Mike Norman Economics

Not just the US. This is about Italy.GeopolitikaA matter of freedom, of speech Constantino Ceoldo, contributor at Pravda and Sputnik Italia interviews Marcello Foa, Italian journalist

China’s shadow banking activity stopped growing during the first six months of this year, according to Moody’s Investors Service, growing slower than the country’s nominal GDP for the first time since 2012. Shadow banking assets’ share of GDP fell to 82.6% of GDP as of June 30 this year, compared with its peak of 86.5% in 2016, according to an announcement posted on Moody’s website. The statement cited the effectiveness of recent regulatory measures aimed at reducing the financial...

The New York Times has finally detected some modern-day McCarthyism, but not in the anti-Russia hysteria that the newspaper has fueled for several years amid the smearing of American skeptics as “useful idiots” and the like. No, the Times editors are accusing a Long Island Republican of McCarthyism for linking his Democratic rival to “New York City special interest groups.” As the Times laments, “It’s the old guilt by association.” Yet, the Times sees no McCarthyism in the frenzy of...

Leonid Bershidsky calls BS. The Facebook ads placed by a Russian troll farm and released on Wednesday by the U.S. Congress Intelligence Committee show that the Russian propaganda campaign of 2016 didn't favor either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Instead, it mocked and goaded America, holding up a distorted but, in the final analysis, remarkably accurate mirror.This directly contradicts previous U.S. intelligence community assessments. "We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered...

McCain reportedly confirmed his opposition – and also that the bill in its current form is DOA – during an interview with Fox Business’s Charlie Gasparino.… And at this rate, it’s unclear if the plan in its current form will even pass the House.... That didn't take long. Zero HedgeJohn McCain Confirms: Tax Reform Is "DOA In The Senate" Tyler Durden

China closing in. Beijing's Zhongguancun has unseated San Francisco's Silicon Valley as the top technology hub in the world, according to a report by Expert Market, a U.S.-based business resource company. Beijing's Zhongguancun tech community has became the top destination for the brightest tech talents around the world, due to its favorable climate for early stage funding, good performance in startup output and the city's affordable cost of living, revealed the Top Tech cities in the...

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) continues to make inroads into the mainstream discourse with the appearance of an article by Youssef El-Gingihy in The Independent Online. The article features MMT in connection with the new book by Bill Mitchell and Thomas Fazi, Reclaiming the State. At its recent rate of dissemination, MMT may transition from heterodox to mainstream ahead of expectations.Although the finer points of MMT can get quite involved, the most basic takeaway is very simple. For...

North Korea may be a small nation that has a few crude nukes compared to the US but behind the scenes Washington fears that NK could fire a few nuclear warheads over the US and take out its entire electronic infrastructure leading to a nightmare catastrophic.  It seems that the US will have to find a peaceful solution.  The number one concern is about “the present satellite and missile capacity of North Korea to detonate nuclear bombs over the US knocking out the entire electronic...

"Rebalancing his portfolio." Zero HedgeBezos Calls The Top? Sells $1.1 Billion Of Amazon Stock At Record Highs Tyler Durden

This is a material change from what this section stated as recently as November 2, when the section read “We believe in freedom of expression and in speaking truth to power"... with believing in "speaking truth to power" replaced with "open dialogue." Zero HedgeTwitter Revises Terms Of Service, No Longer Believes In "Speaking Truth To Power" Tyler Durden