| Description |
vi, 435 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Note |
Publisher location taken from their website. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references. |
| Contents |
Introduction: the twelve themes of this book -- The parasite, the host, and control of the economy's brain -- The financial sector's rise to power -- The long fight to free economies for feudalism's Rentier legacy -- The critique and defense of economic rent, from Locke to Mill -- The all-devouring "Magic of compound interest " -- How the one percent holds the 99 percent in exponentially deepening debt -- Rentiers sponsor rent-free national income statistics -- The failed attempt to industrialize banking -- The stock market as a predatory arena -- From the stock market's origins to junk bonding -- Finance vs. industry: two opposite sides of the balance sheet -- The bubble sequence: from asset-price inflation to debt deflation -- The bankers saw it coming, but economists averted their eyes -- The coup of 2008: bailing out the banks, not the economy -- The giveaways get more deeply politicized and corrupt -- Wall Street pretends to insure against the crash -- Bailing out Goldman via AIG -- Wall Street takes control and blocks debt writedowns -- From democracy to oligarchy -- Europe's self-imposed austerity -- The financial conquest of Latvia: from the Soviet orbit to neoliberal austerity -- Creation of the troika: its pro-bank, anti-labor agenda -- High finance turns democracy to "junk" -- High finance installs technocrats as proconsuls -- The troika's road to debt serfdom -- U.S. courts block debt writedowns -- Financial austerity or a clean slate? -- Finance as warfare -- Is the mode of parasitism overshadowing the mode of production? -- The fight for the 21st Century -- Coda: the Greek tragedy that threatens to sink the Euro. |
| Summary |
"The financial sector has succeeded in depicting itself as part of the productive economy, yet for centuries banking was recognized as being parasitic. The essence of parasitism is not only to drain the host's nourishment, but also to dull the host's brain so that it does not recognize that the parasite is there. This is the illusion that much of Europe and the United States suffer under today. The aim of this book is to pierce this illusion and replace junk economics with economics based on reality. In Killing the Host, Michael Hudson argues that financial crises will continue unless we radically transform our economic and political structures, and reclaim the best ideas of classical economics. Ominous, yet clear-eyed and prophetic, Hudson provides viable solutions to our economic problems, at a time when politicians have shown themselves unable to understand our economy much less fix it"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Subject |
Economics.
|
|
Business cycles.
|
|
Financial crises.
|
|
Debt -- Economic aspects.
|
|
Business cycles (OCoLC)fst00842457
|
|
Debt -- Economic aspects.
(OCoLC)fst00888772
|
|
Economics. (OCoLC)fst00902116
|
|
Financial crises. (OCoLC)fst00924607
|
| Genre/Form |
Nonfiction.
|
| Added Title |
How financial parasites and debt destroy the global economy |
| ISBN |
9783981484281 |
|
3981484282 |
|
