Mike Norman Economics

Do you remember back to May 2016, when the British Treasury, which is clearly full of mainstream macroeconomists who have little understanding of how the system actually operates released their ‘Brexit’ predictions? The ‘study’ (putting the best spin possible on what was a tawdry piece of propaganda) – HM Treasury analysis: the immediate economic impact of leaving the EU – was strategically released to have maximum impact on the vote, which would come just a month later. Fortunately, for...

Forecast.Credit Writedowns As the Fed meets, expect expansion through 2018, but problems thereafterEdward Harrison

This sets a precedence for banning products for national security reasons. It potentially has devastating implications for US tech companies that include backdoors for US intelligence agencies. This probably won't happen immediately but it is bound to happen over time as foreign nations, especially Russia and China, develop domestic capabilities. Being shut out of Russia would not be devastating perhaps, but being shut out of China would. Foreign countries that the US designates as...

US establishment refuses to accept reality.Sic Semper TyrannisRobin Wright Admits the Borg Has Lost In Syria Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.)At the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lang was the Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism, and later, the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. At the DIA, he was a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service. He participated in the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates. From 1992 to...

Just think what they are worth now? This video is from 2013 but he must still be suffering. [embedded content] If someone told you you just threw away over $6 million worth of bitcoins, well you wouldn't be too happy. You can imagine how James Howells from Wales felt when he discovered that he had thrown away his hardrive containing over 7,000 bitcoins. The value of Bitcoins has reached an all time high so now Mr Howells is frantically searching his local tip in the hope of retrieving his...

We soon intervened is Yugoslavia with our air force to take out the bad guys and put the war criminals on trail. The Western media cheered on Clinton and Blair for 'sending in the cavalry' and saving the innocents, but now Yemen is getting constantly bombed and millions might stave to death the western media under reports the tragedy. Why haven't we put sanctions on Saudi Arabia if we are the 'good guys' always intervening around the world to get the 'bad guys'? We got Saddam and Qaddafi - ...

11 years after his death the NATO farce at the Hague has ruled that Milosevic did not play a part in "genocide" and "joint criminal enterprise" in Bosnia, but have you heard this reported anywhere? (The charges for "genocide" in Kosovo were dropped at the original Milosevic trial already.) More than eleven years after his death, a second trial chamber at the UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague has concluded that former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was not responsible for war...

More than half of Russians (52%) believe certain amendments should be introduced to the country’s Constitution, a survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center showed on Tuesday. "Every second Russian (52%) believes it is necessary to amend the country’s Constitution. Among the top issues, which, according to citizens, should be reflected in the Constitution, are wages, pensions, free health care and education," the pollster said.... The poll was conducted on December...

It is customary to contrast Trump and Macron: on one hand the vulgar American businessman with his xenophobic tweets and global warming scepticism; and on the other, the well-educated, enlightened European with his concern for dialogue between different cultures and sustainable development. All this is not entirely false and rather pleasing to French ears. But if we take a closer look at the policies being implemented, one is struck by the similarities. In particular, Trump, like Macron,...

The economic theory of "the firm" (representative firm) assumes homogeneity that may not be there, which widely differing results in output and productivity suggests in the case. I’ve been browsing through Edith Penrose’s Theory of the Growth of the Firm, having read the biography by Angela Penrose, No Ordinary Woman. Published in 1959, it is an interesting narrative approach to the dynamics of individual firms, with plentiful examples from case studies. One can see that it was heading in...