Mike Norman Economics

US president says news reports suggesting North Korean leader Kim is 'gravely ill' were based on old documents. Two days old, but I thought this was interesting. Trump isn't in on the propaganda about Kim Jong Un.United States President Donald Trump earlier this week threw more cold water on news reports suggesting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was gravely ill, calling it "fake" news. Trump: Reports on N Korea's Kim Jong Un illness are 'fake' news

It is a question often asked: what do Ricardo and Marx have to say about interpersonal inequality of income? The answer is, strictly speaking, very little. In writings of neither Ricardo nor Marx does inequality in personal incomes feature at all, and I even think that the concept of what we call “interpersonal inequality” or “size distribution of incomes” does not appear. The reason why this is the case is both simple and revealing. Ricardo and Marx were concerned with functional (between...

Both parties in the US are out to lunch.EconospeakWe Need a Shadow GovernmentPeter Dorman | Professor of Political Economy, The Evergreen State College

I've been in debate with an ex CEO of a bank. He says banks lend out deposits and called me a conspiracy theorist.Anyway, two interesting articles Banks do not create money out of thin air, by Pontus Rendahl, Lukas B. Freund In recent years, some have claimed that banks create money ‘ex nihilo’. This column explains that banks do not create money out of thin air. From an economic viewpoint, commercial banks create private money by transforming an illiquid asset (the borrower’s future ability...

The Kindle edition of Recessions: Volume I has been published on Amazon (affiliate link). This book is longer than my previous ones (59,000 words). Bond Economics "Recessions: Volume I" Kindle Edition PublishedBrian Romanchuk

The UK has entered its worst-case scenario as the coronavirus death toll is now rising beyond the highest figure predicted by government scientists The UK has now entered its ‘worst-case scenario’

The low fatality figures for COVID-19 are meaningless. If a city has lots of young people then the fatality rate is low, but if a city has a lot of older people then the fatality rate is high.Study challenges reports of low fatality rate for COVID-19

LOL!  Loonie lefty losers fellow TDS deranged hero Maher busting Nervous Nancy on all the "funny money!"....  can't make it up!Yeah fiscal transfers are going to reduce consumption component!  LOL!!! WATCH: Maher presses Pelosi on coronavirus spending: "Funny money" may collapse economy into depression https://t.co/Lsdwk3eeVa pic.twitter.com/V42wDOAhB6 — The Hill (@thehill) April 25, 2020

Wow: Democrats are considering proposing a new round of direct cash payments to U.S. households and extending a similar benefit to the smallest businesses, as they struggle to get federal loans.  Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wants to extend those cash payments to what he calls “the smallest of the small businesses.”  Wyden’s plan, and a similar proposal in the House, would give small businesses up to $75,000 as they struggle with closures and drop-offs in...

This is good news, although some older people have died because it spread through care homes. But shutting down the economy risks lives too in the long run.The impose a lockdown amid the coronavirus outbreak. The strategy — aimed at building a broad-base of immunity while protecting at-risk groups like the elderly — has proved controversial. But Sweden's chief epidemiologist has said "herd immunity" could be reached in Stockholm within weeks. Sweden resisted a lockdown, and its capital...