Mike Norman Economics

Inflation data in the United States came in surprisingly hot, and so rate hike chatter went off the charts. I think the idea of a “surprise” inter-meeting rate hike is silly in the context of modern Federal Reserve operating procedures, but I now see more chance of an initial 50 basis point rate hike in March as an attempt to assert dominance.Unless inflation cools a lot, the base case has to be that we are looking at 25 basis points per meeting (plus the wild card of a starting 50) for...

Important backgrounder including an historical account of how we got here. A bit longish but well worth the read for an American analysis that confronts a conventional narrative echoed in the corporate media that is naïve, biased or just made up, and based largely on mind-reading— Putin's, that is, but also "the Russian mindset."A lingering question remains. Did Washington’s alarmists really believe it themselves, or has consent been manufactured by a war scare whose utility they plainly...

. [embedded content]https://youtu.be/8nXz66Btfl0This is good!  The Chinese government was very lenient towards the Hong Kong protesters, even though many were rioting. 

It’s Wednesday and I have a lot on today. I was scanning some transcripts from the European Parliament today as part of a project I am embarking on to update my 2015 book – Eurozone Dystopia: Groupthink and Denial on a Grand Scale (published May 2015). I have had lots of requests (including from publishers) to provide a revised version to take into account events since 2015, include Brexit and the pandemic. So my head is back in transcripts, hansard reports, and other official documents to...

Stephanie Kelton would probably have done some things differently, but she couldn’t have asked for a better political and economic backdrop for her new book, The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy. While the book is structured as a rebuttal to common misconceptions held by politicians and the general public about government finance, it is ultimately a plea to use permanent wartime mobilization for civilian ends.….Actually, the US has been on a...

Reminiscence of the FutureKremlin Is Trolling, Professionallyhttp://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/02/kremlin-is-trolling-professionally.html"Messaging".http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/02/messaging.htmlAndrei Martyanov, former USSR naval officer and expert on Russian military and naval issuesThe Vineyard of the SakerTomorrow will be a big day (even if nothing happens!)http://thesaker.is/tomorrow-will-be-a-big-day-even-if-nothing-happens/If I did not know this is for...

Russia pulls troops back, market up big. However, don't expect the Biden Administration to relax attempts to get a war going. Market perspective.

Asia TimesIs the Ukraine ‘crisis’ just another US charade?Jack F Matlock Jr., former US ambassador to the USSRhttps://asiatimes.com/2022/02/is-the-ukraine-crisis-just-another-us-charade/(This article was produced by Globetrotter in partnership with the American Committee for US-Russia Accord (ACURA). It was provided to Asia Times by Globetrotter.)Moon of Alabama (hybrid warfare integrated with politics)The Big White House Plans Behind Its 'Russian Invasion'...

A 1980s English Pop Band From Brighton. I played this to my girlfriend the other day and I thought she would like it, as I love it, but she she was totally unimpressed. Elevator music, she called it. So I tried some more tracks from them, but it still fell on dead ears. Then it was my turn to listen to some of her music, and crikey, that was hard, modern R&B, funk! That's really not my thing. I only like eccentric pop. When I was a teen all my friends got into each others music, but as...

Many scientists say there is only one universe and that all the others were just mathematical probabilities. Now we have to ask how is it that the universe is so fine tuned for life? It could be that all the others remained probabilities because they were unable to exist. This one works. Noam Chomsky says that we probably don't have the cognitive capacity to figure out whether we have free will, or not.Nicolas Gisin on Free Will, Time NOT Being an Illusion, Superdeterminism, and Quantum...