Mike Norman Economics

I have yet to read one analyst who believes that the U.S. administration can achieve any of the wishes it announced. It is a hapless policy of "doing something" which will fail when resistance on the ground will ramp up and the political costs of the occupation will become apparent. The YPK Kurds in the north-east, who agreed to their occupation, will be the ones who will have to to bear the wrath. All other parties involved in Syria will hold them responsible. Moon of AlabamaSyria -...

Liberal democracy, or theocratic apartheid state? Until today the state of Israel has not decided whether it is a theocracy for Jews or a democratic sovereign state. The ultra-orthodox appear to be on the road to winning this fundamental battle of principles. Ultra-orthodox radicals are increasingly occupying key positions, thereby imposing their stamp on the secular majority. Israeli’s secular democrats are growing increasingly worried that Israel’s future may resemble Saudi Arabia and...

The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused the US Embassy in Moscow of concealing the transfer of money to opposition groups, to destabilize the political situation in Russia. This was stated by the Department of Information and Press of the Foreign Ministry. "We urge the United States to stop this practice, return to decent behavior, renew responsible and orderly inter-state communication. We demand that the US authorities finally begin to follow their own national legislation and...

Partial transcript and link to podcast. A few days ago, we had the opportunity to visit with Professor Stephen F. Cohen. As regular readers know, we've been featuring his weekly podcasts with John Batchelor for the past four years so it was a real honor to speak with him directly regarding The New Cold War. As mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, we are all indebted to John and Steve for their regular, weekly discussions. Their podcasts offer the only fair and balanced coverage of...

This is a longish and heavily intellectual analysis in the dialectical mode. However, it is a significant strand in thinking about geopolitics and geostrategy from a long term historical perspective and from a particular point of view.Worth a look if you are into this sort of thing and think Dugin has something to say.It's not necessary to agree with people to make them worth reading. A lot of people that one may not agree with exert an influence.Dugin's influence over Putin is greatly...

Fort RussWar is looking imminent.Russia: New Ukrainian law is preparation for a new war President of Ukraine obtains full control of military - no parliamentary consent needed Russia issues global alarm concerning Law on Reintegration of Donbass This is war: Zakharchenko on new law on the Reintegration of Donbass Law on Reintegration of Donbass: Minsk negotiator advises to prepare for defense Ukraine adopts bill on Reintegration of the Donbass - equipped with US lethal weapons

Piketty's view on what the EU needs to do in order to seize the opportunity that is presented by the withdrawal of US leadership under the Trump administration that is creating a vacuum. Thomas Piketty's Blog at Le Monde 2018, the year of Europe Thomas Piketty | Professor at EHESS and at the Paris School of Economics

How did conventional economics survive the crisis? Handwaving.Criticism of Paul Krugman and New Keynesian economics, which is based on "rational behavior and market equilibrium as a baseline" (Krugman).Skidelsky concludes, "Macroeconomics still needs to come up with a big new idea."  I would rephrase that as "a new big idea." Theories are based on a "big idea" that constitutes the architecture of the framework. Rationality and equilibrium isn't it.Project SyndicateHow [Conventional]...

Useful commentary and links. real economicsThe decline and fall of neoliberalism in the Democratic PartyTony Wikrent

Dean Baker explains how international capital flow (capital flight and repatriation) is just a matter of switching account balances. There is no "cross-border" transfer of funds in "bringing back" dollars earned abroad. This is what bringing money back to the United States means. Under the old tax law companies often attributed legal control of profits to foreign subsidiaries, so that they could defer paying taxes on this money. However the money was often actually held in the United...