Mike Norman Economics

One of the Anonymati [Anonymouses? Anonymice?] asks that I write a critique of the oh so sober, serious analysis of socialism, complete with charts and graphs, produced by the President’s Council of Economic Advisors....I have read the Executive Summary of the report and scanned through the report itself, but I do not intend to take issue with it, and my reason for not doing so is the real subject of this post. Let me begin by reminding you that Karl Marx, who wrote 5000 pages, more or...

Backgrounder. A historical view dissension, divisiveness and civil war in the US.The American ConservativeWe Were Made for Civil War Michael Vlahos | professor in the Strategy and Policy Department at the US Naval War College, adjunct faculty member, Global Security Studies program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Arts and Sciences , former Director of the Security Studies Program at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, and formerly with Johns Hopkins University...

By way of falsehood, the WSJ said that:It’s clear that the Republican policy mix of tax reform, deregulation and general encouragement for risk-taking rescued an expansion that was fading fast and almost fell into recession in the last six quarters of the Obama Administration. The nearby chart tells the story that Mr. Obama and his economists won’t admit. Soaring business and consumer confidence have been central to this rebound. The ‘Chart’ in question was just the Quarterly percent...

To the early classical economists, this kind of wealth – attained by simply extracting value created by others ­­– was deemed to be unearned, and referred to it as ‘economic rent’. However, ever since neoclassical economics replaced classical economics as the dominant school of thinking in the late 19th century, economic rent has been increasingly marginalised from economic discourse. To the extent that it is acknowledged, it is usually viewed as being peripheral to the story of wealth...

                               Uroplatus phantasticus and Chlamydosaurus kingii Owen Jones has written a pretty good article in the Guardian today about Saudi Arabia exposing the BS us a Western morality: just check the colour of the money?  The West is starting WW3 with Russia because it was said they 'annexed' Crimea, where no one died, no shots were fired, no armies marched, no tanks rolled, and no one resisted. The Ukrainians seem to be quite happy to be part of Russia and not part of...

I’ve been thinking about the job guarantee as it is envisaged by proponents of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). My focus has been on various quantity effects of the policy that can be considered using the standard income-expenditure model as a base (for preliminary posts along these lines, see here and here.) Since the income-expenditure model takes the general price level as given, it does not directly shed light on the aspects of a job guarantee that would pertain to price stability. To...

Finally, a useful MMT critique.Philosophy of MoneyMMT and fiscal rules (part I) – a prologueEric Lonergan

Taleb can see the idiocy of the results yes; but as of yet hasn't expressed a view or interest in the methodologies that lead to these distinctions... might make sense for a stochastic person like himself (vice a deterministic person)...Seemingly these "idiots who think in labels" don't understand the aphorism, that is, don't get the difference between *expressing* with the use of labels and *thinking* in labels. https://t.co/lEbj0WmUGR— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) October 27, 2018

You can see in this graph the spike early in the year due to the Trump tax increase (you know, the Trump action morons label "tax cuts for the rich!"); and then this month's spike due to China's monetary policy which is going to probably cost another 3 months of our time...Volatility spikes, but its all relative pic.twitter.com/q9Rr4nhvvn— Howard Silverblatt (@hsilverb) October 28, 2018

Here's a translation of the statement from the PBoC announcing the start of the monetarist policy that created the current round of global asset price instability: 2. What are the main considerations for the central bank to replace the medium-term lending facilities through RRR cuts?  A: The main purpose of this RRR reduction is to optimize the liquidity structure and enhance the financial ability of financial services. Currently, with the increase in credit supply, the medium...