We discuss economist Michael Hudson’s book, J is for Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception, with an emphasis on the degradation of economic vocabulary that hides the real state of the economy.

Topics discussed include; how language affects peoples’ perception of reality and since the history of economic thought is no longer taught, the result is that classical political economics focuses on society’s unearned income or rent controlled by the rentier landlord financial class; The role of fictitious capital; the real reforms of the progressive era; classical political economists expected capitalism to evolve into socialism; classical economic concepts of value, price and rent; productive versus extractive economic sectors; public financing of infrastructure a windfall for the private sector; effects of the tax deductibility of interest; monetary policy and the Federal Reserve; economics is political – politics has always been about who is going to get what; National Income Accounting; fiscal policy and Modern Monetary Theory; the three stages of debt leveraging.