Mike Norman Economics

My Grand Canyon hike.

 Last year I came across a terrific song which was used in a demonstration video for putting solid tyres on a bike. Shazam identified it as Be Mine GF by some dance DJ, but I knew he didn't make the song as his music was hard core techno. He must have just liked the song and put it in his profile. I've been trying to find the artist of this lovely song ever since, but only today did I find out it was a little known Jewish musician called, Assef Ayalon. He's a brilliant singer and guitarist,...

With the focus now on inflation, anything that affects CPI and PPI is significant. It is a lagging indicator.From Lawler:While single-family home prices have recently soared and single-family rents appear to have accelerated, the “Owners’ equivalent rent of primary residence” index (OERPR) of the Consumer Price Index has shown no meaningful acceleration. However, it would appear as if (1) the OERPR is understating this measure of housing costs; and (2) the measure is likely to accelerate,...

It is very clear that France continues to subject its former colonies to a relationship of economic dependence via an extractive model that was enshrined during the colonial period and further strengthened in the postcolonial era. The engine of neocolonial extraction has been halted by the COVID19 pandemic, and Mr. Macron wants to make sure that the engine is reignited rather than replaced by a new engine of resilience and economic and monetary sovereignty. EcoBusiness18th May Paris summit...

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and WoernerNational Security ArchiveNATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard

The Covid crisis is forcing us to rethink the tools of redistribution and solidarity. Proposals are springing up everywhere: basic income, job guarantee, inheritance for all. Let’s say it straight away: these proposals are complementary and not substitutable. In the long run, they must all be implemented, in stages and in this order.Thomas Piketty's Blog at Le MondeFrom basic income to inheritance for allThomas Piketty | Professor at EHESS and at the Paris School of Economics

Capital flows to where it is most profitable. But, in every economics system a balance must be drawn between efficiency and resilience in the interest of efficacy.  This is an issue in a competitive environment focused in quarterly earnings reports. Firms are incentivized to curtail resilience in order to complete in the market place where buyers are looking for the best deal in the present.This is a problem in a system in which analysis is based on microfoundations, which assumes...

Margin is form of private debt. It is secured by the equity borrowed against as collateral, but margin calls can result in forced selling at scale. This is what happened at the start what became the Great Depression, when the tumbling of a house of cards in equities led to "knock on effects" that paralyzed the American and global economies.The Great Purge was on and it lasted until John Maynard Keynes convinced FDR that the treatment was abandoning the gold standard and using the expanded...

It is Wednesday and I am catching up on other things. But In a rather extraordinary article (May 16, 2021) – Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman explains why he’s more left-wing than the Modern Monetary Theory crowd – we learn about hubris. I provide some brief commentary on that claim before chilling out to some great post minimalist music.Bill Mitchell – billy blogRight becomes Left for Paul KrugmanBill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment...

 Many physicists now are saying that we do not have free will, and that everything is due to cause and effect, even our thoughts and feelings. I did once agree with this, and I can remember arguing in on-line groups saying that we did have free will, but then overnight I was thinking about it and I just flipped to the opposite conclusion, and I stayed believing that for years until I flipped back again, and then back again, and so on. Anyway, I've started to come around to a middle way, that...