Mike Norman Economics

Overnight, Goldman confirmed as much, writing that President Xi participated at group discussions at the Two Sessions on Friday, with some of his comments reported on Saturday. Notably he said if it were not because of the pandemic, the growth target would be set at around 6%. He added that a global recession is guaranteed, and given this, if a numerical target (implicitly at a relatively high level) was set, it would require a strong stimulus and the focus of the government would be on the...

Behavioral economics vindicated. This 1979 Kahneman-Tversky study and its contemporary replication is about loss aversion. There are many, many more cognitive-affective biases affecting rationality. There is also illogic, since most people are not trained in either critical thinking or rigorous scientific method, and mathematical innumeracy is high, especially when the long term is included, as it is in many economists' assumptions about rationality and maximization. Then there is...

Barkeley Rosser says to take Roubini with a grain of salt, but only a grain, since he makes some important points. I am in agreement with that. Both optimism and pessimism need to be tempered with realism, and reality is fraught with uncertainty owing to human decisions that affect conditions. And just as the weather is relatively uncertain other than short term, reality has a way of delivering "exogenous shocks." So the watchword should be "caution." That is not a meme or mantra of this...

Stock market declines are linked to early death, illness, and fatal accidents. Are you at risk? This is what bothers me about the Lockdown, could it kill more people than Covid-19 in the long run?Losing money in the stock market can cost you your life, and I'm not just talking about the old cliché of people jumping out of skyscraper windows when markets crash. In fact, people with as little as 10 percent of their wealth in the stock market who experience a 10 percent loss stand an...

Risk of debt-deflation taking hold?Zero HedgeBankruptcy Tsunami Begins: Thousands Of Default Notices Are "Flying Out The Door" Tyler DurdenSee alsoZero HedgeTracking The Recovery: What Real-Time Data Says About The State Of The Global EconomyTyler Durden

It’s absolutely essential to position the Two Sessions [of the 13th National People’s Congress] within the larger, incandescent geopolitical and geoeconomic context of the de facto new Cold War – hybrid war included – between the US and China.... The great game is still about who controls the Eurasian land mass as the center of the "world island," set forth by British strategist Halford Mackinder, and the "rimland," proposed by Nicholas J. Spykman. These doctrines were the basis of the...

The Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) urges Donald Trump to avoid the slippery slope toward armed conflict as an Iranian oil tanker nears Venezuela on Sunday.... Consortium NewsVIPS MEMO: To the President—Avoid Hostilities Over Iranian Fuel Shipment to VenezuelaMay 22, 2020

Worth a read in full, so no spoilers.Progressive PulseIf the rich knew what tax was for they might actually appreciate it…Peter May

The arms race is on. And further reason for Russia and China to enter into a closer military alliance to counter the US and its allies. The world is splitting economically, politically and militarily into opposing camps again, which is doubly dangerous in difficult economic times. Liberal globalization is on hold for the foreseeable future, as the rivalry between liberalism and traditionalism heats up. India PunchlineRussia, China won’t accept US nuclear superiority M. K. Bhadrakumar |...

When it comes to thinking about which economic sectors and industry niches that consume the most energy, cryptocurrencies may not immediately come to mind. But for some of these crypto companies, their energy and carbon footprints are not just considerable, they’re massive. The most famous example, Bitcoin, has an annual energy footprint slightly larger than the entire nation of Switzerland. The company’s current energy consumption can be tracked here. Last year, the University of...