Radical imagination and the intellectual edifice — Jim Vrettos interviews Michael Hudson

Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of Neoliberalism
Radical imagination and the intellectual edifice
Jim Vrettos interviews Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

Debt And Power – Martin North Interviews Michael Hudson

In this post we discuss debt in the current context, and consider where the very high levels of debt will take us. And as importantly, who wins and who loses. Transcript is available for download....

Digital Financial Analytics Blog
Debt And Power – With Michael Hudson

Martin North

The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos 4/4: A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson: A New “Reality Economics” Curriculum Is Needed (Part 4)-John Siman interviews Michael Hudson

Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of Neoliberalism
Up in Arms
Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos: A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson: (Part 3)-John Siman interviews Michael Hudson

Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of Neoliberalism
The DNA of Western civilization is financially unstable
Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos: A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson: Mixed Economies Today, Compared To Those Of Antiquity (Part 2) — John Siman interviews Michael Hudson

Mixed Economies and Monopoly

Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of Neoliberalism
The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos: A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson: Mixed Economies Today, Compared To Those Of Antiquity (Part 2)
Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos: A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson About His Forthcoming Book The Collapse of Antiquity (Part ¼) — John Siman interviews Michael Hudson

Naked Capitalism
The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos: A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson About His Forthcoming Book The Collapse of Antiquity (Part ¼)

John Siman interviews Michael Hudson

Pence Vs. Xi at APEC — Trump decides to skip

Is accusing China of using debt as a weapon capitalist chutzpah on the part of Pence, when it's SOP under neoliberalism — "free markets, free trade, and free capital flows" — to put less powerful countries in debt to powerful countries to the degree that they need to go to the IMF for funding to meet debt obligations, the strings attached being giving up control of their institutional arrangements, fiscal policy and national sovereignty? 

I doubt Pence will fool anyone on this, but some countries will "go along to get along" with the US.

Reuters

China says no developing country will fall into debt trap by cooperating with China

For the Chinese idiom, see

Language Log
"China has no intention to touch the cheese of any country"
Victor Mair

See also

Yahoo!
APEC leaders divided after US, China spat
Ayee Macaraig, Andrew BEATTY | AFP

See also

The Week
Pence vows more trade war 'until China changes its ways'

Bonnie Kristian

See also

Sputnik International
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit Reveals Depth of US-China Division

See also

"We suggest a certain country matches its words with its deeds, rather than wag the finger at others," [Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying] said in the statement. "The country should treat all countries on an equal footing no matter big or small, respect other countries' right of following a development path that accords with their own national conditions and make real contributions to developing countries."
Ecns
China urges U.S. to stop wagging finger at others

Xinhua

See also

Full text of Xi's remarks at 26th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting

Ecns
Xi calls for inclusive, rule-based world economy at APEC meeting

Xinhua

Also

Zero Hedge
"It Will Be A Cold War": APEC Summit Ends In Unprecedented Chaos After Dramatic US-China Showdown

Tyler Durden

also

SouthFront
US-Chinese Trade War Is To Escalate Further As Both Sides Are Not Going To Make Concessions

also

Reuters
APEC fails to reach consensus as U.S.-China divide deepens

also

Sputnik International
APEC Participants Adopt Final Declaration Excluding Some Controversial Issues
Related

Eisenhower's worst nightmare has come true, as defense mega-contractors climb into the cockpit to ensure we stay overextended....

The dependence on the private sector in the Pentagon and the intelligence community had reached such a point that it raised a serious question about whether the workforce was now “obligated to shareholders rather than to the public interest,” as Priest and Arkin reported. And both Gates and Panetta acknowledged to them their concerns about that issue.

Powerfully reinforcing that privatization effect was the familiar revolving door between the Pentagon and arms contractors, which had begun turning with greater rapidity. A 2010 Boston Globe investigation showed that the percentage of three- and four-star generals who left the Pentagon to take jobs as consultants or executives with defense contractors, which was already at 45 percent in 1993, had climbed to 80 percent by 2005—an 83 percent increase in 12 years.... 

Longish historical article putting things in perspective.

The American Conservative
America’s Permanent-War Complex

Gareth Porter

See also

Did "we" get our money's worth? It all depends on the meaning of "we."

Military Times
Price tag of the ‘war on terror’ will top $6 trillion soon
Leo Shane III

Brian Romanchuk — The Financial Instruments Associated With Crises

This article is a continuation of previous comments on financial crises, with two lines of discussion. The first is a bit of a primer, explaining why I and other commentators associate financial crises with a buildup of private debt. The second part discusses the main problem with associating crises with private debt buildups: growth in debt stocks is by itself not enough to trigger a crisis. The catch is a variant of the efficient markets hypothesis: if we could easily forecast crises, it would be easy to outperform markets. However, other market participants are trying to do the same thing.…

Private sector financial crises are associated with private debt buildup. Unfortunately, we cannot expect simple rules based on debt growth to be able to accurately predict such crises.

Bond Economics
The Financial Instruments Associated With Crises
Brian Romanchuk

Michael Hudson — “Creating Wealth” through Debt: The West’s Finance-Capitalist Road

I kid to this previously, but it was in a list of links. It is important enough to give it its own post.

Hudson at his best. It's a must-read. Longish, so save it for the weekend if time is an issue.

Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of Neoliberalism
“Creating Wealth” through Debt: The West’s Finance-Capitalist Road— To be delivered at the Peking University, School of Marxist Studies, May 5-6, 2018

Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

Scott Fullwiler, Stephanie Kelton, Catherine Ruetschlin, and Marshall Steinbaum — The Macroeconomic Effects of Student Debt Cancellation

Download PDF at link below.

