Mike Norman Economics

Podcast: Tim Andersen and John Wright hold my views on Covid-19. They talk about the neoliberals, the conservatives, and the populist liberals who believe their individual rights are being taken away during this pandemic. John Wright Interviews Professor Tim Anderson on Covid-19 Tim-Anderson Markus Balázs Göransson says the Swedish middle class, the young, and the fit have abandoned the poor, the vulnerable, and the old.  Responsibility of the Swedish left for Sweden’s COVID-19...

A dispute between the US and Germany over Russian gas is likely to come to a head this week as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo embarks on a European tour. The US believes a new pipeline makes Germany too dependent on Russia. There is already one pipeline running under the Baltic Sea. Now a new one, Nord Stream 2, is nearing completion. It's expected to pump some 55 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia to Germany every year. The project has been a major bone of contention between Berlin...

But not enough to bring overall spending down. That's still rising. 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

Trump announces sweeping reforms for drug pricing. And Right to Try: if someone has a terminal illness and an experimental drug could save them, then they have the right to try it, but they can't sue anybody if it harms them. [embedded content]

Quick summary: Turn on your crap detector, tune in to what is really going on, and drop out of the matrix of lies that spins the illusion. Caitlin Johnstone — Rogue JournalistThe Undoing Of Illusions: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative MatrixCaitlin Johnstone relatedZero Hedge"Somebody Needs To Go To Jail": Graham Erupts After Document Reveals FBI Lied To CongressTyler DurdenalsoSalonHow the 1971 Stanford prison experiment prophesied America's authoritarian backslideMatthew Rozsa

A major problem in approaching this is that Lebanon is a snake pit, and so is the region as a whole. So the presumption is that one or some of the snakes did it. As usual Pepe provides insight based on insider sources. Lots of suspicions but no firm conclusion.The one sure thing is that further destabilization will result as a consequence.Asia TimesWho profits from the Beirut blast? Making the case that the explosion resulted from an attackPepe Escobar

There was a debate on my Twitter timeline whether or not the Fed sets the entire yield curve. Since I am in the midst of writing a MMT primer, the party line is bubbling up in my mind: the yield curve is a policy variable. However, the exact mechanism is not entirely obvious, and the situation is arguably ambiguous.Bond EconomicsWho Sets The Yield Curve?Brian Romanchuk

While I disagree with Scott Sumner's (Austrian) economics, I think he is pretty good social commentator.The Money IllusionAre they really this clueless?Scott Sumner | Ralph G. Hawtrey Chair of Monetary Policy at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University

This is a must read carefully to the end, even though it is longish. while it is not about MMT specifically, it has implications for the development and application of MMT in designing a socio-economic system capable of seizing emergent opportunities and approaching emergent challenges of fast-changing times owing to technological advances.Also note that the third way between laissez-fair and central planning does NOT refer to the political "third way" of the corporate Clinton-era Democratic...

Experts predict an increase in deaths across the region, made significantly worse by lawmakers who question the value of face coverings Parson said the worst of the pandemic was past and the economic impact of the shutdown was worse than the virus. As for masks, the governor dismissively claimed “there was a lot of information on both sides” over whether to wear one so he wasn’t going to require people to do so. Three months later, Covid-19 is surging in Missouri and in many other...