Mike Norman Economics

The United Nations General Assembly on June 23 overwhelmingly approved a Cuban resolution condemning the U.S. economic, commercial, and financial blockade of Cuba, in place for 60 years, The Assembly has done precisely that every year since 1992, except for 2020, when the vote was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The vote this time was: 184 nations approving; two opposing, Israel and the United States; and three abstaining, Colombia, Ukraine, and Brazil.All along, the United...

China’s CNOOC this week started production from the first deepwater gas field it operates fully, Reuters has reported, adding that the field is expected to yield some 4.39 billion cubic meters of natural gas, representing 2 percent of China’s total output....OilpriceChina Starts Production At Massive Deepwater Gas FieldIrina Slav

I wrote a free post on my Patreon discussing my open source econ_platform package, which is mainly in Python — although it supports other languages. (I produce my charts in R.) The package is available at https://github.com/brianr747/platform.The article discusses the core of the package - the fetch() function. Using the fetch command allows me to generate this exciting Icelandic HICP inflation rate in just four lines of code (one of which is the boilerplate library initialisation...

The pros and cons of capitalism. Chimerica was great while it lasted — until the US elite realized that globalization is not necessarily in the interest of the American Empire unless the US is in complete control of it. Thus, the "pivot to Asia" and the attempt to impose a American"rules-based-order" where the "exceptional" and "indispensable" county makes the rules to suit its imperial interests. What's not to like and what could go wrong?Naked CapitalismJames Galbraith: China and Supply...

 When Dr Chris van Tulleken embarked on an ultra-processed 30 day diet to uncover what effect it has on our bodies, the results leave him and the scientists in shock![embedded content]UK doctor switches to 80% ULTRA-processed food diet for 30 days ??? BBC

In response, Food & Water Watch Public Water for All Director Mary Grant released the following statement:“This White House-approved infrastructure deal is a disaster in the making. It promotes privatization and so-called ‘public-private partnerships’ instead of making public investments in publicly-owned infrastructure. Communities across the country have been ripped off by public-private schemes that enrich corporations and Wall Street investors and leave the rest of us to pick up the...

China, Russia and the United States are all pursuing hypersonic weapons technologies, setting the stage for an arms race....The DiplomatHypersonic Missiles: A New Arms RaceRajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan

Biden says he has an agreement on an infrastructure deal. How big and will it pass? Trade and invest using the concepts of MMT. Get a 30-day free trial to MMT Trader. https://www.pitbulleconomics.com/ Download my podcasts! New one every week. https://www.buzzsprout.com/1105286 Mike Norman Twitter https://twitter.com/mikenorman Mike Norman Economics: https://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/

If you’ve been following our reporting of JPMorgan Chase since Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon has been at the helm, you’re aware of one striking fact: this bank has a pattern of getting into bed with unsavory characters: Bernie Madoff, check. Racketeering traders, check. A sex trafficker of children, Jeffrey Epstein, check. Money launderers, check. The guy who bragged on his resume that he knew how to game electric markets, check.Despite an unprecedented record of five felony counts from the...

I have been updating my databases in the last few days and getting up to speed on the latest trends. In the past, I developed a set of broad labour market indicators for Australia with colleagues at the – Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE). Our quarterly measures of underemployment were precursors to the Australian Bureau of Statistics measures which are now published on a monthly basis. I was doing some calculations this morning using Eurostat data as part of some research I am...