Mike Norman Economics

While the hard-hit Iranian economy is likely to continue reeling, driving more protesters into the streets, one shouldn’t mistake their pain for a desire to subject themselves to a totalitarian cult with hardly a fraction of the support enjoyed by the Shia clergy helming the Islamic Republic. Remember Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi government in exile that was supposed to lead "democratize Iraq" after the fall of Saddam? You don't? Because it never got off the ground. A similar plan is...

MMT economists advocate that the central government – the federal government in the U.S. – can and should employ every person who desires to work but cannot find work in the private sector at a living wage. This living wage, the MMT supporters point out, would function as a minimum wage, since no person would work for a private employer who offers a wage lower than the wage the government offers. Assuming such a reform could be implemented under the capitalist system, if your search for...

Book Review: Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of The Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy McLean.… MacLean argues that the radical right will eventually reduce freedom for the majority while privileging the propertied minority. The more power the propertied minority has, the less democratic society becomes. The ultimate target of the radical right, which has gained control of the modern Republican Party, is to change American society to privilege capitalism over democracy...

Ivan Ilyin was an influential nationalist political and Orthodox Christian philosopher active in the Russian Emigre movement in Europe after the revolution. He heavily influenced Solzhenitsyn. Putin, a great admirer, personally supported repatriating his remains to Russia in 2009, and attended the consecration of his grave. For more articles on RI by or about Ilyin, click here. For a selection of his Christian writings on the Russian Faith site, click here. Ivan Ilyin is one of the...

If you are following this debate. Let me focus on two most important issues on which Kate Raworth and I differ.(My original review of Kate Raworth's very good and challengingDoughnut Economics can be found here; Kate’s response is given here.) Global InequalityOn growth and people: my reply to Kate Raworth's replyBranko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead...

Reflections with which I agree.Comments on Global Political EconomySome thoughts on liberal democracy as a deceptive term Jim O'ReillySee alsoIn my view, Dugin gets this right, too, as opposed to bourgeois liberalism's, "My way, or the highway." The third totalitarianism is transnational corporate totalitarianism under the control of international capital, which happens to be mostly in Western "liberal" hands.Geopolitika The 'Third Totalitarianism' From The West Alexander Dugin

Weekend reading. There are only three entries. Easy read.Ed Zimmer is an engineer and has only recently encountered economics. But I had now picked up an interest in macroeconomics — and started seriously reading many of the economists' blogs and papers. But the more I read, the more disillusioned I became. Having no previous introduction to economics, I initially assumed economists were scientists (and that was reinforced by the math I was seeing). But as I read their blogs and papers...

Ocasio-Cortez’s socialist message is not an incidental part of a larger demographic story. And her socialism shouldn’t be treated as a virus opportunistically riding the vector of her Latina form. Socialism is inextricable from Ocasio-Cortez’s success because it’s the secret behind her ability to do what the Democratic party has long failed to do — articulate a holistic progressive vision for America. Socialism is a framework that supports a belief that a country in which everyone can live...

In a new development that will shock no one, factions within the CIA attempted for the second time in just over a month to undermine President Donald Trump’s peace overtures towards North Korea by leaking information calculated to decrease confidence in Kim Jong Un’s willingness to earnestly negotiate. On June 29, 2018, NBC News released a report quoting anonymous CIA officials who claimed that North Korea was increasing nuclear production at “secret sites” without providing any actual...

The bottom line is that despite the agreement in Vienna, the price of oil, in the short-term, is bound to go up. Analyses by BNP Paribas, among others, are adamant that supply problems with Venezuela and Libya, plus the proverbial “uncertainty” about the sanctions on Iran, lead to “oil fundamentals still…favorable for oil prices to rise over the next six months despite the OPEC+ decision.”... Take-away. Considering that in realpolitik terms Riyadh simply is not allowed any “decision” in oil...