Alternative Visions - Turkey’s Currency Crisis + Ideology in Mainstream Economics-How It Works - 08.10.18

Rasmus describes what’s going on in Turkey this week, as its currency collapses threatening to drag down Italian Banks and other emerging market economies. How US Fed and Trump policy are behind the Turkish and emerging markets’ economic crises, now deepening. EME economies that loaded up on dollarized debt  globally are the ones collapsing fastest. How global speculators and Trump-US political objectives are involved. Rasmus reviews the equally rapid cooling off of the US housing market and rising rents driving US inflation. A review of the rising bankruptcies for US seniors, age 65-74, and the conditions behind the 200% increase in their bankruptcy filings since 2013.  Rasmus concludes with a discussion of  his view of Ideology in Mainstream economics and how language is manipulated to produce nonsense conclusions (like business tax cuts create jobs, free trade benefits everyone, income inequality is due to one’s lack of productivity, central banks are independent, markets are always efficient, and other false propositions). (For a verbatim print transcript of this show, and last week’s show on ‘Trump as Neoliberalism 2.0, got to Rasmus’s blog at jackrasmus.com).