Mike Norman Economics

Following Wednesday's unexpected and dramatic full and "immediate" withdrawal of all US forces from Syria, Turkey has announced it will not play ball on Iran sanctions. According to a translation of the Turkish president's words on Thursday during a previously planned summit with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Ankara, journalist Abdullah Bozkurt reports, "Turkish president Erdogan says Turkey won't support US sanctions on Iran which he claims puts regional security and stability at...

No deal with China. China has already declared that it is not going to submit to US dominance, which is ultimately regime change and the demise of the Chinese Communist Party. Chimerica is effectively over.The question now is who can wait the other out? I would be betting on China.Zero HedgeStocks Tumble After Navarro Says "Agreement With China Difficult" Unless Beijing Does Full Trade Overhaul Tyler Durdenalso at ZHChinese Media Deny WSJ Report About Global Banks Cutting Ties With Huawei...

There was a time when going to war was seen as a measure to be taken only in extremis. Unfortunately, lacking serious military competitors following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western powers decided to use the ‘unipolar moment’ to flex their muscles, with the result that they got mired in a series of apparently never-ending wars. Instead of discrediting the idea of war, these had the opposite effect – they habituated the political classes to it, so that now waging war has become...

In 2001 David Cromwell and David Edwards founded the website MediaLens, which scrutinizes the work of the mainstream media coverage. The experience has led them to a stark conclusion - "the Western 'free press' operates as a propaganda system for state-corporate power".…"Mainstream news outlets don't merely distort, hype or 'sex up' — they reverse the truth, render issues completely impossible to understand, and ignore the most important facts, arguments and voices. It's an awesomely...

The partnership at the center of European integration is unraveling just when Euroskeptic forces are coming together. If French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel cannot start rebuilding the political center, next year's European Parliament election will produce the biggest victory yet for anti-EU populists.… Entering the endgame?Project SyndicateThe Coming Franco-German Bust-Up Mark Leonard | Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations

So what do we have here? We have a programme, the Integrity Initiative, whose entire purpose is to pump out covert disinformation against Russia, through social media and news stories secretly paid for by the British government. And we have the Skripals’ MI6 handler, the BBC, Porton Down, the FCO, the MOD and the US Embassy, working together in a group under the auspices of the Integrity Initiative. The Skripal Case happened to occur shortly after a massive increase in the Integrity...

President Trump campaigned on lessening U.S. involvement in wars abroad. He wants to get reelected. He does not need a Secretary of Defense that involves him in more wars that have little to none defined purpose. Mattis is an ingrained imperialist. He always asked for more money for the military and for more meddling abroad. One of Mattis' little notice acts as Defense Secretary was a unannounced change in the mission of the Pentagon:For at least two decades, the Department of Defense has...

Martin Armstrong mentions the increasing tax burden on workers in Europe. He doesn't mention that the increasing tax burden results from the institutional structure of the EZ, where the member countries have ceded currency sovereignty to the ECB. As a result, these countries are no longer sovereign currency issuers and cannot self-fund. Like US states, they have to tax or borrow to spend and there are institutional limits on borrowing (deficit spending) imposed by treaty.The key point in...

The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research is a government agency that does research into finding safer, more effective treatments for many medical conditions. When it reported that the majority of people suffering from lower back pain do not need medical treatment, or prescription medicines, the medical-industrial-complex tried to shut it down, or change its role, or reduce its funding.  The AHRQ said that OTC medicines were good enough, and that manipulation and gentle exercise was all...

Dan Kovalik was brought up in a very conservative household and was very much a patriarch until he traveled the world and saw first hand the effects of the American Empire. He says how the U.S. has the world's largest empire, but has got away with denying its existence. It controls the world through vassal states and installed cronies.He has a new book out called, The Plot to Control the World: How the U.S. Spent Billions to Change the Outcome of Elections Around the World. He seems too see...