The United States is pushing as policy division of the world into rival currency camps - the dollar area on the one hand, and the Russia-Chinese-Shanghai Cooperation Organization group on the other, especially now that the IMF has changed its rules. People think that if there are rival currency groupings and national currencies are going bust, we might as well use gold as a safe haven.
Michael HudsonThe companies aren't hiring, because consumers don't have enough money to buy the goods and services.
Michael HudsonWhen we say "people worry" about inflation, it's mainly bondholders that worry. The labor force benefitted from the inflation of the '50s, '60s and '70s.
Michael HudsonYou have to abolish pension plans. You have to abolish social spending. You have to raise taxes. You have to have at least fifty percent of the European population emigrate, either to Russia or China. You would have to have mass starvation. Very simple. That's the price that the Eurozone thinks is well worth paying.
Michael HudsonThe vast majority of $100 bills are abroad, not in the United States. So yes, of course there's a use here but nowhere near as much as there's a use for $100 bills abroad.
Michael HudsonYou could say that the vote to withdraw from Europe is, it's really a vote of the British middle class, the working class, to withdraw from the U.S. neoliberalism that has been running Europe for the last ten years.
Michael HudsonThat's the problem with the financial sector. Banks and the financial sector live in the short run, not the long run. In principle the government is supposed to make regulations that help the economy over time. But once it's taken over by the financial sector, the government lives in the short run too.
Michael Hudson