Mike Norman Economics

Not surprising since the Taliban is largely a creation of the ISI as a means for Pakistan controlling Afghanistan. See Wikipedia/Taliban for the history, which goes back to the CIA and Saudi Arabia funding the Afghan "freedom fighters." Truly a snake pit.The Taliban is not a monolithic organization but composed of different factions with different views and different goals. So expect a lot of seeming contradictions in the "news."Sputnik InternationalPakistan's Spy Chief Visits Kabul Amid...

Fun distraction.Marginal RevolutionTwo brutal tests — can you pass them?Tyler Cowen | Holbert C. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and serves as chairman and general director of the Mercatus Center

Let's hope. Hopefully, the neocons and liberal interventionists are out of favor, and the US is recognizing limitations in dealing with the combined power of China and Russia that US policy has created unnecessarily and against the warnings of foreign policy realists. Seasoned diplomat M. K. Bhadrakumar sees signs of hope anyway.Asia TimesBiden gives green light to US-China thawM. K. Bhadrakumar | retired diplomat with the Indian Foreign ServiceRelatedReminiscence of the FutureSome Hint For...

Influencer.Stony Brook University NewsStephanie Kelton Named One of Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company - SBU NewsRobert Emproto

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...