Mike Norman Economics

Is full employment sustainable? For me, this is one question posed by the row between Richard Murphy and Jonathan Portes and Simon Wren-Lewis over Labour’s proposed fiscal rule.... Disappointing for a someone that is sympathetic to Marx, as Chris Dillow identifies himself. Stumbling and MumblingObstacles to full employmentChris Dillow | Investors Chronicle

After two long and possibly turgid posts analysing Modern Monetary Theory, in this third post, I’m going to look at the practicalities – in other words, what are the policy proposals that MMTers put forward for the government to do in order to get more jobs at better wages and without provoking inflation? Michael Roberts does a decent job of stating the MMT position with quotes from MMT economists. He concludes: In this way, MMT acts as a backstop to capitalism – the state is the employer...

Another deficit hawk shocked, shocked, shocked by MMT. Summary Wake up America! It is only massive and unsustainable deficit spending that continues driving our economy forward. The budget deficit is set to widen significantly in the next few years and in 2020, is expected to top $1 trillion even with healthy economic growth, according to new projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The bottom line is that we are in the midst of a "false economy" and it is only by the...

What Dean is saying is to preempt extraction of economic rent before it occurs, instead of taxing it back afterward. A lot of rent extraction results from government policy that can be changed politically — if the public demands it strongly enough. Truthout Progressive taxes only go so far. Pre-tax income is the problem Dean Baker | Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C

Unfortunately, there are a great many misconceptions out there about inflation. Since I can't possibly address them all in a short blog post, I figured I'd take on just one: the idea that it is a net loss for everyone. The reason people believe this is partly because of the manner in which most economists teach the concept and also because we naturally transfer how a phenomenon affects us individually to the macro level. If inflation reduces my standard of living, then it must be doing the...

Even if you don't read Bill regularly, you probably want to read this one in which Bill answers critics on specific points of misunderstanding.Bill Mitchell – billy blogMMT is sending us crazy – the end is near … hold on, not quite nearBill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Joe Rogan competently dismantles a NYTimes neoliberal journalist who tries to discredit Tulsi Gabbbard. But Joe Rogan does it just by asking some simple questions in a polite manner. [embedded content]

Author of The Debt Generation The big banks have become too big to fail, but they could they become even bigger? Many of these banks engage in criminal activities, but countries can't afford to see their top banks fail,  and so they can function outside the discipline of the market. While everyone is endlessly told about the world-ending dangers of Brexit, I wonder if we should be paying a little more attention to “Deutsche-it”.  If the UK leaves the EU the EU will survive.  But what...

Florida Maquis is a Christian socialist who is not a liberal. He says the left in Latin America are different to the left in the U.S. as they are not liberals either.Florida Maquis warns of a catastrophe if he US decides to invade Venezuela as its people will fight to the death. The U.S. will be fighting in a jungle, not a dessert, where it is easy picking. He also warns it might trigger off wars in other Latin American countries pulling the U.S. further into a quandary.Florida Maquis says...

As the US strives to overthrow the democratic and independent Venezuelan government, the historical record regarding the short, middle and long-term consequences are mixed. We will proceed to examine the consequences and impact of US intervention in Venezuela over the past half century. We will then turn to examine the success and failure of US ‘regime changes’ throughout Latin America and the Caribbean…. US ‘Regime Changes’: The Historical Record James Petras