Parasitic capitalism is at work in the United States, according to Michael Hudson, a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Hudson and Chris Hedges continue their discussion of the American economy in another episode of teleSUR’s program “Days of Revolt.”

(To hear the first part of their discussion, click here.)

Hudson, author of the new book “Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy,” worked on Wall Street for many years before he began teaching, and he explains that most politicians are reliant on Wall Street for campaign fundraising, a relationship that crosses party lines.

Regardless of the particulars, “the job of the politician is to promise the nice vision, and then double-cross the constituents,” he says.

On Wall Street, if you buy garbage assets, how do you make the government bail you out? That was what the president of the United States is for, whether it was Obama or whether it would have been John McCain. … Or whether it would be Hillary today, or Trump. Their job is to bail out Wall Street and make the people pay, not Wall Street.

When Hedges asks Hudson to “spell out” what the future of the American economy will look like, Hudson predicts that it will look something like what’s happening in Greece today: “America’s in for shock therapy, no matter who wins the presidential [election].”

—Posted by Emma Niles

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