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Michael Hudson: How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

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  • #16
    Re: Stupid question

    Originally posted by D-Mack View Post
    I was reading the article above by Hoeffle and the article by Hudson and I am not sure what is going to happen. When I read Hudson it seems like there is no problem with this, did I miss something?
    difference is that hudson is an economist of some standing and larouche is a friggin nut job. read a few things hudson has to say, note that he has not developed a mad hatter cult following, then consider...

    By Nathaniel Tishman

    "The Dick is loose!" yells Andrew Laverdiere at the bustling crowd getting off the train at the corner of 19th and Holloway. The pack either ignores him or walks quickly in the other direction. He isn't deterred.

    "Oh, so you like the Dick!" he roars. "Do you want to get fucked by Bush again?"

    Laverdiere still has his pants on.

    He's waving a pamphlet entitled, "Children of Satan II, The Beast Men," featuring a prominent picture of Vice President Dick Cheney on the cover, and an executioners shadow in the background. On the small folding table next to Laverdiere are more pamphlets, from, "Is Your Clergyman or Congressman a Moonie Sex-Cultist?" to "Stop Ashcroft's 'Heinrich Himmler II' Bill -- While You Still Can."

    Laverdiere is a member of WLYM, the Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement, a global network of supporters for perennial fringe presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. Extolled in an almost messianic fashion by his followers as 'the world's foremost economist, thinker, and statesman,' LaRouche is seen by his detractors as a con artist, conspiracy theorist and leader of a cult of personality, who served five years in federal prison for fraud in the 1980's. Despite his questionable record, LaRouche has more than 20 chapters of young supporters across the US and Canada who advocate ceaselessly for what seems to be an impossible goal, LaRouche's inauguration in January 2005.

    LaRouche's brand of democracy is an unusual one. While advocating for causes most liberal-minded people would agree with, such as reforming HMO's and supporting health care for everyone, LaRouche also has something of a draconian, and what some might call a paranoid streak. Within the past few years LaRouche has said the way to deal with the AIDS epidemic is to screen and permanently quarantine those who have been infected, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom was running a drug-dealing ring, and that Vice President Dick Cheney was not merely evil, but literally a spawn of Satan himself. His supporters speak in quasi-militaristic terms, referring to their tabling events as deployments, and calling their group gatherings 'Cadre Schools.'

    Originally from the small town of Madison, Maine, Laverdiere, 35, first found out about LaRouche after leaving the Navy eight years ago, and has become a passionate advocate for his campaign. He has a wide, toothy smile, a wispy blond goatee, wire-rimmed glasses and balding scalp. His face lights up as he speaks about why he supports LaRouche, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

    "Why are all these wacky kids supporting this old guy," he asks. "Because who outside of LaRouche has people marching in the streets? Democracy is in trouble, big trouble."

    LaRouche's critics may agree that democracy is threatened, but they question whether LaRouche and his movement are the ones to change things.

    "They're a parasitic social phenomenon," says Eric Wolfe, Communications Director for a Bay Area labor union, who has had extensive contact with the LaRouche movement. " They've burrowed into the body politic. They have a crackpot ideology that is able to feed off the legitimate energy of people who are disaffected with the status quo."

    "They really annoy me," says Sam Devine, a Music major at SF State, after encountering a table of LaRouche activists at a recent 'deployment' on campus. "They strike me as people who are activists just for activisms sake. Although they act Socialist, they're clearly Fascist."

    While presidential campaigns usually try to make themselves as visible as possible, the LaRouche 2004 offices are in an unmarked building above a small snack bar on Franklin street in downtown Oakland. Perhaps 100 feet down on the corner, a single white-on-red LAROUCHE FOR PRESIDENT 2004 poster is taped to a streetlight, but otherwise an average person would be lucky to find it. A creaky and cramped elevator is the only visible access to the third floor, where the campaign is headquartered.

