Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Michael Hudson

Quote by Michael Hudson

“When other countries run sustained trade deficits, they must finance these by selling off domestic assets or running into debt — debt which they actually are obliged to pay. It seems that only the Americans are so bold as to say “Screw the world. We’re going to do whatever we want.” Other countries simply cannot afford the chaos from which the U.S. economy is positioned to withstand as a result of the fact that foreign trade plays a smaller role in its economy than in those of nearly all other nations in today’s interdependent world. Using debtor leverage to set the terms on which it will refrain from causing monetary chaos, America has turned seeming financial weakness into strength. U.S. Government debt has reached so large a magnitude that any attempt to replace it will entail an interregnum of financial chaos and political instability. American diplomats have learned that they are well positioned to come out on top in such grab-bags.”

Quote by Michael Hudson

Book:The Bubble and Beyond
Create image

Work

The Bubble and Beyond

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Michael Hudson
Michael Hudson

Michael Hudson is a renowned economist, born in 1939. He has conducted extensive research in the field of economics, particularly in finance, real estate, and debt. Professor Hudson has held teaching positions at several prestigious universities and has authored numerous publications on economic theory and policy. more

You May Also Like

“These acts recall the 1971–72 “Chicken War” between America and Europe, and the grain embargo that quadrupled wheat prices outside of the United States. It was this embargo that inspired OPEC to enact matching increases in oil prices to maintain terms-of-trade parity between oil and foodstuffs. The “oil shock” was simply a reverberation of the U.S. grain shock.”

OpecSuper ImperialismChicken WarGrain EmbargoOil Shock
Book:Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance
Create image

“The United States is in deficit on raw materials account, but is unwilling to limit its industrial expansion correspondingly. It is in surplus on farm products account, but is unwilling to limit its agriculture accordingly. The peoples of developing countries therefore are to be turned into the instrument through which the otherwise untenable U.S. economic process is perpetuated.”

AgricultureMineralsImfWorld BankSuper ImperialismFree Trade Imperialism
Book:Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance
Create image

“The easy kind of liberalism, with its hope for ready-to-hand technocratic solutions to social problems, has led them to support the major way in which liberal institutions among backward peoples can be prevented from evolving. Their support for higher living standards for all has been exploited into de facto support of the oppressive and militarist regimes in backward countries. That indeed has become the purpose of the Malthusianism promoted by the World Bank and the government of the United States. American liberals have been its unwitting allies, and thereby the allies of the world’s most reactionary regimes.”

ImfWorld BankSuper ImperialismUs Liberalism
Book:Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance
Create image

“Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives voted in favor of a military budget even bigger than Trump had asked for. And, as Erik Sherman at Forbes magazine eloquently pointed out, 60 percent of the Democrats voted for this outsized military budget which totals $695.5 billion. As Sherman explains, "{i}n other words, of the party that supposedly opposes rampant military spending and the Trump administration, 60% voted for this bill," at a time "{w}hen income inequality combines with systemic and systematic redistribution of virtually all income growth to the wealthiest while their taxes are reduced." Sherman of course hints at a truth which must be accepted- that Democrats are not, and never really have been, a party which "opposes rampant military spending." There is a bi-partisan consensus on such spending, and there is very little debate on lowering it. And this is for a number of reasons, one of which being that military spending is very lucrative for the arms manufacturers who bilk the quite willing Pentagon, and by extension the taxpayers; indeed, these are the biggest welfare cheats who few will acknowledge.”

PoliticsCapitalismNationalismPoliticiansStatismOligarchyPlutocracyMilitary BudgetCorporate WelfareRedistributive Militarism
Book:The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Russia
Create image