To the deficit commission, a depression is the solution to the problem, not a problem. - Michael Hudson

America is basically the blob, the State Department, the C.I.A., the national security state, and its ideology is to shift economic planning away from government to Wall Street and other financial centers in England and France. And I don’t see that financialization and neoliberalism changing. That’s their religion. And you’re going to have, instead of the reform that you’d like to see, you’re going to see an increasingly violent vicious fight against anyone proposing this reform, just as they fought against Allende in Chile and against against Cuba and as they’re fighting against China and Russia today.

There was actually no liquidity crisis whatsoever... the reason that the regular newspapers don't report it is the loans violated every element of the Dodd-Frank laws that were supposed to prevent the Fed from making loans to particular banks that were not part of a liquidity crisis... these three banks, Chase Manhattan, Goldman Sachs – which used to be a brokerage firm – and Citibank, that the Federal Reserve laws and the Dodd-Frank Act explicitly prevent the Fed from making loans to particular banks... month after month, the Fed was pumping money into JP Morgan and Citibank and Goldman... these really weren't Citibank and Morgan Chase; it was to their trading affiliates. Now this is exactly what Dodd-Frank was supposed to prevent...

Those who obtain or inherit predatory wealth and privilege realize the ultimate means of imposing austerity and demolishing the power of democracies is deception, junk economics....