Mike Norman Economics

Mercouris assembles what is known to date, which is nothing that is evidence-based. Result? Reaching for straws.The DuranThe Russiagate scandal descends into total absurdity Alexander Mercouris

The American Century? Or Twilight of the Empire?The Vineyard of the SakerTrump goes full shabbos-goyThe Saker

The billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch spent much of the eight years of the Obama presidency stoking fears about the budget deficit. Their political network aired an unending cascade of campaign advertisements against Democratic politicians, sponsored several national bus tours, and paid organizers in communities across the country to mobilize public demonstrations, all focused on the dangers of increasing the deficit. One such ad even warned that government debt would lead to a...

Where does one begin to counter such lies and misrepresentations? Who has been the most destabilizing force in the Middle East over the last 27 years? I would suggest that the United States multiple invasions of Iraq, military action in Libya and our decision to help arm and train Islamic rebels keen on overthrowing Syria's President Assad qualifies us as the biggest meddlers and chaos makers. One of the recurring big lies being pushed in the media--by Republicans and Democrat as well as...

Declassified records from the Reagan presidential library show how the U.S. government enlisted civilian agencies in psychological operations designed to exploit information as a way to manipulate the behavior of targeted foreign audiences and, at least indirectly, American citizens. A just-declassified sign-in sheet for a meeting of an inter-agency “psyops” committee on Oct. 24, 1986, shows representatives from the Agency for International Development (USAID), the State Department, and...

The US again shows itself unable to keep its agreements. Who is going to make agreements with a country like that?Sic Semper TyrannisWho Wrote Trump's Decertification Speech Part 1 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...

It may be something of a cliché that distant wars have a way of coming home, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Policing today is being Baghdadified in the United States. Over the last 40 years, as Washington struggled to maintain its global military influence, the nation’s domestic police have progressively shifted to military-style patrol, search, and surveillance tactics, while measuring success through statistical models familiar to any Pentagon staff officer. Please understand...

Sour grapes article by a Russian ex-pat who is a Putin-hater, but interesting between the lines. Putin is modernizing government by appointing young well-educated people that have already demonstrated success to prominent positions. This isn't new news but it is the first instance I have seen in the Western press, suitably dismissive, of course, based quite clearly on bias (Putin is a bad person so he can't do anything right) instead of evidence. We'll see. The skeptics believed that the...

I suppose there are a few themes to draw from this. First, catch-up in education levels by the rest of the world is broadly a good thing, because it's a good thing for a range of reasons from economic to self-determination when more humans have a higher level of education. Second, 1950 was a unique time, and it's implausible that the US would have maintained its status of dramatically higher education levels indefinitely. Third, with those previous points acknowledged, the US has not...

Cohen identifies six specific factors that make the new Cold War more perilous than the preceding one: The NationThe New Cold War Is Already More Dangerous Than Was Its Predecessor Stephen F. Cohen | Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies, History, and Politics at New York University and Princeton University