Mike Norman Economics

Iran and Russia have linked their banking systems, a senior Iranian official said on Monday, a move that will allow the two heavily sanctioned countries with deepening economic ties to trade and conduct business outside the US financial system.The two connected their interbank communication and transfer systems. Since the 2018 reimposition of sanctions, Iran has been disconnected from the western-based Swift financial messaging system, while many Russian banks were kicked off the platform...

Let's stop the finger-pointing and have an honest conversation. Neither side is responsible for our debt crisis, because there isn't one.... Substantial post.The LensThe "National Debt" is No One's Fault Stephanie Kelton | Professor of Public Policy and Economics at Stony Brook University, formerly Democrats' chief economist on the staff of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, and an economic adviser to the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders

Even a little "MMT" thrown in.Of course, a wealth tax would raise money. But the government does not need money: it can print as much of it as you want. It needs real resources: nurses, care-workers, builders, quality managers and so on.Stumbling and MumblingCargo cult economicsChris Dillow, Investors Chronicle

Lula's visit to Argentina, during the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) meeting, brought about a brief discussion of the possibility of a common currency. I have discussed here (as well as many guest bloggers) both currency unions, in particular the euro, and it's consequences. Note that the FT piece linked suggested that the common currency was the first step in a long process. I doubt it, in part because, if the end goal is a real currency union, it would be a...

The big growth in this century is expected to be in Asia, including Central Asia and Southeast Asia, and Africa — unless the West can either control the regions or disrupt their growth. Growth requires increased energy use and alternative energy other than nuclear is not there yet. And even with nuclear energy, much of the planet's uranium now comes from Kazakstan and Russia. Russia also constructs nuclear power plants. This article is mostly about natural gas along with the geopolitics and...

Alex Williams recently wrote “What Is ‘Core PCE Services Ex-Housing’ Anyway?,” which dissects the measure that the Fed is using to get a handle on “underlying” inflation. The most interesting bit (for me) is that about 1/4 of this measure is an imputed price index, based on wages. This means that this component will track wages (giving a convenient analytical relationship) by definition.The logic of following this measure is that the Fed convinced itself that the core (ex-food and and...

Britain is now in a very undesirable state. The governing Tories are bereft of any sensible ideas and likely to lose the next General election in 2024 to Labour, who are promising to be the party of ‘sound finance’, which means they will be incapable of dealing with the challenges that face the nation in a highly volatile world and will likely end up losing popularity and ceding government back to the Tories. And just as in 2010, the Labour reputation will tarnished and they will be lost...

The problem with conventional economics is that it requires that the "settled methodology" define both the questions and how they are answered, insuring that their mathematical models will be tractable. That is inappropriate for complex adaptive systems. All life systems and especially social systems are complex adaptive systems that are appropriately modeled using organic models rather than mechanistic models suitable for the natural sciences.While MMT does not use organic modeling based on...

Gold ruble in the works? Longish. Many details. Speculative so far.Sergei Glazyev has apparently shifted from a commodity basket toward international settlement in gold with the value of gold being anchored to a barrel of oil.GoldmoneyRussia’s intentions are clarifyingAlasdair Macleod

The New Silk Roads, or BRI, as well as the integration efforts of BRICS+, the SCO and the EAEU will be on the forefront of Chinese policy.Strategic Culture Foundation (sanctioned by the US Treasury Department)Can You Smell What the Year of the Rabbit Is Cooking?Pepe EscobarSee alsoRussian Foreign Minister Lavrov informed Africans during a press conference while on his latest tour of the continent that India is an independent multipolar powerhouse. His exact words were as follows: “Those...