Mike Norman Economics

Bannon-backed Ray Moore defeated the  Trump-backed establishment candidate in the Alabama GOP rimary for senator. Fresh from victory, Bannon now smells blood in the water. Trump is now isolated between the GOP establishment he needs to get things done in Washington and his anti-establishment base that wants the "swamp" drained, which means the establishment of both parties. US business is bound at the hip to China as a result of Chinamerica policy. Since the GOP establishment is funded...

FRED now has 70 years of quarterly national accounts data for the United States, which is an opportunity to look back at how the U.S. economy may have changed since 1947. In the graph above, we look at the three main expenditure components of real gross national product: real consumption, real investment, and real government expenses. They’re normalized to 100 for the first quarter of 1947, to make them more comparable.... FRED BlogHow Y=C+I+G has evolved : 70 years of quarterly national...

Theresa May’s speech this morning was trailed as a defence of free market capitalism. If that’s what it was, it failed because she failed to answer the big questions.... Stumbling and MumblingDucking questions about capitalism Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle

Charts.WCEG — The EquitablogAn update on the state of wealth inequality in the United StatesNick Bunker

A good example of this is the phrase, "the new normal." At first, economists and policy makers were surprised and perplexed when policy predictions of their models based on historical trends did not turn out. So then they dragged in the concept of "the new normal" in stead of admitting they didn't have a grip on what is actually going on. We see this recently in Janet Yellen's statement that the Fed didn't really understand inflation, like it's not doing what it is supposed to be doing. ...

Earlier in the week I was in Britain. Walking around the streets of Brighton, for example, was a stark reminder of how a wealthy nation can leave large numbers of people behind in terms of material well-being, opportunity and, if you study the faces of the people, hope. I am used to seeing poverty and mental illness on the streets of the US cities but in Brighton, England it very visible now as Britain has struggled under the yoke of austerity. Swathes of people living from day to day...

Noah Smith on Greg Mankiw and John Cochrane. Mankiw actually comes off quite well. Cochrane, not so much. I think that Noah has it right. Health care is not as much an economic (positive) issue as it is a moral (normative) one. This is the ground on which it will ultimately be decided politically.NoahpinionHandwaving on health careNoah Smith | Bloomberg View columnist

I'm seeing some hints in these tweets that Puerto Rico infrastructure is going to see a heavy dose of PPP institutional structure in its future .... Trump isn't going to just send munnie sorry... its going to come with terms. And when its done it will be of much better quality in content and operation than current...Texas & Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble..— Donald J. Trump...

Sheesh..... Looks like these people are setting it up to F the New York and California people... pass the popcorn... .@MickMulvaneyOMB on @POTUS' tax reform: "Folks in places like SC have been subsidizing [NYC residents]... it's just not fair." #Tucker pic.twitter.com/4ItKMWAUk5 — Fox News (@FoxNews) September 28, 2017

Chart below showing the 10-yr UST rate over the 6 months of US govt Treasury operations under the  so-called "debt ceiling!" and to present.You can see at Point A, which is the recent high in the yield, the date is March 14th which is the last day Treasury could net issue UST securities before the "debt ceiling!" was hit the next day March 15th.Then at Point B, which is the recent bottom in the yield, the date is September 8th, which is the recent day the "debt ceiling!" was again suspended...