Michael Hudson (economist)

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Michael Hudson
Born	(1939-03-14) March 14, 1939 (age 85) Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Nationality	American
Years active	1972–present
Academic career
Institution	University of Missouri–Kansas City
School or tradition	Classical economics
Alma mater	University of Chicago (BA) New York University (MA, PhD)
Website	michael-hudson.com

Michael Hudson (born March 14, 1939) is an American economist, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, former Wall Street analyst, political consultant, commentator and journalist. He is a contributor to The Hudson Report, a weekly economic and financial news podcast produced by Left Out.^[1]

Hudson graduated from the University of Chicago (BA, 1959) and New York University (MA, 1965, PhD, 1968) and worked as a balance of payments economist in Chase Manhattan Bank (1964–68). He was assistant professor of economics at the New School for Social Research (1969–72) and worked for various governmental and non-governmental organizations as an economic consultant (1980s–1990s).^[2]

Hudson has devoted his career to the study of debt, both domestic debt (loans, mortgages, interest payments), and external debt. In his works, he consistently advocates the idea that loans and exponentially growing debts that outstrip profits from the real economy are disastrous for both the government and the people of the borrowing state as they wash money (payments to usurers and rentiers) from turnover, not leaving them funds to buy goods and services, thus leading to debt deflation. Hudson notes that the existing economic theory, the Chicago School in particular, serves rentiers and financiers and has developed a special language designed to reinforce the impression that there is no alternative to the status quo. In a false theory, the parasitic encumbrances of a real economy, instead of being deducted in accounting, add up as an addition to the gross domestic product and are presented as productive. Hudson sees consumer protection, state support of infrastructure projects, and taxation of rentier sectors of the economy rather than workers, as a continuation of the line of classical economists today.

In an April 2006 article in Harper's, just before the Great Recession of 2007-08, Hudson predicted a crash of US housing prices.^[3]