Mike Norman Economics

Conventional economics prioritizes "growth" measured chiefly by per capita real GDP, assuming that increasing per capita real GDP increases the standard of living of a society. However, per capita real GDP is not a metric of the standard of living since it does not include distribution. They becomes crucial as inequality of income and net worth increases. A small segment of the population can be getting better off, while most of the society either languishes or declines. The typical...

New twist in the Mueller investigation; might finally be jumping the shark here...FBI interviewed Russian MMA fighter linked to Trump and Putin: report https://t.co/wP5Fc5uGJU pic.twitter.com/nJDxXQCuXh— The Hill (@thehill) April 29, 2018

I love a good rant. This is, in fact, a great one! Hey, Sunday Times? How about fuck you, actually? Fuck your brazen attempt to keep the British people from reclaiming what is being stolen from them by an increasingly corporatist neoliberal government. Fuck your shameless “information war” which places the agendas of plutocrats and intelligence agencies above truth and honest discourse. Fuck your relentless propaganda campaign which smears anyone who remembers the lies they were told...

Back then I did not realise what I now know, that the person being protected was Pablo Miller, colleague in both MI6 then Orbis Intelligence of Christopher Steele, author of the fabrications of the Trump/Russia golden shower dossier. That the government’s very first act on the poisoning was to ban all media mention of Pablo Miller makes it extremely probable that this whole incident is related to the Trump dossier and that Skripal had worked on it, as I immediately suspected. The most...

I was very surprised about PCR's rant about capitalism, because it's as if nowadays its taboo to criticise it too much. We certainly don't want communism, but that doesn't meant to say we love capitalism all that much either, apart from the mom-and-pop small businesses. As Paul says, today's capitalism is non stop work 24/7, and now with machines going flat out 24 hours 365 days of the weak as well. This is the Protestant Work Ethic on steroids, all work with no rest or play.Calvin's...

“The test of science is its ability to predict”— Richard Feynman Is economics "cargo cult science" (Richard Feynman)? Of course, as I point out in my forthcoming book Quantum Economics, economics should not be compared directly with weather forecasting. For one thing, the fact that economists’ predictions and models affect the economy (the financial crisis of 2008 for example was in part caused by faulty economic risk models) means that their responsibility is more like that of engineers or...

At the start of April President Vladimir Putin believed he could postpone Russia’s strategic and battlefield responses to the state of war which the US is escalating. He was to be disappointed. On April 6, the US Treasury announced it is putting the state aluminium monopoly United Company Rusal out of business, not only in the US but worldwide. Not since July 26, 1941, when President Franklin Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the US and prohibited all US trade with Japan, especially...

This is what an ass-kicking looks like... sheesh these guys killed it here: $SPX Q1’18 opertating EPS estimate up 10.0% YTD, as EPS setting record; 2018 est +8.1% YTD, 2019 +8.0%; Oper margin record high at 11.66% (20YrAvg8.08%); Sales strong +9.4%Y/Y, second (-2.8%) only to record Q4 2017 (holiday); file under ‘Additional info” https://t.co/hWKNiES12t — Howard Silverblatt (@hsilverb) April 27, 2018 More on share buybacks way up:$SPX Q1’18 buybacks (29% reported) up 72% over Q4’17 & up...

This GDP projection from the Atlanta Fed has come way down for the 1Q from when it was first published.  IIRC they were a bit above 4% while we just reported a 2.3%.You can't end 4Q with a change in tax POLICY that forces a $40B (4%) markdown in capital at the depositories and still expect things to carry on iaw the 4Q growth trend sorry.That tax bill simply was not well thought out... I hope this short term effect of the change in policy effecting $40B of certain financial asset values is...

Infographic.Real-World Economics Review BlogOxfam report on the rich-poor divide Editor