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The one sure mark of a con, though, is the promise of free money.

Michael Hudson

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Michael Hudson
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More quotes by Michael Hudson

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Nobody prefers to earn income any more, because that's taxable. Rich people prefer to make capital gains.
Michael Hudson
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A stand in is a politician who can deliver her constituency to her Wall Street backers. That's what a politician does in America. You get a constituency you make them believe your promises, and then you turn them over to your financial campaign backers. That's what politics has become and that's as much an art of deception as economics is.
Michael Hudson
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When there's deflation, it means that although most markets are shrinking and people have less to spend, the 1% that hold the 99% in debt are getting all the growth in wealth and income. Deflation means that income is being transferred to the 1%, that is, to the creditors and property owners.
Michael Hudson
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Most banks - with Deutsche Bank at the top of the spectrum here - have decided that they can't make money lending to barrowers anymore, so they're going to the second business plan: They lend money to casino capitalists. That is, to people who want to gamble on derivatives.
Michael Hudson
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Actually, high housing prices don't help the economy. They raise the cost of living.
Michael Hudson
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The effect of metals speculation was to push up the prices that China had to pay to countries like Australia. This squeezed China. Once the speculative demand ended, all of a sudden the added production facilities that had been brought into production by the high prices went out of production again, and there was a glut.
Michael Hudson
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Paying debt service to banks leaves less income to buy goods and services.
Michael Hudson
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Debtors will seek to cancel their debts. Creditors will try to collect, and the more they succeed, the more they will impoverish the economy.
Michael Hudson
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You have a choice. Either you can have more oil, or more clean water. Fracking is not good for the water supply.
Michael Hudson
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Normally, if someone goes bankrupt, you wipe out the debt and get a fresh start. But that's not permitted with student loans. So the effect is to impoverish many graduates with very high debts.
Michael Hudson
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Money is not a factor of production. But in order to have access to credit, in order to get money, in order to get an education, you have to pay the banks.
Michael Hudson
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A derivative is a bet on whether a stock, or a bond or a real estate asset, is going to go up or down. There's a winner and a loser. It's like betting on a horserace.
Michael Hudson
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As you have to pay more interest and amortization on what you owe, you're left with less and less money to buy goods and services - unless you borrow even more and go further into debt.
Michael Hudson
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In fact, there's no way that banks can be paid everything that they're owed.
Michael Hudson
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We're at the end of long cycle that began in 1945, loading the economy with debt. We're not going to be able to get out of it until you write down the debts. But that's what the IMF believes is unthinkable. It can't say that, because it's supposed to represent the interest of the banks.
Michael Hudson
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When Mr.Trump says he wants to help all Americans, he means he wants to help all Americans in the 1% by really letting Wall Street get a huge debt from the 99% of the Americans. It's just the opposite of what people believe.
Michael Hudson
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Since 2008 you've had the largest bond market rally in history, as the Federal Reserve flooded the economy with quantitative easing to drive down interest rates. Driving down the interest rates creates a boom in the stock market, and also the real estate market. The resulting capital gains not treated as income.
Michael Hudson
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When you say bank, a bank is a building, a set of computers and chairs and things. The bankers are the people running these banks. They're the chief officers, and they push the loans because they don't care if they go bad. For one thing, they may package these bad loans and sell them off to gullible institutional investors.
Michael Hudson
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The real estate interests and banks are in a kind of symbiosis. They're the largest-growing part of the economy. This is the sector that backs the political campaigns of senators, presidents and congressmen, and they use this leverage to make sure that their people dominate the Federal Reserve, Treasury and the federal housing agencies.
Michael Hudson
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When economists speak of money, they neglect that all money and credit is debt. That is the essence of bookkeeping and accounting. There are always two sides to the balance sheet. And one party’s money or savings is another party
Michael Hudson