Skip to content Skip to footer

Economist Michael Hudson on Junk Economics

Hudson explains how Orwellian doublethink is used to conceal how the economy really works.

Truthout Logo

Democracy at Work’s Paul Sliker and Dante Dallavalle talk with Michael Hudson, one of the world’s six economists who accurately predicted the 2007-2008 financial crisis. His new book, J is for Junk Economics, reveals how the mainstream economic vocabulary has been turned around in an Orwellian way to mean just the opposite of what words used to mean. Michael explains how the media and academia use well-crafted euphemisms to conceal how the economy really works, the economy under Obama vs. Trump, and what might be coming next.

​​Not everyone can pay for the news. But if you can, we need your support.

Truthout is widely read among people with lower ­incomes and among young people who are mired in debt. Our site is read at public libraries, among people without internet access of their own. People print out our articles and send them to family members in prison — we receive letters from behind bars regularly thanking us for our coverage. Our stories are emailed and shared around communities, sparking grassroots mobilization.

We’re committed to keeping all Truthout articles free and available to the public. But in order to do that, we need those who can afford to contribute to our work to do so — especially now, because we have just 5 days left to raise $40,000 in critical funds.

We’ll never require you to give, but we can ask you from the bottom of our hearts: Will you donate what you can, so we can continue providing journalism in the service of justice and truth?