Mike Norman Economics

Craig Murray The Guardian has today published a whole series of attack piece articles on Julian Assange which plainly exult in the fact he has now been silenced by the cutting of his communication with the outside world. They also include outright lies such as this one by Dan Collyns: In fact Julian Assange was questioned for two days solid in the Embassy by Swedish procurators and police in November 2016. The statement he gave to them at that time I published in full. Following that...

Shot across the bow of US?EcnsXi backs DPRK development China Daily

Iran’s feud with the US is set to get worse after Tehran announced yesterday that it will start reporting foreign currency amounts in euros rather than US dollars, as part of the country’s effort to reduce its reliance on the American currency due to political tension with Washington. Central bank governor Valiollah Seif said last week that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had welcomed his suggestion of replacing the dollar with the euro in foreign trade, as the “dollar has no place...

Simple realities that people don’t get.

Other than speculators there is no such thing as dollar “demand” setting exchange rates.

Hyman Minsky inspired many leftist economists, like Steve Keen and Micheal Hudson, but on the benefit system it seems he was very right wing. Matt Bruenig gives Minsky's views a good hearing, but at the end he says that the benefit system has been a success at ending much of the poverty in the US.I like the idea of lowering the retirement age to create more jobs and keeping youngsters in school longer to learn more skills. Alas, the trend has been to increase the retirement age. KV Economist...

Going back to my title, I quote from the 1997 book of the late Presidential advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives to make the point of what US foreign and defense policy under Trump today is. It is nothing less than application of the Brzezinski geopolitical challenge and the preventive war notion of the Bush-Wolfowitz doctrine in context of today’s emerging resistance to an American sole superpower domination. Brzezinski,...

I think there are three reasons: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions @Asymptosis asks a good question – why isn’t #LVT Everywhere?Andrew Lainton

Why the Canadian "housing bubble" hasn't burst. Quick summary: it's a policy choice, but this comes with some consequences, like pricing some cohorts like unendowed youth out of the market, and also some uncertainty, like what happens if there is a recession and debt cannot be serviced.  Moreover, Brian explains why this cannot be modeled. While it is foreseeable as a contingency, the timing is not forecastable. Although this is based on a policy choice and determined by Canadian law...

Mike sent this out in a note the other day.Household debt service bouncing along the bottom at 40 year low.You can see how over the last 10 years households have been starved of credit as banks had to divert allocation of their regulatory capital against the additional $trillions of Reserve Assets the Fed created under the various QE policies.This should begin to bottom as Fed has stated that they intend to reduce their QE policy by $400B this year and over $400B next year; allowing...