Mike Norman Economics

Moscow’s state-owned oil giant, Rosneft, signed a US$80 billion 10-year deal to supply the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) with 100 million metric tonnes of oil.This increase in crude oil delivery volumes and mechanisms to China is part of a broad-based strategy to circumvent to as great a degree as possible the effects of international sanctions against Russia.This multi-level cooperation strategy between Russia and China provides financing into Russia from China, regardless of...

Strategic Culture FoundationNord Stream: The Geo-politics of Keeping Germany ‘Down’, Russia ‘Out’, and Instability in UkraineAlastair Crooke | founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, and former British diplomat and senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacyhttps://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/02/14/nord-stream-geopolitics-of-keeping-germany-down-russia-out-and-instability-ukraine/NEOWashington Rolls Out a ‘New’ Approach to Encircling ChinaSalman Rafi...

Market not paying attention to the fact that corporate profits in Q1 may be very strong.

Funny that almost no commentators are noticing that Russian energy not going to Europe would be going to China instead, and eventually other non-Western countries. It would be economically beneficial for Russia to have a stable customer and strategically beneficial for China to reduce maritime energy imports that are under the control of the US Navy. In fact, this is already happening and it is only going to increase. Higher prices for carbon-based energy sources are also a boon for the...

From our man on the ground in Canada. No big economic impact.Bond EconomicsCanadian Protest CommentsBrian Romanchuk

Dances with BearsREWRITING THE END OF WORLD WAR II, UNDOING THE GERMAN DEFEAT, DESTROYING RUSSIA THE US WAYJohn Helmerhttp://johnhelmer.net/rewriting-the-end-of-world-war-ii-undoing-the-german-defeat-destroying-russia-the-us-way/Oriental ReviewMaking Sense Of The Ukraine StandoffEric Zuessehttps://orientalreview.org/2022/02/14/making-sense-of-the-ukraine-standoff/The Vineyard of the SakerSitrep: What’s New? Maria Zakharova Comments, China...

The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) claims that tax revenues from the rest of the UK are “transferred” to Scotland. This is followed by claims from Unionist groups such as These Islands and Scotland in Union that the Scottish economy is subsidised by taxpayers from the rest of the UK. Thus, without taxpayers from the rest of the UK, an independent Scotland would need to implement both austerity and high taxes.Modern Money Scotland specialises in the economics of monetarily sovereign...

A Debate on Superdeterminism Another good debate coming up on YouTube. Bernardo Kastrup is going to debate with Sabine Hossenfelder about superdetermism. Sabine is pretty much a hard core physicist who believes we don't have free will. Bernardo wrote the book;Why Materialism Is Baloney: How true skeptics know there is no death and fathom answers to life, the universe, and everything.Bernardo Kastrup is a computer scientist (PhD) and a philosopher (PhD). He draws heavily on the works of Carl...

There was an informative article in the UK Guardian over the week (January 13, 2022) – Australia’s supply chain issues likely to continue despite drop in Covid cases – which documented the many ways in which the pandemic has led to difficulties in getting goods supplied to retail outlets or their destination (in the case of overseas mail deliveries). The majority of recent articles about the economy and policy options have erred on the side of the need for interest rate hikes and fiscal...

India Punchline (one would hardly notice from the headlines hyping an imminent Russian invasion)Biden dials back belligerence toward RussiaM. K. Bhadrakumar | retired diplomat with the Indian Foreign Servicehttps://www.indianpunchline.com/biden-dials-back-belligerence-toward-russia/Craig Murray BlogCry “Havoc!” and Let Slip the Dogs of WarCraig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of...