Currency Gambling; Iraq/Afghanistan financed on debt; & the closing of global markets

[achali]

Summary: The Federal Reserve will pump $600 billion more into the U.S. economy and keep interest rates at historical low levels. The short-term impact of the Fed's move—known as quantitative easing—has been a jump in stock prices across the globe. Many nations, however, have accused the United States of waging a currency war by devaluing the dollar. We speak to former Wall Street economist and University of Missouri Professor Michael Hudson. "The object of warfare is a takeover a country's land, raw materials, and assets and grab them," Hudson says. "In the past, this used to be done militarily by invading them. Today, you can do it financially simply by creating credit, which is what the Federal Reserve has done."





Summary: We are joined by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz - American economist and professor at Columbia University. Author of Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy now in paperback. As the Obama administration rejects a foreclosure moratorium and austerity protests grip Europe, we assess the state of the US and global economy with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, author of Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy. Stiglitz backs calls for a foreclosure moratorium and says opponents of a new government stimulus "don't understand basic economics." On war, Stiglitz says Iraq and Afghanistan are "the first wars in America's history financed totally on the credit card."