    The inside looks very similar to any other campaign office: computers, telephones, pamphlets and signs are stacked throughout the space. The literature weighing down the blue wooden bookshelf betrays the LaRouche movement as anything but typical. From "Is Satan in Your Schoolyard," to "Treason in America," and "The Night They Came to Kill Me!," all have subjects usually outside the standard realm of politics.

    In the voluminous library in the back of the office one Saturday night, Laverdiere speaks to Eddie Lopez, 18. Wearing a hooded black sweatshirt, Lopez says he has never really been political, but he doesn't like Bush. He says he met some of the LaRouche supporters at City College, and they invited him to the meeting tonight.

    "So, you've never been political," says Laverdiere, smiling. "Don't worry, we change a lot of those."

    In the background, a DVD plays of LaRouche speaking to a rapt audience, with Lopez half-watching, half-listening to Laverdiere.

    "I honestly think Dick Cheney is a dummy, and his wife Lynne is a ventriloquist," says LaRouche.

    In the next half-hour approximately 20 more people arrive, and take seats in the main room off the library, where Sylvia Spaniolo has called the meeting to order. The 'political briefing,' the first portion of the meeting, claims that LaRouche predicted the early March train bombings in Madrid, which killed almost 200 people.

    "LaRouche has specifically talked about how Madrid could be another target," says Spaniolo, a young woman with thick-rimmed glasses and highlighted blonde hair, wearing a short-sleeved flowery dress. The audience, almost as one, murmurs their approval.

    After Spaniolo sits down, Timothy Vance, the leader of the evening's class strides to the lectern, adorned with a large poster of LaRouche. A clean-shaven, boyish-looking brown-haired man with glasses, he speaks for almost three hours on 'LaRouche's Policy of Statecraft,' topics ranging from Bach to the profession of Journalism. At one point Vance calls up two men from the audience to help him sing a musical scale.

    "Bach is part of a great tradition of thinkers that LaRouche partakes in," says Vance.
    In the March 2004 primaries Alameda County voters elected four prominent La Rouche supporters- Summer Shields, Charles Spies, Spaniolo and Laverdiere, to the Democratic Central Committee. In the March 10 issue of the East Bay Express, Will Harper reported on their election and the concern it creates among mainstream democrats.

    "Party officials doubt the LaRouchies teach anything but Lyndon worship," Harper writes.

    Laverdiere says he's still shocked from his election victory, but is looking forward to promoting LaRouche in the committee. He already has big plans though, and a message he wants to expose.

    "They said that in all of Alameda county LaRouche got only 300 votes, and I got 18,000," says Laverdiere. "But you know the government stole the rest of his votes, right?"

    Laverdiere doesn't put anything past election officials and the government in what he sees as a quest to discredit his chosen candidate. They'll do whatever they need to do.

    The Dick is loose, after all...

    Comment


    • #17
      Re: Stupid question

      Originally posted by metalman View Post
      difference is that hudson is an economist of some standing and larouche is a friggin nut job. read a few things hudson has to say, note that he has not developed a mad hatter cult following, then consider...
      But the article is not written by larouche, could we discuss the content and not where it comes from.

      Comment


      • #18
        Re: Stupid question

        Originally posted by D-Mack View Post
        But the article is not written by larouche, could we discuss the content and not where it comes from.
        sure... if it's on larouche's site it has no credibility. zero. nada. i don't care if it was written by paul volcker.

        Comment


        • #19
          Re: Stupid question

          "They really annoy me," says Sam Devine, a Music major at SF State, after encountering a table of LaRouche activists at a recent 'deployment' on campus. "They strike me as people who are activists just for activisms sake. Although they act Socialist, they're clearly Fascist."

          As if the former were preferable to the latter.

          This guy Hudson, who the powers that be here are clearly enamored of, is a socialist, is he not? Why should investors embrace socialism?
          Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -Groucho

          Comment


          • #20
            Re: Michael Hudson: How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

            Because will ye, nill ye, socialism is upon us.

