151 Quotes by Michael Hudson

One of the big problems in America's economic polarization and shrinkage is that pensions can't be paid. So there are going to be defaults on pensions here, just like Europeans are insisting in rolling back pensions. You can look at Greece and Argentina as the future of America.

The problems of 2008 were never cured. The Federal Reserve's solution to the crisis was to lend the economy enough money to borrow its way out of debt. It thought that if it could subsidize banks lending homeowners enough money to buy houses from people who are defaulting, then the bank balance sheets would end up okay.

Mathematically, debts grow exponentially at compound interest. Banks recycle the interest into new loans, so debts grow exponentially, faster than the economy can afford to pay.

You're having government spending on the economy being cut almost everywhere. That means that the only source of spending for growth has to come from borrowing from the banking system.

Inflation usually helps the economy at large, but not the 1% if wages rise. So the 1% says that it is terrible.

Paying debt service to banks leaves less income to buy goods and services.

I think something like three-quarters of American currency is held abroad, by drug dealers, by tax evaders, Russians and Chinese. Other people think that they want to protect themselves against their own currency going down. When you have 75% of the currency and even more of the high-denomination $100 bills held abroad, you wonder whether these are people we really want to pay. If you get rid of the $100 bills, its foreign holders will be the main losers.

High prices can be the result of speculation, and maybe plunging prices can be attributed to the end of speculation, but low prices over time aren't caused by speculation. That's oversupply, mainly by Saudi Arabia flooding the market with low-priced oil to discourage rival oil producers, whether it's Russian oil or American fracking.

Most of the European leaders look at themselves as having to follow the United States, because if the US opposes them, there will be a regime change.