Mike Norman Economics

 The bottom line – and the fundamental problem – seems to be clear: inequality rose because the labour movement lost out. Today’s lacking investment means that technology does not substitute for labour – the normal trajectory in capitalism, instead cheap labour substitutes for technology. As a result, productivity stalls. After decades of right-wing policies, stripping away protections for workers, the flexibilisation of labour markets, destroying ‘government rigidities’ and waging wars...

Some years ago, I started collecting information about the so-called Maghreb countries, which typically refers to the region spanned by Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, although sometimes Libya and Mauritania are also included in the aggregation. You will find it referred to as the Barbary Coast in English literature. I was interested (as a long-term project when I get old :-)) to write a book about how nations broke away from the yoke of colonialism only to fall into the hands of the IMF and...

Told ya to wait for it... right on cue:New York Lawmaker Proposes Study of State-Backed Cryptocurrency https://t.co/xoc7HaUO7w pic.twitter.com/vyGU2oTYzF— CoinDesk (@coindesk) February 5, 2018

Yanis Varoufakis as a true liberal is very pro open borders and immigration. His proposals here seem quite good which could help stop economic migration. The idea of economic migrants traveling all around Europe trying to find a decent wage is deeply unpleasant, especially if when they get settled they find that they have to have to move again. People are not like machines or cargo.Research has shown that young children changing too many schools when they are young can psychologically harm...

These trade deals sound terrifying, especially for government run public services. The corporations are all over them seeing what they can pick off. How did it get so complicated, you would think a democratic country could just run its public services without threat from multinational corporations.  KVYanis VaroufakisThe main argument against my Norway Plus proposal is that such an agreement would jeopardise the capacity of the UK government to strike out into the world to bring home a...

Three startups are getting ready to launch one of the most ambitious and important cryptocurrency experiments since the creation of bitcoin itself. Called Lightning, the project aims to build a fast, scalable, and cryptographically secure payment network layered on top of the existing bitcoin network. Essentially, Lightning aims to solve the big problem that has loomed over bitcoin in recent years: Satoshi Nakamoto's design for bitcoin is comically unscalable. It requires every full node...

The unfortunate fact that bank deposits are considered money has one side effect: our mysticism about money extends towards banking. The apparent ability of banks to "create money out of thin air" seems unfair, and this leads to questions about what limits their ability to lend. The answer is a lot simpler than one might suspect. For any other business (with the possible exception of the resource industry), output is largely constrained by their ability to find customers that they can sell...

Neoliberal union-busting in full swing.CounterpunchEU Imposes Anti-Union Law on GreeceWill Podmore

Taken from a short interview with Greece’s Banking News.  Q. According to the IMF, Greece’s debt isn’t manageable in the long-run without being either extended or forgiven. Where do you stand towards this claim? How important is the Greek debt relief? Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate, and the Powers of NeoliberalismGreek debt updateMichael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research...

In addition to Assange’s assertion that government secrecy has far less to do with national security than political security (a claim he has made before which seems to be proving correct time and time again), there’s the jarring question posed by Republican Congressman Thomas Massie: “who made the decision to withhold evidence of FISA abuse until after Congress voted to renew FISA program?” Whoa, Nelly. Hang on. What is he talking about? It would be understandable if you were unaware of...