Mike Norman Economics

A few things came up late last week which demonstrate the neoliberal Groupthink is alive an well at the highest levels of policy in Australia (and elsewhere). First, there was a story that a report from an Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) journalist on the Australian government’s corporate tax cuts was withdrawn after publication by the ABC after receiving several complaints from senior government ministers including the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. The story was not even...

Back in September I presented a paper at a conference in Moscow on the topic of ‘Human Rights Reasoning and Double Standards in the Rules-Based Order.’ In this I pointed out that both Russia and the West claimed to be in favour of a ‘rules-based order’ and that each accused the other of breaking that order. The problem, I conjectured, derives from differing understanding of what the rules are and how they should be applied. Russia believes in a traditional, Westphalian, order in which...

Now the Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein confirms what I told you in my previous post. Mueller found no evidence that Russia had any impact on the outcome of the 2016 election. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/02/bitter-john-brennan-reacts-mueller-indictment-13-russians-election-meddling-plot/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=idealmedia&utm_campaign=thegatewaypundit.com&utm_term=68735&utm_content=2191016 So what was Russiagate all about? It was exactly, precisely what...

I’m old enough to remember those times well. I also remember the eighties, and seventies, and sixties, and the first hand accounts of those from the fifties. There was no agreement, no unified mass central consensus in those days. There was the appearance of such because those with power, privilege, and authority could much better control the message, control the “news” as reported. Polarization existed then too. It is not a product of the digital age. The difference is that back then...

Legislating a lie. Lars P. Syll’s BlogPoland’s Law and Justice — now and thenLars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Lender-of-last-resort operations by central banks (or "bailouts of the financial system") are deservedly unpopular across the political spectrum. Malcontents have argued that risky lending ought to be handled by markets, and that deposits should be fully backed by reserves or Treasury bills. Unfortunately, the believers in these theories never bother to look at the economics of short-term lending. The money markets have the structure that they have for a reason, and they only will function...

Margret Thatcher said would turn Britain to a country of home owners and she started forcing councils to sell of their council housing, but they weren't allowed to replace any of the housing stock. House builders make more money building just a few houses to keep house prices high, and so without the government supplying houses there became a housing shortage. Older people who had their own homes, and a bit of spare cash on the side, became amateur landlords buying a house, renting it out,...

In a new story titled “Russia used mainstream media to manipulate American voters,” the Post admitted that instead of creating and spreading “fake news,” the accounts it claimed were controlled by Russians actually focused on sharing stories from American mainstream media outlets, and one of their most used sources just happened to be The Washington Post. Citing an analysis by Columbia University social-media researcher Jonathan Albright, the Post noted that the majority of the “Russian...

Just a reminder. We knew this already.The spin will of course be that "the Russians" are continually trying to undermine the US by sowing discord (like the US does abroad in orchestrating regime change).Zero HedgeFacebook VP: "The Majority Of Russian Ad Spend Happened AFTER The Election" Tyler Durden

Saturday evening musings. Interesting in that it ties together politics and economics, and not the way political economy does either.Global InequalityHow is the world ruled?Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace