Articles | Michael Hudson (2024)

By Michael Monday, June 17, 2024Articleswall stPermalink

US Cryptocurrency as an Offshore Banking Center
The Wall Street Journal ran a revealing op-ed today (June 14, 2024) by Paul D. Ryan, “Crypto Could Stave off a U.S. Debt Crisis.”

Mr. Ryan, libertarian Republican House Speaker 2015-2019 and now at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, writes that: “Stablecoins backed by dollars provide demand for U.S. public debt and a way to keep up with China.”He reports that “According to the Treasury Department and DeFi Llama, a
cryptocurrency analytics site, dollar-based stablecoins are becoming an important net purchaser of U.S. government debt.” If the stablecoin fund was a country, it would be in “the top ten of countries holding Treasuries – smaller than Hong Kong but larger than Saudi Arabia.” So the result of officially promoting them “would be an immediate, durable increase ...

By Michael Tuesday, May 28, 2024ArticlesNo tagsPermalink

A new monthly column for German newspaper Berliner Wochenende.Ever since World War II, U.S. trade strategists have based their international policy on control of two key commodities: oil and grain. Economically, they have been the mainstay of the U.S. balance of payments, the leading categories of export surplus (along with weapons), especially as the U.S. economy has deindustrialized. And politically, these are basic needs of every economy. U.S. diplomacy has sought to make other countries dependent on American grain. In the 1950s, most notably, U.S. opposition to Mao’s Communist revolution in China sought to impose a grain embargo on that country. But Canada broke the sanctions – creating good will for decades.U.S. trade strategists have sought to promote grain dependency on U.S. farmers by opposing foreign attempts to achieve grain ...

By Michael Monday, April 29, 2024ArticleseducaPermalink

“Have you no sense of decency?”The recent Congressional hearings leading to a bloodbath of university presidents brings back memories from my teen-age years in the 1950s when everyone’s eyes were glued to the TV broadcast of the McCarthy hearings. And the student revolts incited by vicious college presidents trying to stifle academic freedom when it opposes foreign unjust wars awakens memories of the 1960s protests against the Vietnam War and the campus clampdowns confronting police violence.I was the junior member of the “Columbia three” alongside Seymour Melman and my mentor Terence McCarthy (both of whom taught at Columbia’s Seeley Mudd School of Industrial Engineering; my job was mainly to handle publicity and publication). At the end of that decade, students occupied my office and all others at the New School’s ...

By Michael Friday, April 5, 2024ArticlesNo tagsPermalink

A new transcription of an earlier recording. One of the first interviews where Michael talked about the Ancient Near East.KARL FITZGERALD: 3CR, radio that's independent, progressive and making a difference. And welcome to The Renegade Economists with your host, Karl Fitzgerald. This week, we're stepping back in time, way back some 10,000 years BC, into the world of archaeology, Egyptology and Assyriology. Yes, it's time for another special with Professor Michael Hudson. That's right. Michael Hudson back on the show.He's got a new book called "Labor in the Ancient World". And I asked him to give us a bit of a precis on the background to this very interesting process. Hang on for another riveting conversation here on 3CR's Renegade Economists.MICHAEL HUDSON: It's a symposium of a group put together ...

By Michael Friday, March 29, 2024ArticlesEUPermalink

As published in Berliner Zeitung.The dismantling of German industry since 2022 is collateral damage in America’s geopolitical war to isolate China, Russia and allied countries whose rising prosperity and self-sufficiency is viewed as an unacceptable challenge to U.S. hegemony. To prepare for what promises to be a long and costly fight, U.S. strategists made a pre-emptive move in 2022 to turn Europe away from its trade and investment relations with Russia. In effect, they asked Germany to commit industrial suicide and become a U.S. dependency. That made Germany the first and most immediate target in America’s New Cold War.Upon taking office in January 2021, Joe Biden and his national-security staff declared China to be America’s number one enemy, viewing its economic success as an existential threat to U.S. hegemony. To ...

