Mike Norman Economics

Sam Levey has a new Levy Institute working paper: “Modeling Monopoly Money: Government as the Source of the Price Level and Unemployment.”As I discuss in Section 4.3 of Modern Monetary Theory and the Recovery, the “Monetary Monopoly Model” is the core macro model that captures some of the key ideas of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). The key concept is that the government needs to set a key price (or a set of prices) in order to determine the price level of a fiat currency. This is contrast to...

Russia ObserverRUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 2 SEPTEMBER 2021Patrick Armstrong, retired analyst and diplomat (2008) serving in the Canadian Department of National Defence specializing in the USSR/Russia from 1984 and a Counsellor in the Canadian Embassy in Moscow in 1993-1996.Asia TimesWhy the Taliban still can’t form a governmentPepe EscobarAsia TimesTaliban faces US destabilization from withinQatar provides US a useful bridge to the TalibanM. K. Bhadrakumar | retired diplomat with the Indian...

Broke my nose this morning when I went on my run.

The Humblebums Gerry Rafferty's daughter found some of her father's unfinished songs, which a record company has added some new arrangements to and plan to release them on a new album next month. So, I thought this might be a good a time to look at some of Gerry Rafferty's very earliest songs which he wrote when he was in a band called The Humblebums, which was a duo with Billy Connolly. The Humblebums were around in the late 60's and early 70's and their music was very middle of the road...

Once again, ignorance about Social Security finances is being pushed hard. Social Security cannot go bankrupt. Watch Alan Greenspan school former Congressman Paul Ryan. https://youtu.be/DNCZHAQnfGU

This sixteen-part series, The Souls of the People, will explore these issues and the ideas and economics behind them. The values, origins, economics and philosophy behind the call “to drown the baby” that is our own government, the creation of think tanks specifically to provide a pseudo-intellectual foundation for inequality. The rise, reasons for, and effect of beliefs that markets without law allow for full employment and that wage laws cause unemployment. That competition alone can bring...

 Stephen John Lewis is not an MMTer, but he then goes on to explain why he thinks China uses an MMT type system and why they could outsmart the West with it.  He's not saying that MMT doesn't work, but that it's too authoritarian. Does this mean I am switching my allegiance to supporting MMT? No, it very much does not. Firstly I worry about the concentration of power, second I worry about the ability of any governing authority to pick the necessary interventions well and third it’s...

 NowThis News. 38 watching now. Started streaming 8 minutes agoWHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS BRIEFING: Members of the White House COVID-19 response team and public health officials are holding a press briefing to discuss their efforts to combat the ongoing pandemic.[embedded content]

Robert Steele said to the bitter end that Covid was a hoax, and now his contrarian friends are saying that the hospital killed him, despite the fact that Robert David Steele said it was a good hospital.  A former CIA officer who claimed to be the first person to call Covid-19 a hoax, died from the disease after battling for life for nearly a month in a hospital.Robert David Steele, a veteran of the US marine corps and a QAnon supporter, promoted several conspiracy theories, including one...

Delta changes everything, so lockdowns are not so effictive now. With lots of people vaccinated, it may be better to change tactics, but modeling in Australia shows a possible disaster for some. Since March last year Victorians have endured six lockdowns and some of the toughest restrictions anywhere in the world.Yesterday the Andrews government did an abrupt about face, abandoning the zero COVID mindset that's underpinned its strategy for more than a year and telling Victorians they now...