Mike Norman Economics

Moon of Alabama calls BS on the "Russian influence" ads on FaceBook. "Lunacy." Moon of Alabama"Russian Ads" On Facebook? A Click-Bait Campaign b

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has been in the news quite a bit in the last few weeks.¹ It’s refreshing to see this considering how bad the state of macroeconomics is. I say this as someone who has been very critical of MMT for many years. I think they overreach on some items, but as a general theory I think they provide a much clearer and more useful picture of the macroeconomy than most mainstream economic schools do. Among the important things they get right: Pragmatic CapitalismWhy MMT is...

Goldman has yet to speak. The billionaire banker tweeted on Tuesday that he wasn't completely sure about his stance on the red-hot cryptocurrency.Blankfein said he's "still thinking about bitcoin" and that he was not flat out endorsing or denouncing the digital currency.... Business InsiderLloyd Blankfein says he's still studying bitcoin, people were also 'skeptical when paper money displaced gold' Frank Chapparo

Summary: The end-in-view is doing good science and avoiding junk science, which is proliferating. Adjusting standards, etc. are only means to an end. There are no silver bullets or magic wands. Doing good science depends on good design, accurate measurement, and replication. Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social ScienceWhen considering proposals for redefining or abandoning statistical significance, remember that their effects on science will only be indirect! Andrew Gelman |...

I am now in Helsinki where the weather is distinctly cooler (did I say colder) than it has been down in Southern Europe the past week. I don’t have much time for writing today. Tomorrow, we will be conducting a dual book launch (see www.reclaimthestate.org for details) and on Thursday, I will be presenting a public lecture at the University of Helsinki which is open to all to attend. For today’s blog, I am now able to provide a full video (minus Q&A) of my presentation at the British...

Stories about the imminent replacement of the USD as the global reserve currency abound. In some circles it is the consensus reality. Martin Armstrong sets a questioner straight. China is on the rise and it will become the financial capital of the world after 2032. However, it has a long way to go. China can price every commodity in yuan and demand all trade deals are in yuan. That still will not displace the dollar. The center core issue behind the dollar ironically in the US National...

ECB advisory groups are used as lobby platforms by the financial industry, Corporate Europe Observatory’s newest report shows. Published today, “Open door for forces of finance at the ECB” reveals that the advisory groups counselling the European Central Bank have become largely dominated by representatives of some of the most influential global financial corporations. European parliamentarians are urged to act. Like many other EU institutions, the European Central Bank (ECB) actively...

If you are keeping up with this. Some finer points.From the epistemological point of view, criticism of statistical significance here is based on questioning a criterion that is stipulated, i.e., defined arbitrarily.Doing so gives formalization and modeling a greater importance than advancing understanding. That is unscientific.A pragmatic approach is more appropriate than a strictly formal one, especially as an institutional norm.Formal rigor is a necessary condition but not a sufficient...

China is a prime candidate to be the site of the next financial crisis. Speculation in real estate and the stock market has been a favoured activity among people who feel they are getting very little interest from their savings in the banks owing to the policy of limiting interest to depositors in order to subsidize the influential export-oriented manufacturing lobby. The Shanghai stock market lost 40 per cent of its value in 2015, bankrupting many investors. That event led many to shift to...

"Immiseration" has a nice quality to it and is less emotionally loaded than "exploitation," which is now associated with "Marxism" in the pejorative sense in capitalist countries like the US. It’s clear that, for decades now, American workers have been falling further and further behind. And there’s simply no justification for this sorry state of affairs—nothing that can rationalize or excuse the growing gap between the majority of people who work for a living and the tiny group at the...