Mike Norman Economics

An earlier post offered what is for me a fairly large change of orientation on fundamental questions of social ontology: a conviction that the concept of ontological individualism is no longer supportable. My concern there was that this phrase gives too much ontological priority to individual actors; whereas the truth about the social world is more complex. Individuals are indeed the substrate of social structures and entities, but social entities are in turn constitutive of individual...

The rapid rise in interest rates across the yield curve has increased the broader public’s interest in the exposure embedded in bank balance sheets and in depositor behavior more generally. In this post, we consider a simple illustration of the potential impact of higher interest rates on measures of bank franchise value....Liberty Street Economics — FRBNY How Do Interest Rates (and Depositors) Impact Measures of Bank Value?Stephan Luck, Matthew Plosser, and Josh Younger

RT — Question More (Russian state-sponsored media)China to launch rival undersea comms network – ReutersCanadian DimensionRussia and the emergence of the post-Western worldPaul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of OttawaGilbert Doctorow — International relations, Russian affairs [Russian realignment away from the West toward the East and South and the ending of liberalism in Russian politics]Russia’s New Foreign Relations Concept will...

Even Tucker Carlson now saying dollar in major decline. Trade and invest using the concepts of MMT. Get a 30-day free trial to MMT Trader. https://www.mmteconomics.com/ Mike Norman Twitter https://twitter.com/mikenorman Mike Norman Economics: https://www.pitbulleconomics.com Understanding the Daily Treasury Statement video course. https://www.pitbulleconomics.com/understanding-daily-treasury-statement-video-course/?s2-ssl=yes

We start to see the absurdity of the current reliance on monetary policy as a counter-stabilisation tool, when you read the calls from the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member talking about the risk of a ‘significant inflation undershoot’. In a detailed analysis of the current situation, the external MPC member noted that inflation was falling faster than expected because the supply constraints were reversing quickly. She also noted that the interest rate hikes had now reached a...

The Chinese people are such fanatics about educating their offspring that the Chinese government felt it needed to step in and give the kids a break by liming their exposure to both formal education (amount of homework) and informal education (after-school tutoring). Tutoring was a growth industry in China until the reforms curtailed it. It had already expanded outside mainland China and now the push is on to expand it further to make up for the market lost in China. It serves not only...

Washington is used to controlling the planet’s top tech companies and doesn’t want anyone to threaten its surveillance domination.The predictable result of this trend toward "weaponization" of commerce is already leading to de-dollarization, another consequence will likely be a bifurcation of the Internet into US-controlled areas and areas isolated from not only US control but also US access. Worse, it could spark Internet atomization, as countries attempt to protect themselves and the...

This is a reason I put "inflation"" in quotes — lack of theoretical (causal) explanation and problems with measurability since "inflation" is not directly observable, while "inflation" gets treated as if it were a "thing." It's not only complicated but also complex, since prices are affected by expectations under uncertainty.ConclusionMore research is clearly needed to understand the best measures of inflation to inform macro models, especially as the U.S. economy continues to respond to...

Video and transcript.Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of NeoliberalismAll or Nothing Foreign PolicyDanny Haiphong interviews Michael Hudson

It’s Wednesday and so I have a few items to discuss followed by some music. Many readers have E-mailed me asking about last week’s decision by the OPEC+ cartel to cut production of crude oil by 1.66 million barrels per day. Taken together with the previous cuts (2 millions barrels per day) in October, this pushed the price of oil up within a day or so back over $US80 per day. Many commentators immediately announced this would drive inflation back up and force central banks to go harder on...