Mike Norman Economics

Veteran Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has made a speech calling for all of east Asia to begin trading on the basis of a new currency based on a classical gold standard. While Mahathir did not suggest that this currency should be used to settle daily transactions between individuals, he proposed that a gold backed pan-Asian currency should replace the US dollar as the standard currency used in bilateral trade among Asian countries.... Mahathir’s statement comes at a time when...

It's hard to believe an American Ambassador would say this but in the Trump era, it's completely normal... Just being honest. It's called imperial prerogative. Historically, this is the tradeoff when there is an empire. The American Empire is just being true to form.HullaballooYou wanna trade with the US? Well, we own you if you do.digby

David P. Goldman puts some numbers on it.Asia TimesWashington is wrong about China’s economy David P. Goldman puts some numbers on it.See alsoGold, Goats 'n GunsWhat’s the Plan Mr. Tariff Man? Tom Luongo See also Tom DispatchTomgram: Michael Klare, Fighting the Next War, Not the LastSee alsoNEONew US Ambassador to Uzbekistan – You Just don’t Wanna Know Martin BergerSee alsoThe Vineyard of the SakerSpecial China SITREP & Analysis Larchmonter445See alsoFortuneChina Is Creating A...

Table of current RRRs for many countries at Central Bank News here. (Try to just ignore the common reification error  of "lend out the reserves!" these people typically make here for now...) TURKEY Central Bank of Republic of Turkey 16-Feb-19 7.00% 8.00% UNITED STATES 1) Federal Reserve 27-Oct-16 3.00% URUGUAY Central Bank of Uruguay 1-Apr-13 25.00% 20.00% UZBEKISTAN Central Bank of the Rep. Of Uzbekistan 1-Sep-09 15.00% VENEZUELA Central Bank of Venezuela 25-Oct-13 19.00% 17.00%...

Tucker Carlson is spot on again. [embedded content]

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said Thursday that people in systems of power have exploited the human desire to connect in order to create systems of mass surveillance. Snowden appeared at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia via livestream from Moscow to give a keynote address for the Canadian university's Open Dialogue Series.Right now, he said, humanity is in a sort of "atomic moment" in the field of computer science. "We're in the midst of the greatest redistribution of...

No surprise, actually. Same policy as toward China requiring "reform" allowing the US to compete equally in their domestic markets. India and China have no intention of allowing foreign entities control the commanding heights of their economies through "investment." It's a national security issue, just as the US approaches this domestically itself. This is basic to neoliberal globalization that effectively colonized the rest of the world. Nothing new here, either. It is typical of empires....

Thread by @stf18 at threadreaderapp.com1. Quick(?) MMT 101 lesson:From the very beginning in the 1990s, MMT has NEVER argued that 'printing money' was necessary. Anyone saying MMT = "print money," even if they (correctly) incorporate an inflation constraint, is getting MMT dead wrong.2. The argument from the earliest days--@wbmosler 's "Soft Currency Economics," Wray's "Understanding Modern Money," or @StephanieKelton 's "Can Taxes & Bonds Finance Govt Spending?"--the MMT argument is...

"Pareidolia" refers to the common human practice of looking at random outcomes but trying to impose patterns on them. For example, we all know in the logical part of our brain that there are a roughly a kajillion different variables in the world, and so if we look through the possibilities, we will will have a 100% chance of finding some variables that are highly correlated with each other. These correlations will be a matter of pure chance, and they carry no meaning. But when my own brain,...

Proposed Rulemaking out last month from the OCC, its taken like a year to come up with this proposal in response to the bank reform Act passed last year.  Nothing like a sense of urgency... Agencies Seek Comments on Revisions to the Supplementary Leverage Ratio as Required by Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act https://t.co/MVezVBn0L2 — OCC (@USOCC) April 19, 2019 Looks like weak tea anyway.Probably not going to help much towards achieving legal mandate for...