            Or do you consider TAFs and whatnot capitalism?

            The key is to get something positive done by government as opposed to the ongoing incestuous financial glad handing.

            Hudson believes only government has the power to do so - to literally harness the entire productivity of the American people to make things right.

            You may have noted that one of his possible solutions is to basically cancel debt and mobilize the entire populace towards rebuilding the next generation infrastructure.

            Capitalism nor democracy cannot and will not ever do that.

            WPA on steroids.

            Comment


            • #21
              Re: Michael Hudson: How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

              Originally posted by c1ue View Post
              Because will ye, nill ye, socialism is upon us.

              Or do you consider TAFs and whatnot capitalism?

              The key is to get something positive done by government as opposed to the ongoing incestuous financial glad handing.

              Hudson believes only government has the power to do so - to literally harness the entire productivity of the American people to make things right.

              You may have noted that one of his possible solutions is to basically cancel debt and mobilize the entire populace towards rebuilding the next generation infrastructure.

              Capitalism nor democracy cannot and will not ever do that.

              WPA on steroids.
              The US is a republic with solmnolent citizens.

              Comment


              • #22
                Re: Michael Hudson: How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

                Originally posted by c1ue View Post
                Because will ye, nill ye, socialism is upon us.

                Or do you consider TAFs and whatnot capitalism?

                The key is to get something positive done by government as opposed to the ongoing incestuous financial glad handing.

                Hudson believes only government has the power to do so - to literally harness the entire productivity of the American people to make things right.

                You may have noted that one of his possible solutions is to basically cancel debt and mobilize the entire populace towards rebuilding the next generation infrastructure.

                Capitalism nor democracy cannot and will not ever do that.

                WPA on steroids.
                Perhaps the answer to what the US must ultimately do to extricate itself from the deep hole of debt into which it has plunged has already been suggested on these pages many times, but for the sake of me I cannot remember what the answer(s) was.

                I guess EJ has written about infrastructure buildout, and he or others have turned to new forms of energy to replace reliance on oil. It seems all these things are going to cost more money, and most of the money to build new things in the US comes from borrowing, thus it seems to me either endeavor will just dig the hole deeper and deeper (maybe until it reaches China, and then those of you left can jump down in the hole and become Chinese, or maybe deep within that hole a new energy form to replace oil will be found).

                Seriously, does ANYONE, including all you lurkers out there, have any realistic answers to how the US will ever recover from all this? Hudson's suggestion above, despite whatever anyone sees wrong with it, at least I presume could be an answer, and unless someone has a better one, then perhaps his is best.
                Jim 69 y/o

                "...Texans...the lowest form of white man there is." Robert Duvall, as Al Sieber, in "Geronimo." (see "Location" for examples.)

                Dedicated to the idea that all people deserve a chance for a healthy productive life. B&M Gates Fdn.

                Good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement. Unknown.

                Comment


                • #23
                  Re: Michael Hudson: How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

                  Originally posted by Jim Nickerson View Post
                  Perhaps the answer to what the US must ultimately do to extricate itself from the deep hole of debt into which it has plunged has already been suggested on these pages many times, but for the sake of me I cannot remember what the answer(s) was.

                  I guess EJ has written about infrastructure buildout, and he or others have turned to new forms of energy to replace reliance on oil. It seems all these things are going to cost more money, and most of the money to build new things in the US comes from borrowing, thus it seems to me either endeavor will just dig the hole deeper and deeper (maybe until it reaches China, and then those of you left can jump down in the hole and become Chinese, or maybe deep within that hole a new energy form to replace oil will be found).

                  Seriously, does ANYONE, including all you lurkers out there, have any realistic answers to how the US will ever recover from all this? Hudson's suggestion above, despite whatever anyone sees wrong with it, at least I presume could be an answer, and unless someone has a better one, then perhaps his is best.
                  There is no doubt, that Hudson's solution might work, i.e. increased socialism as an emergency measure can get us out of this mess. The question is, what will get us out of socialism once it takes over.

