Mike Norman Economics

Friendly critique.This is the third part in my current series which explores certain aspects of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Here I want to focus on unemployment and inflation….The Political Economy of DevelopmentQuestioning Modern Monetary Theory: Part 3Nick Johnson

Very positive review.MarkerI Read It So You Don't Have To: 'The Deficit Myth'Matthew McFarlane

Mostly about Britain's economic policy.The Gower Initiative for Modern Money StudiesReducing government spending now would be calamitous for the wellbeing of people

As part of my inflation primer, I hope to dig further into Japan’s post-1990 “inflation” experience, but it does appear to be an interesting example of a fiat currency achieving price level stability. This stabilisation is ignored for two reasons:western mainstream economists are convinced that 2% inflation is the “correct” level for inflation targeting, and they browbeat Japan for “deflation,” andeverybody is predicting the imminent collapse of the Japanese yen into hyperinflation due to...

On November 11, 2020, the Australian Bureau of Statistics published a very interesting new experimental dataset – Non-Discretionary and Discretionary Inflation – which was derived from the standard Consumer Price Index data. It provided us with new insights and a richer knowledge of the impacts of inflation, particularly in distributional terms. Last month (May 25, 2021), the ABS published a followup article – Measuring Non-discretionary and Discretionary Inflation – which summarised some of...

  I thought this was rather good, so I'll shall have to check them out. New Order's Blue Monday was released on 7 March 1983, and its cutting-edge electronic groove changed pop music forever. But what would it have sounded like if it had been made 50 years earlier? In a special film, using only instruments available in the 1930s - from the theremin and musical saw to the harmonium and prepared piano - the mysterious Orkestra Obsolete present this classic track as you've never heard it...

Russia rejects the US-led "rules-based order." Putting the West on notice.Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian FederationArticle by Sergey Lavrov, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, “The Law, the Rights and the Rules”, Moscow, June 28, 2021

First published Feb 2014. Quoted in Randall Wray's Modern Money Theory, pp289Oldie but goodie.New WaylandIt's the exporters stupidNeil W

Years ago, Marriner Eccles, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1934 to 1948, explained that the Great Depression occurred because the buying power of Americans fell far short of what the economy could produce. He blamed the increasing concentration of wealth at the top. In his words:“A giant suction pump had by 1929-1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. As in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows...

Capitalist economies are demand led in the sense that both output and growth tend to reflect the behavior of autonomous demand, especially in the long run. Prices, in contrast, tend to be supply determined, reflecting cost. Supply shocks can temporarily dominate demand effects on output (for instance, as the result of war, a pandemic, or an oil shock), just as variations in demand, especially if supply is constricted, can temporarily dominate cost effects on prices. But the normal situation...