Mike Norman Economics

The US Treasury’s proposal to target North Korea’s oil imports is very similar in spirit to the oil embargo that the US slapped on Imperial Japan in 1941 which triggered the attack on Pearl Harbor, thus bringing the prospect of a full-scale military conflict closer. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's proposal last week to target North Korea's oil imports via a new round of sanctions bears a striking resemblance to a similar move which led to full-scale US involvement in WWII almost...

Assuming this is true and there seems to be no reason to doubt it, inquiring minds would like to know if is this the military going rogue or US policy? Fort Russ"US-led Coalition jets deliberately bombed our positions to halt our progress against ISIS" - Babylon Battalions leader Al Mayadeen — translated by Samer Hussein

From Poverty to PowerBook Review: Norms in the Wild: How to Diagnose, Measure, and Change Social Norms, by Cristina Bicchieri Duncan Green, strategic adviser for Oxfam GB

Video and transcript.TRNNEquifax Data Breach is a 10 out of 10 Scandal Aaron Mate interviews Bill Black

Asian economies are commended for improving their external balances and building self-insurance by accumulating large amounts of reserves. However, whether these would be sufficient to provide adequate protection against a reversal of capital flows is contentious. After the Asian crisis external vulnerability came to be assessed in terms of adequacy of reserves to meet short-term external dollar debt. However, short-term debt is not always the most important source of drain on reserves....

Value is a social relation. As such, it is ‘immaterial but objective.’ The ‘phantom-like objectivity’ of value arises because ‘not an atom of matter enters into the objectivity of commodities as values’. Their status as values contrasts with ‘the coarsely sensuous objectivity of commodities as physical objects. We may twist and turn a single commodity as we wish; it remains impossible to grasp it as a thing possessing value.’ The value of commodities is, like many other features of social...

Review of responses to Thomas Piketty's Capital. There have been a few essay collections recently responding to the splash created by Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century. The Enlightened EconomistInequality, revisitedDiane 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

Another short review and a letter from John Kenneth Galbraith to Joan Robinson. It is timely given the present attention to the persisting paucity of women economists in the profession and the professional literature. Many feel that Joan Robinson never got the credit she was due.Naked KeynesianismSunday Reading: Economic Letters of NoteMatias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, Bucknell University

Wonkish unless you have been following Jason Smith's blog on information transfer economics. For those who have, his book looks like an interesting read, and Brian's review is helpful in approaching it.Bond Economics Book Review: A Random Physicist Takes On EconomicsBrian Romanchuk

As I came to develop a deeper understanding of economics, I became increasingly convinced that Kaldor’s approach was the only way to prevent economics ossifying into pure formalism. “Stylised facts” was his methodological weapon, and I can do no better than quote from his essay “Capital Accumulation and Economic Growth” (1961), with its strongly implied attack on the neoclassical approach to model construction: “We all agree that the basic requirement of any model is that it should be...