Mike Norman Economics

Paul Claireaux @PaulClaireaux Where's the evidence for the debt explosion? Right here ... from @ProfSteveKeen 's excellent short book, 'Can we avoid another financial crisis?' (Deffo worth a read that one) (similar pic applies to USA) Stacey HerbertThe top 1% have kept pace with money printing so they are doing as well as they were in 1970, it's just that everyone else has lost their purchasing power and thus the wealth and income gap has widened.In 1970, the average...

A global debt crisis, trade wars and a slowing China risk creating a new recession – even before the damage of the last one has been undone. Since 2012, Chinese GDP has grown at an annual rate of 6-8 per cent – weaker than in the pre-crisis period (growth peaked at 14 per cent in 2007) – but still strong enough to support the growth of the Chinese middle class and stimulate the economies of its major trading partners. The US recovery has been slow by historic standards but growth in 2018...

Changing fertility rates challenge dystopian visions and UN projections about the future of our overcrowded planet Some good news, World population may peak at below 9 billion and then start to go down. As people become urbanized they don't want so many children. In the field extra hands are useful, in a city an extra child is an extra mouth to feed. And women want careers and less children. These remarks offer a window on one of the most compelling questions of our time: how many people...

Kelton schools Krugman on deficits and rates.

What the ECB announced is not stimulus. It’s more bad monetary policy.

Stephen Law is a philosopher who wrote the book, Believing Bullshit - How Not To Fall Into an Intellectual Black Hole.  The Evidence [for anti -Semitism in the Labour Party] What's the evidence supporting the allegation that Labour has an anti-semitism problem? For the most part it consists of a few hundred complaints to the Labour Party, out of well over half a million members. That's a small fraction of one percent of the membership. And then there are various other alleged cases of...

I decided to separate this from the Magic Money Tree post below because I felt it distracted from it and could generate two different discussions. In that article they spoke about what money is which got me thinking about it again. This is just a very simplified view of how money works in society, but it helps me to understand it.This is my theory of what money is: that it is work in a stored, unused form which is denominated in tokens. It is really a stored claim for work, and with it we...

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has gained prominence since the global financial crisis. The rising star US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said recently we should be “open” to its ideas, and some mainstream economists have given it a (qualified) endorsement.  For many, it offers a powerful critique of the damaging austerity policies that were implemented in the western world since the global financial crisis, and an important plank of new progressive thought.  MMT also...

Well, it's not my idea of Christianity, where we were taught at school to love our enemies and turn the other cheek. We were taught about sharing and compassion and helping the needy - where Jesus said blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the Earth. We were taught about forgiveness and universal love. We were taught that being greedy was bad.Christians United for Israel are campaigning for a war with Iran and say the Muslims are controlled by the Devil. They want a war with Islam, but...

[embedded content] Virtually every time Neoclassical Economists explored the stability of an equilibrium in one of their models, they found it was unstable. How did they react to this discovery? By either ignoring it, or by using elaborate workarounds to avoid it. In the process, their analysis has gone from Walras' original vision of a simple price adjustment process which could lead to all markets being in equilibrium at once, with agents knowing only their own tastes, their existing...