led by Philip V, was threatening to invade Greece and to erase debts. As a result of this alliance, Greece was reduced to a mere province of Rome after the Battle of Cynoscephalae (197 BC).
Hudson says that Reagan’s “supply side economics” is a misnomer because its adds nothing to the supply of goods or services. It is a monetary giveaway to the rich. He says that today’s wealth is in the financial economy, not the real economy. Today’s wealth does not rise from factories or production. It is capital gains inflated by the Fed, which has created $4.6 trillion since 2008 to buy stocks and bonds and real estate. Not to help average people with their debts. Not to employ people. Just to make the rich richer.
I know of no economist that could fill MH's shoes.
It's interesting to watch this video after watching Becky Quick's long interview with Warren Buffett following his 2019 letter to shareholders. Optimism vs pessimism in the American capitalist system.
Buffett pointed out that as economic actors have become more and more specialized over the decades, inequality has grown in proportion. He said we need to do a better job of distributing the wealth that has been created and admitted that politics has been overinfluenced by capital.
Mike Norman points out on his videos that current gov't spending is keeping the economy heading in the right direction. To Michael Hudson's point, unless people start marching with pitchforks the status quo will remain. And Hudson mentions identity politics as being unhelpful to the Democrats cause. Race and gender arguments keep the real issue of working class stagnaton at bay. The elites prefer that we muddle along. Warren Buffett won't mind a nice steady muddle.
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