                  The answer is: nothing. There is no way back.
                  медведь

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Re: Michael Hudson: How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

                    It is interesting to think about what we mean when we ask what the "solution" to this problem is. There are a whole lot of assumptions that go into coming up with an "appropriate" response. Our first assumption is the answer has to be phrased in the context that America will stay America from Atlantic to Pacific. The next large assumption is that our voting system and process of election will remain the same. Lastly (obv waay more than 3 assumptions, trying to be brief) we assume that our general lifestyle i.e access to food, more than adequate shelter, clothing, entertainment, travel etc etc will all generally remain in the same format that they are today.
                    I guess my point is if we all threw out those assumptions and started to think very much outside of the box, there are plenty of viable answers to this question of how it will all shake out in the end. It may not be what everyone wants to hear, it may be a very difficult to swallow solution. It is times like these that people can begin to challenge the status quo that at this point no one will argue is working! I am no visionary when it comes to these things so srry i cant offer more than an observation!

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Re: Michael Hudson: How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

                      Originally posted by j4f2h0 View Post
                      It is interesting to think about what we mean when we ask what the "solution" to this problem is. There are a whole lot of assumptions that go into coming up with an "appropriate" response. Our first assumption is the answer has to be phrased in the context that America will stay America from Atlantic to Pacific. The next large assumption is that our voting system and process of election will remain the same. Lastly (obv waay more than 3 assumptions, trying to be brief) we assume that our general lifestyle i.e access to food, more than adequate shelter, clothing, entertainment, travel etc etc will all generally remain in the same format that they are today.
                      I guess my point is if we all threw out those assumptions and started to think very much outside of the box, there are plenty of viable answers to this question of how it will all shake out in the end. It may not be what everyone wants to hear, it may be a very difficult to swallow solution. It is times like these that people can begin to challenge the status quo that at this point no one will argue is working! I am no visionary when it comes to these things so srry i cant offer more than an observation!
                      I didn't specify that a solution would include any of the assumptions you suggest.

                      Anybody, qualify an answer anyway they want, and then suggest how all this is going to end or be remedied?

                      I'm sort of the opinon that most readers here think it will "end" in inflation, because that is as far as EJ has carried his speculations--I suspect there will be another step after that.

                      Personally, I think I will be dead before it ends and something else takes place. I don't have a vague idea as to how it will end. Eradication of all politicians, as they currently exist, and about 75% of the population by some diaster(s) would force something new to take place and rather much wipe out all the crap that exists now.
                      Jim 69 y/o

                      "...Texans...the lowest form of white man there is." Robert Duvall, as Al Sieber, in "Geronimo." (see "Location" for examples.)

                      Dedicated to the idea that all people deserve a chance for a healthy productive life. B&M Gates Fdn.

                      Good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement. Unknown.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Re: Michael Hudson: How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

                        What I find rewarding about Hudson is that he at least appears to be striking at the root of the "problem." In this context a discussion of Socialism versus Capitalism seems a step backward. So what's he striking at? What are the central tenets of "Hudsonism"? A) The role of the dollar as world reserve currency subverts the "free market" functioning of global trade. B) It does this by ensuring that, in so much as world trade (as opposed to domestic economic development) is viewed as the way forward, this trade will have to accrue to the US's benefit first, with the US debt level and its counterpart, the world's liquidity, being the instrument by which this is extracted. (Gun to head) C) This might be OK in the same sense that the Chinese accept this as the price to be paid for development except that 1) the debts accrued (in financed consumption) will outrun the dwindling benefits due to both consumers (think overleveraged OECD populace) and producers (think dwindling margins for Asian producers) while finance reaps the rewards in both nominal terms (on the way up) and real terms once their debts are increasingly put to the populace (bail outs.)

