Mike Norman Economics

This could be interesting: Many of the world’s richest and most powerful people are bracing themselves for a huge leak of their information. The Bermuda hack – which could be something like a repeat of the Panama Papers – may be about to lead to a major examination of the financial, corporate and tax affairs of the most important people on the planet. High net worth individuals and the world’s biggest companies are gearing up with legal firms and PR companies for the huge drop. But...

The board of directors of Russia’s Central Bank decided to cut the key rate by 25 basis points to 8.25% per annum at the meeting on October 27, 2017, the regulator reported Friday. The board notes that inflation holds close to 4%. Its downward deviation against the forecast is driven mainly by temporary factors, the regulator said, while the economy continues to grow.The regulator left open the option of further rate reduction at its upcoming meetings. It also noted a gradual transition...

Many Americans still believed that the CIA was prohibited by law from operating within its own country, but that had not been the case in at least 36 years since President Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12333 in December 1981, Blunden recalled. "It's a common misconception that the CIA is prohibited from launching domestic campaigns within the United States. One look at the General Provisions detailed in Executive Order 12333 demonstrates that this is not the case," he said....

The walls are coming down in Finland’s schools – but not just the physical barriers between classrooms. Also going are divisions between subjects and age ranges, and students have more of a say over what will be learnt than children in many other countries.According to CityLab, an architecture website, the country is undergoing an ambitious national redesign of its 4,800 schools. Some 57 new schools began construction in 2015 and 44 in 2016. Others are being refurbished using open-plan...

RT was thereby forced to reveal some details of the 2016 negotiations during which Twitter representatives made an exclusive multi-million dollar advertising proposal to spend big during the US presidential election, which was turned down. Having since been banned, and in order to set the record straight, we are publishing Twitter’s presentation and details of the offer in full. RTTwitter’s multi-million dollar US election pitch to RT revealed in FULL

But the Iran decision, taken despite personal appeals from France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Angela Merkel and Britain’s Theresa May, has changed the calculus in Europe, according to diplomats, politicians and analysts.No longer is there an underlying confidence that Europe can muddle through three more years of Trump without fear of major, and possibly lasting, disruptions to the relationship. Nor is there faith that Trump, when the stakes are high, will listen to what his advisers and...

MICHAEL ROBERTS: I think the IMF, and that clip shows it, is worried that the huge increase in inequality of income and wealth in many countries, like the US and the UK, over the last 20 or 30 years is reaching such extreme levels that there is serious danger of social and political unrest. The great status quo of globalization and neoliberal policies and international activity in the direction of big business is being threatened by this high inequality. Their economists have now started to...

The Chilean coup is one of many CIA interventions into the affairs of Latin America and the former European colonies in Africa and Asia after World War II. It is by now well known that the Agency “occasionally undermined democracies for the sake of fighting communism,” as Mary von Aue writes at Vice, throughout the Cold War years. But years before some of its most aggressive initiatives, the CIA “developed several guises to throw money at young, burgeoning writers, creating a cultural...

I read an article years ago written by a physicist who said that the US Missile Defense Shield was a giant scam and wouldn't work. As the article is over ten years old I never posted it here because technology would have moved on from then, but no it hasn't, says Philip  Geraldi. Even the contractors who make the missile defense shield proudly boast that it will hit 97% of missiles coming into the USA. Gee! If Russia sends over a hundred missiles three will get through and blow the US to...

Brian Becker and John Kiriakou of Sputnik Radio's Loud & Clear spoke to journalist and author Max Blumenthal and former Assistant Attorney General of the United States Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer, to discuss Twitter's announcement.... Sputnik InternationalTwitter’s RT Ad Ban Violates First Amendment - Former Deputy Attorney General