Mike Norman Economics

Let's walk about Urumqi! It's not perfect as no questions asked about Islam or the Chinese government but you do get to see a bit of Xinjiang. It will be interesting to see what part 2 is like.Traveling to Xinjiang during the worst pandemic in 100 years wasn't fun but, it was my only chance to travel as my classes were all online. My subs have been asking me to go there since I returned to youtube so here is my trip. [embedded content]

Foreign Affairs is a publication of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).Time to resurrect Keynes (and E. F. Schumacher's) bancor proposal made at Bretton Woods but rejected in favor of using the US dollar as the global reserve currency? Presdient Nixon famously ended the Bretton Woods agreement when he closed the gold window, ending dollar convertibility into gold at a fixed rate. This set the world on a floating rate monetary system with the USD remaining the reserve currency.Foreign...

 Five Eyes is the moniker for the intelligence services of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which are joined at the hip. The Five Eyes intelligence alliance is looking to expand into Japan and broaden itself into a strategic economic relationship, that pools key strategic reserves, whilst working internationally to decouple the west from China. Security alliance or anti-competition and preservation of neo-imperialism and neocolonialism?To the Chinese people, this looks like...

Another good one from Peter Radford. Economists love letting us know that they know about the potential various errors that might devastate the core of what they believe, but they equally love sweeping such anomalies under the rug so as not to have to re-invent their discipline.…But back to increasing returns. It’s one of those topics that economists like to tuck away and discuss out of the glare of public gaze. It represents a considerable challenge to the foundation of contemporary...

A real Marxist — not a Marxist or Marxian economist who also understand MMT very well — comments on the MMT JG. Magpie is not only an ordinary person (worker) but also very intelligent and well-read. In that sense he represents an important constituency that needs to be taken into account in the debate.I understand why MMT economists have taken the tack they have strategically. They apparently want to argue narrowly what can be accomplished to change both current economic thinking, the...

And, as businesses take on increasing amounts of debt, the percentage of “zombie firms“—corporations whose debt servicing costs are higher than their profits but are kept alive by relentless borrowing—is now close to 20 percent.… But zombie capitalism is real capitalism. Corporations and banks, supported by their political and media representatives, presume that in both good times and bad they are entitled to turn to assistance from a shifting combination of public and private...

Here is Episode 9 in our weekly MMTed Q&A series. In this episode, my special guest is Warren Mosler. We talked about the idea that taxpayers fund government spending and the related nuances. Bill Mitchell – billy blogMMTed Q&A – Episode 9Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Land value tax. EconospeakGoodbye To The Last True Georgist Economist: Mason GaffneyJ. Barkley Rosser | Professor of Economics and Business Administration James Madison University

Yeah, ZH. But it is reporting on a study by that advises the Australian government, Australia being caught in the middle of this. Of course, this is only an "assessment." A top independent Australia-based think tank which regularly advises the Canberra government has produced a "risk assessment" studying the likelihood of America and China going to war. Involving defense experts around the world, the study was undertaken on the heels of the US sending two carrier strike groups to sail...

"Capialism" resists a short definition that captures nuance. Richard D. Wolff explains how captialism is a many faceted phenomenon with varied structure and function.Economy For AllRichard D. Wolff – Many Terms That Are Frequently Used to Describe Capitalism Simply Don’t Hold Up Under Scrutiny