R is for Rentier by Michael Hudson

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
April 5, 2014

Image by duncan c via Flickr

Part R in the Insider’s Economic Dictionary.

Race to the bottom: A term for dog-eat-dog competition by which countries compete by cutting wage levels so as to produce in the cheapest market, not by raising wages and labor productivity. The effect is to shrink the circular flow between producers and employee-consumers, leading to declining living standards. Under these circumstances productivity is increased only by working the existing labor force more intensively and cutting back medical insurance, old-age pensions and other social welfare expenditures. (See Free Market.)

P is for Ponzi by Michael Hudson

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
April 3, 2014

Image by LEOL30 via Flickr

Part P in the Insider’s Economic Dictionary.

Panic: The abrupt culminating stage of the business cycle, in which inflated asset prices collapse in price as financial securities and properties are sold to pay off debts.

Parallel Universe: The objective of modern economic methodology. A hypothetical exercise in science fiction depicting a world that conceivably could exist, given a sufficient number of internally consistent assumptions. (See Neoclassical Economics.)

Michael Hudson: It’s as if Obama has Adopted Dick Cheney’s Military Policy!

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
March 17, 2014

An interview with WBEZ on the one-sided view of economic reform.

WBEZ writes:

Both the U.S. and the E.U. have pledged aid packages to help Ukraine’s new government stabilize the country’s economy. The IMF also has a team on the ground in Ukraine, currently analyzing the country’s debt crisis. They expect to make recommendations for reforms that are required for Ukraine to secure an IMF loan.

Russia’s Economic Development to Offset Terrorist Fervor? by Jeffery Sommers and Michael Hudson

by Jeffery Sommers and Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
February 25, 2014

Image by Paulo Filgueiras via United Nations Photo via Flickr

The Sochi Olympics were the great success Russia hoped for. The opening ceremonies proved a radiant display drawing on Russia’s most compelling cultural assets. This artful look back to Russia’s past greatness proved both a reminder and challenge to its own people to reprise their historical greatness going forward. Meanwhile, its closing ceremonies reprised these themes, reminding the viewer of Russia’s continued vibrancy in the arts.

Michael Hudson: Neoliberalism Is Really Neofeudalism, It’s a Dismantling of Democracy

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
February 17, 2014

Image by infomatique via Flickr

TheMeltingPress on Feb 15, 2014

This is the first episode of our new “Alternative Voices” interview series, where we talk to people who give us a different perspective on all manner of topics.

N is for Neo-Serfdom, O for Offshore Banking by Michael Hudson

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
January 23, 2014

Image by chrisinplymouth via Flickr

Parts N and O in the Insider’s Economic Dictionary.

Neoclassical economics: The school that arose in the last quarter of the 19th century, stripping away the classical concept of economic rent as unearned income. By the late 20th century the term “neoclassical” had come to connote a deductive body of free-trade theory using circular reasoning by tautology, excluding discussion of property, debt and the financial sector’s role in general, taking the existing institutional environment for granted. (See Marginalism and Parallel Universe, and contrast with Structural Problem and Systems Analysis.)

M for Marginalism by Michael Hudson

Image by duncan via Flickr

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
January 22, 2014

Part M in the Insider’s Economic Dictionary.

Malthus, Thomas Robert (1766-1834): British economist and spokesman for its landlord class. His Principles of Political Economy (1820) countered Ricardo’s critique of groundrent by pointing out that landlords spent part of it on hiring coachmen and other servants and buying luxury products (coaches, fine clothes and so forth), thus providing a source of demand for British industry, and part capital improvements to raise farm productivity.

L is for Land by Michael Hudson

Image by Leo Reynolds via Flickr

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
January 19, 2014

Part L in the Insider’s Economic Dictionary.

Labor: The labor theory of value resolves the value of products and capital goods into labor costs, while Say’s Law focuses on how employees spend their wages. Hence, labor often is euphemized as “consumers” rather than focusing on the terms of their employment by capital.

Michael Hudson: 95% Income Growth Goes to the 1%

Image by KeizerStreetArt via Flickr

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
January 16, 2014

Boom Bust on Jan 15, 2014

Michael Hudson, a professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, is a sharp critic of what he considers the “rent seeking” behavior which has come to dominate the world of global finance. Once upon a time, governments regularly expunged debts to prevent the crises and turmoil that overindebtedness caused. But then came the Romans. For the Romans, “a debt was a debt was a debt”.

Michael Hudson: Trade Advantage Replaced by Rent Extraction

Image by AndyRobertsPhotos via Flickr

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
December 17, 2013

I was interviewed on the Renegade Economists radio/ podcast entitled Crony Competition on the road to Unearned Income: Prof Michael Hudson gives a wrap on the economics of 2013 as we discuss Detroit, Iceland, Madoff, Marx and Blackstone Capital.

J is for Jubilee, K for Kleptocrats by Michael Hudson

Image by Leo Reynolds via Flickr

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
December 6, 2013

Parts J & K in the Insider’s Economic Dictionary.

Jubilee Year: In Judaic Law (Leviticus 25) a Clean Slate to be proclaimed every 50 years annulling personal and agrarian debts, liberating bond-servants to rejoin their families, and returning lands that had been alienated under economic duress. Long thought to have been merely a literary religious ideal, the policy has now been traced back to royal proclamations issued as a matter of course in Sumer and Babylonia in the third and second millennia BC. (See Bronze Age.)

I is for Ideology by Michael Hudson

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
November 24, 2013

Image by Leo Reynolds via Flickr

Part I in the Insider’s Economic Dictionary.

Ideology: A set of assumptions so appealing that one looks at their abstract logic rather than at how the world actually works. (See Insanity.)

Ignorance: Socrates said that ignorance was the source of evil, because nobody knowingly commits evil. But by pursuing their own narrow interests, the financial and property sector destroy the social unit, which is the essence of evil as viewed from an evolutionary vantage point. Thomas Hobbes wrote in Leviathan (1651) that “Ignorance of remote causes disposeth men to attribute all events to the causes immediate and instrumental: for these are all the causes they perceive.”

H is for Half-Life by Michael Hudson

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
November 22, 2013

Image by Leo Reynolds via Flickr

Part H in the Insider’s Economic Dictionary.

Half-life: In physics, the time it takes for half the mass of a radioactive element to decay into the next-lower isotope or element, typically ending in a stable and inert element such as lead. By extension, the time it takes for an economic theory or ideology to lose half its influence, e.g. as Marxist value theory, Henry George’s Single Tax, Keynesian income theory, Chicago School monetarism, or most recently, neoliberalism. In international relations, the time it takes for an industrial creditor nation to dissipate half of its economic advantage and free lunch.

G is for Groundrent by Michael Hudson

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
November 12, 2013

Image by chrisinplymouth via Flickr

Part G in the Insider’s Economic Dictionary.

Gains from Trade: A euphemism for trade dependency resulting from the specialization of production between food-surplus nations and food-deficit countries, and the parallel polarization between high-technology and low-wage producers. Originally coined by free-trade advocates, the term is now used primarily by the agriculturally protectionist economies of North America and Western Europe. Under Ricardian trade theory, the gains from trade are measured by the amount of labor and related costs to importers of producing similar products at home.

Michael Hudson: QE, Neofeudalism and Privatization — The End of Consumer Choice

Image by Alex Cameron via Flickr

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
October 20, 2013

In Extraenvironmentalist #67 we discuss the implications of the bursting global credit bubble with economist and historian Michael Hudson. Our conversation covers many of the themes in Hudson’s new book, The Bubble and Beyond which covers the process of quantitative easing, neofeudalism and more.