Mike Norman Economics

Americans are just fine with debt. When they fight about it, they're actually negotiating in code over something else: what programs are so important that it doesn't matter how you pay for them?A little more than a month ago, Howard Dean had breakfast at the Hotel Vermont in Burlington with Stephanie Kelton. Mr Dean has served as Vermont's governor, a candidate for President, and head of the Democratic National Committee. Ms Kelton, who teaches economics and public policy at Stony Brook...

The image below summarizes Marx's works in a nutshell: his societal development model goes through several stages, from some early societies (e.g. slavery) to feudalism, to capitalism, to socialism, and finally to communism. At a very high level, this model is correct. Two "communists", Lenin and Mao, capitalized on this model more than anybody else. Both eventually failed for the same reason: They jumped from feudalism to socialism via a violent revolution that destroyed capitalism,...

[Draft of the forthcoming book “1000 Castaways: Fundamentals of Economics.” I am posting chapters online to have it available as soon as possible and to receive input before a final version is released. I will be rolling out Chapters and linking them to this Table of Contents]Introduction System One System Two Balancing the Two Systems The Real World Clint invites your comments and critique. Clint Ballinger1000 CASTAWAYS: Fundamentals of Economics

Born in American Samoa, Representative (Major) Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a Democrat and, far more than Trump, someone who stands against hypocrisy and fakery of every kind, is now running for President of the United States. Unlike Trump or Clinton or Obama or Romney or so many, Tulsi is military, a decorated combat veteran. Unlike all of them, she is openly against war as a basis for American “diplomacy.” Gabbard continues to serve as a Major in the Army National Guard after two combat...

A difficult one this: Who judges what is a fair education for people so they can vote in an intelligent manner; but it's also true that the electorate on the whole have no idea what they are voting for? By voting Conservative in the U.K,  they are voting for austerity, cut backs to their welfare, for the party which is the front for the criminal City of London, for war, for their taxes wasted on the ruling elite's protection racket - it's war machine, etc. And New Labour wasn't much...

If you use the words, neocon, neoconservative, or neoliberal on the internet they are watching you. They also know who you are following on social media and they may be trying to block other people from finding you. [embedded content]

Such positions on war and U.S. foreign policy effectively make her a pariah to establishment media pundits and the political class. But her anti-establishment politics do not end there.…“We have to dig a few layers deeper as people are running for office, say what do you actually stand for?” she said on “The Jimmy Dore Show.” “What is your vision for this country? That’s the debate that we will have to have in Congress should Democrats win over the House or win more seats in the Senate....

Gives new meaning to "market forces." Shades of a transnational corporate military not subject to international law? Really?Zero HedgeBlackwater Founder Says US Troops In Syria Could Be Replaced By Private Contractors [read mercenaries]Tyler Durden

...the mass media is not in the business of reporting facts, it’s in the business of selling narratives. Even if those narratives are so shrill and stress-inducing that they imperil the health of their audience.... Fear-mongering is taking its toll. Caitlin Johnstone observes that the problem is not as much Trump as the media and its manufactured narratives. Good read.Caitlin Johnstone — Rogue JournalistMainstream Media Is Now Killing People DirectlyCaitlin Johnstone

The Phillips Curve, an economic model developed by A. W. Phillips purports that inflation and unemployment have a stable and inverse relationship.  This has been a fundamental guiding economic theory used by the Fed for decades to set interest rates. Various studies have proven the theory is bogus, yet proponents keep believing.… Without the Phillips Curve, the current approach to monetary policy is groundless other than "discretionary." There is no rule.And it's not just the Phillips...