Mike Norman Economics

When criticising game theory you often get the rather uninformative and vacuous answer that we all have to remember that game theory — as is mainstream neoclassical theory at large — is nothing but ‘as-if-theory’ built on ‘as-if-rationality.’ As Ariel Rubinstein has it, however, this only shows that “the phrase ‘as if’ is a way to avoid taking responsibility for the strong assumptions upon which economic models are founded” … It's bad enough when game theory is applied uncritically to...

In Part 1 of this mini-series – When relations within government were sensible – the US-Fed Accord – Part 1 – I examined the pre-1951 agreement between the US Treasury department and the US Federal Reserve Bank, which saw the bank effectively fund the US Treasury. The nature of that relationship, which began when the central bank was formed in 1913, changed in 1935 when the legislators voluntarily chose to change the capacity of the currency issuer to buy unlimited amounts of US Treasury...

The idiots at S&P are at it again, downgrading China's "debt." This asinine rating agency does not understand the distinction between a currency issuing nation (of which, China is one) and a country that doesn't issue currency or, that has debt denominated in another currency.All of China's "debt" is denominated in yuan, which they have the monopoly power to issue. There is zero risk that China wouldn't be able to meet its obligations in yuan.Anyway, what do you expect from a firm...

Caterpillar is a major indicator. "We see stable growth for the Chinese economy in the next two to three years. We are optimistic about that," said Chen Qihua, vice president of Caterpillar Inc. and chairman of Caterpillar China. "We also expect steady growth for our industry -- no huge growth, but sustainable growth."After a nearly five-years downturn, China's excavator industry has been picking up since the second half of last year.... Ecns.cnCaterpillar upbeat on China's economy,...

Quite a while ago I wrote an article entitled “Counter-Propaganda, Russian style” in which I tried to show that far from censoring the russophobic propaganda of the AngloZionist Empire, the Russians try hard to give it as much visibility in Russia as possible. The reason for that it very simple: by showing the Empire’s propaganda the Russian media provides incontrovertible evidence of the hatred the Empire has for Russia and for the Russian people. This very slick counter-propaganda...

Fixing the corruption problem in China’s ruling Communist Party is “world class hard” and the battle will never end, the country’s top graft-buster told Singapore’s prime minister in a rare meeting with a visiting foreign leader. Wang Qishan, who heads the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, has been at the forefront of President Xi Jinping’s fight against deep-seated corruption, and speculation has swirled about whether he will retire or stay on at next month’s key party...

Farms failing to meet environmental requirements will be closed and fewer chemicals will be used in Shanghai's agricultural production. These are part of the city's endeavors to promote the construction of a green and modern urban agriculture. Quality is the name of the game. "Shanghai's agricultural development is more about its ecological function, and compared with quantity, we should focus more on quality," Zhang Guokun, director of the city's agricultural commission, said...

Daily life requires us to cooperate with a large number of – potentially unrelated – people. This column argues that cultural variation in the ways people cooperate with each other are empirically associated with fundamentally different religious beliefs, moral values, emotions of shame and guilt, social norms, and institutions. This suggests that various psychological, biological, and institutional mechanisms co-evolved to support specific social cooperation systems. Harmonizing personal...

In a recent post, David Glasner tackles an aspect of John Maynard Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. In Chapter 11 of the GT (The Marginal Efficiency of Capital), Keynes questions the meaningfulness of the Fisher equation, suggesting that the decomposition of nominal return into its real and expected inflation components may have a (rough) connection to the marginal efficiency of capital but not to the interest rate. David claims this view is inconsistent with...

Business InsiderThe 5,000-year history of interest rates shows just how historically low US rates still are right now Elena Holodny