Mike Norman Economics

Jimmy Dore is an excellent satirist who mixes serious politics with comedy which keeps his show really interesting. I would say that Jimmy Dore's politics and mine were about the same. Here he takes a satirical looks at the US military-industrial complex. [embedded content]

An in-depth discussion with renowned Palestinian scholar Prof. Joseph Massad. Alternet Max Blumenthal - GRAYZONE PROJECT - Exposing the Shocking and Continuing Alliance Between Zionism and Anti-Semitism According to this report the antisemitics in Europe drove the Jews out of their countries and this was exactly what the Zionists wanted as they hoped many of the Jewish evacuees would go to Palestine although most went to the USA instead.  Excerpt -  On the eve of Trump’s election,...

A media company backed by the conservative billionaire brothers will acquire Time, Fortune, People, and Sports Illustrated magazines Critics of media consolidation and the fossil fuel industry are decrying an announcement that the media company Meredith Corp., with a $650 million boost from conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch, will buy Time Inc.—which owns Time, Fortune, People, and Sports Illustrated magazines—for an estimated $2.8 billion. In a statement announcing the...

An excellent account of where America has gone wrong. At the end of the interview Alfred McCoy says how Obama was a brilliant strategist who was cutting China out of Western markets through trade deals which would have halted its rise but neoliberalism had disenfranchised so many working people that they voted for Trump who run on a populist ticked who wanted to end these deals. You can see here another reason why Trump was certainly not the leader the US elite wanted. [embedded content]...

Today, with the kind permission of Phil Butler, I am posting the full text of my contribution to his book “Putin’s Praetorians: Confessions of the Top Kremlin Trolls“. There are a couple of reasons for that.... The Vineyard of the SakerBook excerpt: How I became a Kremlin trollThe Saker

I say the challenge in Robin's final sentence is easily answered: Conscious intentions are all-important for the welfare analysis of signaling. Standard signaling models assume that people dislike sending the signal. It is this assumption that implies that signaling equilibria are highly inefficient - or even full-blown Prisoners' Dilemmas. If people enjoyed signaling, in contrast, signaling equilbria could easily be ideal. What superficially appears to be a vast zero-sum game turns out...

[Noah] Smith is keen to refute the ‘mixed economy’, anti free trade ideas that have been sneaking into mainstream economics since the Great Recession, namely that ‘neo-liberalism’ and free markets are bad for living standards. Instead, a little dose of protectionism on trade (Rodrik) and state intervention and regulation (Kwak) helps capitalism to work better. But no, says Smith. Neoliberalism works better. He cites China’s growth phenomenon as his main example! In China, “the shift...

Italian journalist Gian Micalessin's interviews with three Georgian mercenaries who took part in the shooting massacre of protesters and police in Kiev in early 2014, and led to the overthrow of the Ukrainian government, have dismantled the new government's account of the tragedy. Micalessin spoke to Sputnik about the implications of his findings. Sputnik InternationalDeadly Political Games: Italian Journalist Blows Lid Off Maidan Snipers Mystery The Vineyard of the SakerThe hidden truth...

Former G.W. Bush-era NSA and CIA head Michael Hayden has joined the ranks of Trump's social media critics, tweeting that the president's "outrageous assault" on press freedom makes him feel like he's "wasted 40 years of [his] life." However, Hayden's record doesn't exactly inspire confidence in his newfound role as defender of the Constitution.… The outpouring of support for George W. Bush's CIA & NSA chief — who oversaw torture, rendition, illegal domestic spying and an array of...

Col. Lang wraps it up. Interesting comments, too.Sic Semper Tyrannis The end is in sight in Syria Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.) At the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lang was the Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism, and later, the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. At the DIA, he was a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service. He participated in the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates. From 1992 to 1994,...