Mike Norman Economics

So, the question my friends and I were asking ourselves is not a new one, but it is still pressing: is artificial intelligence, and its coterie of related digital instances, a general enough technology to do what the various industrial technologies did a couple of hundred years ago? Are we in the midst of a total reconstruction of society? If so, who is in charge of that reconstruction?One of our frustrations is the glibness of economists who simply argue that in the long run the current...

As we begin to read Volume 1 of Capital, we must recall that half a century has passed since the publication of Ricardo’s Principles. If I may adopt a lovely trope used to such great effect by Thomas Piketty, the England of David Ricardo was Jane Austen’s England, whereas the England of Karl Marx was Charles Dickens’ England. In the intervening 50 years, factories had sprouted up not only in the north of England but in London as well and a large working class of low-paid factory workers had...

Another positive review.It’s a common sentiment that printing large amounts of money is a bad thing because it causes inflation. There has been a lot of hand-wringing lately due to the now three COVID-19 relief packages Congress has passed, which have triggered the printing of trillions of dollars. Forty percent of all U.S. dollars currently in existence have been printed in the last year; conventional economics would portend massive increases in prices or inflation, possibly to the point of...

Positive review.The LoopThe Deficit MythTerry Sullivan

One of the major complaints that Milton Friedman and his ilk made about the use of discretionary fiscal policy was that time lags made it ineffective and even dangerously inflationary. By the time the policy makers have worked out there is a problem and ground out the policy intervention, the problem has passed and the intervention then becomes unpredictable in consequence (and unnecessary anyway). The Financial Times article (March 29, 2021) – To compare the EU and US pandemic packages...

No, but a lot of people still think so, even after the "widow-maker" trades that followed expectations generated by this erroneous interpretation of what would result from QE when the Fed introduced it in response to the GFC. They should ask former "bond-king" Bill Gross about it. Remember him?MV = PQ (or PT) is an accounting identity if properly understood, but imputing causality in the wrong way results in error even if one understands the symbolism correctly. Or making assumptions that do...

 More to come. These are some of my favourite photos I have found on the net. 

 Activist, author, and artist Rose McGowan has had her Twitter account suspended, over a tweet she posted about Jeffrey Epstein and President Bill Clinton.The tweet included an image by artist Alison Jackson, and featured a Bill Clinton lookalike getting a massage in what looked like a hotel room. Apparently, the picture breached Twitter’s rules about posting ‘privately produced/distributed intimate media of someone without their consent’ – though all the hardcore porn you can access on...

 Jason says he's not paid by the CPC and I believe him. I just connect with his sentiment, as I do with Numuves. Why do Western media always blank out the faces of Uyghurs in their propaganda videos? Well, it's to stop them from being identified, so that no one can interview them and find out that they are fine and happy? The BBC shoots secret videos in low light and use grey, low quality footage, while a reporter talks in a hush voice, because it's "so dangerous", and Jason goes the same...

 A really good video. Adrian Zenz's accusations of China's Uyghur concentration and the forced labour camps don't as up. Why has no one in the media examined Adrian Zenz's claims to check them out? They are very serious accusations which could lead to a world war, or cause enormous hardship for millions of Uyghurs and the Hans Chinese as well as the sanctions harm the economy. We don't have an independent media. Westerners are the most propagandised people on the planet, because, A, the...