Mike Norman Economics

UK Russiagate. More insanity. Paul Robinson takes it apart.IrrussianalityThe hunters become the huntedPaul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Was Ayn Rand just the expression of a cultural syndrome and an amplification of the Horatio Alger myth? Have new cultural myths been born to suit the historical transition from feudalism to liberalism, in the West at least?  Are the conflicts between liberalism and traditionalism the conflict of different myths characteristic of incompatible worldview? How is it that many conservatives find no contradiction between economic liberalism and social and political traditionalism? Is...

Where are the politicians on the left and the right who believe in free speech who should be trying to stop the loss of our Net Neutrality?RT and other non-western news sources in English provide a different lens through which we can view such important events, perspectives unclouded by a western patrician agenda. They and progressive sites are being gradually silenced and blacklisted, herding us back into the arms of the corporate propagandists. Few liberals have been prepared to raise...

The BBC has got into trouble for reporting the C14 Ukrainian neo-Nazi as just lovable rogues trying to protect their country. BBC LEGITIMISING NEO-NAZI HATE CRIMES IN UKRAINEIf the BBC carried a report portraying Neo-Nazi’s engaged in hate crime in London as lovable rogues turned to a good cause there would be outrage.  Yet that is what the BBC has done in a report on Ukraine entitled ‘C14 Group: hooligans who catch separatists’.    An impartial journalist adhering to the BBC “editorial...

Most of what lies ahead hinges on who will control Syria’s oil and gas fields. It’s Pipelineistan all over again; all wars are energy wars. Damascus simply won’t accept an energy bonanza for the US-supported SDF, actually led by the YPG. And neither would Russia. Apart from Moscow holding on to a strategic eastern Mediterranean base, eventually Gazprom wants to be an investment partner/operator in a newly feasible Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, whose main customer will be the EU. Beyond...

Mathew Robane says that many cities compete with each other by offering massive incentives to attract large corporations to set up businesses in their cities, but, he adds, when you do the math these financial incentives are terribly inefficient and wasteful of tax payers money.  Mathew Rohane says how these big corporations know exactly where they intend to place their new second headquarters, shop, warehouse, or offices, and are just pretending to be looking around so as to get the maximum...

A superb article by Pat Buchanan. Are we willing to play passive observer as thousands and then tens of thousands of innocent civilians—the old, sick, weak, and infants and toddlers first—die from a starvation blockade supported by the mighty United States of America? Without U.S. targeting and refueling, Saudi planes could not attack the Houthis effectively and Riyadh could not win this war. But when did Congress authorize this war on a nation that never attacked us? Yemen today is...

You are the product.The InterceptStaggering Variety of Clandestine Trackers Found In Popular Android AppsYael Grauer

Abstract Corporate taxation is a perennially controversial topic in American politics. In fact, it may be the tax policy controversy that most Americans are aware of and even have an opinion about. Nevertheless, the purpose of corporate taxation is unclear in popular, or even for that matter, academic, discourse. In this paper we lay out and critically evaluate contemporary and historical corporate tax policy debates based on three common justifications for taxation: the “revenue”...

Here's a quote that would make Lars Syll retch: Because DSGE models start from microeconomic principles of constrained decision-making, rather than relying on historical correlations, they are more difficult to solve and analyze. However, because they are also based on the preferences of economic agents, DSGE models offer a natural benchmark for evaluating the effects of policy change.- MathWorks: Modeling the United States Economy "... based on the preferences of economic agents, DSGE...