Mike Norman Economics

Socialists should check out The American Conservative, it's has some superb articles.Lindsey Graham is warmongering as usual, this time on North Korea: The administration’s policy, he said, is “to deny North Korea the capability to hit America with a nuclear-tipped missile. Not to contain it."  “Denial means preemptive war as a last resort [bold mine-DL]. That preemption is becoming more likely as their technology matures. Every missile test, every underground test of a nuclear weapon,...

What’s really puzzling Claudio Borio, however, is that the market euphoria, or “ebullience” as he terms it, has continued as the Federal Reserve has proceeded with its tightening. While Borio acknowledges the BoJ has left its accommodative policy unchanged and the ECB may have “at least relative to expectations”, he notes that the Fed is the “issuer of the dominant international currency and its sway on markets remains unparalleled”. In Borio’s view this has led to a paradox, as he...

Ok, I can't resist a title like that. What we are witnessing in the US and indeed throughout the western world is the total failure of capitalism. Capitalism is now merely a looting machine. The financial sector no longer supplies capital for production. What the financial sector does is to turn discretionary consumer income into interest and fee payments to banks. Aggregate demand can only grow through debt expansion, and the consumers reach a point where they cannot expand their...

Retraining the displaced will be a major challenge for China’s government, as will preventing the major digital players from securing innovation-stifling monopolies. But the government’s readiness to embrace the emerging digital age, pursuing supportive policies and avoiding excessive regulation, has already placed the country at a significant advantage. Digitization also addresses the issue of the economic effect of China's aging population and the one-child policy's affect on replenishing...

I beg to differ with the usually astute Peter Dorman on this one. I also differ with Marx on it. Peter Dorman takes the liberal position that politics, which is concerned with power, is determinative. Marx posits that it is the economic and financial infrastructure that is determinative. Against such views, traditionalism holds that consciousness is determinative. While everyone agrees that change is complex and its quality, direction, and speed depends on many factors, some see...

With 2017 coming to a close, I wanted to put together a list of highlights like I did last year. This year was the year of dynamic information equilibrium as well as presentations. It was also the year I took some bigger steps in bringing my criticisms of economics and alternative approaches to the mainstream, having an article at Evonomics and publishing a book.... Information Transfer EconomicsInformation transfer economics: year in review 2017Jason Smith

Cash levels at all time highs.Cash in the S&P 500 Industrials (Old) sets record for Q3,’17 with $1.58 Trillion, up $50 billion in Q3,’17; Information Technology dominates with $730 billion in cash— Howard Silverblatt (@hsilverb) December 3, 2017

Public non-market production makes up a quarter to a half or more of all economic activity among advanced democratic nation-states. Yet the public economy’s ability to function on behalf of the populace as a whole is seriously imperiled in many western democracies, and particularly jeopardized in the United States. The surging influence of mainstream economics has been a prime factor in the degradation of the public domain over the last several decades – a phenomenon that James Galbraith...

Andre Vitchek says how Borneo of Indonesia is being destroyed by imperialist capitalist exploitation. Through mining and logging the landscape has been reduced to mud as corporations scramble to make their investors fabulously rich.  Now it is all black around her. It is desperate and depressing. But she doesn’t look suicidal, miserable, or even guilty. She does precisely what she was told to do under General Suharto’s military dictatorship, which was sponsored by the United States and...

An absolutely superb documentary by the Jewish film maker, Ronen Berelovich. He says how only 5% of Israelis, those who have served in the armed forces, have any idea what goes on in the occupied territories and so he made this film so that no one could have the excuse they didn't know. [embedded content]