Source: http://GunsandButter.org
http://Michael-Hudson.com
http://information-machine.blogspot.com

We discuss Michael Hudson's book, J is for Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception, with an emphasis on the degradation of economic vocabulary that hides the real state of the economy; language affects peoples' perception of reality; history of economic thought no longer taught; classical political economy focused on society's unearned income or rent; the rentier landlord financial class; fictitious capital; the real reforms of the progressive era; classical political economists expected capitalism to evolve into socialism; classical economic concepts of value, price and rent; productive versus extractive economic sectors; public financing of infrastructure a windfall for the private sector; effects of the tax deductibility of interest; monetary policy and the Federal Reserve; economics is political - politics has always been about who is going to get what; National Income Accounting; fiscal policy and Modern Monetary Theory; the three stages of debt leveraging.

A former Wall Street analyst, government adviser, and fierce critic of neoliberal economic order, Hudson is Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Professor of Economics at Peking University in China. He gives speeches, lectures and presentations all over the world for diverse academic, economic and political audiences. He is the author of many books on the global economy, with a focus on financial history, debt, land tenure and related economic institutions from antiquity to the present.