Mike Norman Economics

Industry observers said that these plans by China's first-tier cities send a clear signal that DCEP will be subject to large-scale testing this year against the backdrop of a global race, which will lay a solid foundation for its launch in the near future."The pilot testing is only the first step of a 'long march.' Once launched, the digital yuan will reshape China's financial industry and unleash a promising digital finance service sector worth billions of yuan," a Shenzhen-based veteran...

The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) concluded that China became the largest FDI receiver last year over the U.S., with flows increasing by 4 percent to $163 billion, Bloomberg News reported. Most countries saw decreases due to the coronavirus pandemic, including the U.S., which saw its flow drop by 49 percent to $134 billion, according to UNCTAD’s Investment Trends Monitor. The U.S.’s decrease was seen in wholesale trade, financial services and manufacturing....The HillUN...

A Pentagon report released earlier this month warns that concentrated supply chains, offshoring, and a “business climate that has favored short-term shareholder earnings” have all “severely damaged” America’s ability to arm itself....ProMarket — The blog of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of BusinessPentagon Report Points to Two Major Risks to National Security: Consolidation and Shareholder CapitalismAsher Schechter

Why models fail.As a philosophy professor, I taught logic and critical thinking as part of the introductory course. This involved a cursory study of methodology. Part of the course is about methods of correct reasoning and part about incorrect. The part about incorrect reasoning is about identifying arguments that sound great but are just wrong and showing why they are wrong. This part seems to have been overlook in teaching introductory economics and apparently some (many?) economists never...

There is clearly confusion among mainstream economists as the fractures in their paradigm are being revealed on an almost daily basis. And the more venal ideological motivations are also becoming clearer, that is, if they weren’t already completely transparent. On January 21, 2021, the World Bank published a Policy Research Working Paper – Does Central Bank Independence Increase Inequality? – which demonstrated that the way central banking has been conducted in this neoliberal era has been...

Update on the "color revolution" in Russia. (Not.)The Unz ReviewThe Kremlins Aren't Falling - But Relations with the US AreAnatoly Karlin

Censorship watch.Facebook has banned Dmitry Rogozin's account after the head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency wrote a post criticising the former US envoy to Russia, Michael McFaul.In his post, Rogozin warned McFaul against meddling in Russian affairs after the former ambassador gave his two cents on the state of the Russian democracy and the protests supporting Alexei Navalny that swept across the country on Saturday. McFaul said the Russian blogger should be free after his arrest last...

The US is nowhere near as economically dominant as it was even a decade ago. Yet President-elect Joe Biden can take several relatively simple steps that would have far-reaching benefits for the US economy, the American people, and the rest of the world....Project SyndicateFour Ways Biden Can Boost the Global EconomyJayati Ghosh | Professor of Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi

The New York Times and other elite media outlets have openly embraced advocacy over reporting....The opposite of censorship, which amounts to silencing opposition, is advocacy, which amounts to propaganda. It used to be called "yellow press" although that term seems to have lapsed into history.While this is chiefly about politics, advocacy and censorship affect not only politics but also economics. As always, follow the money and power.City-JournalSlouching Toward Post-JournalismMartin...

Update on Pipelinestan, here largely natural gas.It's all about controlling territory and both stocks and flows of resources with some big players (China, Russia, Turkey) involved along with the little players, the "stans." Turkey, especially, is an emergent power in the region.OilpriceThe One Big Problem With A Central Asian Energy CorridorAlan Mammoser for Oilprice.com