Mike Norman Economics

Review of Lars Schall's soon forthcoming, Denken wie der Feind – 20 Jahre Ausnahmezustand 9/11 und die Geopolitik des Terrors (“Thinking Like the Enemy – 20 Years State of Emergency, 9/11 and the Geopolitics of Terror”). It will be initially published in German.The Unz ReviewBombshell Book in Germany Revives 9/11 as a Business Model, by Pepe EscobarPepe Escobar

 The 25% tariffs exactly equal the European taxes imposed. Washington is reportedly moving forward with its additional duties for hundreds of billions in imports from six nations in response to digital service taxes targeting the likes of Google and Amazon.A wide range of goods from the UK, Spain, Italy, Turkey, India and Austria could be hit with 25% tariffs, the US Trade Representative documents show. If the US goes ahead with the punitive measure after public consultations scheduled for...

LFC makes the following comment: “Prof. Wolff has said that one of his aims is to "put the irony into the equations," but where is the irony here? I get the mocking language ("moneybags") and the element of mystification, but mockery and mystification aren't the same as irony. So where is it?” Once again, I am afraid that by rushing through my ideas too quickly I have neglected to include essential points, so instead of the next episode in this soap opera I will directly address LFC’s...

Not actually a "roll-out" quite yet. The digital yuan is still in trial, but the article is interesting anyway.Sputnik InternationalChinese Central Bank Rolls Out Digital Yuan in a First for a Major Economy

No one is "lending" to the BOE. The BOE doesn't need to get funds to spend. As the currency issuing agent for the British state, it creates the currency in the act of spending, which is merely crediting accounts on its spreadsheet. It is done simply by keystrokes, no "money printing" needed.Spending and securities issuance are monetary operations. The funds used to spend are created by the central bank as "new money" and securities are issued as a reserve drain after spending. Elementary, my...

Marx goes on for quite some time portraying commodities and commodity exchange in deliberately mystified and buffoonish ways. Those who are interested in exploring this in greater detail can take a look at my little book, Moneybags Must Be so Lucky. But let me move along with my exposition of Marx’s argument. You will recall that I said Marx chose to write volume 1 as though Ricardo’s simple Labor Theory of Value were correct because he thought there was a deeper problem that neither Ricardo...

Remember, we are still on SLR constraints and lots of reserves coming this month. 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

For years, the U.S. and China have waged war over technology, trade, and capital markets. Tensions between the world’s leading economies reached a fever pitch during former president Trump’s term in office, leading to escalating tariffs and trade restrictions.But now, a new revelation will have Washington scratching its head again: China has been vastly outspending the United States in renewable energy R&D.According to BNEF data cited by Bank of America in a recent report, for every...

Last Friday (April 2, 2021), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – March 2021 – which showed that the recovery since the catastrophic labour market collapse in March and April 2020, which had stalled in recent months, has got back on track as States open up their economies. Payroll employment growth was very strong and the unemployment rate fell by 0.2 points to 6 per cent. The broader labour wastage captured by the...

The reality is that current conditions are nowhere near normal. At the beginning of the last cycle, the only labour market series that offered useful information was the employment-to-population ratio. As the figure above shows, we are still below the lows of the last cycle....Bond EconomicsU.S. Economy Getting Better, But...Brian Romanchuk