Mike Norman Economics

Only an apocalyptic war can hinder the march of a multilateral world "The shit's on," as they say in the military. And I don't rule out apocalyptic war. The world is now in a position eerily similar to the lead up to WWI and WWII. The big difference now is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that may act as a deterrent. We need some sense to prevail, and good sense seems to be in short supply. Russia InsiderPutin Hits Back: Vows to Destroy Western Financial and Trade...

Preliminary report, but in some depth compared with others. Definitely an upping of the ante in the game of strategy.Moon of AlabamaThe Peanut - North Korea Tests A New Nuke - Continues To Press For Negotiations bSee alsoSouthFrontTrump: The US considers “stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea”lkb22

The BRICS group of emerging economies must promote trade liberalization and an open world economy, Chinese President Xi Jinping said at a business meeting on Sunday at the start of a three-day summit being held in southeastern China.The heads of state from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will gather in the city of Xiamen through Tuesday, giving China as host its latest chance to position itself as a bulwark of globalization in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America...

Bibliography.Medium — Matt StollerHow to Educate Yourself on Monopoly Power Matt Stoller ht Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism

In the final analysis, [US Ambassador] Hale’s softer line was probably influenced by the resolution passed by the Pakistan National Assembly and Senate last week, which amongst other things demanded the suspension of supply routes for US forces via Pakistan in Afghanistan. The Pentagon heavily depends on Pakistani transit routes, which are logistically and financially the most optimal. Any American ‘surge’ in Afghanistan likely means even greater dependence on Pakistan’s cooperation to...

These early humans were using tar to make tools long before Homo sapiens did. Beginning of technology. Ars TechnicaNeanderthals were distilling tar 200 thousand years ago in EuropeAnnalee Newitz

So how do you make good predictions? I met “superforecaster” Michael Story, who was ranked 18th best among the 20,000 people who formed the Good Judgment team. The team took part in a competition conducted by the US intelligence community to find the world’s best forecasters. Launched in 2011, the four-year contest required the group to provide forecasts on 500 questions ranging from the future for oil prices to the financial outlook. The Good Judgment team won the tournament, reportedly...

It is a basic rule from Journalism 101 that when an allegation is in serious doubt – or hasn’t been established as fact – you should convey that uncertainty to your reader by using words like “alleged” or “purportedly.” But The New York Times and pretty much the entire U.S. news media have abandoned that principle in their avid pursuit of Russia-gate.  When Russia is the target of an article, the Times typically casts aside all uncertainty about Russia’s guilt, a pattern that we’ve seen in...

The world’s top oil importer, China, is preparing to launch a crude oil futures contract denominated in Chinese yuan and convertible into gold, potentially creating the most important Asian oil benchmark and allowing oil exporters to bypass U.S.-dollar denominated benchmarks by trading in yuan, Nikkei Asian Review reports. The crude oil futures will be the first commodity contract in China open to foreign investment funds, trading houses, and oil firms. The circumvention of U.S. dollar...

Paul Cantor, Clifton Waller Barrett Professor of English at the University of Virginia and Associated Scholar of the Mises Institute, attended Ludwig von Mises’s seminar at NYU as a young man. He recently surprised and delighted a few of us by revealing that the line that he remembers Mises speaking most frequently in the seminar was “No farzer credit expansion!” As a native German speaker with an accent and less than complete familiarity with English usage, what Mises meant to say, of...