Mike Norman Economics

Trump showing his age in denouncing progressive proposals as "socialist"? Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg (D) on Sunday dismissed President Trump's efforts to portray Democratic policy pitches as "socialism," arguing that the term no longer carries negative connotations. “I think he's clinging to a rhetorical strategy that was very powerful when he was coming of age 50 years ago, but it's just a little bit different right now," Buttigieg, the South Bend, Ind., mayor who has launched...

Finally, some constructive criticism of MMT.  Civil engineer and manager Sig Silber suggests many points that he feels need to be addressed in debate. They are well taken. No doubt many encountering MMT will have similar questions. MMT economists have anticipated a number of them and addressed them already. Some just disappear on correct understanding of MMT. The remaining one are generally political issues as much as economic, which MMT also admits. Such issues have to be decided...

This is a very good post by Chris Dillow.He points out that there are two Marxes, so to speak, one radical and the other conservative. The world is most familiar with Marx the radical revolutionary, who advocated violent revolution to remove the "bourgeoisie" (owners of the means of production) and who further proposed a transition stage of "the dictatorship of the proletariat" as being necessary. But Marx is more than the Communist Manifesto, with which he is most associated.The second Marx...

Will Venezuela become Pinochet's Chile redux? Is there a link running through neoliberalism, neoconservative, neo-imperialism, and neocolonialism that begins with the assumption that economic liberalism is the basis of liberalism and the so-called liberal order? Hausmann has been referred to as the informal mentor to Juan Guiadó. Indirect might be a better word to describe the mentorship, as there is a middleman between Hausmann and Guiadó: Leopoldo López, the leader of Popular Will. It...

John Bolton says Venezuela is one of three countries he considers to be the troika of tyranny. Not Saudi Arabia, Isreal, Britain , or the U.S which have been on a war rampage for decades now attacking one country after another. When you're the 'good guys' you're allowed to kill as many as the 'bad guys' as you want, even if that means dropping napalm on them, blanket bombing them, or destroying their crops, killing millions, women and children too. You see, it's for their good, we're saving...

A revolution in France! [embedded content] Media Black Out! Week 13 Begins In Paris France! [embedded content]

Jeremy Hunt says the elections in Venezuela are not legitimate, for one thing, he adds, ballot boxes were stuffed with fake ballot papers. But in Venezuela they use voting machines which are made in Taiwan and can't be tampered with. They have to be tamper proof because you can sure bet the opposition, or the U.S. would be messing with them otherwise.Most of the countries in Europe back the U.S., a country that illegally removed hundreds of thousands of African Americans and Hispanics from...

More bloviating. Every one of the scores of known cases of hyperinflation dating back over 700 years bears witness to a reckless, breakneck campaign of money creation preceding it. Post hoc, propter hoc fallacy.All hyperinflations can be traced to scarcity of real resources for different reasons preceding money creation. Weimar was the result of war reparations. Zimbabwe was the result of fall in production. Venezuela was the result of pegging its currency to the dollar, thereby abandoning...

The Economic Debates Unit of the Latin American Geopolitical Strategic Center (CELAG) released a report on "the economic consequences of the boycott against Venezuela," on Friday, in which it is proved that the "international financial blockade to Venezuela since 2013 is the main responsible for the economic crisis." Economic strangulation. TeleSUR US Blockade on Venezuela Has Cost US$350 Billion: Report

At least the author tried to understand MMT, but he didn't quite make it. In addition, the "argument" is dismissive rather than substantive. Back to the drawing board. Manila Times The Dangerous Appeal Of MMT Ben Kritz, TMT