Mike Norman Economics

Engels quote. Grasping Reality Friedrich Engels on invention as a factor of production Brad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

Short synopsis of the General Theory.The Political Economy of DevelopmentRe-reading KeynesNick Johnson

The ‘Matching functions’ mentioined in the quote explain unemployment by assuming that finding a job or a worker takes time. And this does explain unemployment – part of it (2%-point?). The rest must be explained by crises and the inability of the market system to create jobs. As is clear from comparing graph 2, short-lived crises cause lower levels of job creation and higher levels of job destruction. Basically, these swings are not even that large. But together they lead to a fast...

Answering the four big objections from critics of UBI A very good article on the merits of the Basic Income, and I think, probably the best one I've read. And it might not be so expensive after allAt present, most UK adults are taxed at a zero rate on the first £8,164 of earned income, 12% from £8,164 to £11,500, and 32% above £11,500. What this means, in effect, is that anyone earning £11,500 or more is effectively being given a freebie from the state of £3680, compared to being standardly...

Yep, they're for real and you can buy one. One person who bought one said it pissed him off it was made in China.Could it be a clever marketing ploy to wind up liberals which Trump supporters might buy to piss them off? [embedded content]

Last Friday I took part in a panel to launch a new book, World in Crisis: A Global Analysis of Marx’s Law of Profitability, published by Haymarket Books, edited by Michael Roberts and Guglielmo Carchedi. The presentation was at this year’s Historical Materialism conference in London. My presentation was on ‘Finance, Imperialism and Profits’, in which I stressed the need to develop Marx’s theory in order to explain the world today. I argued that an accurate measure of a rate of profit (in...

Well, I just watched a bit of a very depressing video where a biologist reckons we only have a year to live, but certainly no more than ten, as there will be massive crop failures due to climate change. I watched ten minutes of it and then decided it was too depressing for here.But the next video that came up was totally different and very inspiring. It's a little sad in places, but it's a documentary of great hope, love, joy, and passion and is about what makes life so great and...

'Austrian Economics is Nuts ', says Abdul Turay.  Abdul Turay is very likeable and entertaining speaker, but although he's bright, he's no academic and in this TEDx talk he's as clear as mud.He was a child during the 70's in London when the unions were at war with the government and so there was loads of strikes. Dustbins (trashcans) weren't being emptied, there was power cuts all the time, and even the grave diggers went on strike so bodies weren't getting buried. Abdul Turay came to the...

Hollywood is considered to be liberal and many of its films most certainly are. I have liberal views but I'm too socialist to really be one. My views are more like Stephen Lendman's.Brokeback Mountain was good, which showed how cruel and harsh traditional conservative society could be back in the old days.Now liberals have become intolerant themselves and seem to hate Russia and Putin for its conservative views. But I view Russia of having a very gentle conservatism which is fairly liberal...

Carey Wedler was die-hard liberal and even had an Obama posted above her bed but then she realised how pro war the liberals were and so she became a libertarian. She recently had her Anti-Media Facebook page removed. [embedded content]