If you want to learn real economics instead of neoliberal junk economics, read Michael Hudson’s books.
What you will learn is that neoliberal economics is an apology for the rentier class and the large banks that have succeeded in financializing the economy, shifting consumer spending power from the purchase of goods and services that drive the real economy to the payment of interest and fees to banks.
Democrats still seem amazed that voters are more concerned about economic conditions and resentment against Wall Street (no bankers jailed, few junk mortgages written down). It is a sign of their wrong path that party strategists are holding onto the same identity politics they have used since the 1960s to divide Americans into hyphenated special-interest groups.
by Paul Craig Roberts and Michael Hudson According to various reports, the Russian government is reconsidering the neoliberal policy that has served Russia so badly since the collapse of the
by Gaius PubliusI'm going to break the rule normally applied when one asks a question in a title ... by answering it immediately. Using NATO for economic purposes is very dangerous indeed, since it could, and perhaps will, lead to war.The stated purpose of NATO is "defense," yet it seems to exist for a different purpose — (a) to bring money into the coffers of U.S. corporations by strangling European trade with Russia as an economic competitor to the U.S., and (b) to guarantee billions of dollars in armament sales for U.S.
In 2008 the Federal Reserve had a choice: It could save the economy, or it could save the banks. It might have used a fraction of what became the vast QE credit – for example $1 trillion – to pay off the bad mortgages and write them down. That would have helped save the economy from debt deflation. Instead, the Fed simply wanted to re-inflate the bubble, to save banks from having to suffer losses on their junk mortgages and other bad loans.
NOTE: Readers are asking to know who, in addition to the Western-financed NGOs, are the Fifth Columnists inside Russia. Michael Hudson and I left the description general as Atlanticist Integrationists
But how could deflation be threatening the globe when the central banks have pumped many trillions into the world economy?
Initially, quantitative easing (QE) – instituted by most central banks worldwide – actually causes DEFLATION.
In addition, governments on both sides of the Atlantic have encouraged bank manipulation and fraud to try to paper over their problems.
In this U.S.-centered worldview, China and Russia loom as the great potential adversaries – defined as independent power centers from the United States as they create the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an alternative to NATO, and the AIIB as an alternative to the IMF and World Bank tandem.
