Mike Norman Economics

Norway's prisons seem to be better at rehabilitating people. [embedded content] "Halden is situated in a remote forest of birch, pine, and spruce with an understory of blueberry shrubs. The prison is surrounded by a single wall. It has no barbed wire, guard towers, or electric fences. Prisoners stay in private rooms with en suite bathrooms and can cook for themselves in kitchens equipped with stainless-steel flatware and porcelain dishes. Guards and inmates mingle freely, eating and playing...

In a swipe at his hardline rivals, President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday young Iranian protesters were unhappy about far more than just the economy and they would no longer defer to the views and lifestyle of an aging revolutionary elite.... Iran is already a lot more liberal than Wahabi-Salafist states like Saudi Arabia. It is also democratic, where as the others are hereditary monarchies. What makes Islamic countries Islamic states is that they recognize Islamic law. Iran is hardly...

Paul Samuelson quote you may wish to keep on file if you don't already have it.Lars P. Syll’s BlogBalanced budget religionLars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

This will be a keeper series! There was an article posted by American political analyst Jared Berstein yesterday (January 7, 2018) – Questions for the MMTers – which I thought was a very civilised exercise in engagement from someone who is clearly representative of the more standard Democratic Party view, that the US government has to move towards balancing its fiscal position and reducing government debt in order to meet the social security challenges posed by an ageing population and...

The next Sunday with Charles and Jason Goodman might be quite good. It's normally like watching paint dry but I bet Charles Ortel will be flying with this. The Justice Department has launched a new inquiry into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged in any pay-to-play politics or other illegal activities while Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State, law enforcement officials and a witness tells The Hill. FBI agents from Little Rock, Ark., where the Foundation was started, have taken...

Its worth a country investing in a good education for its people because it can create a more productive country and everyone benefits. More entrepreneurs, more skilled workers, more higher pay meaning more taxes collected reducing the burden on everyone else, more people in work and paying taxes, less crime, and so on.  The influence of the environment In this domain, rigorous experiments have been performed, not on people but on animals. This is how the development of the brains of...

The Israeli ringleader of a global gang involved in an organ trafficking in Kosovo has been arrested in Cyprus, Kosovan police say. Moshe Harel is accused of organizing dozens of illegal kidney transplants at the Medicus clinic in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, a decade ago. "The suspect whose initials are MH was arrested a few days ago in Cyprus following an international arrest warrant," Kosovan police spokesman Baki Kelani said Saturday. Poor people from areas in Eastern Europe and...

This interview put me in a strange position as I'm not a conservative and I don't like much of Trump's policies, but at the same time I know the MSM hates Trump and has been portraying him as incompetent and unintelligent because their prefered candidate did not win. I'm English but I wanted Trump to get in because he said a lot of good things about draining the swamp and I felt that Hilary might start WW3. Yes, Trump was bad, but Hilary was far worse.I have been following the independent...

MMT (functional finance actually) challenged. Why is fiscal policy based on FF superior to monetary policy as presently conducted?Let the debate begin.On the EconomyQuestions for the MMTersJared Bernstein | Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama Administration

The euphoria around international trade and the general consensus regarding capitalism’s inevitable sustenance among countries of the Global South is at least partly due to the absence of an alternative after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The politics of capitalism, with its expansionary dynamics, has assumed a truly “global” avatar by aggressively pursuing a neoliberal globalization agenda. Thus, we see much hype around the numerous trade treaties that governments around the world...