Mike Norman Economics

1000 CASTAWAYS: Fundamentals of Economics is now published! Here is the Amazon link: 1000 CASTAWAYS: Fundamentals of Economics by Clint Ballinger Enjoy! Any feedback welcome on the Amazon site. Cheers,Clint

It is Wednesday so very little blog writing today. One question I often get asked is what would happen if the bond market investors in a nation stopped bidding for the debt instruments being offered in the regular auctions. Interestingly, overnight I was sent some news from a Deutsche Bank information service written by their New York-based Chief International Economist, who signs himself off as “Torsten Sløk, Ph.D”. It related to these issues. The problem is that Dr Sløk seemed to want to...

Although yield curve slopes are very effective indicators for forecasting recessions, they are not infallible. This article discusses some of the reasons why a yield curve inversion can be a misleading recession signal.... Bond Economics  When Can Yield Curves Fail As Indicators?Brian Romanchuk

The attacks on MMT continue full steam ahead. Janet Yellen (former Fed chair, but clueless on money and banking)—a centrist–has joined the fray. Jerry Epstein—on the official left–has ramped up his ridiculous claims, now associating MMT with “America First” and fascism (you knew that was coming—it has always been the refuge of critics who couldn’t come up with valid critiques). But there are some rays of light. Bloomberg published a more balanced assessment...

All these Fed people don't even understand that their rate setting function is price setting and that means THEY control inflation.

Centrism also means never ending war! KV

DRAFT 3/26/19 MMT White Paper The purpose of this white paper is to publicly present the fundamentals of MMT. What is MMT? MMT began largely a description of monetary operations, which are best thought of as debits and credits to accounts kept by banks, businesses, and individuals. Warren Mosler independently originated what has been popularized as MMT in 1992.  And while subsequent research has revealed writings of authors who had similar thoughts on some of MMT’s...

Martin Höpner, who works at the Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, recently sent me a copy of his latest paper – The German Undervaluation Regime under Bretton Woods: How Germany Became the Nightmare of the World Economy (published January 2019). He presented this research at a Makroskop workshop in Wurzburg on October 13, 2018 – I was on the same panel as him at that workshop and enjoyed some very productive conversation about these issues. It is a very interesting...

MMT is taking flak not only from the right over abandoning "sound finance," but also from the left for apparently advocating reduction in the welfare state through a job guarantee and opposing the attempt to reduce inequality through progressive taxation. What we are seeing now is the transition from MMT as a macroeconomic theory based on institutional analysis to MMT as a policy science advocating for a specific angle on policy formulation that appears to be centrist. First, is...

These are stats from my latest MMT Trader report. Are these recessionary signs? Warren Mosler is bearish as hell. Auto loans rising at the fastest pace in 8 months. Residential real estate loans rising at fastest pace in 3 weeks. Bank "residual" (capital) at record highs and up 3 weeks straight and up 6 of the last 7 weeks. (Implies growing bank earnings.) Bank assets at record levels. Gasoline demand at 6-month high. Distillate demand at 3-month high. Federal tax deposits have been...