The Levy Institute
The Macroeconomic Effects of Student Debt Cancellation
Scott Fullwiler, Stephanie Kelton, Catherine Ruetschlin, and Marshall Steinbaum
February 2018

Yves comments.

Naked Capitalism
New Study Finds Cancelling Student Debt Provides Broad Economic Benefits at Low Cost

Yves Smith

Michael Hudson – Charles Goodhart — Could/Should Jubilee Debt Cancellations be Reintroduced Today?

Michael Hudson and Charles Goodhart team up.

Longish and detailed but an easy read.

Counterpunch
Could/Should Jubilee Debt Cancellations be Reintroduced Today?
Michael Hudson – Charles Goodhart

also

Irrespective of what we may think of Syria, this is little but a full-scale assault on international law and the normative system embedded in the UN Charter that has taken decades of hard work to build, a fundamental cornerstone of the management and civilizational development of the world order system.

Seen in comparison with the other attempts at undermining the UN – which began in the 1990s in Bosnia-Herzegovina – this should be a cause of deep concern among people in the truly civilizational corners of our world.

And it can’t be sold to the world under the headline of a Responsibility to Protect.…

Naked power grab.

The New US Syria “Strategy”, a Recipe For Continued Disaster
Jan Oberg

SchiffGold — Global Debt Growing Three Times Faster than Global Wealth

Moronic. Whoever wrote this doesn't have any understanding of accounting and the credit-debit relationship that underlies accounting. 

All borrowing results in a debt that is a payable and corresponding saving that results in a loan that is a receivable. A debt is account payable and loan is a account receivable.  

A debt obligation is a financial liability and ownership of a loan is a financial asset.

Some credit is used to to fund capital investment, and some credit is used to fund consumption.

As long as revenue is sufficient to service repayment obligations on time, there is no liquidity (cashflow) problem, and insolvency is not an issue.

The relevant question is whether ability to pay is commensurate with obligations undertaken.

The post ignores this.

SchiffGold
Global Debt Growing Three Times Faster than Global Wealth

Michael Roberts — Boom or bust?

Review and critique of the latest OECD World Economic Outlook, from a Marxian POV. Useful.

The key for me, as readers of this blog know, is what is happening to the profitability of capital in the major economies. If profitability is rising, then corporate investment and economic growth will follow – but also vice versa. But if profitability and profits are falling, debt accumulated will become a major burden. Eventually the zombies will start to go bankrupt, spreading across sectors and a slump will ensue. Financial prices will quickly collapse toward the real value of their underlying productive assets.
Indeed, according to Goldman Sachs economists, the prices of financial assets (bonds and stocks) are currently at their highest against actual earnings since 1900!
What the OECD and IMF reports show is that if there is a downturn in profitability, the next slump will be severe, given that private debt (both corporate and household) has not been ‘deleveraged’ in the last nine years – indeed on the contrary.…

Michael Roberts Blog
Boom or bust?
Michael Roberts

David Nicklaus — China's worry about 'Minsky moment' may be a good sign

Randy Wray gets a mention.

St. Louts Post-Dispatch
Nicklaus: China's worry about 'Minsky moment' may be a good sign

David Nicklaus, business columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

David F. Ruccio — Socioeconomic position and health

Apparently, measuring the levels of two molecules—an individual’s C-reactive protein and fibrinogen (as in the charts above)—and matching them against their socioeconomic position starts to reveal the hidden mechanisms connecting social inequality and health. And the missing link turns out to be stress.

Debt is a major cause of stress, and a rent-based economy is based on debt. Poverty is another major cause of stress, as is financial and economic precariousness. As more people join the percariat, stress increases and health declines.

Occasional Links & Commentary
Bloody hell!
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

Standard & Poor's has its head up its ass yet again!

The idiots at S&P are at it again, downgrading China's "debt." This asinine rating agency does not understand the distinction between a currency issuing nation (of which, China is one) and a country that doesn't issue currency or, that has debt denominated in another currency.

All of China's "debt" is denominated in yuan, which they have the monopoly power to issue. There is zero risk that China wouldn't be able to meet its obligations in yuan.

Anyway, what do you expect from a firm that rated all of the junk debt that caused the housing crisis AAA?

By the way, S&P is not alone. Moody's and Fitch are also just as bad. All three have their heads up their asses.

Kevin Erdmann — Leverage is not a sign of risk seeking, a continuing series

A contrarian view.

Idiosyncratic Whisk
Leverage is not a sign of risk seeking, a continuing series
Kevin Erdmann

David Goldman — What China debt bubble?

Perhaps the biggest piece of fake news in the economic sphere is the claim that China faces an unsustainable debt burden that will lead to a hard landing or, at very least, to a very uncomfortable adjustment.…

Debt scolds debunked.

China actually has a saving problem instead.

Asia Times
What China debt bubble?

David Goldman

Edward Harrison — Where Post-Keynesians and Austrians meet on economics

Credit.

Credit Writedowns
Where Post-Keynesians and Austrians meet on economics
Edward Harrison

See also

Can Macron reform Europe?: A mental model for thinking about the economics

Vitor Mello — Using Minsky to Better Understand Economic Development – Part 1 & 2

This year the global system has seen two major shocks: Brexit and Trump. What these events have in common is their populist rhetoric that promised to bring back jobs, while also making xenophobic statements. These elections have tapped into growing anxiety over job security, which has not been addressed by most governments and has given room for demagogues to tap into the anger of the people. They reflect a problem that transcends the boundaries of any single nation: the global economy has been in a slump for almost a decade. Governments need to create jobs, and public fiscal stimulus is the way to do so. To allow it, we must rethink that system.

The Minsky's

Using Minsky to Better Understand Economic Development – Part 1

Using Minsky to Better Understand Economic Development – Part 2
Vitor Mello