Mike Norman Economics

Corruption watch. The new "Nigerian" scam is now Israeli.Mint Press NewsThanks to Government Inaction, Israel Has Become a Haven for International Scammers and Fraud Allison WeirThen there is the land grab at the state level.Moon of AlabamaNetanyahoo's Likely Fall Destroys Trump's Middle East Strategy

Recent extreme volatility and sharp drops in US stock markets underscore the instability of capitalism yet again. As many commentators now note, another economic downturn looms. We know that all the reforms and regulations imposed in the wake of the Great Depression of the 1930s failed to prevent both smaller downturns between 1941 and 2008 and then another big crash in 2008. Capitalism’s instability has, for centuries, resisted all efforts to overcome it with or without government...

I kept telling people to buy natural gas. That investment is up 500% now.

Causality is one of the fundamental problems in philosophy, covering epistemology, philosophy of language, semiotics, and philosophy of science. Since causality is the basis of explanation, it applies to all aspects of understanding and theorizing, as Aristotle pointed out in his Metaphysics millennia ago. Yet, there is still no complete understanding of causality that would end controversy.There many interrogatives — who, what, when, where, how and why, for example. Description involves...

This article is a continuation of previous comments on financial crises, with two lines of discussion. The first is a bit of a primer, explaining why I and other commentators associate financial crises with a buildup of private debt. The second part discusses the main problem with associating crises with private debt buildups: growth in debt stocks is by itself not enough to trigger a crisis. The catch is a variant of the efficient markets hypothesis: if we could easily forecast crises, it...

Analysis from the left mostly about British politics but inclusive of all aspects of neoliberalism as the policy, strategy and tactics of elite power. Says "long read," but it is not that long. Worth a read even if you are not British since it is also an analysis of elite power as it relates to national politics and neoliberal globalization. Let's hope Cook is correct in seeing the wave cresting. The question then becomes will the breaking of the wave result in world war as the elite...

I would suggest considering limiting federal government "bond" sales — with "bonds" meaning term secretaries — to short term notes that are essentially cash equivalents that pay a bit of interest. Longer term government securities can be issue without a term limit, which makes them appear to be "debt" comparable to private debt. The UK has already done this with "consoles." Consols (originally short for consolidated annuities, but subsequently taken to mean consolidated stock) was a...

Mixed bag. The glass is half–full or half–empty, which matters based on which half one is in. With domestic inequalities and “populism” taking center stage, the changes in global income inequality have understandably moved out of the focus. My access to the data—many of them still best obtained from the World Bank especially for poorer countries not covered by LIS—has also diminished since I left the World Bank. But one can still put together a quick update (thanks also to the contribution...

A new study reveals how the wealthy engage in ‘stealth politics’: quietly advancing unpopular, inequality-exacerbating, highly conservative policies... How can this be so? If it is true, why aren’t voters aware and angry about it?The answer is simple: billionaires who favor unpopular, ultraconservative economic policies, and work actively to advance them (that is, most politically active billionaires) stay almost entirely silent about those issues in public. This is a deliberate choice....

Didn't know that Marx was a feminist? Then you don't know about his wife, Jenny von Westphalen Marx. She was an aristocrat become social and political activist. Jacobin has the story of her life. ... we are in union with Marx, “to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, forsaken, despicable being”.... The German term Marx uses that is translated "man" here is Menschen. While it is correct to translate Menschen as "man" in the generic, non-gender specific sense, the...