Mike Norman Economics

The U.S. economy is booming and unemployment is at a low, but that doesn't paint the whole picture of the financial reality of the average American.According to a new report from Prosperity Now, millions of Americans are one missed paycheck away from poverty.The report found that 40% of American households are "liquid asset poor," meaning that they don't have enough money put away to make ends meet at the poverty level should their income be suddenly interrupted. That figure jumps to 57%...

A panel on economic inequality went off script this weekend, as the participants told the gathered billionaires that their philanthropy and pet projects for the poor were not the answer to economic world justice.This wasn't what Davos had in mind.... Back to the Eisenhower level and eliminate tax avoidance. Oh, my! Crooks and LiarsDavos Panel Goes Rogue On Economic Inequality: Tax The Rich! Frances Langum

Simple stock-flow analogy using faucet, sink, and drain. Too simplistic, maybe, but it gets the fundamental point across. What this analogy focuses on is inflation and the sweet spot. But there is also not enough flow so that stock becomes low (deflation). The available policy space is between inflation and deflation. The sweet spot is optimal deployment of real sources including human resources (full employment).  This would be difficult to impossible to hit using discretionary...

Throughout the Cold War, Washington intervened multiple times in Guatemala, funded a rampaging army, ran cover for the death squads that its own security agents—like Longan—helped create, and signaled that it would turn a blind eye to genocide. Even before Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election, two retired generals with prominent roles in his campaign traveled to Central America and told Guatemalan officials that “Mr. Reagan recognizes that a good deal of dirty work has to be done” (for this quote,...

As Alistair Crooke succinctly put it last year at Strategic Culture: The US – were energy dominance to succeed – simply would control the tap to the economic development – or its lack thereof – for rivals China, and Asia. And the US could squeeze Russia’s revenues in this way, too. In short, the US could put a tourniquet on China’s and Russia’s economic development plans. Is this why JCPOA was revoked by President Trump? Here then, is the squaring of that circle (more US power, yet less...

I give Robert Murphy an "A" for at least trying to understand MMT assumptions and definitions, but it seems to me (I am not an economist) that he has not yet grasped the MMT understanding of the economic concept of saving. I use "economic concept" to distinguish it from the ordinary language meaning. They are different and also have different meanings in different contexts, e.g., economic schools. The ordinary language meaning doesn't sufficiently distinguish portfolio as financial and...

But what should interest us is how Russiagate allegations have tarnished America’s democratic reputation in Russia and thereby undermined the pro-American arguments of Russia’s liberal democrats, who were never a very potent political or electoral force and whose fortunes have already declined in recent years. Consider the following:... Not that the current US administration is essentially different from previous ones. It's just more blatant. These things don't happen overnight. The...

When I was in the FCO, the rule on recognition was very plain and very openly stated – the UK recognised the government which had “effective control of the territory”, whatever the attributes of that government. This is a very well established principle of international law. There were very rare exceptions involving continuing to support ousted governments. The pre-1939 Polish government in exile was the most obvious example, though once Nazism was defeated Britain moved to recognise the...

The numbers are from the World Bank Development Indicators up to 2016, and then I use the IMF estimates of growth (actually decline) from the World Economic Outlook database. So this is a brutal collapse, something the US government is doing, even at the price of some costs to local refineries, in order to promote regime change in Venezuela. Whatever your views on Maduro and the Chávez period, note that the US is fine with Saudi Arabia. Trump and Dems before too. And remember that Obama...

Many figures of the European establishment regard Emmanuel Macron as the saviour of the European project. Yet his response to these protests – violence, mass arrests and the reinstatement of national service for 16-year olds – would hardly be out of step with the more retrograde national populist and authoritarian regimes. If Emmanuel Macron wants to save his reputation, let alone Europe, he must start leading by example, ban the flashball, and take these protests seriously rather than...