Mike Norman Economics

 The chemicals, called 6:2 FTOH, are now linked to a range of serious health issues, and Americans are still being exposed to themThe chemicals, called 6:2 FTOH, are now linked to a range of serious health issues, and Americans are still being exposed to them in greaseproof pizza boxes, carryout containers, fast-food wrapperThe Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/12/chemical-giants-hid-dangers-pfas-forever-chemicals-food-packaging-dupont

The other day I gave a talk to the ‘investment’ community in Melbourne and they wanted to talk a lot about inflation, which seems to be their foremost concern at the moment. Tomorrow, I am giving a similar presentation in Sydney and I expect a similar line of questioning. Think about it. Wages growth is projected to be so low over the next several years that real wages will decline for at least 3 to 4 years. The Output gaps are still significant and were significant even before the pandemic....

Backgrounder. Combination of silo and group thinking about virus transmission.WiredThe 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid KillMegan Molteni

Backgrounder. and prognosis.International Policy DigestWhat Led to the Current Fighting Between Israel and the Palestinians and What Happens Next?Guy Burton | Visiting Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre and (as of January 2019) an Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Vesalius College in Brussels. Previously, he was Assistant Professor at the Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government (2016-18). Before that, he was Assistant Professor at the School of Politics, History and...

 Trust in the Chinese government and local government keeps going up. Fewer young adults regard the West as a place to look up to, according to survey by research centre affiliated to Chinese state-run tabloid‘Social strata in the US are deeply entrenched because of [the lack of] education and unequal opportunities created by races and poverty,’ blogger saysAre Chinese people falling out of love with the Western dream?

According to SIPRI, global military spend reached almost $2 trillion in 2020. The top 10 countries represent roughly 75% of this figure, and have increased their spending by $51 billion since the year prior.Here’s how the worlds top 10 military spenders compare to each other:US and US allies of the developed world, chiefly NATO and Japan, account for most of it.Why? All that firepower can't be reasonably be for defense. See below.Visual CapitalistMapped: The World’s Top Countries for...

Availability of real resources.This is our challenge: to learn to live and flourish within the boundaries set by the planet’s finite resources. We can make a start by understanding how we can deliver that through the lens of MMT.The Gower Initiative for Modern Money StudiesDealing with crucial issues must triumph over the bogus ‘need’ to balance the books

 I didn't think I've ever see this on the MSM. Video embedded. Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself. That’s a fact. The same is true for Palestinians - that point seems to get missed. Palestinians are, at best, third class citizens in the nation of their birth. The Israeli government, on an ongoing basis, declares parcels of land on which Palestinians live to be either of military or archeological importance, causing residents to be evicted. Sometimes there’s a court case, and...

Industrial production is the King of Coincident Indicators, and is the one whose peaks and troughs most frequently mark the beginning and end of recessions. It had been bouncing back strongly, but in the last several months, has hit something of a snag....The good news for the near future is that these supply chain difficulties are going to be resolved, and as they are resolved, production can be expected to pick up swiftly, given the surge in demand. The important issue will be that the...

Historical backgrounder. Largely a summary of God’s Shadow: The Ottoman Sultan Who Shaped the Modern World (Faber & Faber) by Alan Mikhail, chair of the Department of History at Yale.Most people in the West are only familiar with the history of Western civilization, ignoring what shaped its place in the world historically, including the Mongol empire and the Ottoman empire, which rivaled or surpassed the Hellenistic empire created by Alexander's conquests and the Roman empire. The...