Mike Norman Economics

David Andolfatto recently published "Reconciling Orthodox and Heterodox Views on Money and Banking," which discusses the theoretical split between recent mainstream thinking and heterodox views on banking. From my perspective, he is addressing heterodox critiques of mainstream thinking that I am not particularly interested in; in fact, based on his criteria, I would be closer to "mainstream" than "heterodox" -- as would possibly be Hyman Minsky. I would view the problem with mainstream...

So how does Mankiw answer the question he raises in his first sentence: “What caused the financial crisis of 2008?” He does not answer it. He not even explain why he does not answer his own question. New Economic PerspectivesMankiw Whiffs on “Learning the Right Lessons from the Financial Crisis”William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC

A key post on MMT. Plus, it is short. Bill Mitchell – billy blogThe government is not a household and imports are still a benefitBill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Typically, Washington is against anything that benefits Moscow, and is for anything which bolsters the position of US puppet regime Ukraine. But, at ongoing cases before the World Trade Organization, that narrative isn’t applicable. This is so because if Washington slam Moscow for its actions relative to Kiev, it would provide a case against Trump’s metals tariffs. However, by standing with Russia on this issue, Washington thinks that it can save its own trade actions, namely Trump’s...

Following the Israeli model? Giraldi points out the obvious and ask why no one of consequence is talking about it. Btw, previous posts similar to this got Giraldi on the official outs list as being off the reservation by "going there." The Unz ReviewThe Yellow Peril Comes to WashingtonPhilip Giraldi, former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, now Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and founding member of the Veteran Intelligence...

Fort Russ TRUMPS SECRET PLAN? Turn Russia into ‘battering ram’ against China Paul AntonopoulosSee also CounterpunchTrump, Putin & Helsinki: Henry Kissinger Still Calls the Shots Rajai R. Masri is a former lecturer of Finance at McGill University and Boston University.RelatedSic Semper TyrannisLet Mikey do it? Maybe not.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...

Likely scenarios (zombie reactions) after tomorrow’s meeting concludes.

Balanced assessment from a longtime insider.Jack Matlock BlogMr. Trump Goes to HelsinkiWilliam Polk on Trump, Helsinki, and U.S. Foreign Policy William Polk |  former professor of history at Harvard University and the University of Chicago, past president of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs at University of Chicago, and sometime US diplomat and foreign policy consultant

We need courses devoted to such matters because we are living in a time where the dangers to informed and rational thought are not so much bad or sloppy thought but a poisoning of the flow of reliable information. It is not the transition from premises to conclusion that is often at fault but the premises themselves.... A sound argument is one whose logical form is valid and whose premises are true. The conclusion of a sound argument then follows from the premises and is true both...

My world view changed forever when, after 20 years in the Foreign Office, I saw colleagues I knew and liked go along with Britain’s complicity in the most terrible tortures, as detailed stunningly in the recent Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee Report. They also went along with keeping the policy secret, deliberately disregarding all normal record taking procedures, to the extent that the Committee noted: 131. We note that we have not seen the minutes of these meetings...