“Overconsumption by US citizens, US buy-outs of foreign companies and dollars the Pentagon spends abroad all end up in foreign central banks. These governments face a hard choice: either recycle the dollars back to America by buying US Treasury bonds or let the “free market” force up their currencies relative to the dollar – thereby pricing their exports out of world markets, creating domestic unemployment and business failures. US-style free markets hook them into a system that forces them to accept unlimited dollars. Now they want out. … The US is the world’s largest debtor, yet has avoided the pain of “structural adjustments” imposed on other debtor nations. US interest rate and tax reductions in the face of exploding trade and budget deficits are seen as the height of hypocrisy in view of the austerity programmes that Washington has forced on other countries via the International Monetary Fund and other vehicles.”

— Michael Hudson (economist)

Washington cannot call all the shots http://michael-hudson.com/2009/06/washington-cannot-call-all-the-shots/ (June 14, 2009) <br class="br">Michael-Hudson.com, 1998-

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Overconsumption by US citizens, US buy-outs of foreign companies and dollars the Pentagon spends abroad all end up in f…" by Michael Hudson (economist)?

Michael Hudson (economist) photo

Michael Hudson (economist)13

American economist 1939

Related quotes

“The US owes the world. The US "superpower" cannot even finance its own domestic operations, much less its gratuitous wars except via the kindness of foreigners to lend it money that cannot be repaid.The US will never repay the loans. The American economy has been devastated by offshoring, by foreign competition, and by the importation of foreigners on work visas, while it holds to a free trade ideology that benefits corporate fat cats and shareholders at the expense of American labor. The dollar is failing in its role as reserve currency and will soon be abandoned.When the dollar ceases to be the reserve currency, the US will no longer be able to pay its bills by borrowing more from foreigners.”

Paul Craig Roberts (1939) American economist

"A Bankrupt Superpower," CounterPunch (2008-03-18)

“If inflation priced us out of world markets we should be back in the old nightmare of unemployment. What folly to risk throwing away all that we have gained. ... Our first duty at a time when there is more money about than goods to spend it on is to keep down Government expenditure. ... The second duty of the Government is to frame policies which encourage saving and discourage spending. ... in the long run there is only one answer to the 64,000 dollar question—to increase production. That is the answer. That is where the real hope lies.”

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) British politician

Speech at Bedford (20 July 1957), quoted in "More production 'the only answer' to inflation", The Times (22 July 1957), p. 4
Prime Minister

“The real bubble in China is in US Treasuries, in US dollars.”

Peter D. Schiff (1963) American entrepreneur, economist and author

Wall Street Unspun, 3 March 2010

“Here’s why I would recommend against [selling the U. S. stock markets short]…. Retail brokers normally require investors to hold any short-sale proceeds in U. S. dollars, usually earning no interest. The dollar, seen through my famously jaundiced eye, could lose more purchasing power than the security you sold short lost value…. I’ve got a much better idea, which is to borrow dollars and spend them to acquire foreign income-producing assets, using the income to pay the interest.”

Peter D. Schiff (1963) American entrepreneur, economist and author

Quotes from Crash Proof (2006)

“Money is different from all other commodities: other things being equal, more shoes, or more discoveries of oil or copper benefit society, since they help alleviate natural scarcity. But once a commodity is established as a money on the market, no more money at all is needed. Since the only use of money is for exchange and reckoning, more dollars or pounds or marks in circulation cannot confer a social benefit: they will simply dilute the exchange value of every existing dollar or pound or mark. So it is a great boon that gold or silver are scarce and are costly to increase in supply.
But if government manages to establish paper tickets or bank credit as money, as equivalent to gold grams or ounces, then the government, as dominant money-supplier, becomes free to create money costlessly and at will. As a result, this 'inflation' of the money supply destroys the value of the dollar or pound, drives up prices, cripples economic calculation, and hobbles and seriously damages the workings of the market economy.”

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) American economist of the Austrian School, libertarian political theorist, and historian

"Taking Money Back" http://mises.org/story/2882, in The Freeman (September - October 1995) http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/.

“Tax reduction has an almost irresistible appeal to the politician, and it is no doubt also gratifying to the citizen. It means more dollars in his pocket, dollars that he can spend if inflation doesn't consume them first. But dollars in his pocket won't buy him clean streets or an adequate police force or good schools or clear air and water. Handing money back to the private sector in tax cuts and starving the public sector is a formula for producing richer and richer consumers in filthier and filthier communities. If we stick to that formula we shall end up in affluent misery.”

John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American politician

The Recovery of Confidence (1970), p. 152.

“Government doesn’t "intrude" on the "free market." It creates the market.”

Robert B. Reich (1946) American political economist

Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few (2015)

“I'll tell ya the one thing you don't wanna buy at the dollar store - toilet paper. (laughs) I might as well have just used the dollar.”

Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist

Tailgate Party (2009)

“A BOUNTY on the exportation of corn tends to lower its price to the foreign consumer, but it has no permanent effect on its price in the home market.”

David Ricardo (1772–1823) British political economist, broker and politician

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter XXII, Bounties and Prohibitions, p. 201

“You can't save free markets by socialism, I don't know where this idea ever came from. You save free markets by promoting free markets and sound money and balanced budgets. The whole reason why nobody wants to address the real problem is, we're spending a trillion dollars a year overseas running an empire, and it's coming to an end. This country is bankrupt, and we won't admit it. Eventually though, the dollar will go bust, and we will bring our troops home, and we will live within our means, but we ought to do it sensibly, rather than waiting for the collapse of the dollar, and this is what we're doing, we're on the verge of destroying our dollar. And then, you think we have problems now, problems then will be a lot worse, it'd look like the Weimar Republic, or a third world nation. And a lot of people know that, and they're scared to death, but we don't need to be making the problem worse by just propping up everything with more government programs, more inflation, and more helicopters, it won't work.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Fox Business Network, October 14, 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qzUtPq8pLE <br class="br">2000s, 2006-2009

Related topics