The U.S. national debt just passed $36 trillion, only four months after it passed $35 trillion and up $2 trillion for the year. Third quarter data is not yet available, but interest payments as a percent of tax receipts rose to 37.8% in the third quarter of 2024, the highest since 1996. That means interest... Read More

Two days after Donald Trump became the first American since Grover Cleveland to win nonconsecutive presidential elections, the Federal Reserve announced a quarter percent cut in interest rates. Following this announcement, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell held a press conference where he said that he would not comply with any presidential request that he step down... Read More

Public opinion polls consistently show the economy is one of the top issues, if not the top issue, for American voters. This may strike some as odd, since official government statistics show low unemployment and declining price inflation, suggesting the Federal Reserve has engineered a “soft landing” bringing down inflation without causing a recession. So... Read More

Many investors, businesses, and consumers cheered the Federal Reserve’s first interest rate cut since March of 2020. The Fed’s 50 basis points interest rate reduction was larger than many Fed watchers anticipated and was followed by suggestions that there are more rate cuts on the way. A drop in borrowing costs following the Fed’s rate... Read More

Wait, so… what? I’m not following this at all. This guy is claiming that adding tens of millions of people to the population somehow increases unemployment among the local population? How does that even make sense? This is clear Nazi propaganda. New York Post: Jerry Powell was brought to America through Project Paperclip. How did... Read More

In the 1970s when I served in the congressional staff and in the 1980s when I served in the executive branch, there was still some intelligence in the US government, with the exception of the Federal Reserve, where there has never been any intelligence. Today there is no sign of intelligence anywhere in the US... Read More

Last weekend several hundred of us gathered in Washington, DC, at the Ron Paul Institute conference to again proclaim our dedication to the cause of liberty and our opposition to constant US government assaults on that liberty. Our collaborators included old friends like Judge Andrew Napolitano, who explained that the Bill of Rights was not... Read More

NIMA: So nice to have you, Michael, and Richard on again on this podcast. And let's get started with the current situation of the economy of the United States. And the question is, Michael, to you, is the United States rapidly approaching bankruptcy? MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, when Republicans and now the Democrats, ever since Obama,... Read More

Robinson: Michael, you've been studying the history of debt and the collapse of civilizations for many decades now, at least going back to your time at Harvard’s Peabody Museum. I'm wondering if you were initially interested in this topic because of its historical interest or more because of its implications for the present.[1] Michael: I... Read More

The “big club” that “you ain’t in,” as George Carlin famously put it, is increasingly visible as the presidential election rolls on toward November. Politicians and the donor class that controls them have made it known to the public that they are not representatives of the majority but rather the small elite minority. Nomi Prins,... Read More

In previous years I regularly reported on the monthly jobs reports. I explained that most of the jobs gains were in lowly paid service jobs, that many and even most of the jobs were part time, and that the jobs numbers were not the same as employment numbers as many of the newly employed held... Read More

Former President and current Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump recently renewed his criticisms of the Federal Reserve. He suggested that, if he returns to the White House next year, he will push Congress to pass legislation giving the president at least a say in the Fed’s decisions regarding interest rates. President Trump thinks that because... Read More

Once upon a time America had a capitalist economy. Bank deposits were used for loans that expanded productive ability. America produced its own goods and grew its own food. America’s currency was backed by gold and inflation was nonexistent. New technology brought into play by new investment improved the productivity of labor, and living standards... Read More

The 2024 Republican platform promises that, if Donald Trump returns to the White House and Republicans gain complete control of Congress, they will reduce inflation. The platform contains some proposals, such as reducing regulations and extending the 2017 tax reductions, that may help lower prices in some sectors and spur economic growth. However, the GOP... Read More

In the first seven months of Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, net interest (payments minus income) on the federal debt reached $514 billion, exceeding spending on both national defense ($498 billion) and Medicare ($465 billion). The interest tab also exceeded all the money spent on veterans, education, and transportation combined. Spending on interest is now the... Read More

American Compass, a think tank promoting a conservatism lacking even a rhetorical commitment to free markets, recently called for Republicans to support tax increases. The organization claims a GOP embrace of higher taxes will enable the uniparty’s left (Democratic) and right (Republican) wings to create a deficit reduction plan balancing tax increase with spending cuts.... Read More

The New York Federal Reserve bank reports that US household debt has hit a new record. Americans are increasingly using credit card debt at high interest rates to pay for their living expenses. Delinquencies are rising. About 17% of Americans are using 90% or more of their credit card limit and an additional 11% are... Read More

The entire the financial press has zero understanding of basic economics. The financial “journalists” just print press releases. The US debt has never mattered, because the US dollar is the world reserve currency. That means US debt is the reserves of the world’s central banks. If US debt rises, so does the reserves of the... Read More

According to new reports from the Social Security and Medicare trustees, Social Security and a Medicare fund that pays for hospital expenses will both begin running deficits in 2035 and 2036. Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, Congress was too preoccupied spending billions more on military aid for foreign countries and banning TikTok to pay attention to... Read More

Someone sent me an article from something called Patriot Alerts, “Morgan Stanley Sounds Alarm On ‘Death Of US Dollar.’” The death of the US dollar is not blamed on the Federal Reserve printing trillions of new fiat currency during the years of Quantitative Easing in order to bail out the difficulties of the 5 large... Read More

President Biden may have recently made history as the first president to discuss snack chips in the State of the Union message. He used snack chips to illustrate the phenomenon of shrinkflation. Shrinkflation occurs when businesses reduce the amount of goods sold in order to avoid raising prices. President Biden pointed out that businesses hope... Read More

According to the Federal Reserve, credit card delinquencies increased by 50 percent in 2023, while consumer debt grew to 17.5 trillion dollars. A recent survey by Clever Real Estate found that three in five Americans have credit card debt and that 23 percent of Americans increase their credit card debt every month. The survey also... Read More

RADHIKA DESAI: Hello and welcome to the 22nd Geopolitical Economy Hour, the show that examines the fast-changing political and geopolitical economy of our times. I’m Radhika Desai. MICHAEL HUDSON: I’m Michael Hudson. RADHIKA DESAI: And working behind the scenes to bring you this show every fortnight are our host, Ben Norton, our videographer, Paul Graham,... Read More

Harry Dent is a bearish financial journalist and trends forecaster, who early last year, insisted that there would be an epic crash in June. In a recent interview, Dent seemed almost irate about markets taking so long to crash. Basically Dent said that if the bubble does not burst this year, he will retire from... Read More

Select politicians, government officials, economic elites, and experts arriving at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland were greeted with an open letter signed by more than 250 billionaires and millionaires. The signers request their respective governments raise their taxes. The letter signers are concerned about “inequality” that they say “has reached a... Read More