Mike Norman Economics

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...

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and National Intelligence Director Daniel Coats want the US Congress to permanently empower the federal government to carry out warrantless surveillance of foreign targets, according to a letter they sent to lawmakers. "We are writing to urge that the Congress promptly reauthorize, in clean and permanent form, Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), enacted by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA)," Sessions and Coats wrote in...

Bill deftly trashes the Third Way New Democrats. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were as toxic as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher through their "triangulation," which amounted to moving right to capture the center.New Economic PerspectivesIs Politico or Third Way More Divorced from Reality? William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC See also The title below should read, "Why The Democrats Are Unable to Defend the u.s. From the 'Most Vicious' Republican Party in...

A group of economists from both sides of the Atlantic, part of a project called core Econ, has put together a new introductory economics curriculum, one that is modern, comprehensive, and freely available online. In this country, many colleges encourage Econ 101 students to buy (or rent) expensive textbooks, which can cost up to three hundred dollars, or even morefor some hardcover editions. The core curriculum includes a lengthy e-book titled “The Economy,” lecture slides, and quizzes to...

Imagine if a well-paying job, with benefits and a high enough salary to pay for rent, transportation, and food, were a human right. Imagine the US federal government established a policy whereby anyone who didn’t have a job and wanted one could go into a local office for a government agency — call it the Works Progress Administration — and walk out with a regular government position paying a livable wage ($15 an hour, perhaps) and offering health, dental, and vision insurance, and...

Hillary doubles down on identity politics and McCarthyism.Some interesting history and observations too.Did you know that Pushkin was black by American standards? Take Alexander Pushkin for example. He’s Russia’s most beloved poet, embraced as the quintessence of Russian romantic poetry. He died in 1837, at a time when slavery was the law of the land in the American South, and serfdom (a form of slavery) was the law of the land in Russia for Russia’s peasant class. Pushkin’s...

Under Donald Trump's leadership, the U.S. is in the process of forfeiting its position of economic supremacy. An internal EU document shows that the Europeans are worried. Translation: Germany is worried about its trade surplus.Spiegel OnlineA Shrinking Giant: EU Worries Grow over U.S. Economic Chaos Christian Reiermann

Video and transcript.  Mark Weisbrot is one of the most knowledgeable people writing about the economic situation in English. SHARMINI PERIES: Mark, so let's start with President Maduro's economic policy announcements, which took place on Thursday night. From what you can tell so far, do you think they will work towards recovering Venezuela's economy here? MARK WEISBROT: Well, I think probably not. I think there's some good things there. The try to increase the food distribution,...

Another expensive and potentially dangerous boondoggle aimed at world domination? What is wrong with these people.Tom DispatchAlfred McCoy, How the Pentagon Snatched Innovation From the Jaws of DefeatAlfred McCoy | Harrington professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of the The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, and In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power (Dispatch Books) from which this piece is...