America needs an ineffective president. That's much better than an effective president that's going to go to war with Russia, that's going to push for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that's going to protect Wall Street, and that's going to oppose neoliberal austerity. I would much rather have an ineffective president than someone who's going to do these bad things that I fear is going to come from Hillary and the Democratic Party.
Michael HudsonMost people think of the economy as producing goods and services and paying labor to buy what it produces. But a growing part of the economy in every country has been the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which comprises the rent and interest paid to the economy's balance sheet of assets by debtors and rent payers.
Michael HudsonCanada is a malstructured. You could almost call it a failed economy, except that its natural resources are so rich that everybody can get wealthy off making holes in the ground and digging up the oil and polluting the environment.
Michael HudsonEconomists often define their discipline as "the allocation of scarce resources among competing ends." But when resources or money really become scarce, economists call it a crisis and say that it's a question for politicians, not their own department.
Michael HudsonThe establishment Trump talked about wasnโt really Wall Street. He said, โWhen Washington got rich.โ Bernie Sanders would have said, โWhen Wall Street got rich, the country didnโt.โ So I think when Donald Trump says "Washington," what he means is the government regulatory agencies.
Michael HudsonThe most serious problems lie in the financial sphere, where the economy's debt overhead has grown more rapidly than the 'real' economy's ability to carry this debt. [...] The essence of the global financial bubble is that savings are diverted to inflate the stock market, bond market and real estate prices rather than to build new factories and employ more labor.
Michael Hudson