Mike Norman Economics

... the current case in question is quite different than any past case study in a private entity’s constitutional requirements where freedom of speech are concerned. Firstly, just a handful of big tech companies control virtually all social media platforms, effectively operating an illegal, anti-free market monopoly. This is not a normal, or even legal form of private business in the United States. Secondly, these companies are banning individuals and groups in coordination with one another...

The US Congress has revived the so-called “NOPEC” bill for countering OPEC and OPEC+. Officially called the “No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act”, NOPEC is the definition of so-called “lawfare” because it enables the US to extraterritorially impose its domestic legislation on others by giving the government the right to sue OPEC and OPEC+ countries like Russia because of their coordinated efforts to control oil prices. Lawsuits, however, are unenforceable, which is why the...

"War" is in the air now. Sputnik International Iran Supreme Leader Calls for 'Swift, Just' Legal Action to Face 'Economic War'See alsoReutersIran Supreme Leader calls for action to face 'economic war': state TV

US President Donald Trump is not in control of his own administration, as evidenced by the latest round of sanctions imposed against Russia for the alleged involvement in the poisoning of the Skripals in the UK in March. The sanctions came the same day that US Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced on a trip to Moscow that he had handed over a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin from Trump calling for better relations between the two countries.… With even further sanctions against Russia...

The official justifications for this latest set of sanctions proves that they are not the real reasons because they are too ridiculous to be taken seriously by any thinking person. The ever-changing Skripalmania story, preposterous at the outset, has descended into incoherence as the crack Russian assassination team is now said to be using public toilets to remix “novichok” to put into perfume atomisers. The OPCW certified last October that Russia had eliminated its CW stocks; who is...

Newly released declassified documents prove once and for all that CIA Director Gina Haspel oversaw torture in Thailand, which the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee knew all along, as Ray McGovern explains. Consortium NewsSenator Richard Burr: a Longtime Fan of Torture Ray McGovern, former US Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and 30 year CIA veteran analyst, including Presidential briefer from 1981 to 1985See alsoIntel TodayCIA & Torture — Gina Haspel Thailand Cables...

How can Erdogan get out of this currency crash? The capitalist solution is to hike interest rates to an astronomical height so that further borrowing is stopped. Then the government should dramatically cut government spending and raise taxes (ie fiscal austerity) and use the ‘savings’ to bolster the banks and meet foreign debt repayments. Turkey should also turn to the IMF for a loan – Greek style. Under IMF rules, it could borrow up to $28bn to fund future debt repayments but then be...

Washington’s denial to Iran of Boeing Aircraft (and Airbus planes because they contain US-made parts), means the loss of tens of thousands of highly-paid jobs in the US and Europe. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, claims he talked Trump into canceling the Iran nuclear deal and the Boeing orders. It’s hard to validate Netanyahu’s claim but it is clear that America’s ever more powerful Israel lobby and its ally fundamentalist Christian Zionists played a key role in thwarting the...

The dramatic rise of China over the past four decades not only has rocketed China's economy to the top of the world (in terms of PPP - purchasing power parity), with no end in sight, but also is ending western dominance over the past 200 years, at least.What does that mean to the world? Everything, from politics (End of Democracy?) to economics (Adam Smith vs. Karl Marx)! To understand the profound implication of this change, we must truly understand the past, for which we must re-examine...

On manufacturing controversy where there is none. Also about relevance of mathematical modeling. Short, not wonkish.The propaganda ideal is to manufacture consent and that is too difficult, to manufacture controversy that paralyzes action. This is similar to the military strategy of achieving victory and where that is not possible to sew chaos. Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social ScienceDiscussion of the value of a mathematical model for the dissemination of...