Mike Norman Economics

Not so veiled warning that if the technocrats persist while the US acts like an imperial hegemon, the populist backlash is coming that will burn down the EU house. While he doesn't say it, we've been here before, in the 1930s.Project SyndicateMerkel’s Comeuppance is Europe’s – and the World’s – Misfortune Yanis VaroufakisSee alsoThe Case for Concerted ActionMy Favourite Chart, Updated: Euro Area ImbalancesV. Ramanan

This paper sets out three models of central bank digital currency (CBDC) that differ in the sectors that have access to CBDC. It studies sectoral balance sheet dynamics at the point of an initial CBDC introduction, and of an attempted large-scale run out of bank deposits into CBDC. We find that if the introduction of CBDC follows a set of core principles, bank funding is not necessarily reduced, credit and liquidity provision to the private sector need not contract, and the risk of a...

On Friday, two-year Italian bond yields rose 35 basis points in one day — almost equivalent to the entire range of the year for U.S. 10-year Treasurys. This was the weakest session in five years and continued a month that's seen these yields rise 70 basis points in total. Ratings agencies are also beginning to raise alarm bells. Italian bonds have witnessed one of their worst trading weeks since the euro zone sovereign debt crisis, with many traders getting a stark reminder of the...

First there was the Great Gatsby curve. Then there was the Proust index. Now, thanks to Neil Irwin, we have the Marx ratio. Each, in their different way, attempts to capture the ravages of contemporary capitalism. But the Marx ratio is a bit different. It was published in the New York Times. Its aim is to capture one of the underlying determinants of the obscene levels of inequality in the United States today—not class mobility or the number of years of national income growth lost to the...

This is the second in a series of blog posts on financing infrastructure assets. Multiplier EffectBanks, Capital Markets, and Institutional Investors as Providers of Long-Term Finance Felipe Rezende | Director, Economics and Finance Program, Bard College and Research Fellow, The Levy Economics Institute

Although this blog post considers some very technical material its message is simple. Mainstream macroeconomic models that are used to determine policy choices by governments are deeply flawed and the evidence strongly supports a central thrust of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) – that fiscal policy is powerful and that austerity will kill growth. In that sense, it helps us understand why various nations and blocs (such as the Eurozone) struggled after the onset of the GFC. It also explains...

Dollar’s long term trend is down. I’m gonna make the biggest score of my lifetime.

If only the original communists hadn't banned religion, then the West would not have been able to portray them as agents of the Devil. I guess they saw how the ruling elite had used religion to control the masses. Wahabbism is extreme right wing, religious fascism and I wonder how the Wahhabi clerics believe such hate and violence serves God? Perhaps they are making a ton of money out of it like the extreme right-wing, Christian evangelical  preachers do? Again we read about pure evil...

The first battle in the war between Brussels and Rome has thus been won by Brussels: I have little doubt that Mattarella was lobbied very strongly by EU figures to block Savona, because he is capable of developing the real weapon that Five Star/Northern League could bring to bear against the euro – the “mini-BOT.” Named in reference to Italy’s “buoni ordinario del tesoro,” which are short-term government bonds, these would be government-issued notes valued at between €1 and €500, which...

Thomas Fazi is Bill Mitchell's collaborator. The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci coined the term “organic crisis” to describe a crisis that differs from ”ordinary” financial, economic, or political crises. An organic crisis is a “comprehensive crisis,” encompassing the totality of a system or order that, for whatever reason, is no longer able to generate societal consensus (in material or ideological terms). Such a crisis lays bare fundamental contradictions in the system that the ruling...