Mike Norman Economics

A LETTER from the Economic Secretary of the Treasury has confirmed that the government does not need to raise money from taxation to fund government spending, leading to advocates of increased public investment to declare “the magic money tree exists, as a matter of fact”.... The argument goes that the government can only spend what it has raised in taxation, with any additional financing having to be raised through debt from financial markets which subsequently has to be repaid. Former...

Only for those interested in a detailed backgrounder about where things stand now from someone that understands both English and Russian and it acquainted with the sources. Longish, and requires some background already. Dances with Bears The Helsinki Referendum For Donbass – Putin Opts For No-Win, No-Lose; Us Rejects Swap Of Donbass For Crimea John Helmer

Ortega says that the country has experienced extreme violence over the past several months at the hands of the “extreme right” of Nicaragua and U.S. elected officials who have always opposed the Sandinista revolution since it emerged in the 1980s. The president went on to say that the violence is the fruit of U.S. officials who are working with poor paramilitaries within the country who want to knock down the Sandinistas. Popular ResistanceNicaragua’s Daniel Ortega to Telesur: ‘The Coup...

Extreme conditioning both physically and mentally. Tomorrow’s GDP report.

It seems that the socialists do better capitalism than the conservatives do, well at least in Portugal. Businesses are now flourishing. You see, conservative parties, like the British Conservative Party and New labour, are only interested in serving the elite. KV LISBON — Ramón Rivera had barely gotten his olive oil business started in the sun-swept Alentejo region of Portugal when Europe’s debt crisis struck. The economy crumbled, wages were cut, and unemployment doubled. The government...

Tyler Cowen comments on a paper, and Barkley Rosser, who is not an author of the paper but is interested in the issues, responds in the comments. (Ignore the trolls in the comments.) I agree with Barkley Rosser. Social phenomena are difficult to measure and subjectivity greatly complicates this. However, it doesn't invalidate all models any more than similar issues invalidate modeling in economics. Where problems arise lies not so much in modeling and modeling decisions as in...

There's no two ways about, humans are cooperative creatures who like to help each other. KVIf productivity is plummeting in the workplace, the solution might be simple: Make the work week shorter. One company did just that by experimenting with a four-day workweek. The trial was so successful, management is seeking to make the change permanent. It also found an increased level of teamwork and collaboration (“employees describe how they felt a mutual willingness to ‘help each other out,’”...

A few years ago, China overtook the U.S. and other innovative countries in terms of patent applications. More recently, it also became the leader in patent grants. But does this mean China is now the world leader in innovation? A recent Economic Synopsesessay explores this idea.... Short and informative.FBRSL — On the EconomyHow Innovative Is China?

One of the many political cliches that makes me die a little bit inside is when someone claims that all we need to address a certain problem (health care, poverty, transportation, the Middle East, whatever) is to bring together a group of experts who will provide the common-sense solution that we have all been ignoring. But while bringing together a group of specialist experts can provide a great deal of information and insight, they are often not especially good at melding their specific...

Probably not of interest to all but worth posting for those interested in a contemporary Marxian approach. When we embarked on our project to explore Social Reproduction Theory (SRT), at the back of our mind was the phrase from the Marx and Engels’ German Ideology, ‘[human beings] must be in a position to live in order to be able to ‘make history’’. In class societies, since there lies between ‘living’ and ‘making history’ webs of social relations that enable and inhibit life, Marxism has...