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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rickyb" data-source="post: 2130537" data-attributes="member: 56035">just a stunning stunning interview from michael hudson.  i heard about him a few years ago and have listened to quite a few interviews hes done, not enough though.[MEDIA=youtube]cMuIoIidVWI[/MEDIA]HUDSON: ...America now is having the same crisis that Argentina had, that Greece had, that Latvia had, that Russia had. These economies are our future. And it’s going to go down and down in a slow crash.HEDGES: But could it go down and down, and what we end up with is a form of neofeudalism, a rapaciously wealthy, oligarchic elite with a kind of horrifying police state to keep us all in order?HUDSON: This is exactly what happened in the Roman Empire.HEDGES: Yes, it did.HUDSON: You had the great Roman historians, Livy and Plutarch – they blamed the decline of the Roman empire on the creditor class being predatory, and the latifundia. The creditors took all money, and would just buy more and more land, displacing the other people. The result in Rome was a Dark Age, and that can last a very long time. The Dark Age is what happens when the rentiers take over.__________________________HEDGES: So, spell it out for people. What’s going to – I mean, we’ve lost control of this predatory or parasitic force.HUDSON: Well, you can look at the future as what’s happening in Greece, what happened in Russia after their traumatic shock therapy. America’s in for shock therapy, no matter who wins the presidential …HEDGES: So play it out for me. What’s it going to look like?HUDSON: Well, more people are going to have higher and higher charges for what they spend for medical care. More for schooling. More just to break even. And they’re going to have to draw down their existing savings, or they’re going to have to downsize, or they’re going to have to default.</blockquote>

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