Mike Norman Economics

The deregulation winds blowing through Washington could add $27 billion of gross profit at the six largest U.S. banks, lifting their annual pretax income by about 20%. American BankerBig U.S. banks could see profit jump 20% with deregulation Bloomberg

A good friend sent me a document that was released under the US Central Intelligence Agency’s rules about archives. The CIA has established a fabulous ‘Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room’ where all sorts of stuff is released after they deem it benign to current security concerns. The 1985 CIA document – France: Defection of the Leftist Intellectuals – written by CIA operatives, provides an analytical summary of the leading lights in the French left-wing intellectual thought...

Russia-watcher Miriam Elder noted in a piece on BuzzFeed that Putin's response and other statements he has made about Ukraine in the past reflect some of the arguments put forward by Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in a 1990 essay titled "Rebuilding Russia." Radio Free Europe/Radio LibertyIs Putin 'Rebuilding Russia' According To Solzhenitsyn's Design? Robert Coalson

In sum, while Donald Trump, the cultural warrior, is failing as President on the economic front, not helping get us to the 3 or 4% growth he promised, he isn’t cratering the economy yet either. A US debt default or a military war could certainly change that though. The US economy has been resilient. We are now back to 2% growth after a mid-cycle pause due to the (partial) bursting of the shale oil investment bubble. But, since we are in the ninth year of this economic expansion, you have...

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...