Mike Norman Economics

Yves here. While quite a few economists have thrown cold water on the rosy message of the latest drop of the headline unemployment stat to below 4%, this Real News Network interview with Robert Pollin of PERI does the useful service of providing a more realistic estimate. Naked CapitalismOfficial Unemployment Is at 3.9%? Economist Robert Pollin Says It Is More Like 12% Yves Smith

Kudrin demoted. Kudrin is pro-Western and neoliberal.Dances with BearsAlexei Kudrin Accepts Accounting Chamber Post From SubordinateJohn Helmer

Much government regulation does not fit the logic of Stigler’s theory of anti-competitive regulatory capture. In a new book, Steven Vogel of Berkeley argues that the theory of regulation needs to account for the phenomenon of captured regulators bent on deregulating—and that the critical consideration facing regulators is no longer how to enhance competition, but how different governance models favor different actors. Rent capture.ProMarket — The blog of the Stigler Center at the University...

Krugman again.  Keynes quote, too. Lars P. Syll’s BlogOh dear, oh dear, Krugman gets it so wrong, so wrongLars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

10-yr Treasury yield firmly above 3%. We “broke the line.”

Exactly as I called it.

As for the real damage to the Russian economy recorded since 2014, the State Department officials report “that oil price volatility explains the vast majority of the decline in Russia’s GDP and import demand, with very little left to be explained by sanctions or other factors. Thus either sanctions had only a small negative effect on these variables or other positive factors largely cancelled out the effect of sanctions.” The real losers, they add, of the combination of sanctions and...

I was going to write about the situation in Timor-Leste after its national elections were held on Saturday. But I will hold that over for another day as I get some more information. So today, I think we can learn a lot from an issue raised in the Bloomberg article (May 14, 2018) – Kuroda’s Stimulus Saves Japan $45 Billion, Easing Debt Pressures – which discusses the QE program in Japan and introduces several of the basic errors that mainstream financial commentators make when discussing...

Keeper quotes.The Case for Concerted ActionPreface To The French Edition Of The General TheoryV. Ramanan

In the video below Gweilo says China is the mirror opposite of the West. Men are not macho, but are refined, and friends like to hug and sometimes hold hands with each other. People are very polite and courteous and like to dress smart all the time. Where some of us in the West will occasionally go out with a few friends at night most people like to stay in and watch TV, but the Chinese like to go out all the time and socialise in the streets where they will do Tai Chi, dancing, singing,...