Mike Norman Economics

Economic considerations versus social considerations. Is a society for its economy, or is the economy for the society for which it is the material life-support system? There is more to liberalism than just economic liberalism. The free market fundamentalists that have been singing the praises of price gouging in crises as "the medicine of the market" have either forgotten this, or conveniently overlooked it. EconoSpeakPrice GougingPeter Dorman | Professor of Political Economy, The...

Key point here is that any direct comparison between 1999 and 2016 in terms of median incomes is problematic at best. It is problematic in technical terms (methodological changes and CPI deflator changes), and it is problematic in incidence terms (composition of work earnings, risks, incidences of costs and taxes). My advice: don’t ever do it without thinking about all important caveats. Materially, U.S. households' disposable risk-adjusted incomes are lower today than they were in 1999....

Money is not the solution to all problems, and neither is either materials or technology, at least geopollitically.true economicsAsymmetric Conflicts and U.S. 'Learning Curve'Constantin Gurdgiev | chairman of the Ireland-Russia Business Association, contributor and former editor of Business & Finance Magazine, and lecturer in Finance with Trinity College, Dublin

Ramanan comments on CORE Econ.The Case for Concerted ActionA New Way To Learn Economics?V. Ramanan

The topic we are focusing on is monologism, the practice of presenting one’s voice as pure and singular, unquestionably true, and, in the case of groups, unified. Monologism is a common feature of religious and political projects The categorical versus the dialectical approach. OUPblogInfrequently asked questions: The Monologic Imagination Julian Millie and Matt Tomlinson

Books. JSTOR Daily  America’s Unlikely Cold War WeaponErin Blakemore

In The role of literary fiction in perpetuating neo-liberal economic myths – Part 1, I noted introduced the idea that fictional literature plays a significant role in framing false economic concepts and, thus, can promotes neo-liberal biases among the readership, even when the plot of the narrative is ostensibly about something other than economics. In other words, what parades as fiction becomes a powerful tool for spreading ideological propaganda, often in a very subliminal or subtle way....

A lot of pseudo-problems arise from confusion about use of terms, especially when key terms are ambiguous. For example, "capital" can be either financial or non-finanacial ("real" or actual).  "Investment" has two different meanings. Financial "investment" is portfolio wealth held as financial instruments a form of savings in contrast to real goods like real estate, physical precious metals, and collectibles like art. "Savings" denotes a stock, and "saving" denotes a flow....

WHO OWNS THE WEALTH IN TAX HAVENS?, an NBER working paper, points to following the money: I read the abstract and conclusion and perused the paper. It is relatively short and an easy read.The authors state that it is an introductory study in an area that has been shrouded in secrecy for reasons of "privacy." Heh heh.The initial results suggested pretty much what was suspected. Runaway offshore wealth at the top owned by the usual suspects and stashed in international "tax havens." No real...

American government, business and media institutions have lost legitimacy in the eyes of the people, said Duboisian scholar Dr. Anthony Monteiro. “This is a real opportunity for movement building, for coalition building,” said Montiero. “The growing contradiction between the majority of the American people and the elite is probably sharper than at any time in the last 70 years.” I hope this is an exaggeration. But there is little doubt that there is an attempt on both sides to discredit and...