Mike Norman Economics

An interesting podcast.  The British Conservative, Jesse Norman, says Adam Smith wasn't the neoliberal or the libertarian that many on the left believe (or the right, I might add). The interviewer mentions how Margaret Thatcher carried around all the time in her handbag the Wealth of Nations, but Jesse Norman laughed at that saying that many Conservative politicians can quote three sentences from the Wealth of Nations but have never read the book. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith is a...

Frances Coppola’s concerns about fixed versus floating exchange rates for developing countries is presumably interesting to some, but it tells us little about the validity of MMT...  Bond Economics The Myth Of The Myth Of Monetary SovereigntyBrian Romanchuk

More on how Hitler refused to develop the atomic bomb.Look at that photograph below, see how shocking it is? A child is still alive while everyone else is dead. Imagining the suffering? What's up with this world? I don't like to rant, but that photograph upset me! [embedded content] To intimidate the Soviet Union and prove to Congress the nuclear program should be funded, Truman dropped nuclear weapons on Japan to end the war; no scientist came forward to warn of the dangers to life on...

42% of the British public don't even know that there is a war going on in Yemen. Aid projects funded by Oxfam in Yemen have been hit in Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, it has emerged, as the British government faces mounting pressure to halt arms sales to Riyadh.   A vital cholera treatment centre in Abs, in the Hajjah province, was hit in June in coalition war strikes – which are supported by British intelligence – despite the location being reported to the Saudi alliance more than 12...

The Conservatives have borrowed £670 billion in the last 7 years, while Labour governments have borrowed in total £500 billion in the last 33 years.British Conservative Party says we need to reduce spending because we have run out of money and so they have implemented harsh austerity.  Public services have been cut to the bone and the NHS is struggling while waiting lists have increased.Lots of people have had their benefits cut, or taken away completely, and suicides have been on the rise....

...the basic story is first we did information, next we’re going to do matter. Interesting article. Not about digital currency.MediumWhy Global Trade Will Inevitably Move to the Blockchain Vinay Gupta | CEO of @mattereum

As the recently much derided “liberal order” ebbs away, what is the ideological constellation that will replace it? The liberal order was often more an idea than a reality and in international politics, often not very liberal at all. But it operated within a series of normative horizons — economic centrism, openness to trade, multiculturalism, and so on. The flagbearers of that order are losing credibility all across the world, for a variety of reasons. Deep misjudgements on inequality,...

The world’s central banks have acquired a record amount of gold in the third quarter of 2018 since 2015. The biggest buyer was Russia’s Central Bank, according to the World Gold Council (WGC) report. Over the past three months, global gold purchases totaled more than 148,000 tonnes, up 22% year-on-year, reports the World Gold Council. The leaders in purchases were Russia (99.2 tonnes of gold) and Turkey (18.5 tonnes).Russia’s central bank gold reserves surpassed 2,000 tonnes for the first...

George Magnus, the brunt of the post, is an ideologue. This would not be worth posting if it were not also the Western consensus view that missed the mark on China all along owing to assumptions that are wide of the mark — wrong model. Fort Russ NewsNo, Xi’s China Is Not In Jeopardy! How Western Press Gets It All Wrong Dennis Etler

The de facto civil war in the US is obscuring two existential threats — climate change and nuclear war. Jatras mentions only the latter. Still, the US remains addicted to ever-increasing sanctions, and despite warnings from both Russia and China that they are prepared for war – warnings virtually ignored by the US media and political class – the US keeps pressing on all fronts: outer space, the Arctic, Europe (withdrawal from the INF treaty), Ukraine, the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait,...