Mike Norman Economics

Two crucial things happened yesterday. The first you may have noticed – oil prices moved back up. As for the second, most so-called “experts” seemed to have missed.See, the environment we’re seeing in energy markets is very different from what we saw only a week ago, when oil prices were also rising. Because yesterday also saw – for the first time in world history – a reigning Saudi Arabian monarch in Moscow for talks with Russia’s head of state. Historically, Russia has been much...

Stoller vs. Smith:Seriously?? https://t.co/m8YXcWDUWJ— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) October 7, 2017

Backgrounder on Idlib.The DuranIDLIB: Where sectarian wars, proxy wars and international cooperation collideAdam Garrie

For an increasing number of education and political leaders, bringing debt-free higher education back to California is long overdue. In 2015 alone, over half of UC and CSU seniors graduated with a staggering $1.3 billion debt load. Since 2004, California’s public university students have collectively racked up student debt in excess of $12 billion. That liability has been a catastrophe, according to UC San Francisco medical professor Stanton Glantz, president of the Council of University of...

While [Donald Trump] campaigned on, for example, a “trillion-dollar investment in infrastructure,” the chances of such a program being passed by Congress are between slim and none. So offering a de-facto trillion-dollar increase in defense spending is the next best thing, as it may well translate into enough jobs in key states to ensure a margin of victory in the 2020 election. But there is also a deeper sense to this effort, as the US establishment seems to try to re-enact the 1980s. And...

Some Democrats are coming to recognize that since access to health care is a right, health care is a public good, and universal health care cannot be provided efficiently and effectively by the private sector for profit.Longish, but it goes in to the history and details. A good introduction to the present state. The InterceptDemocrats Have Given Up on Private Health Care Markets — and for Good Reason Jon Walker

For the sake of the actual risks at hand, to innocent civilians all over this country (in every demographic, socio-economic status, political ideology, in every major city, and in all 50 states), we show a set of critical data here, all from official government and peer-reviewed sources. Statistical Ideasless guns = less murders

Is NATO losing Turkey? Sputnik International 'West's Shadow' Behind All Terrorist Groups, Including Daesh - ErdoganAlsoIran Revolutionary Guards Vow to Designate US Army as Equivalent to Daesh Russian Senator Believes Saudi King's Visit to Russia Means 'US Dictate Over' Kim Jong-un Says North Korean Nukes 'Protecting Sovereignty' Amid US 'Threats' US hegemony is being challenged on several fronts. How will the US respond?

“We have never used Russian law in relation to foreign correspondents as a lever of pressure, or censorship, or some kind of political influence, never,” [Russian Federation foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria]] Zakharova said in an interview with Russia’s NTV broadcaster. “But this is a particular case.”She cited a 1991 Russian law which, she said, stated that if a Russian media outlet is subject to restrictions in a foreign country, then Moscow has the right to impose proportionate...

Why is this important? Liberalism is based on equality of personhood, distinguishing individuals, whose qualities differ in degree, with personhood as universal. Owing to universality of personhood, all are equal before the law, for example. Equality of personhood underlies the key assertion of liberalism in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that...