Mike Norman Economics

In a democracy, no one should be comforted to hear that generals have imposed discipline on an elected head of state. That was never supposed to happen in the United States. Now it has.Among the most enduring political images of the 20th century was the military junta. It was a group of grim-faced officers — usually three — who rose to control a state. The junta would tolerate civilian institutions that agreed to remain subservient, but in the end enforced its own will. As recently as a few...

This is s joke, right?Zero HedgeHillary Clinton May Challenge Legitimacy Of Presidential Election Tyler DurdenThis too?Trump Wants July 4th Military Parade Down Pennsylvania Avenue

Russia rejects US rejection of UN as chief guarantor of the international order.The UN has long been in the sights of the American right, and Donald Trump is a true believer in that position. Chairman of the State Duma Committee for International Affairs Leonid Slutksy … said that Russia views the UN Trump Reform as a major step in the “US coordinate system” towards a unipolar world order and toward a reduced role for the UN in the architecture of the 21st century. Nyet!Russia FeedRussia...

The “Wall Street Democrats” is the wing of the party created by the Clintons and nurtured further by Barack Obama. It takes money hand over fist from Wall Street for political campaigns, wags a warning finger at Wall Street from the public podium while stuffing its administrations with Wall Street execs, then its leadership reaps millions of dollars in personal speaking fees from the robber barons after leaving office. As of this morning, there’s no longer any debate that Obama is firmly...

Boeing claims huge Canadian government subsidies allowed them to sell a new fleet of planes at substantially less than the market price. ​But David Collins, a professor of international economic law at City University of London, said the case smacked of "double standards." "It's a bit rich of the United States to say that Canada is subsidizing Bombardier, because the US has been doing the same for Boeing for years," Professor Collins told Sputnik. "Lots of industries are subsidized. The...

Trump's success as the "Not-Hillary" candidate was based on an anti-establishment insurgency. Representatives of that insurgency, Flynn, Bannon and the MAGA voters, drove him through his first months in office. An intense media campaign was launched to counter them and the military took control of the White House. The anti-establishment insurgents were fired. Trump is now reduced to public figure head of a stratocracy - a military junta which nominally follows the rule of law.... The soft...

Another backgrounder on Korea.Strategic Culture FoundationFormer Diplomat Fears War on Horizon Gregory ClarkSee also The US successfully dealt with rising nuclear powers China and Russia using diplomacy under the umbrella of deterrence. No reason that this would not work with Korea, too. The US media pictures Kim Jong Un as a madman on one hand and as evil personified on the other. This makes it difficult for the US leadership to use diplomacy.  The reality is that like all other...

It seems Americans can’t rally support for something without declaring a “war” on it. The war on poverty. On drugs. On gangs and crime. On terror. And these wars have become open-ended, or “generational” in Pentagon-speak, with a dynamic of crisis-surge-“progress”-new crisis-new surge-repeat that sustains large bureaucracies and huge government spending. To these “wars” we must add a new one, notes Michael Klare at TomDispatch.com: the climate change war.... So, two things are most...

Interesting article by a American economist on the Chinese economy, showing how most US economists misread events there. Goldman is on the side of the US maintaining hegemony but his analysis shows how and why this is just wishful thinking if the current trend persists, and there is not much the US can do about it without confronting the Thyudicides trap.Asia TimesWestern contempt for China turns to panic Spengler (David P. Goldman) Poking sticks into the dragon's liar is a dumb move...

Why is this important in economics? First, women now control a signficant slice of the pie, and secondly, women have an increasingly strong political voice to match their growing economic power.This is chiefly a political battle between liberals and traditionalists. Identity politics is here to stay.Economics is strong influenced by policy. On the programme, scientists argue there is no obvious neurological explanation for the gender divide, with no significant difference between male and...