Mike Norman Economics

lol Biden’s consigliere didn’t see this one coming… The United States faces serious long-run fiscal challenges. But the decision of a credit rating agency today, as the economy looks stronger than expected, to downgrade the United States is bizarre and inept.— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) August 1, 2023 GOP is going to be all over this Biden downgrade… 😂😂😂Biden Treasury is having to increase the Biden UST issuance by $1T in order to pay the additional $1T Biden interest on the USTs due...

Another dumb, ignorant move by 1 of the 3 rating agencies.

I have been running into the ongoing debates on nominal GDP targeting, and whether it is superior to inflation targeting. To look at this debate, I need to put my “conventional economist” hat on, as if one accepts the heterodox view that interest rate policy is ineffective, the entire debate is pointless (neither policy “works”). As will become apparent, I think the neoclassical models behind the debate are dubious. But if we accept that interest rates at least sort-of work the way that they...

Correction highly likely but big picture remains bullish.

 Follow on to Korybko's previous article about BRICS+ and alternative currency/payments system. Again, cutting through the hype of both an impasse owing to Chinese and Indian opposition and also the over-optimism of the cheerleaders for an alternative currency. Korybko argues that the countries involved are proceeding carefully in finding common ground in spite of competing national interests — that is, acting maturely.Naked CapitalismExplaining China’s & India’s Reported Differences...

What we will discuss today is that central bankers are effectively intent on increasing poverty in their societies. And, whichever way one looks at it, relying on such a pernicious policy tool – one that deliberately seeks to increase poverty – is not a sound basis for achieving social stability. And, and as inflation has been falling anyway, despite the hikes, the negative distributional impacts should militate against using such a nasty and inefficient instrument....William Mitchell —...

This is a follow-up piece that includes Africa. It also has more on BRICS+ as well as ongoing work on developing an alternative payments system. The title is misleading in that it is representative of the actual subject of the post. The US and West don't figure in much in what he has to say other than being oppositional to these projects.Strategic Culture Foundation (sanctioned by the US Treasury Department)First We Go for Moscow, Then We Take BeijingPepe Escobar

Initial number for US 3Q +3.5% not too shabby…On July 28th, the initial #GDPNow model nowcast of real GDP growth in Q32023 is 3.5%. https://t.co/T7FoDdgYos #ATLFedResearch Download our EconomyNow app or go to our website for the latest GDPNow nowcast. https://t.co/NOSwMl7Jms pic.twitter.com/gxJRawmmMq— Atlanta Fed (@AtlantaFed) July 28, 2023

This is a longish and fairly detailed summary of recent developments in the geopolitical and geoeconomic spheres and their self-augmenting interaction and integration on the way to actualizing the vision of multipolarity based on international law rather than a US-led (imposed) "rules-based-order), that is to say, unipolarity.This is also a more balanced account than some of Pepe Escobar's posts that suffer from confirmation bias. This is more critical than "creative," that is, hyped. It...

Bank lending data paints a grim picture for the Eurozone economyUnherdThe coming European recession may be worse than 2008Philip Pilkington