Mike Norman Economics

For decades the US and others have pursued a free-market agenda which has failed spectacularly Joseph Stiglitz described how horrible neoliberalism is, which is about rent seeking, monopoly power, and corporate control of governments. By contrast, the third camp advocates what I call progressive capitalism, which prescribes a radically different economic agenda, based on four priorities. The first is to restore the balance between markets, the state and civil society. Slow economic...

Solid report out link to .pdf here. The aggregate net income for the 5,362 FDIC-insured commercial banks and savings institutions totaled $60.7 billion in first quarter 2019, an increase of $4.9 billion (8.7 percent) from a year ago.  During the three months ended March 31, equity capital of $2.1 trillion rose by $36.9 billion (1.8 percent).  Retained earnings in first quarter 2019 totaled $22.1 billion and dividends paid rose to $38.6 billion, an increase of $7.9 billion (25.9...

If there were two lessons that can be taken from the GFC among others then we should know, once and for all, that, first, monetary policy (in all its glorious forms these days) is not a very effective tool for influencing the level of economic activity nor the price level, and, second, that fiscal policy is very effective in manipulating total spending and activity. Of course, those lessons provided the evidence that turned macroeconomics on its head because for several decades, as the...

Expanding on his recent threads discussing the somewhat ominous endgame of the US-China tensions, Bridgewater CEO Ray Dalio explains in his latest note that this conflict is much more extensive than a “trade war.” Zero HedgeDalio Warns Of "Risky Time As US-China Conflict Is "Much More Than A Trade War"Tyler Durden Meanwhile, in China, President Xi was busy exhorting the rest of the world (presumably excluding the US) to cooperate with Beijing in developing new Internet, big data and...

Andrei Martyanov fisks the latest "competitiveness" ratings and adds his own. (Quotes Michael Hudson, too.)Reminiscence of the FutureYou Can Not Fix Stupid (In Terminal Stage)Andrei Martyanov

Overview The experiment of enforcing the antitrust laws a little bit less each year has run for 40 years, and scholars are now in a position to assess the evidence. The accompanying interactive database of research papers for the first time assembles in one place the most recent economic literature bearing on antitrust enforcement in the United States. The review is restricted to work published since the year 2000 in order to limit its size and emphasize work using the most recent...

I suspect Wolf chose to get this wrong, deliberately. His narrative does not work if he noted correctly what MMT said. But his real disagreement is that whilst MMT is correct (subject to his own misconceptions) he thinks the policy implications are wrong. Nice smackdown, if a smackdown can be considered nice.Richard Murphy concludes: Wolf has conceded MMT is right. Now he needs to accept the consequences. Including that democracy by and for the people should prevail. To this I would add...

Most people approach investing and trading as art. I approach it as science. That's a big advantage.

Looks like the fall guys for the current interest rate chaos... nothing they could do about it... major systemic regulatory policy changes needed pronto... everybody there unqualified...Two of the New York Federal Reserve's top officials are leaving the company while analysts and investors fear that the Fed has lost touch with the market https://t.co/7YzyQHnhbP— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) May 28, 2019

Hacker USD zombie China still "pumping in money!" producing their best knockoff of Japan ... and nice description of this continuing central bank reification error via metaphor from these unqualified journos... "pump in the cash!"... PBOC Pumps in More Cash After Baoshang Seizure Spooks Market https://t.co/rIiFTNBfWJ — Bloomberg Next China (@next_china) May 29, 2019 This in contrast to the US Fed at least starting to examine Reserve levels as they think it relates to maintenance of their...