Mike Norman Economics

Recently Alex Salmond of the Scottish National Party started working for RT this week and the UK Guardian hissed and booed calling him a narcissist and an egotist. The Guardian nowadays often doesn't allow readers comments when the topic is about Russia, or will close the comments section down quickly if the comments are negative so I keep missing my chance to reply even though I know my post will be removed.Lee Camp says that all the best journalists now work for RT. He says how the former...

The latest data for net fixed assets in the US have been released, enabling me to update the calculations for the US rate of profit a la Marx up to 2016. Last year, I did the calculations with the help of Anders Axelsson from Sweden, who not only replicated the results to ensure their accuracy (and found mistakes!), but also produced a manual for carrying out the calculations that anybody could use. As I did last year and in previous years, I have also updated the rate of profit using the...

William Binney is the former National Security Agency (NSA) official who created NSA’s mass surveillance program for digital information. He says that if the Russian government had conspired with Trump, hacked the Democratic National Committee’s computer, or in any way influenced the outcome of the last US presidential election, the National Security Agency would have the digital evidence. The fact that we have been listening to the unsubstantiated charges that comprise “Russiagate” for...

The engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but rather by the necessity to serve other imperatives, which can be summarized as follows: * making the world safe for American corporations; * enhancing the financial statements of defense contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of congress; * preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model;...

Economic, social and health decline in the industrial Midwest may have been a major factor in the 2016 US presidential election, Monnat and Brown’s INET research finds, with people living in distressed areas swinging behind Trump in greater numbers. Trump performed well within these landscapes of despair – places that have borne the brunt of declines in manufacturing, mining, and related industries since the 1970s and are now struggling with opioids, disability, poor health, and family...

The key element that distinguishes capitalist societies from previous forms of social organization is not the existence of markets or money but rather capital investment, the act through which basic elements of society and life—including natural resources, technological discoveries, cultural productions, urban spaces, educational institutions, human beings, and the nation-state—are transformed (or “capitalized”) into income-generating assets valued and allocated in accordance with their...

Another "oops."Ars TechnicaPentagon contractor leaves social media spy archive wide open on AmazonDan Goodin | Security Editor

Not just the US. Jacques Sapir could be compared with Noam Chomsky in the US. In an open letter to Macos, Sapir claims that this act again him, seemingly anodyne, is extraordinary. It is representative of the intolerance towards anti-establishment opinion and of the repression that grows inexorably whether in France (the anti-terrorist law very worrying in this regard)(1) or in other countries, like Spain. Liberalism in the West is under threat as elites feel the heat. This is not a...

These investigations are taking place because powerful elites want to vilify an emerging geopolitical rival (Russia) and prevent Trump from normalizing relations with Moscow, not because there is any evidence of criminal wrongdoing. As the Intel analysts themselves acknowledge, there is no proof of criminal wrongdoing or any other wrongdoing for that matter. What there is, is a political agenda to discredit Trump and demonize Russia. That’s the fuel that is driving the present campaign....

It is not possible to overstate the power of certain constituencies and corporate lobbies in the United States. These pressure groups, joined by powerful government agencies, many of which have secret agendas that focus on national security, constitute what is increasingly being recognized as “Deep State America.” Deep State is the widespread belief that there exists in many countries an entrenched and largely hidden infrastructure that really controls the national narrative and runs...