Mike Norman Economics

 In the desperate scramble for protective gear and other equipment, politically connected companies reaped billions.When the pandemic exploded in March, British officials embarked on a desperate scramble to procure the personal protective equipment, ventilators, coronavirus tests and other supplies critical to containing the surge. In the months following those fevered days, the government handed out thousands of contracts to fight the virus, some of them in a secretive “V.I.P. lane” to a...

 China's Huawei said on Thursday it would invest 200 million euros in building a mobile phone network equipment factory in the east of France, pressing ahead with the roll-out despite French curbs on firms using its 5G gear.Reuters Huawei to build network equipment factory in France

 European Jewish groups decry ruling, say it puts 'animal welfare above... freedom of religion'; Israel: Decision signals to Jewish communities that they aren’t wanted in EuropeIn any humane society, animal welfare comes before religeon. To cause such terrible fear and suffering in animals is completely unacceptable. The European Court of Justice ruled Thursday that authorities can order that animals be stunned before slaughter in a case that Jewish and Muslim groups warned could curb...

Remember those CARES ACT funds that Mnuchin wanted the Fed to give back? Like I said at the time, no effect on Fed loans. Trade and invest using the concepts of MMT. Get a 30-day free trial to MMT Trader. https://www.pitbulleconomics.com/mmt-trader/?s2-ssl=yes/ Download my podcasts! New one every week. https://www.buzzsprout.com/1105286 Mike Norman Twitter https://twitter.com/mikenorman

The Economic Consequences of Major Tax Cuts for the Rich (pdf), a working paper published this month by the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and written by LSE’s David Hope and Julian Limberg of King’s College London, examines data from nearly 20 OECD countries, including the U.K. and the U.S., and finds that the past five decades have been characterized by “falling taxes on the rich in the advanced economies,” with “major tax cuts… particularly...

Mervyn King trashes MMT.If you can’t explain something, try an abbreviation. The latest in economics is MMT — Modern Monetary Theory or, in other words, a magic money tree. It’s a simple idea. It costs almost nothing to print money: the cost of printing banknotes is negligible compared with their face value, and even lower when the Bank of England creates money electronically through its so-called ‘quantitative easing’ programme (QE). That money could be given to the public — either directly...

MMT in India.The Week'Poor' economicsNavin J Antony

The model has limitations, of course, but it's an interesting study about in-group and out-group behavior under different economic conditions. As might be expected, adversity results in retrenchment as defense. Since this is a cultural phenomenon and the social, political and economic are linked in a culture, economic conditions have social and political effects, including increased polarization in times of economic adversity or inequality.Socially, a consequence is polarization in the sense...

 New network-security legislation is latest setback for U.S. effort to rein in Chinese tech giantBERLIN—The German government Wednesday moved closer to allowing the use of Huawei’s technology in 5G mobile networks, giving the Chinese company a small victory on a European continent increasingly aligned with the Trump administration’s anti-Huawei views.A bill approved by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet that would allow Huawei’s continued presence in Germany still requires parliamentary...

 Our research shows that the economic case for keeping taxes on the rich low is weakDr Hope, Visiting Fellow at LSE’s International Inequalities Institute and Lecturer in Political Economy at King’s College London, said: “Our research shows that the economic case for keeping taxes on the rich low is weak. Major tax cuts for the rich since the 1980s have increased income inequality, with all the problems that brings, without any offsetting gains in economic performance.”Dr Limberg, Lecturer...