By Michael Wednesday, March 13, 2024ArticlesNo tagsPermalink

https://youtu.be/d2hWvaqjMmkRobinson Erhardt discussion, March 10 ,2024Michael Hudson discusses his workRobinson: Michael, I read in your book, Killing the Host, that you decided to become an economist after meeting one named Terrence McCarthy, who explained to you why financial crises tend to occur in the autumn after crops are harvested. And this was an interesting question. What's the story and why was it so compelling for you?Michael: Well, most economies used to be agricultural economies. That was the center and there was something called the autumnal drain. In other words, when it was time to move the crops, banks needed to provide the credit for the wholesale buyers of grain to pay the farmers for their crop, to buy the crop. That would drain money out of the banking system and ...

By Michael Thursday, February 22, 2024ArticlesNo tagsPermalink

I found a story in Saturday’s New York Times that I think epitomizes the crapification of higher education in the United States. It concerns the New School, where I taught at the graduate faculty from 1969 to 1972 (when it was still called the New School for Social Research).Sharon Otterman, “Facing Budget Troubles, Some Colleges Look to Sell the President’s House,” The New York Times, February 16, 2024.The New School wants to sell its presidential residence in Manhattan for $20 million. It joins other small colleges that are turning to their real estate to help them through budget troubles.The president of the New School in Manhattan is about to lose an extraordinary perk: a five-story West Village townhouse that for decades has served as the university head’s official residence.The school, ...

By Michael Sunday, December 3, 2023ArticlesGeopolitical Economy HourPermalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io0H1i7Xf8sRADHIKA DESAI: Hello and welcome to the 19th Geopolitical Economy Hour, the program where we discuss the evolving political and geopolitical economy of our time. I'm Radhika Desai. MICHAEL HUDSON: And I'm Michael Hudson. And we bring you this program with the help of our host, Ben Norton, our videographer Paul Graham, and our transcriber Zach Weisser.The carnage in Gaza has paused, though the possibility that this will open the door to a permanent resolution is remote. Little else seems to have changed. The U.S. remains doubled down on its one-sided support for a murderous Israel, the tail that wags the U.S. dog.MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, it's not only the United States that's doubling down, it's Europe that's doubling down. And it's becoming, you're seeing, they've banned protests supporting the Palestinians ...

By Michael Sunday, November 26, 2023ArticlesPatreonPermalink

https://youtu.be/Zjni3f13XMwSupport Michael Hudson's unique perspective by joining his Patreon group, where we hold these quarterly discussions. Next is Thurs Dec 7th.Karl: Welcome everyone to another quarterly session with Michael. We’ve got to come up with a good nickname with these (sessions). They're great discussions and we like to have a fireside type conversation with Michael, who, of course, you all know, as one of the world's leading experts of neoliberal era we live in. And yeah, Michael, we have with Patreon now about 270 supporters. So it's absolutely fantastic that we've grown to that many.M: I'm glad you encouraged me to start it.K: Yeah, well, it's been a nice way to get to know a few of your supporters and having these Q&A sessions certainly helps. So, yeah, a big ...

By Michael Friday, November 17, 2023Articlesand forgive them their debts, Middle EastPermalink

If the prophets of ancient Israel such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Malachi and Amos were alive today, Benjamin Netanyahu would accuse them of anti-Semitism for daring to describe his government as a travesty of what the Mosaic covenant was all about. A common thread running throughout the Jewish Bible – Christianity’s Old Testament – was to criticize kings, the wealthy and corrupt courts for violating the Mosaic commandments to create a fair and equitable society protecting the poor from the economic oppression of debt bondage, and loss of their land. If the prophets were summoned to give judgment today, it is Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party and the steeply unequal economy of Israel that would be condemned as violating the most basic laws of Biblical Judaism.Prophet after prophet described the Lord ...