Tag Archives: Michael Hudson

Keiser Report 162 – 060711 – European Firesales & Michael Hudson

 

In the first half of this episode (15 mins) Max and Stacy talk about the firesale of income producing national assets by governments within the EU (you know, those things that are bought, paid for and owned by the taxpayer). They reference this article in the Guardian newspaper, in which you may notice this in the section about Britain –

‘the Treasury indicated that plans for a new Public Data Corporation would involve selling public data to the private sector.’

Nice. I wonder what public data this will be? Census information by any chance? Don’t forget to add yourself to the ‘do not call register’.

As Stacy points out, via these firesales the countries are going to be giving up their income-producing assets which will of course reduce their revenue, thus further destabilising their economies as well as sending the income from these assets abroad to private interests.

According to Stacy, this is ‘neofeudalism.’ According to the IMF, the EU and various governments, this is being done to ‘help’ Greece and the other countries to solve their financial woes and stabilise their economies. Can you spot the disconnect? All answers on a postcard to Herman Van Rompuy who is (allegedly) offering a nice Greek island to the lucky winner pulled out of the hat.

Max provides the example of the Greek state lottery, which produces revenue of 900 million Euros per year and can be snapped up for a bargain 450 million Euros. Huh?

In the second half of the program Max talks to economist Michael Hudson about Greece, the IMF and the ‘class war of the banks against the rest of society.’