Mike Norman Economics

 Alongside the Mate 40, Huawei also announced its enhanced “Petal Search,” part of a new app family that includes the company’s long-awaited Google Maps replacement. This is a stunning strike at Google’s search dominance on Huawei devices—at least those that sell outside China. With Google now under scrutiny given its dominance of web search, it is unsurprising that Huawei—driven by the loss of Google—is getting in on the act. With hundreds of millions on its ecosystem, it’s a compelling...

 On the world stage, profound changes are under way. Obviously, China and Russia have lost the confidence that the West will contribute to the solution of the world’s problems in some constructive manner. China and Russia have now accepted their role as the leading forces with the responsibility of holding the world together. The West held this role for centuries, but this time is over. The West has essentially become destructive. The West has lost the power of solving problems and now use...

Longish and detailed. Not mostly about the Uyghurs.What's LeftThe Chinese Uyghur Dark Legend and Washington’s Campaign to Counter Chinese Economic Rivalry Stephen Gowans

According to Challenges, France’s 500 largest fortunes have thus risen from €210 to €730 billion between 2010 and 2020 (from 10% to 30% of GDP). Such a development is socially and politically unsustainable....The whole history of public debt shows this: money alone cannot offer a peaceful solution to a problem of this magnitude, because it leads in one way or another to uncontrolled distributive consequences. It was by resorting to exceptional levies on the better-off that the large public...

 I'm going to have watch this one a few times, I think. [embedded content]

In the West changing the government only makes a minor difference to policy. We have freedom of speech although it does not make a lot of difference. In China people like their government and are fairly happy with their freedoms. The Chinese people being interviewed in the video below seem to be very happy and relaxed. Despite a recent report that China is poised to overtake the U.S. economy by 2020, China still remains very much a mystery in the eyes of the Western world and is often...

A great deal of significance has been attached to the fall in r*, which is the current preferred term for what was known as the natural rate of interest. My belief is that this fall is not due to structural factors in the real economy, rather it is an artefact of the means of estimating r*, as well as the reaction function of New Keynesian central bankers....Bond Economics Falling r* Is No AccidentBrian Romanchuk

Apt quote, from FT of all places.Lars P. Syll’s BlogReforming economicsLars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says the cost per megawatt to build solar plants is below fossil fuels worldwide for the first time.Public success stories like Elon Musk's solar and wind battery farm in Australia have helped move public sentiment.All four IEA scenarios include a mix of renewables as well as nuclear and the world's remaining fossil fuel plants.Popular MechanicsIt's Official: Solar Is the Cheapest Electricity in HistoryCaroline Delbert

[embedded content]Some of the defectors’ stories seem downright unbelievable. And perhaps there’s evidence that they are, in fact, fabricated. Here’s what we know.Are the Defectors Telling the Truth? Why the Horrifying Stories of Life in North Korea May Be Fabricated