Mike Norman Economics

The study of self-organizing groups points toward what could be called a cognitive economics.EvonomicsCognitive Economics: How Self-Organization and Collective Intelligence WorksGeoff Mulgan is chief executive of Nesta, the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, and a senior visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Ash Center

Pirate bands are radically democratic and egalitarian: Hayek and the evolutionary imperative. EvonomicsThe Invisible Hook: How Pirate Society Proves Economic Self-Interest WrongDavid Sloan Wilson | SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University and Arne Næss Chair in Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo

Gilbert Doctorow is generally positive about the 2017 National Security Strategy that was recently released by the White House. It indicates a shirt toward foreign policy realism and away from the foreign policy idealism that characterized US policy since Ronald Reagan's presidency under neoconservative and liberal internationalist influence in both the Republican and Democratic Parties.Une parole franche Kissinger’s Fingerprints on the Trump Security Doctrine, 2017Gilbert Doctorow |...

Some views on distinguishing critics from cranks and quacks.ChrisAuld18 signs you’re reading bad criticism of economics Chris Auld Unlearning Economics 18 Signs Economists Haven’t the Foggiest Information Transfer Economics18 signs you are not having a productive conversation about economicsJason Smith Dani Rodrik's WeblogThe Economics Debate, again and again Dani Rodrik

An interesting article about Bitcoin in the Guardian today by Will Hutton. He seems to like it but he says it will never be quite the same as regular money as it is far too volatile for that. But blockchain changes everything. It becomes a means to transfer digital cash – or crypto-currencies, of which the best known is bitcoin – in vast amounts, across any border, instantaneously. The blockchain makes sure bitcoin is spent once; indeed, blockchain was first invented by the originators of...

The president wants a partnership with Vladimir Putin, but his national security leaders are pursuing aggressive containment. Jeet Heer seems to believe the propaganda that Russia is a dangerous adversary, but this is an interesting article in that he believes Trump is still going against his administration by trying to improve relations with Russia and China.  Heer says that to balance Trump's conciliatory words towards Putin, his administration may take a more hard line position to...

Trade between Russia and the United Kingdom is growing despite sanctions, said British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, adding that London is confident on that upward trend. “I’m delighted that trade is increasing in spite of difficulties, in spite of the sanctions regime. We certainly want to see more of that,”Johnson said on Friday after talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow. “I think we are exporting about five million pounds’ worth to Russia at the moment and it’s...

History of economics.Michael HudsonOn Simon Patten Trey Popp

Weekend reading. Michael Emmett Brady, California State University, published in the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) he takes giant steps to demolishing Samuelson’s myth. Michael Emmett Brady writes the most significant contribution to the invsisible-hand debate since 1948: “Who Taught Paul Samuelson the Myth of the “Invisible Hand” at the University of Chicago? The most likely answer is Jacob Viner or fellow student George Stigler” .  Its author takes the invisible-hand debate...

Poverty leads to increases in drug and alcohol use as well as suicide, but it also increase violent behavior. Some poor people who feel they have low status may find they can gain respect gang culture. If they feel no good at anything - like they failed at school and ended up low paid jobs - they might decide that at least they can be the worse and most notorious, and so by becoming the 'scariest' and the 'bad-est' they feel can get respect that way even if it is a disastrous way to do it. ...