Mike Norman Economics

Britain is one of the richest countries in the world, but Therese May says we've run out of money.  Hey, Theresa, your friends have stashed £trillions of our money over at the Caimans, but we have to tighten our belts here yet again because neoliberalism and Tory capitalism are so pathetic that the Britain is broke again! Why do the public fall for it, after 40 years of the Thatcher miracle and we are more broke than ever? Thatherism doesn't work, Theresa, and your economic system is a load...

Every five weeks, 9,500 brand new electric buses take to the roads in China.That’s the equivalent of the entire London bus fleet, says a new report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.The world has around 3 million buses. Most run on diesel and compressed natural gas. The global fleet of electric buses now totals around 385,000 vehicles - and 99% of those are in China. Winning.World Economic ForumChina is adding a London-sized electric bus fleet every five weeks Alex Gray

For starters, there is an increasingly marked disconnect between the issues that concern most Americans on a day-to-day basis and the way in which the foreign policy establishment discusses America’s role in the world. Washington Post national security correspondent Greg Jaffe remarked in mid-2017 that “sustaining the US-led, rules-based international order [is] an exhortation that, at best, [is] meaningless to most Americans. At worst, it smack[s] of soulless globalism.”… Americans have...

The BRI, for Beijing, is all about geopolitical but most of all geo-economic projection – including the promotion of new global standards and norms that may not be exactly those practiced by the EU. And that brings us to the heart of the matter, not enounced by the leaked internal report; the intersection between BRI and Made in China: 2025. Beijing is aiming to become a global high-tech leader in less than seven years. Made in China: 2025 identified 10 sectors – including AI, robotics,...

False Flag is a concept that goes back centuries. It was considered to be a legitimate ploy by the Greeks and Romans, where a military force would pretend to be friendly to get close to an enemy before dropping the pretense and raising its banners to reveal its own affiliation just before launching an attack. In the sea battles of the eighteenth century among Spain, France and Britain hoisting an enemy flag instead of one’s own to confuse the opponent was considered to be a legitimate ruse...

This is the first in a series of blog posts on financing infrastructure assets. Multiplier EffectThe Massive Need for Infrastructure in the Emerging and Developed World Felipe Rezende | Director, Finance program and Associate Professor of Economics & Finance, Bard College and Levy Economics Institute

What sense can we make out of all these strategic events in Syria? We encounter a baffling array of players: Syrian troops, Syrian insurgents, jihadis of varying ideologies, Iranians, Russians, Americans, Israelis, Turks, Saudis, Qataris, Emiratis, Shi’ite militias, Iraqis, Kurds, Hizballah—all locked in a deadly dance. But as complex as it may be, this seven-year bloody conflict still continues to pose the very same long-term fundamental questions to US policy in Syria and the region....

There are two reasons why the aluminium metal markets are not making long-term bets on the price of the metal, the alumina required to make it, and the share prices of the metal producers, including Russia’s aluminium monopoly United Company Rusal. The first reason is that the US Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin (lead image, right) has decided to eliminate Rusal’s controlling shareholder, Oleg Deripaska (left), but leave Rusal to carry on its business without him. The second reason is...

A statistics professor looks at the economics profession. This is an awkward topic to write about. I’m not saying I think economists are mean people; they just seem to have a default mode of thought which is a little perverse. In the traditional view of Freudian psychiatrists, which no behavior can be taken at face value, and it takes a Freudian analyst to decode the true meaning. Similarly, in the world of pop economics, or neoclassical economics, any behavior that might seem good, or...

Report.Economic Policy InstituteIt’s not just monopoly and monopsony: How market power has affected American wages Josh Bivens, Lawrence Mishel, and John SchmittSee alsoFrom Poverty to PowerThe World Bank’s flagship report this year is on the future of work – here’s what the draft says Duncan Green, strategic adviser for Oxfam GB