Mike Norman Economics

I quite like the idea of a basic income although I admit there will be problems. On the good side it will free up time so that people will be able to pursue projects and careers that could turn out to be very productive and add value to the economy. On the other hand a lot of people might end being inactive and waste their lives which might make them even unhappy because people like having things to do. This is Ellen's Brown latest argument for the UBI. She even argues how the UBI could pay...

There was likely a collective gasp at OppenheimerFunds Inc. yesterday when President Donald Trump made another of those market-moving pronouncements, telling Fox News that Puerto Rico’s debt would have to be wiped out. The President’s remarks suggested he thought the losers would be Wall Street banks. The President stated: “You know they owe a lot of money to your friends on Wall Street. We’re gonna have to wipe that out. That’s gonna have to be — you know, you can say goodbye to that. I...

As I said, Italy, is now experimenting with paying for public services with tax credits. Presumably, this is happening because Italy doesn’t possess enough Euros to pay its citizens to provide all the goods and services needed to maintain and run the public sector of its social economy. And Italy can’t “create” the additional Euros it needs because that prerogative is the exclusive right of the EU Central Bank which Italy, even as a sovereign member of the EU, has no control over. But, as...

In a previous article, I explained why I am complacent about the state of economic theory in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). This matters for someone like myself, who is attempting to write primers explaining various economic concepts. However, for many followers of MMT, the more important question is how its theoretical concepts get translated into a new policy framework. This raises the question of political economy, which I largely shy away from. However, I will offer my eccentric...

Trump and his private equity crew will prefer the PPP institutional form going to their playbook for reconstruction finance over the Wall St. general obligation sovereign securities issuance form.They will not bail out the bondholders both to trash the appearance of their non-preferred institutional arrangements and to screw Wall St.Mulvaney says no bailout for Puerto Rico bondholders https://t.co/6h2nPWKacX pic.twitter.com/XQGU8eCfqN— Bloomberg (@business) October 4, 2017

hahahahahahha!!! Mulvaney recently said, according to Bloomberg. “If we simply look at this as being deficit-neutral, you’re never going to get the type of tax reform and tax reductions that you need to get to sustain 3 percent economic growth.” Now we need deficits! The ultimate charlatanism of Nick Mulvaney. https://t.co/lmKZ2xDODH — Tom Cooper (@NashvilleSpokes) October 4, 2017

Gold fever. Actually, the Central Bank of Russia injects roubles into the domestic economy by buying up domestic gold production. This is a monetary operation conducted on the books of the central bank and it therefore does not affect the government's fiscal balance. Zero HedgeRussian Gold Reserves Hit Putin-Era High, Buying Frenzy Accelerates Tyler Durden

Backgrounder.Sic Semper Tyrannis Hezbollah – Capabilities And Role In The Middle East - South Front Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.), former military intelligence officer at the US Defense Intelligence Agency It's also noteworthy that SST has reposted Philip Giraldi's  How I Got Fired

Fascist Franco may have been dead for more than four decades, but Spain is still encumbered with his dictatorial corpse. A new paradigm has been coined right inside the lofty European Union, self-described home/patronizing dispenser of human rights to lesser regions across the planet: “In the name of democracy, refrain from voting, or else.” Call it democracy nano-Franco style. Nano-Franco is Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose heroic shock troops were redeployed from a serious...

China perceives the status quo as American hegemony that stands in the way of its Chinese Dream. An irresistible force meeting an immovable object? Somethin's gotta give. A major problem is that America and to a great extent it Anglo allies assumes that its view of liberalism is descriptive of the natural order and other views are therefore simply wrong. This is one of the foundations of a series of paradoxes of liberalism that lead liberals to think and act illiberally.  China views...