Mike Norman Economics

Add the Trump tax cuts to the list of policy mistakes if it becomes law.Calculated RiskPolicy MistakesBill McBride

The deficit hawks and debt phobes are back at it again. At least they are consistent across administrations and parties.WCEG — The EquitablogShould-Read: Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles: Unfortunately, the tax plan currently Brad DeLong

Chris Hedgers talks to Stephen Kinzer about the American Empire.  The US ruling elite always had debates about whether to expand the US beyond its borders or invest in building up their country at home instead, but by a few narrow votes they always voted to expand.Stephen Kinzer says how after WW2 the US had a surplus of products coming out its factories and the farmers were producing a surplus too and so big business pushed Congress to expand the country's borders to find new markets. The...

The big picture then is this: a global economy into its ninth year of the business cycle that is starting to gain momentum with the US flirting with 3% growth and 4% unemployment with richly priced asset markets but a flattening yield curve. We’ve seen this picture before.… In retrospect, one could argue that the Fed’s late interest rate hike campaign was a policy error – that the Fed should have seen the flattening yield curve as a canary in the coal mine and resisted raising its policy...

“Populist” candidate for President, Donald Trump, railed against the “political establishment” and Wall Street elites who were “getting away with murder.” On October 26, 2016, just days before the Presidential election, Trump spoke at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina and promised to uphold the plank in the Republican Party platform to break up the big banks by restoring the Glass-Steagall Act.…Now, as the sitting President, the former populist candidate has become the embodiment of the...

This really is terrible: Cyber Monday becomes largest online shopping day in US history, ringing up $6.59 billion in sales https://t.co/ihLA1upXag pic.twitter.com/cxoAivamt8— Blimling&Associates (@Blimling) November 29, 2017 Oops this is going the wrong way now too:U.S. third-quarter GDP revised up to 3.3%, a three-year high https://t.co/jwCP8xWstJ pic.twitter.com/hdemaEQadL— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) November 29, 2017

20 Ft. tall Ivanka!Oh God, Ivanka Trump is being promoted as a role model. ??‍♂️Need a banging head against a brick wall emoji. ? pic.twitter.com/i1eC2UaPEJ— Ramanan (@Ramanan_V) November 28, 2017 LOL!!!

Lane departure from previous two Fed morons:Fed chair nominee Jerome Powell tells Congress: Measures to boost U.S. growth 'in your lane, not so much ours' https://t.co/PolpKRR0mQ pic.twitter.com/k9EEP5mGDq— Real Time Economics (@WSJecon) November 28, 2017

This blog continues the discussion from yesterday’s blog – The EMU reform ruse – Part 1 – where I consider the reform proposals put forward by German academic Fritz Sharpf, which have been held out by Europhile Leftists as the progressive way out of the disaster that the Eurozone has become. Yesterday, I considered his first proposal – to continue with the enforced structural convergence to the Northern model – the current orthodoxy in Brussels. Like Sharpf I agree that the agenda outlined...

Last night Chris Hayes ended "All In" with a discussion of the GOP Tax Plan. Economists David Cay Johnston and Stephanie Kelton agreed that if Republicans get their long-awaited wich and this budget-busting tax plan is enacted, the huge deficits it will create might not lead to the promised "growth" Steve Mnuchin insists will result.What happens if Steve Mnuchin is wrong? Austerity budgets that cut into the heart of the biggest programs paid for out of the federal budget: Social Security...