Mike Norman Economics

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.

The insect apocalypse is indeed upon us, according to the first global scientific review of insect population decline. Another bad omen?Huff PostInsects Are Dying En Masse, Risking ‘Catastrophic’ Collapse Of Earth’s EcosystemsDominique Mosbergen

"Common sense" arguments against MMT. Zero operational understanding. Bonkers.The American ThinkerWhy the Radical Left (and No One Else) Touts Modern Monetary TheoryWilliam Sullivan

In short, Liu et al present an entirely different set of expected consequences for extremely low interest rates. Instead of faster growth, they lead to slower growth. Instead of higher productivity growth, the lead to lower productivity growth. While in theory enabling government to address income inequality, they actually exacerbate it by encouraging market concentration and monopolization. More time and research is needed, of course, to see how much impact the market concentration effect...

"Socialism." Cato Institute, what to expect? At the same time, Ryan Bourne's objection that the GND goes way past what is needed to address climate change and that its true agenda is broadly imposing progressive policy needs to be addressed. Ryan Bourne also brings up a point I often make myself. Economics is fundamentally about choice involving tradeoffs and opportunity cost. Rational choice is ruled by effectiveness and efficiency in doing so. Effectiveness is about setting goals,...

Global InequalityGlobal poverty over the long-term: legitimate issuesBranko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International PeaceSee also Our World In DataHow do we know the history of extreme poverty?Joe Hasell and Max Roser

Transparency International EU, is part of TIs “anti-corruption movement” focused on happenings in the European Union. It gets around 40 per cent of its funding from the European Commission, itself, although they claim this does not compromise their “institutional integrity and independence”. Let’s hope not! They have just released a report – Vanishing Act: The Eurogroup’s Accountability (February 5, 2019) – which confirms, in case one wasn’t already aware (looking at the Europhile Left...