Mike Norman Economics

This question of "what would be the damage if we didn’t get the virus under control?" is what economists call opportunity cost. University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers sums up this parallel universe thinking neatly: “If you think shutdowns hurt the economy, you should see what pandemics do." His observation is based on an analysis of the effects of restrictions imposed in the US during the 1918 Spanish Flu. The study found that letting a pandemic sweep through the community is what...

Know one knows for certain what letting Coronavirus running uncontrolled through our society would do? One scenario it could fizzle out after it has killed about 30% of very old people who were about to die anyway.  It is said that if Lockdowns damage our economies too much, then many more people would die than Covid-19 would ever kill, which may be true, but we don't know for certain. I tend to share the view of Mr. Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, that...

Much of the US propagation about China is on the alleged Uighurs slave camps. But American companies run slave camps all over the world, which is a well known fact. People are not forced to work in these sweatshops, but the people who work in them had no choice.It's chilling to see the white Nike management working in their plush surroundings with no concern for the Nike workers or their terrible living conditions.The hero in this film exposes the hipocrisy of neoliberalism.Nike Sweatshops:...

The RT channels I like are very liberal/ left, but some people accuse RT of being racist, promoting right-wing populism and anti immigration sentiment in Europe.RT is certainly diverse, with some sections promoting climate change denial and neoliberalism. These are the smaller channels that hardly ever turn up in my YouTube feed.This video is very interesting as it's starts off sounding pretty bad by saying how the immigrants in Britain our housed in 3 to 4 star hotels, something the British...

Interestingly, the quantification of culture seems to support this view. People in developed countries tend to be more individualistic than those in less developed countries. WEIRD [Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic] people also tend to be more skeptical of autocracy and more receptive to norm-shirking behavior (behavior that economists would call ‘innovation’). This evidence seems to support the narrative (cherished by economists) that economic development is a...

To save lives, and save the economy, we need another lockdown. By Michael T. Osterholm and Neel Kashkari Dr. Osterholm is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Mr. Kashkari is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Steve Keen has been advocating this for months, but to eliminate covid-19 within 6 to 8 weeks.  In just weeks we could almost stop the viral fire that has swept across this country over the...

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The Analysis (collision course)The Danger of War With China is Real and InsanePaul Jay interviews Col. Larry WilkersonIan Welsh (Sterling Newberry comments also)America Is About To Feel Like A 3rd World NationZero Hedge (V-shaped recovery or L-shaped depression?)2020's Economic Depression Is Becoming An Endless Nightmare For Millions Of AmericansTyler DurdenRT (If things get bad enough, could be a new New Deal)Covid-19 pandemic will ‘bring socialism to US’ and transform the world – Nassim...

I didn't know how this would go, but it has been fairly unbiased so far. It will be interesting to see how Part 2 goes next week. [embedded content]

I put out a video here recently where a psychologist said that lockdowns and social distancing may cause so much stress that it could have a bigger negative effect on the economy than Covid-19. But it needn't be so, as China shows, and wearing masks may mean we never need to ever lockdown again.TimeChina became the first major economy to grow since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, recording an unexpectedly strong 3.2% expansion in the latest quarter after anti-virus lockdowns were...