Mike Norman Economics

Putin was not joking about sanctions being a blessing in disguise, since Russia would have found it difficult to restructure otherwise. Necessity is the mother of invention.Gold, Goats 'n GunsRussia’s Exports Continue to Defy Sanctions Tom Luongo

Gates also took exception to “modern monetary theory,” which is an economic theory with growing prominence on the policy teams of Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and others. MMT, as it’s known, suggests that governments need not worry about deficits because they can simply print their own currency, and should instead manage inflation with interest rates. (You can read more about it in this Vox explainer.) What does Gates think of MMT?“That is some crazy talk,” he told me. “It will come back...

Now that MMT is in the news big time, it's high time to repost a link to Brian's post on MMT and hyperinflation.Bond EconomicsA MMT View On The Theory Of HyperinflationsBrian Romanchuk

  "Radical socialists" now. This person has no idea of what a radical socialist is based on history and policy, or else he is using the term as a smear. Oh wait, Cato Institute. There's a third possibility. Ideological bias. Ocasio-Cortez and her cohorts are disciples of a new macroeconomic worldview called “Modern Monetary Theory” (MMT). This postulates that governments with sovereign currencies face no financing constraints, and can spend as much as they like through new printed money....

A perennial question for Marxists is how to overturn capitalism. Will institutional changes that improve the lot of workers but fall short of ending capitalism immediately help or harm this cause? To the extent that social struggle is a learning-by-doing process, it may be that the securing of small gains can whet the appetite for more significant gains and that institutional reforms of a transformational nature can place revolution on a more secure footing if and when it does occur. But...

I was reminded this week of an interesting studies published in 1987 by Arjo Klamer and David Colander on the influences that go into the training of a professional economist. This study was repeated by Colander in 2005. The results are rather disturbing although obviously I am an ‘insider’ in the sense I went through the process in one way or another myself (although not in a US graduate program). They demonstrate how far removed graduate students are from learning or being interested in...

They're living in cloud-cuckoo-land! And the mainstream media too, all mad, like Caligula! American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren’t crazy. Today’s administration would seem unwholesome in a New York bus station at three in...

The neoliberal economists, that is. There is no "market solution" to existential threats that require mobilization of real resources to meet the emergent challenge.Tax Research UKThe ‘economists’ have lost control of climate change Richard MurphySee alsoAlex Tabarrok is aware that addressing climate change is a global effort, which some people in the US apparently overlook or minimize. A US GND would be a step in the right direction, but it is not the solution.A single country, even the US...

It is February 2019 and modern monetary theory (MMT), a heterodox theory born in the late 1990s, has made its way into mainstream discussions, on the back of public support from political figures both in the United States and the United Kingdom. Interest around MMT is now at its peak (Figure 1) and the economic blogosphere and #econtwitter have been having heated discussions on the matter. A few weeks ago, we reviewed some of the opinions around MMT, most of which tied with the debate on...

Some new things that I have been focused on that give unbelievably powerful trading insights.