Mike Norman Economics

In my monthly labour market updates for Australia, I always examine the teenage labour market. Not much media coverage is given to that cohort in this context. But as our societies age and require our younger workers to be more productive than their parents to maintain material living standards (even though we should be reappraising what is an environmentally feasible benchmark to maintain), how we deal with school-to-work transitions, vocational training, university education is a major...

We have evolved to have soft, friendly looking faces because we are very cooperative and gregarious creatures, say researchers. Our ability to cooperate is probably more important than our intelligence for the survival of our species. British naturalist Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection often gets broken down into one simple phrase: ‘Survival of the fittest,’ which we’ve come to understand as the survival of the strongest, meanest, most aggressive, and selfish. It’s...

Study finds our anatomy has evolved faster than any time in the past 250 years. When I was a boy it was genuinely believed that the human race was not evolving anymore because of medicines and vaccines stopping the vulnerable from dying, but it seems we are still evolving.I hope we are evolving into kinder creatures too. Babies are no longer being born with wisdom teeth as the human race continues to evolve faster than at any time in the past 250 years, according to a study. The...

 There are many lies that are told about China, but why is it so hard for Western Media to tell the truth? I first went to China in January 2007, from that moment until now, I've never read or heard a single piece of positive content about China from Western media. Can China really be as bad as Western media wants us to believe?[embedded content]

Professor Tim Anderson is debating Professor Dennis Rancourt tonight in an event staged by the Off-Guardian. I hope Tim got my tweet in time, where I sent him the article below, but he's probably fully clued up on it all anyway.Dennis Rancourt, a physics professor, wrote an article saying that masks did not work, but when you clicked on the science articles he referred to, they said the opposite. How did he make such a crazy mistake, David Kyle Johnson has a few theories?When my colleague...

 The ‘think-tank’ behind the Great Barrington Declaration is part-funded by right-wing American billionaire Charles Koch'Herd immunity' is under question too. The claim that “thousands of scientists” are supporting the Barrington Declaration was reported far and wide by major media outlets from the BBC to the Daily Mail. But when I attempted to check how the signatory process works, I discovered that there was no vetting procedure in place for signatories – anybody could become a confirmed...

Around the world, evidence mounts that vitamin D can protect against infection by COVID-19 and ease the virus' symptoms, but the medical establishment isn't convinced. Is it time to think outside the box?It's behind a paywall, but the heading is good enough. You should publish the article as quickly as possible,” I was advised by Dr. Shaul Lev, who heads the general intensive care unit at Hasharon Hospital in Petah Tikva, and chairman of the Israel Society for Clinical Nutrition, at the...

 The Trump administration’s new sanctions on Iran are so wide-reaching that many fear they are meant to directly harm the Iranian people as they struggle to cope with the coronavirus pandemic.Heartless and Sadistic Iran was one of the first countries to be hit badly by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the U.S. used the opportunity to cause maximum devastation by intimidating other nations into refusing to sell or donate them medical supplies, lest they be hit with secondary sanctions. As a result,...

The Dow's run to 30k was interrupted last month. But the move is on again. 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

A critique of the MMT JG from the left.This is interesting in that the author seems to be arguing with leaving the system in place because doing so is more favorable for labor market power. It is interesting because his real desire is to transform the existing system away from "capitalism," at least the neoliberal variety that is presently in place. I am left assuming that he thinks either that workers are better able to transform "capitalism" from within without a JG, or something else that...