Mike Norman Economics

Summary of the annual BRICS summit in Xiamen. Asia Times The real BRICS bombshell Pepe Escobaralso by Pepe Escobar Pepe Escobar explores how David Lynch's dystopian wonderland – the original and latest incarnation – informs current geopolitical and metaphysical forces. Potential spoiler alert How Twin Peaks unveils our world

Since Donald Trump became US president, his core economic agenda has been sidetracked repeatedly by so-called cultural issues. However, now the administration is stepping up its tax reform effort. Even so, other issues threaten to derail this agenda item too (like nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula!). Of course, it’s not even clear we’re talking about tax reform here. Much more likely, Trump has sold out and is now merely pushing for tax cuts for the wealthy. Nevertheless, the risk to the...

As if someone had quietly turned on a light bulb last month illuminating the corporate takeover of America, a series of articles from multiple outlets chronicled the demise of American democracy under the jackboot of the corporate state. David Dayen at the New Republic wrote: “Far from selfless arbiters of right and wrong, CEOs are as responsible as anyone in America for skyrocketing inequality, climate crisis, waves of consumer fraud, and the biggest financial meltdown since the...

On reductionism.This is also the case in philosophy where different methods attempt to exclude other methods by reducing the debate to a lower level of data, e.g, sense data only, or lower order of abstraction, e.g., all abstraction must be reducible to first order. These methodological assumptions reduce justification to observations of objects. For example, David Hume used philosophical reduction to sense data to exclude causality, arguing that causality is nothin more than observation of...

New research has found that humans have an excellent ability to ignore facts that don't fit with our own biases, not just on Facebook where the stakes are pretty low, but even when it can cost us money. Stefano Palminteri of École Normale Supérieure led a team of researchers from ENS and University College London, which previously reported that humans are biased towards the path of least resistance, even though that can make us depressed later on. In those situations, people don't seem to...

Here’s what the media isn’t telling you about North Korea’s recent missile tests.Last Monday, the DPRK fired a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan’s Hokkaido Island. The missile landed in the waters beyond the island harming neither people nor property. The media immediately condemned the test as a “bold and provocative act” that showed the North’s defiance of UN resolutions and “contempt for its neighbors.” President Trump sharply criticized the missile test...

It is easy to represent the ‘income-expenditure model’ in a graph. Some people find this helpful as a visual aid to understanding; others, not so much. For those who find graphs confusing, this post can safely be ignored. In terms of economic meaning, it does not add much to what has already been explained. But for those who are comfortable with graphs, they can be a handy tool for illustrating or thinking through the logic of a model.... heteconomistShort & Simple 20 – Graphing the...

In his April 10 comments, Obama made the obvious explicit: He did not want the certain Democratic nominee, the candidate he was backing to succeed him, to be indicted. Conveniently, his remarks (inevitably echoed by Comey) did not mention that an intent to endanger national security was not an element of the criminal offenses Clinton was suspected of committing – in classic Obama fashion, he was urging her innocence of a strawman crime while dodging any discussion of the crimes she had...

Exposé of attempted US regime change operation in Thailand.NEOCambodia’s US-Backed Opposition Leader Charged With Treason Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas* The New Atlas site didn't open on most browers/search engines I tried. I was able to get in using the Tor brewer and DuckDuckGo to search. Update: Working now. See also Thailand’s Ousted PM Flees Abroad: The Rest of the Story

Important backgrounder. It  helps knowing some history.Moon of AlabamaThe Rohingya Of Myanmar - Pawns In An Anglo-Chinese Proxy War Fought By Saudi Jihadists b