Mike Norman Economics

Hardcore neoclassical economist John Taylor has edited a new handbook of macro-economics. The good news: the sands are shifting. After 2008, more attention has been paid to the obvious fact that we’re living in a monetary world. Guess what: it turns out that money is non-neutral after all. Two examples (summaries below): (A) Bordo and Meissner claim that whenever a country has a large banking sector it has a choice, during a financial crisis. It can bail out the banks or it can try to...

I’ve finally committed to delivering a manuscript of my long-overdue book Economics in Two Lessons. As part of the process, I’m going to post the chapters, one at a time, and ask for comments, criticism, encouragement and so on. To begin at the beginning, here’s the Introduction. Crooked TimberEconomics in Two LessonsJohn Quiggin | Professor and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland, and a member of the Board of the Climate Change Authority of the...

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, it has facts showing attempts of the West to meddle in Russia's internal affairs amid presidential election campaign. "In contrast to the unfounded accusations about almighty Russian hackers and some Russian influence on elections in other countries, we have the precise facts of the attempts of destructive interference of a number of Western countries in our internal affairs in the context of the presidential election campaign," Russian Foreign...

Some points in John Brennan's favor.Sic Semper TyrannisAnother response to Publius Tacitus concerning those meddlesome Russians TTG

Chris Hedges say how the oligarchs don't care about society as they are not really part of it. Educated in the top schools and universities because their parents can buy them in, so they don't care about anyone else's education.  They have their own private doctors and the best health insurance, so they  see no need why society should provide health care for anyone else. They never use public transport. They have their own acres of private grounds, so don't care about public parks. They...

Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte was this week forced to bear a parliamentary vote of no confidence after his foreign minister finally came clean over a dangerous lie he has been telling for two years concerning Russian President Vladimir Putin. Halbe Zijlstra quit in shame on Monday as the country’s foreign minister after admitting that a story he had peddled about personally hearing Putin plotting to create a “greater Russia” was false. That then forced premier Rutte to endure a...

False flag in the works — again?Moon of AlabamaSyria - New 'Chemical Weapons' Fake Planned - Chlorine Though Will Not Do b

The ongoing role of false narratives and historical fallacies. The Nation If America ‘Won the Cold War,’ Why Is There Now a ‘Second Cold War with Russia’? Stephen F. Cohen | Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies, History, and Politics at New York University and Princeton UniversitySee alsoAgenda and hidden agenda. I have remarked on more than one occasion that Western perceptions of the Russian ‘threat’ have historically owed little to the real scale (or even existence) of that threat....

Conservatives have had enough of war, well, the informed moderate ones have. Take a look at the replies, these people could well be by lefties. So, time to get together to put an end to these wars. Danial Larison says these wars serve no strategic purpose for the US, so could they all be neoconservative driven? KVDaniel LarisonOne reason for this indifference is that many of our leaders tell us other comforting lies about these wars: that they are necessary and waged in self-defense. The...

Americans are asleep at the wheel while their government is endlessly at war. As far as they are concerned, it's in a foreign place, somewhere else, and their news media has told them that there are lots of dictators and terrorists out there in the third world. People trust their government, but could the biggest sponsor of international terrorism be Washington and its allies itself? KVDamon Linker This expansion of America's global military footprint began under George W. Bush, but it...