Mike Norman Economics

One of my long-running sources of rants is the inability of economics and financial commentators to come to grips with the basics of Treasury valuation. Rate expectations is a relatively simple concept that is the core of all modern fixed income pricing frameworks. Hellfire, it’s even embedded into DSGE models. Nevertheless, academics and other sophisticated commentators keep attempting to put lipstick on the pigs that are alternative explanations for the secular decline in Treasury...

When I first came up with the idea of a buffer stock employment approach to maintain full employment and discipline the inflationary process (back in 1978), the literature on guaranteed incomes was still in its infancy. The idea of a basic income guarantee was still mostly constructed within the framework Milton Friedman had laid out in his negative income tax approach, which I first came across when reading his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, while I was an undergraduate. I wasn’t taken...

One World (no bases in the works)Analyzing The Media Hype About Alleged Russian Bases In Latin AmericaAndrew Korybkohttp://oneworld.press/?module=articles&action=view&id=2443Sputnik International (going there)US Conducts Nuclear Weapons Use War Games Amid Continuing Tensions With Russia Over Ukrainehttps://sputniknews.com/20220130/us-conducts-nuclear-weapons-use-war-games-amid-continuing-tensions-with-russia-over-ukraine-1092625158.htmlTASSUkraine deploys special operations forces to...

AntiWarRussia and the Collective West: What Comes Next? (Russia keeps them guessing. Nerves cracking.)Gilbert Doctorowhttps://www.antiwar.com/blog/2022/01/30/russia-and-the-collective-west-what-comes-next/India Punchline ("If you are not with us, you are against us.")US reminds India it’s showtimeM. K. Bhadrakumar | retired diplomat with the Indian Foreign Servicehttps://www.antiwar.com/blog/2022/01/30/russia-and-the-collective-west-what-comes-next/RT (there are no such plans. Russia has not...

IrrussianalityAnd They Complain About Russian Disinformation!Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawahttps://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2022/01/29/and-they-complain-about-russian-disinformation/The Vineyard of the SakerThe Great Western Wall vs Snow NiggersThe SakerThe Unz ReviewIs Washington Under Alien Control?Philip Giraldi, former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, now Executive Director...

Answer to a question someone asked.

Raytheon CEO on the prospect of war in Yemen, China and Eastern Europe. Biden's Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was a board member at Raytheon until last year. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that these people make foreign policy decisions based on how much money it will bring in -- not because of "global security" or "defense". [Medhurst] "I fully expect we're going to see some benefit from it." https://t.co/gwQWf9vzse

Energy Intelligence (good analysis of the moves on the board)Russia Moves Toward Checkmate on UkraineScott Ritter, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, serving in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, on General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspectorhttps://www.energyintel.com/0000017e-a069-de39-a9ff-bbf980230000Defense One (strategy)Russia Is Teaching a Master Class in ‘Decision-Centric' WarfareDan Patt and Bryan...

 The Washington Post asked: “Why is there tension between Russia and Ukraine?” Its answer:In March 2014, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. A month later, war erupted between Russian-allied separatists and Ukraine’s military in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. The United Nations human rights office estimates that more than 13,000 people have been killed. But that account is highly misleading, because it leaves out the crucial role the US has played in escalating tensions in the...

Last week, Jon Stewart recorded a podcast with the former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Thomas Hoenig. The conversation drew a lot of attention on so-called “finance twitter” (#FinTwit), where lots of folks piled on to ridicule Hoenig for arguing that monetary policy has been a major driver of inequality over the last decade or so. But the part of the conversation that really went viral had to do with money—where it comes from—and government debt.…Stephanie Kelton...