Mike Norman Economics

This [US electrical grid] is one massive system, and the sources that feed it electricity have become increasingly diversified. And while the shortage of natural gas was a big reason for the power outages in Texas, it was certainly not a shortage of gas that caused the blackouts in California last summer during a heatwave. Grid reliability has come to the fore because the decarbonization of electricity generation is not all fun, games, and zero-emission power.The U.S. grid, as it is now,...

Big Pharma is fighting for tight control over Covid-19 vaccine production, limiting availability worldwide while reaping billions. The InterceptDrug Lobby Asks Biden to Punish Foreign Countries Pushing for Low-Cost VaccinesLee FangSee alsoJacobinFinland Had a Patent-Free COVID-19 Vaccine Nine Months Ago — But Still Went With Big PharmaIlari Kaila and Joona-Hermanni MäkinenAlsoKHNThey [Oxford University] Pledged to Donate Rights to Their COVID Vaccine, Then Sold Them to PharmaJay Hancock

Catching up.Conversable EconomistTeaching Current Monetary PolicyTimothy Taylor | Managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, based at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota

 The US is now deeply divided ideologically, which implies socially and politically also, since the two halves of the population see the world entirely differently, giving rise to "alternative facts."The upshot of this condition is the necessity of one side controlling the narrative to capture the middle, which constitutes the swing votes.A foundational issue at present is the legitimacy of the government. This post is about that and it outlines the conservative stance for the 2020...

... economists seem to be undeterred by these new understandings brought to physics or even by the blow brought to Newton’s mechanics by 20th-century quantum physics and Einstein’s relativity. They continue to stick to classical mechanics as if nothing had changed in the way physician understand the physical world. Nor are they bothered by the way other social and political sciences came to understand the social world; or how in neurosciences and psychology, the understanding of the working...

Capitalism is collectivism in denial. Money only works the way it works and exists the way it exists because we all collectively agree to pretend that those made-up, imaginary conceptual constructs are real. The collective is free to change that collective agreement at any time.Capitalism is collectivism. If the collective wants to switch to another form of collectivism that doesn’t let people starve and die for not having enough imaginary numbers in their bank accounts, the collective is...

Short comment on Frank Li's new book.econinterest"History 2.0" - Blurb by Jeffrey SachsJeffrey D. Sachs, public policy analyst and former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he holds the title of University Professor

The size of public debt and deficits is not — as already Abba Lerner argued with his ‘functional finance’ theory in the 1940s — a policy objective. The size of public debt and deficits are what they are when we try to fulfil our basic economic objectives — full employment and price stability.Governments can spend whatever amount of money they want. That does not mean that MMT says they ought to — that’s something our politicians have to decide. No MMTer denies that too much of government...

Coming off a low base. That is how to view the latest data release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics of the – Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, December 2020 (released March 3, 2020). It shows that the Australian economy grew by 3.1 per cent in the December-quarter after growing by 3.4 per cent in the September-quarter. But the economy is still 1.1 per cent smaller than it was this time last year. The other thing to take from the data is that it...