Monday, April 10, 2017

Steve Keen interviews Michael Hudson

Fixing the economy sort of jump,ed. parts understandable and generally interesting. Sample:
"Now think of the circular flow. The whole of economics was founded by a doctor, Francois Quesnay in France that looked at a national income like the circulation of blood in the body. But you have this blood being drained - 75% of the circular flow now is drained for what we call the FIRE sector - finance, insurance, and real estate."
And stuff like this:
"Peshine Smith was the law partner of William Seward, who everybody had expected to be the presidential candidate. But by being so outspoken against slavery, they decided to get a gray figure. Someone nobody had ever heard of that was - they hoped would be completely mediocre. Abraham Lincoln.
Are you kidding?
He made William Seward secretary of state, and after Seward resigned, he made a trip around the world and went to Japan. And they said, we want to break away from England’s free trade policy. So he sent Peshine Smith over to be an advisor to the Mikado, who they waited till the British ambassador went on vacation, passed protective tariffs. And Smith went native and had a Japanese mistress and wore a sword when he went out in a kimono and everything and introduced protective industrial policy to Japan.
Which is what turned it from being a rural colony of totally feudal in 1868 through to an industrial super power that could challenge the Germans and the Russians in the First World War."

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