Mike Norman Economics

M&A rather than IPOs, stock buybacks. Primary investment is lagging. The environment for investment must be addressed. Deregulation for its own sake. Removing bank regulation was a factor in the financial crisis. Regulation needs to be revisited from the perspective of lessons learned. Control fraud and criminogenic environment were promoted by hands-off policy in regulation and oversight. Well-Functioning markets require appropriate regulation and supervision. Wall Street On...

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Chinese and Japanese media in an interview that Moscow is certain the United States will attempt to meddle in the forthcoming Russian presidential election."We’ve got used to US meddling. We’ve learned to live with it. The same applies to the tapping of telephones by US secret services," Ryabkov said."The one who is unaware of this is an absolutely naive person who lives on a different planet and does not understand what’s what," he continued.He...

Buying versus renting. Is buying over in the drive for rent-seeking? The Enlightened Economist Property is – theft?Diane Coyle | freelance economist and a former advisor to the UK Treasury. She is a member of the UK Competition Commission and is acting Chairman of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation

Estonia has proposed to launch its own state-backed cryptocurrency, called "estcoin". Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin apparently gave feedback on the digital currency. It would be launched via the digital coin community's version of crowdfunding - an initial coin offering (ICO). Provocative article. Last month Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid said that her nation was "the only truly digital society," underpinned by the state. "Almost all our citizens' interactions with the government,...

What does capital do in the digital economy? For one thing it applies the mass market. The huge asymmetry in income is lat least in part due to access to and use of mass markets. Contemporary managerial capitalism and digital entrepreneuring are based on creating new mass markets or capturing a share of existing or developing mass markets.   While this is well known in business, economists haven't yet picked up much on it implications, at least in my roaming around the field as an...

It’s an all-too common refrain among US corporations: we have jobs available, but simply can’t find qualified workers to fill them. Economists, including top Federal Reserve officials, lend credibility to this dubious claim by arguing there is a "skills gap" among US workers that is preventing firms from finding employees with the right backgrounds. However, ample research and basic common sense suggests that wage stagnation, which has dominated the US job landscape in recent decades, is...

There was an article in the Financial Times last week (August 16, 2017) – Central banks hold a fifth of their governments’ debt – which seemed to think there was a “challenge” facing policymakers in “unwinding assets after decade of stimulus”. The article shows how central banks around the world have been buying huge quantities of government (and private) bonds and holding them on their balance sheets. Apparently, these asset holdings are likely to cause the banks headaches. I don’t see it...

At the macro level, equilibrium requires that total demand in product markets equals total supply. This could occur at high or low levels of output and employment. For this reason, equality of supply and demand in product markets does not imply full employment. heteconomistShort & Simple 17 – A Notion of Macroeconomic EquilibriumPeter Cooper

The back story.  Similar in Brazil and other Latin American countries. In Brazil the Carnival queen was deposed for being too black.Defend DemocracyVenezuela’s long history of racism is coming back to haunt it Hazel Marsh

The more one looks at it, President Donald Trump’s real challenge is not about winning the war against the Taliban, but the high risk he’ll be incurring, by taking his generals’ advice, to put his imprimatur on a full-fledged proxy war in Afghanistan against Russia, Iran and China. Russia InsiderRussia Warns the US Over Afghanistan M.K. Bhadrakumar