Junk Economics: Michael Hudson Rages "Wall Street Has Taken Over The Economy.. & Is Draining It"
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Annie Zhou via FinancialRepressionAuthority.com,
FRA Co-founder Gordon T. Long is joined by Professor Michael Hudson in discussing his concept of the FIRE economy and its influence on the production and consumption economy, along with some of his writings.
Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and author of Killing the Host (2015), The Bubble and Beyond (2012), Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (1968 & 2003), Trade, Development and Foreign Debt (1992 & 2009) and of The Myth of Aid (1971), amongst many others.
ISLET engages in research regarding domestic and international finance, national income and balance-sheet accounting with regard to real estate, and the economic history of the ancient Near East. Michael acts as an economic advisor to governments worldwide including Iceland, Latvia and China on finance and tax law.
Full Interview:
Abstract:
FIRE ECONOMY
FIRE is an acronym to the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate sector. Basically that sector is all about assets, not production and consumption. Most people think of the economy as being producers making goods and services and paying labor to produce them, and then labor is going to buy the goods and services. But this production and consumption is rife in the asset economy of who owns assets and who owns other things.
The Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate sector is dominated by finance. For instance, 70-80% of bank loans in North America and Europe are mortgage loans against real estate. The only way of buying a home or commercial real estate is on credit, so the loan to value ratio goes up steadily, banks lend more to the real estate sector, and real estate is worth whatever banks are willing to lend against it.
As banks loosen credit terms, lower interest rates, take lower down payments and basically lower amortization rates, interest only loans, they’re going to lend more hand more against property.
“Property’s bid up on price, but all of this rise in price is debt leverage.”
A financialized economy is a debt leveraged economy, whether it’s real estate or insurance or just living, and debt leveraging means a larger portion of assets are represented by debt, raising debt-equity ratios, but also that more and more of people’s incomes and tax revenue is paid to creditors. So there’s a flow of revenue from the production and consumption economy into the financial sector.
WE’RE STILL IN CAPITALISM, NOT CREDITISM
There’s a huge amount of gross savings, about 18-19% of the US economy, coded in part in debt. The savings that are lent out to borrowers are debt. So you have the 1% lending out their savings to the 99%, but the gross savings are higher.
“Every economy is a credit economy.”
“The IMF has this Austrian theory that pretends money began as barter and capitalism operates on barter, and this is a disinformation campaign. This is a very modern theory that is …read more
Source: Junk Economics: Michael Hudson Rages "Wall Street Has Taken Over The Economy.. & Is Draining It"
