| economy
This is a long piece and it will make your head hurt. A must read!
The Coming Financial Reality
An Interview with Economist Michael Hudson
On July 1st, as the state legislatures began their new fiscal year, I spoke with heterodox economist and historian Michael Hudson, one of the few with both real experience inside the financial services sector. He believes that it is not enough to know that corporations will do everything imaginable to extract profit at the expense of the workforce. It is not enough to know that politicians represent their donors, not the electorate. He believes you also need to have some background in the financial system as a whole to understand where the economy is headed and why "free market" propaganda dominates the terms of debate, despite all the evidence of its failings.
Professor Hudson is presently writing a book on the bubble, focusing on the increasing dominance of the financial industry over industrial production. I asked him to relate his ideas to the coming state of social security, employment, Bush's war against the poor and the middle-class, and the international ramifications of US economic policy.
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Bush's Data Dump
The administration is hiding bad economic news. Here's how.
The Bush administration is finally facing tough questions about its selective use of intelligence in selling war with Iraq. But Americans shouldn't just be skeptical of what the president says about WMD. They should be skeptical of what he says about GDP. In economic policy even more than in war policy, the Bushies have successfully suppressed, manipulated, and withheld evidence to serve their policy purposes.
Of course every administration likes to trumpet its good news and hide its bad, but what's remarkable about the Bush team is its willingness to stifle data that had been widely released and to politicize data that used to be nonpartisan.
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The Bush disaster in color
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All the bars showing a reduced deficit going into an increasing surplus were when Clinton was President. All the bars showing an increased deficit are when Bush is President. Who is the conservative? How bad can it get? Wait a little and we'll see.
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