Mike Norman Economics

More framing.This is a really good article. Concise, precise, and clearly formulated so that anyone can understand it. Disseminate widely.Here is the lede: Governments of all stripes base their policies on mainstream economics. Powerful challenges to the mainstream, especially from ecological economics and modern monetary theory, explain why we are in a hole and can’t seem to get out. If this article is largely correct, we can conclude that the economics profession is a major cause –...

Some ideas seem too good to be true. Like this one. It comes from a 13-year-old listener named Amy. She says she knows the government has trouble finding enough money to pay for stuff like schools and hospitals. And she wondered if it has considered just printing more money. She asked us: Can the government do that? Just make more money to pay for stuff? Fiscal hawks say, 'no way!' We'd have crazy inflation! But there's a group of economists that says, 'yes, we can create way more money,...

About framing and cultural mindset. Important now that MMT is gaining traction and neoliberalism is being challenged by social democracy. This is an issue that Bill Mitchell among MMT economists has been particularly devoted to, although they are all concerned with it as a matter of strategy now that MMT is ascendent. My point here is a disquieting one. It is the case that many neoliberal ideas are plain wrong; neoliberalism, for example, might well have retarded productivity growth. It...

History suggests otherwise, as well as intelligence reports In other words, al-Nusra’s sole aim is to destroy the Assad regime and, ergo, it is on the same side as the “moderates” and worthy of the same military assistance. If the “moderates” can’t say to al-Nusra, “We won’t work with you”, then how could the US? Intelligence reports to the French government have been recording US air strikes against Isis that have avoided endangering positions held by al-Nusra. When Isis arrived in its...

A quarter point rate hike is baked in, but what happens after?

As a reminder, yesterday we reported that Europe has unveiled a "Special Purpose Vehicle" to do just that, which not only would bypass SWIFT, but potentially jeopardize the dollar's reserve status. As we explained, "given U.S. law enforcement’s wide reach, there would still be a risk involved, and European governments may not be able to protect the companies from it. Some firms will be tempted to try the new infrastructure, however, and the public isn't likely to find out if they do. In...

Dark money and conflict of interest on SCOTUS. Sex scandal is just a canard. The real issues go far deeper. Not that the sex scandal is immaterial. In fact, the GOP seems to have decided it doesn't need educated white women after having previously decided that it doesn't need college-educated white males and non-whites. The "Big Tent" has narrowed to not-college white males and Evangelicals.Wall Street On ParadeThe Kavanaugh Nomination’s Money Trail Leads Back to Clarence Thomas Pam...

An unintended outcome of US President Donald Trump's trade war is that China will reduce its reliance on foreign trade and imported technologies. The end result could be a China that is stronger, more resilient, and possibly less willing to acquiesce to US-designed rules. No brainer. I've been saying this since the beginning of the so-called trade war. Like Russia, this is just forcing China to speed up what it was already committed to do in becoming more self-sufficient and developing the...

Martin Armstrong was on the onside on this and explains what really went down and how new of it was suppressed and is being suppressed to protect the powerful. Putin knows this, of course. I wonder how much of it he told Trump during their private meeting. Armstrong Economics Russiagate – The Slow Drip of the Coup to Take over Russia Martin ArmstrongSee alsoIntel TodayTwo Years Ago — Blast From The Past : The NSA & the CRYPTO AG Sting (And why it matters to Dag Hammarskjöld murder...

This blog post is written for a workshop I am participating in Germany on Saturday, October 13, 2018. The panel I am part of is focusing on external trade and currency issues. In this post, I bring together the basic arguments I will be presenting. One of the issues that is often brought up in relation to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) relates to the foreign exchange markets and the external accounts of nations (particularly the Current Account). Even progressive-minded economists seem to...