Investing trust in the wrong people and policies can be ruinous. How much dishonesty does it take before the public stops putting blind faith in debt dealers, corporate crooks and the servile politicians who do their bidding? The widespread acceptance of ‘healthy’ inflation, monopoly patent rights, the ‘retirement’ trap and enslaving corporate ‘benefits’ would suggest... Read More

Oscar Brisset: Welcome to the first event of the Oxford Economics Society for this academic year. I’m Oscar, the Co-President of our society, and I’m glad to welcome you back for another term of exciting discussions. Although we were hoping last term to be back in-person by January, due to the worsening Covid-19 situation in... Read More

Summary[1a] Marx and many of his less radical contemporary reformers saw the historical role of industrial capitalism as being to clear away the legacy of feudalism – the landlords, bankers and monopolists extracting economic rent without producing real value. But that reform movement failed. Today, the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector has regained... Read More

If you’re new to high finance, then the concept of “shorting” is bizarre and convoluted. People actually make money from stocks falling? How is this possible? Why is it legal? Does this contribute anything to society? Am I missing out? Here’s how shorting works. Let’s say you have a neighbor who is a cat lady... Read More

There is a deceitful and ahistorical myth that frequently resurfaces in right-wing circles seeking to discredit socialism with lies about the Russian Revolution. No matter how many times it has been invalidated as fabrication, the reactionary mythos endures. As might be expected, the author is referring to the preposterous claim that American capitalists — or... Read More

Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar last month took a hard look at rent and rent-seeking at the Henry George School of Social Science. Michael Hudson: Well, I’m honored to be here on the same show with Pepe and discuss our mutual concern. And I think you have to frame the whole issue that China is... Read More

Allied with landlords and monopolists, the finance sector is extracting economic rents from the economy that’s impoverishing US government, industry and labor says Michael Hudson discussing the chokehold of pro-finance, pro-rentier capitalism reaching into the present COVID-19 crisis. TRANSCRIPT LYNN FRIES: Hello and welcome. I’m Lynn Fries producer of Global Political Economy or GPEnewsdocs. I... Read More

“What’s going to happen now?” I was asked earlier today. “Nothing and everything,” I replied. Immigration, largely unchallenged and unscathed (excepting the incidental impact of COVID-19 on population movement) from four years of Trumpism, will now continue to accelerate unabated. Zionism will continue to enjoy the expansion of American institutional and military support, this time... Read More

Before juxtaposing the U.S. and alternative responses to the corona virus’s economic effects,[1] I would like to step back in time to show how the pandemic has revealed a deep underlying problem. We are seeing the consequences of Western societies painting themselves into a debt corner by their creditor-oriented philosophy of law. Neoliberal anti-government (or... Read More

Here are a few takeaways from the Democratic Convention: The Democrats are running on the same platform they ran on in 2016. The Democrats put style above substance, flashy optics above ideas or issues. The Democrats think that hollow tributes to "diversity" and "inclusion" will win the election. The Democrats have abandoned white, working class... Read More

In a recent article, “Smashing Culture,” I briefly described a scene in Philadelphia from 30+ years ago. Sitting in McGlinchey’s, I was drinking Rolling Rock. This trivia triggered a most curious yet telling response from a commenter, “Rolling Rock? – really? Were you listening to the Eagles too? Nice street cred attempt, but it’s either... Read More

The imposition of the nationwide lockdowns required elite consensus. There's no way that a project of that magnitude could have been carried out absent the nearly universal support of establishment elites and their lackeys in the political class. There must have also been a fairly-detailed media strategy that excluded the voices of lockdown opponents while--... Read More

To most people, if they are familiar with it at all, BlackRock is an asset manager that helps pension funds and retirees manage their savings through “passive” investments that track the stock market. But working behind the scenes, it is much more than that. BlackRock has been called “the most powerful institution in the financial... Read More

Nixon 68 is back with a vengeance, with President Trump placing himself as the guarantor/enforcer of Law & Order. That slogan guaranteed Nixon’s election, and was coined by Kevin Phillips, then an expert in “ethnic voting patterns”. Philips makes for a very interesting case. In 1999, he became the author of a seminal book: The... Read More

Have you noticed the peculiar fact that despite the lockdown, the economic crisis, tens of millions unemployed and multiple corporations filing for bankruptcy, Wall Street is having a ball? CNBC‘s Jim Cramer examined this anomaly earlier a few days ago, his verdict: “we're looking at a V-shaped recovery in the stock market, and that has... Read More