Economist Michael Hudson discusses partial student debt relief in the US, inflation and the Fed, disaster capitalism in Ukraine, and China’s challenge to the petrodollar.
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Economist Michael Hudson joins Multipolarista host Ben Norton to discuss partial student debt relief in the US, inflation and the Fed, disaster capitalism in Ukraine, and China’s challenge to the petrodollar.
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BEN NORTON: Hey everyone, this is Ben Norton of Multipolarista. I’m joined by one of my favorite guests today, the brilliant economist Michael Hudson. And there are a lot of things that we plan on talking about today.
We’re going to address the partial student debt relief in the United States, and the problem of debt, which is something that Professor Hudson has written a lot about.
We’re going to talk about the inflation crisis, and some of the history of responses to the inflation that we’ve seen in the US. For instance, I’m going to pick Professor Hudson’s brain about Richard Nixon’s response. Nixon imposed price controls and froze wages for the first time since World War Two.
We’re also going to talk about the history of the Volcker shock, when Paul Volcker, who was the head of the Fed, raised interest rates to a level never seen before.
We’re going to talk about neoliberalism. I’m going to ask Professor Hudson about comments that French President Macron made about the “end of abundance.”
And I’m going to ask Professor Hudson about disaster capitalism in Ukraine. Ukraine’s leader Zelensky just did a virtual bell ringing to open the New York Stock Exchange, and announced $400 billion of giveaways to foreign corporations, mostly US corporations, who are salivating to get access to Ukraine’s assets.
And then finally, I’m going to ask Professor Hudson about the challenge of the petrodollar that China has been carrying out, and the potential emergence of the so-called petroyuan, whether or not Saudi Arabia will list its oil in the yuan.
