Mike Norman Economics

Quote worth pondering.Lars P. Syll’s BlogEconophysics Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

It’s rare for a fiscal policy wonk to attain political celebrity status, but economist Stephanie Kelton, a professor at Stony Brook University in New York, is one of the hottest names in Washington right now. Though her ideas were considered radical just a few years ago (Paul Krugman flatly rejected the premise of her research in a 2011 New York Times column), several of the policies she helped popularize, such as nationwide student debt cancellation and a federal jobs guarantee, have...

Is there a Deep State in our western liberal democracies? If so, is it a conspiracy or something more ‘interesting’ than that? These are questions that the Left has been traditionally engaged with, especially when facing undercover campaigns to prevent progressives from winning power or, on occasion, to unseat or destabilise left-wing governments. However, more recently, the Alt-Right has begun waging a war of words against the Deep State, with Donald Trump and his supporters doing so most...

The mind of the mass media: Email exchange between myself and a leading Washington Post foreign policy reporter:July 18, 2018 The US says it is not influencing elections but is supporting democracy, but if the wrong person get's elected, well? 'Democray' supports the elite well, like 'free markets' do, because they have to power to influence elections and rig the market. It's like a game of monopoly where once someone has got ahead and started winning it is very difficult to stop them as...

A good enough reason to never live in the US, in my opinion. In my last job I got five weeks and three days paid leave a year. The extra three days were added over a number of years for long term service. After my company got privatized my union could never negotiate the last few days to make it six weeks holiday.Five weeks three days, how can anyone say unions are bad, they served me well? Anyway, what I used to do was take two weeks leave twice a year but take those weeks where there was...

Private banks are failing to serve the public, say the professors, Mark Paul, Thomas Herndon, and so a public solution is needed to compete alongside the private banks. Banks today are increasingly consolidating branch locations, while also moving away from low-cost financial services to high-profit activities, leaving marginalized Americans underserved and left behind in today’s economy. Without access to basic banking services, such as checking and savings accounts or small loans,...

Peter Turchin has studied why civilisations collapse and he says it's when the gap between the rich and poor get's too big the rich can then use their power and influence to avoid paying taxes while at the same time use their monopoly position to force down the wages of the general population and so in the end the average citizen is unable pay enough tax to keep the system going either. Then societies begin to collapse and this can sometimes trigger a civil war, he says.What I found...

US farmers, lots of them in the State of Iowa, are not happy about losing the Chinese market, fearing it not come back once China substitutes.This article suggests their fear is justified. Earlier this week, Russia offered to bail out China from the trade war with Washington. Moscow offered 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of arable land available to Chinese farmers to meet its large-scale demand for soybeans — and of course, prevent a massive soybean shortage that would lead to...

About John Brennan.Sic Semper TyrannisDitto Colonel Lang Publius Tacitus See alsoUS Information classification and clearances Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.) At the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lang was the Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism, and later, the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. At the DIA, he was a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service. He participated in the drafting of National Intelligence...

If you are in a position to step up....Sic Semper Tyrannis If I am going to continue with SST...Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.) At the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lang was the Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism, and later, the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. At the DIA, he was a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service. He participated in the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates. From 1992 to 1994, all...