Mike Norman Economics

Masks are effective at stopping the spread of COVID-19.It’s not very often that a physics problem becomes a politicized issue, but that’s exactly what’s happened when it comes to the science of wearing a mask during the current coronavirus pandemic. ForbesAsk Ethan: What Is The Science Behind Wearing A Mask?

This article is optimistic that in the end, despite the anti-vaxxers, enough people will eventually come forward to have the vaccine.The psychologist says that if we use the same standard as previous vaccines, 80 per cent of people having exposure to the virus constitutes herd immunity. “Right now we really just don’t know, are we going to voluntarily get to that 80 per cent or not,” she says. Lackner says although a vaccine doesn’t exist yet, it’s important to research these sentiments...

Despite trade-war pain, China reportedly sees chance to take geostrategic lead if President Trump wins re-election. "If Biden is elected, I think this could be more dangerous for China, because he will work with allies to target China, whereas Trump is destroying U.S. alliances," said Zhou Xiaoming, a former Chinese trade negotiator and former deputy representative in Geneva. Four current officials echoed that sentiment, saying many in the Chinese government believed a Trump victory...

At the beginning of treatment high dose Chloroquine seemed to save lives, but in later stages fatality rates went up. The trail in this experiment was halted early because of the dangers.  While this trial was interrupted at an early stage, the results should be seen as a warning that chloroquine (and probably hydroxychloroquine) are not the purported wonder drugs for those with COVID-19. Rod Tucker BPharm PhD  Chloroquine in severe COVID-19: reviewing the evidence

The outgoing Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, says Israel cannot annex the West Bank, because the land already belongs to the Jews according to the bible, which is the Jewish deed to the land. And Danon speaks not as representative of just the government of Israel, but the Jewish people... Mondoweiss‘We have biblical rights to the land, the Bible is our deed’ — Israeli ambassador explains why West Bank belongs to Israel Philip WeissRelatedAl MonitorErdogan: Turkey on...

The core of the Iran-China strategic partnership – no secret whatsoever since at least last year – revolves around a $400 billion Chinese investment in Iran’s energy and infrastructure for the next 25 years. It’s all about securing a matter of supreme Chinese national interest: a steady supply of oil and gas, bypassing the dangerous bottleneck of the Strait of Malacca, secured with a median 18% discount, and paid in yuan or in a basket of currencies bypassing the US dollar. Beijing will...

Should-read.Chris Dillow is a Marxian economist. Like Michael Roberts is moderately familiar with the MMT literature. Both offers critiques of MMT from the Marxian perspective. The critique of Roberts is more from the macro side and in my view has weaknesses although it is worth responding to as an intelligent and moderately informed criticism.Chris Dillow's critique is from the side of political economy, which is different from contemporary macro. He socres points with respect to...

Leverage limits as a form of capital regulation have a well-known, potential bug: If banks can’t lever returns as desired, they can boost returns on equity by shifting toward riskier, higher yielding assets. That reach for yield is the leverage rule “arbitrage.” But would banks do that? In a previous post, we discussed evidence from our working paper that banks did do just that in response to the new leverage rule that took effect in 2018. This post discusses new findings in our revised...

Huge drop in bank deposits may hint at some trouble for the market. 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

Military spending and endless war are about the only matters on which there is bipartisan agreement in US politics, other than favoring capital as foundational to policy because "growth," and "a rising tide lifts all boats." Think this will change in the next election if the Democrats win? Think long and hard on that one. In the first place, the military-industrial complex is entrenched in the economies of all congressional districts, incentivizing representatives of the people not to...