Mike Norman Economics

Thoughtful reflection on historical precedent. These observations are particularly useful because they point to an intellectually rigorous way in which debates over the wisdom of the Green New Deal and the usefulness of MMT might be resolved: by examining more carefully the political and economic history of the 1970s. Was the high inflation of that decade a consequence of excessive money growth, engineered by the Fed to relieve budgetary pressures—the source of the “anguish” in Burns’...

Last week’s (April 5, 2019) release by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – March 2019 – is still being affected by the variability in the sampling and benchmarking changes made by the BLS. However, working through those impacts, one concludes that the US labour market is still adding jobs, albeit at a slower pace than last year. The unemployment rate remains low (at 3.81 per cent) and the participation rate has come off...

The Man Who Saw Trump Coming A Century Ago: A Reader’s Guide for the Distraught Tom DispatchTomgram: Ann Jones, Our Veblen Moment

  A Fat Cat Michael O'Bernicia and Michael O’Deira have made a film called, The Great British Mortgage Swindle. Both had defaulted on their properties due to bankruptcy and both had been brutally evicted. Michael O'Bernicia was 18 years old at the time when his family was evicted because of his father's bankruptcy and the bailiffs treated his family like criminals coming along with 21 policeman is squad cars. After turning them out, the bailiff said to Michael O'Bernicia as he got into...

Abstract Professor Yasuhiro Sakai (see 2016; 2018) has argued that there is an mysterious problem in the A Treatise on Probability, 1921 in chapter 3 on page 39 (page 42 of the 1973 CWJMK edition). He argues that there is an unsolved mystery that involves this diagram that has remained unexplained in the literature. The mystery is that Keynes does not explain what he is doing in the analysis involving the diagram starting on the lower half of page 38 and ending on page 40 of chapter III....

Peter Radford doesn't mention it specifically, but market power enables rent extraction. Otherwise, a good read.The Radford Free PressNotes on: Power MattersPeter Radford

I discuss the oil outlook and the fact that some are accepting that the recession risk has fallen. I told you this long ago.

Western-supported ISIS/al Qaeda and western-supported neo-Nazis are two sides to the same Imperial coin. They are the product of the West’s moral degradation, its disdain for international law, and its anti-Life core. A rotten apple by any measure. Imperial strategies driving these proxies are also similar. Whereas the West created and supports ISIS/al Qaeda[1], it presents them as “enemies”. The terrorists serve as fake humanitarian pretexts for invasions even as they serve as proxies...

Gold Watch.Johnson Russia ListJRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia’s New Gold Rush Could Shake Up the International Monetary System; Russia and China might be considering a gold-backed digital currency.” – Moscow Times/ Bruno MacaesBruno Maçães is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former Europe minister of Portugal

This analysis is basically right about the economics, but very wrong about the finance.The problem we face with human contributions to climate change and the levels of pollution that are unhealthy for a vast majority of people is basically economic in the sense that negative externality is being socialized. This means that in markets, goods that generate negative externality through use or in the course of their production are sold at below true cost.The result is mispricing of negative...