                        If this is capitalism mark me down as a socialist.

                        Hudson is at pains to rekindle an interest in classical economic notions such as "economic rent." I'd say he is as much a classical economist as a socialist. But does it really make any sense to be talking in these terms anyway when we clearly have, via the finance economy, privatised gains and socialised losses? Capitalism is dead anyway. Wall Street killed it.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Re: Stupid question

                          Originally posted by metalman View Post
                          sure... if it's on larouche's site it has no credibility. zero. nada. i don't care if it was written by paul volcker.
                          Well he did round the numbers, 87% while Hudson uses 86,5 %



                          I think I listened to Hudson and he said that the oil companies are the big winners in the high oil price race, it has been done through a bottle neck in low refinery capacity. I had the impression that he sees no speculation by the big players (I'm going from memory)

                          (He talks about it at 34 minutes)
                          Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

                          "The New Road to Serfdom"
                          Interview with economist and historian, Dr. Michael Hudson, on his newbook in progress, "The Fictitious Economy: How Finance Is Destroying Industrial Capitalism and Paving a New Road to Serfdom." We examine what is meant by the term "fictitious" as the concept is applied to aspects of today's economy. We take a look at the role of war and the demise of the dollar, the bubble economy, and what could unfold in the future. Visit Dr. Hudson's website at www.michael-hudson.com.

                          http://kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=27008
                          Last edited by D-Mack; September 03, 2008, 03:49 AM.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Re: Michael Hudson: How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

                            Originally posted by Sapiens View Post
                            Rajiv,

                            It's nothing but business, nothing personal. :rolleyes:

                            Take a look at this:

                            http://cafr1.com/Revolution.html
                            Total nonsense. Basically Walter Burien (who happens to be a total crackpot) doesnt understand fund accounting. He doesn't understand that government pension funds (such as Calpers) exist for the benefit of the pensioners, not the government.

                            Many of these pension funds have large investments that they use to pay for retiree pensions, and also as an investment to (hopefully) be able to pay for the retirees in the future. That doesnt mean that the government actually has all this extra income that they can do what they want with.

                            Go to his website and you can see all of his crackpot theories. I havent read the whole thing, but Im sure there is stuff on there about 9/11, chemtrails, fake moon landings, area 51, etc.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Re: Michael Hudson: How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

                              Another thing. Our government will not be paying back its debts, just as every other government known to man has defaulted on their debts. There is just too much debt to pay back.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Re: Michael Hudson: How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

                                Originally posted by oddlots View Post
                                What I find rewarding about Hudson is that he at least appears to be striking at the root of the "problem." In this context a discussion of Socialism versus Capitalism seems a step backward. So what's he striking at? What are the central tenets of "Hudsonism"? A) The role of the dollar as world reserve currency subverts the "free market" functioning of global trade. B) It does this by ensuring that, in so much as world trade (as opposed to domestic economic development) is viewed as the way forward, this trade will have to accrue to the US's benefit first, with the US debt level and its counterpart, the world's liquidity, being the instrument by which this is extracted. (Gun to head) C) This might be OK in the same sense that the Chinese accept this as the price to be paid for development except that 1) the debts accrued (in financed consumption) will outrun the dwindling benefits due to both consumers (think overleveraged OECD populace) and producers (think dwindling margins for Asian producers) while finance reaps the rewards in both nominal terms (on the way up) and real terms once their debts are increasingly put to the populace (bail outs.)

                                If this is capitalism mark me down as a socialist.

                                Hudson is at pains to rekindle an interest in classical economic notions such as "economic rent." I'd say he is as much a classical economist as a socialist. But does it really make any sense to be talking in these terms anyway when we clearly have, via the finance economy, privatised gains and socialised losses? Capitalism is dead anyway. Wall Street killed it.
                                Capitalism isn't dead, it's just sleeping.
                                Ed.

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