Mike Norman Economics

[embedded content] A few days ago, every local news station in America owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group – a massive media conglomerate – read short a statement about the spread of “fake news”. The same statement, word-for-word. CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, it didn’t matter. They were united in their chant. As you watch the montage – put together by user “D” on youtube – you have to ask yourself: What is the mechanism behind this? Who wrote the statement, and what structure allows their...

Upping their game. However, I think that the explanatory narrative needs some work. Are these the controlling factors?FRBSL — On the EconomyDebt Monetization: Then and Now David Andolfatto, Vice President and Economist, and Andrew Spewak, Senior Research AssociateSee also Over-building as a factor?FRBNY — Liberty StrteetQuantities and Prices during the Housing Bust Sonia Gilbukh and Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham

One of the greatest tricks neoliberalism played is convincing the world it doesn’t exist. Economic historian, Dr Philip Mirowski says if we are to have any chance of defeating it, the left has to put its big boy pants on and get organised. “Neoliberalism doesn’t exist” is a common refrain from critics who like to pretend it is some kind of lefty-slur. But economic historian, Dr Philip Mirowski, whose book, The Road to Mont Pelerin explores its Swiss conception in 1947, says this is a...

Sad story of American liberal interventionism putatively based on spreading freedom and democracy gone wrong in the Middle East, told by an insider. Is the US getting ready to repeat that mistake in Iran after Iraq has been generally admitted as a strategic blunder?LobeLogInauspicious Anniversaries and Lessons Unlearned Emile Nakhleh | Senior Intelligence Service officer and Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at the Central Intelligence Agency, a member of the...

Philosophy matters. Just ask Bill Miller. Bill started his professional journey as a philosophy graduate student at Johns Hopkins. He became a Wall Street legend. Based on my conversations with students and parents over many years, this is not the typical narrative associated with a humanities major. But Bill tells this story well. Known for his analytical acumen and iconoclastic approach to markets, Bill attributes much of his success to the habits of mind he developed studying the works...

Smackdown.Zero HedgeInterventionistas Outraged Over Trump's Syria Withdrawal: "We Took The Oil. We’ve Got To Keep The Oil" Tyler Durden

Backgrounder on Brazil. This is also a challenge for BRICS in addition to Brazil, since all of these countries have a significant and endemic corruption problem. Naked KeynesianismGoodbye Lula?Matias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, Bucknell University

Longish but worth a read. Covers a lot of ground.The InterceptA Guaranteed Jobs-For-All Program Is Gaining Traction Among 2020 Democratic Hopefuls Kate Aronoff

[embedded content] A life-affirming and (somewhat) non-political video for the holiday weekend. British freelance reporter Graham W. Phillips takes a longtime friend on an exploration of Crimea, getting a personal perspective on life there 4 years after its “annexation” by Russia following the 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine. Phillips rose to prominence for his brave frontline reporting of the Washington-sponsored “Anti-Terror Operation” and subsequent civil war in Ukraine. Here he is in...

This article is not a critique of capitalism, in fact, it doesn't talk about capitalism at all. But what it does suggests from the title is that neoliberalism is perfect for psychopaths to rise to the top who can then shape it. According to psychologists who study this condition, psychopathology this is not a personality trait, it is a mental illness. Considering the amount of damage these people can do, including blowing the planet up, society needs a screening process to ensure that they...