Mike Norman Economics

[embedded content]                                                                        ******** The Real News: How the US Helped Set 'Ukraine on Fire' Aaron Maté interviews the film's director who says that the Neoconservatives and George Soros, who both use NGO's, are the biggest meddlers in other country's elections around the world. Interview starts at 3:28. [embedded content]

JG at work. In 2015, [neoliberal] Prime Minister Narendra Modi had described the programme as a "testimony to the failures of previous governments". The Telegraph (India)Job scheme swells farm yieldsBasant Kumar Mohanty

In its latest reminder that China is a (for now) happy holder of some $1.2 trillion in US Treasurys, Chinese credit rating agency Dagong downgraded US sovereign ratings from A- to BBB+ overnight, citing "deficiencies in US political ecology" and tax cuts that "directly reduce the federal government's sources of debt repayment" weakening the base of the government's debt repayment. Oh, and just to make sure the message is heard loud and clear, the ratings, which are now level with those of...

Despite its claims to “open-ness,” liberalism in its late modern Western form becomes self-contained to the point of closure. Allied with such power constructs as the “liberal world order,” globalization (a word that came into common usage only after the fall of the Soviet Union) tends towards the homogenization of political space and the radical constriction of pluralism. Notice a trend toward closure? It's affected conventional economics in addition to politics. Plurism, the hallmark of...

Taken together, the Trump strategy is clever two-pronged approach that shrinks capital investment in the country (thereby strangling the economy) while increasing the incitements that are intended to cause the government to overreact and (possibly) scuttle the agreement. Trump’s goal is to trick Iran into terminating the deal because it would be too costly for the US to end its commitment unilaterally.…  The Unz ReviewTrump’s Sinister Plan to Kill the Iranian “Nukes” Deal Mike Whitney...

Liberalism reveals its illiberal underbelly as "liberal democracies' seek to control the narrative by limiting freedom of expression and press freedom in the attempt to limit freedom of thought, which is of the essence of totalitarianism.This push is being led by the US and France, the birthplaces of the revolutions that brought liberalism onto the world stage, and Britain as well, the birthday of liberal philosophy led by John Locke.Ironic betrayal. This is likely not malicious but rather...

Poverty is not a scam. Neither is old age or infirmity or serious illness. But making poverty and the need for help look like a scam is a common political strategy, and it’s one President Donald Trump’s administration sought to rekindle last week when it allowed states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients in “test” programs. Such a change, based on fiction about who the 70 million Medicaid recipients are and how almost $550 billion in state and federal Medicaid funding is...

This reform is on the back burner for now.  Cohn is now thinking by end of first quarter '18: Cohn said on Bloomberg News that the Senate bill to roll back the Dodd-Frank Act would "hopefully" see floor time in January and pass the House “in the first quarter of this year.” The draft legislation has included some stability increasing capital exemptions for non-risk assets. White House economic adviser Gary Cohn expects Congress to pass legislation within three months to roll back...

This was from last week. Warren Buffett believes the corporate tax reform bill is very bullish for stockholders. The tax overhaul, which President Donald Trump signed into law last month, lowers the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent.  "The tax act is a huge factor in valuation," he said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Wednesday.  "You had this major change in the silent stock holder in American business who has been content with 35 percent ... and now instead of getting 35...

Have these people lost their minds? Who would ever vote for them?  The whole stable needs to be cleaned out.Zero HedgePutin Plot? Democrats Ridiculed For Claiming Moscow Behind Chelsea Manning's Senate Run Tyler Durden Also The Intercept Centrist Dems Launch Smear Campaign Against Young Trans Woman, All to Keep an Old Straight White Man in Power Glenn Greenwald