In an interview broadcast on Wednesday by KPFA (Berkeley, CA), economist Michael Hudson discussed a number of his articles, including two posted in recent weeks on the UFPPC web site (see here).  --  Hudson's impeccable credentials and far-ranging, probing writings enable him to speak as an authority on finance and the role it plays in American society and in American history.  --  "The Federal Reserve creates the free credit to give to the banks, and the banks use this credit to bid up asset prices," Hudson said.[1]  --  "In the United States, 1% of the population owns about two thirds of the revenue from wealth, that is, interest, dividends, rents, and capital gains.  So the function of the financial system is to increase the price of houses, real estate, buying a retirement income, relative to wages.  And in that sense, it's the FIRE sector relative to the rest of the economy -- labor and industrial capital." ...

1.

THE NEW JUNK ECONOMICS: FROM DEMOCRACY TO NEOLIBERAL OLIGARCHY
By Michael Hudson, interviewed by Bonnie Faulkner

Guns and Butter
KPFA (Berkeley, CA)
February 10, 2010

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24654.htm

"The New Junk Economics: From Democracy to Neoliberal Oligarchy" with financial economist and historian, Dr. Michael Hudson.  We discuss the Federal Reserve; money as debt; Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's misconception of the causes of the great depression of the 1930's; classical political economy versus anti-classical, so-called "neoclassical", economics; the labor theory of value; the dollar carry trade; government deficit spending; Greece.