Mike Norman Economics

[embedded content] An emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council took place on Monday in response to a flare-up between Ukrainian and Russian vessels near the coast of Crimea. Three Ukrainian ships were captured and impounded. Ukraine and Russia offer us widely disparate explanations for the incident. RT America’s Rick Sanchez sets out to examine both sides and to ask who has most to gain from such a provocation, with ANSWER coalition’s Brian Becker.

J.W. Mason kicked off the latest skirmish in the never-ending macro wars with his Jacobin article "A Demystifying Decade for Economics." (Note: at the time of writing, the article was taken down until its publication in Jacobin.) This prompted a Twitter debate about representative agent macro, which eventually led to this Beatrice Cherrier article on heterogeneous agent models. In my view, the debate about representative agent models is a red herring. Mainstream macroeconomists main skill...

Jon Hellevig is the best analyst of the Russian economy, who makes his views freely available anyway. This is a comprehensive report. We are into the fifth year of the US initiated trade war on Russia. Cold War 2.0. is an established reality, trade wars are flaring and Trump raves about an arms race. But Russia is strong and stable with outstanding military power and a reindustrialized modern economy, lean and mean, ready to deliver a knockout blow to the US regime in its ghastly arms race...

The Kremlin is keenly aware that there could be no sensible dialogue with the United States anymore.… American geopolitical "strategies" are as primitive as people who devise and implement them and Putin is also keenly aware of that--he knows that the US is at war with Russia.... Reminiscence of the FutureHe Still Thinks That It Is A TV Show. Andrei Martyanov, Russian ex-pat and former Soviet military officerSee alsoeconomicintesect.comSteve Bannon Is a Fraud, Totally!Frank Li | Chinese...

It is Wednesday, and only a short blog post beckons today. I have restrained myself from commenting on Theresa May’s unbelievable Brexit deal, which has the dirty paws of the European Commission all over it. Regular readers will know that if I had have been a voter in Britain in June 2016, I would have resolutely and happily voted in favour of Brexit. And if I was a British Parliamentarian now I would vote to reject the ‘deal’ and force the Brexit on British terms. I will write a little...

I f-ing knew it: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin asks bond dealers and investors whether they want the Fed to tighten monetary policy by raising interest rates or through faster cuts https://t.co/AysSSm6cni — Bloomberg Economics (@economics) November 28, 2018 Dog that didn't bark:  Fed has completely eliminated all reference to the rate of their asset reductions in ALL of their communications when they used to discuss this issue ALL THE TIME, they now only talk about the policy interest...

Mike's been reporting on this from Buffett at BRK....10 stocks Warren Buffett is buying (and 6 he's selling): Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, took a few more bites of Apple stock in the most recent quarter. But the big news is that he’s bonkers for bank stocks. https://t.co/yBSfCHhh4j— Kona Nature Tours (@KonaNatureTours) November 17, 2018 Also this out this week; I interpret this as banks are pricing their risk-asset loans at prices below liquidation value... hmmm...

Already down to just 15B per month for the final 3 months of the program; page here; graph below: Monthly net purchases of public and private sector securities currently amount to €15 billion on average. On 25 October 2018, the Governing Council stated that it “will continue to make net purchases under the asset purchase programme (APP) at the new monthly pace of €15 billion until the end of December 2018. The Governing Council anticipates that, subject to incoming data confirming the...

Tariffs, rate hikes, oil price correction not enough to send economy into recession. Stocks will recover and trade to new highs.

TASSTests ‘enough’ to support theory on Magnitsky’s poisoning, Russian prosecutors say Sputnik InternationalEurope Losing Most Amid Chinese-US Trade Conflict - German Foreign Minister Stumbling and MumblingStrategic vs parametric thinkingChris Dillow | Investors Chronicle FortuneU.S. Car Makers Ditch Sedans as Consumers Favor SUVs, Crossovers, and Light Trucks Erik Sherman AutoBlog5 reasons why GM is cutting jobs, closing plants in a healthy economy AP The HillConway defends Trump...