Mike Norman Economics

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...

Who wants libertarianism when you can have this? All paid for with VAT, but the tax won't put prices up, says Andrew Lang, as the new automation and robotization will bring prices down.Andrew Yang is an entrepreneur who is running for president of the United States, with a long-shot campaign built primarily upon universal basic income. His new book, "The War on Normal People," argues that a massive loss of jobs within the next 10-15 years is unavoidable. He advocates for a $1,000 monthly...

Warren Mosler's slide pack for his presentation at the New School on March 25th.Taxation

All the forward driving conditions are positive.

The new Pentagon budget, which is called the Budget for a Better America, is going to be $760 Billion, and the idea is to keep up with China which is not increasing its military budget of $177 Billion. So, to keep up with the 'threat of China', the Pentagon budget needs to be six times more than China's even though China has not threatened anyone.Remember that Adam Ramsay article I put out here about how the British ruling class were divided into two groups, the industrialists who wanted...

Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT, is almost never mentioned specifically by members of Congress who negotiate budget and appropriations measures, but it is working its way into the mainstream political debate. Now, it’s gotten some Democratic lawmakers’ attention as the party considers big-ticket policy priorities. That includes House Budget Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), who will decide over the next few weeks whether to produce a fiscal 2020 budget resolution that maps out the caucus’s...

Backgrounder on Italy and BRI (and more). China marches (and sails) west.Asia TimesAll roads lead to Rome for Xi Pepe Escobar

While many mainstream economists have been coming out to defend their reputations against the growing awareness that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) presents a direct challenge to their hegemony, some of the mainstream haven’t responded at all and continue to confirm what the standard mainstream macroeconomics is about and how far removed from MMT it really is. The MMT critics claim that there is nothing new in MMT (‘we knew it all along’) in one breathe, and then ‘MMT is crazy dangerous’ in...