Paul Krugman is widely appreciated for his New York Times columns criticizing Republican demands for fiscal austerity. He rightly argues that cutting back public spending will worsen the economic depression into which we are sinking. And despite his partisan Democratic Party politicking, he warned from the outset in 2009 that President Obama’s modest counter-cyclical spending... Read More

The New Bank Disaster Olafur Arnarson, Michael Hudson and Gunnar Tomasson* The problem of bank loans gone bad, especially those with government-guarantees such as U.S. student loans and Fannie Mae mortgages, has thrown into question just what should be a “fair value” for these debt obligations. Should “fair value” reflect what debtors can pay –... Read More

“But if a country is still not delivering, I think all would agree that the second stage has to be different. Would it go too far if we envisaged, at this second stage, giving euro area authorities a much deeper and authoritative say in the formation of the country’s economic policies if these go harmfully... Read More

Is Iceland’s rejection of financial bullying a model for Greece and Ireland? This article is an excerpt from Prof. Hudson’s upcoming book, “Debts that Can’t be Paid, Won’t Be,” to be published later this year. Last month Iceland voted against submitting to British and Dutch demands that it compensate their national bank insurance agencies for... Read More

Michael Hudson appears on the Renegade Economists podcast to discuss the motivations behind rating agencies, austerity aiding bankers, the disintegration of the EU and how property bubbles are to blame for so many of the global economy’s problems. Michael Douglas from Wall St: Money Never Sleeps makes a cameo appearance. Listen now Subscribe to the... Read More

About 75% of Iceland’s voters turned out on Saturday to reject the Social Democratic-Green government’s proposal to pay $5.2 billion to the British and Dutch bank insurance agencies for the Landsbanki-Icesave collapse. Every one of Iceland’s six electoral districts voted in the “No” column – by a national margin of 60% (down from 93% in... Read More

Professor Hudson was recently in Norway and interviewed on NRK. Take your pick, the first file has the Norwegian edited out, so excuse a few jumps in topic. The second is the full podcast. Listen (3 mins) Listen to the Norwegian version (34 mins)

What does Norway get out of its Oil Fund, if not More Strategic Infrastructure Investment? For the past generation Norway has supplied Europe and other regions with oil, taking payment in euros or dollars. It then sends nearly all this foreign exchange abroad, sequestering its oil-export receipts – which are in foreign currency – in... Read More

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” “The Rich Boy,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald The 30-year campaign of the wealthy to rig our economic system – especially the tax component – for their own benefit will accelerate with the GOP capture of the House of Representatives and... Read More

Government debt in Greece is just the first in a series of European debt bombs that are set to explode. The mortgage debts in post-Soviet economies and Iceland are more explosive. Although these countries are not in the Eurozone, most of their debts are denominated in euros. Some 87% of Latvia’s debts are in euros... Read More

Financial Times (shorter version) Global Research Can Iceland and Latvia pay the foreign debts run up by a fairly narrow layer of their population? The European Union and International Monetary Fund have told them to replace private debts with public obligations, and to pay by raising taxes, slashing public spending and obliging citizens to deplete... Read More

A copy of this file can be downloaded here.

You can download a copy of this file from here.