Mike Norman Economics

Longtime friend Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism published an interview today with Richard Vague, Pennsylvania's acting Secretary of Banking and Securities, that takes issue with my last two Substack pieces on the recent bailouts. Both Vague and Yves seem to think I've been "acrophobic" about modern Monetary Theory and perhaps unconsciously mired in questionable orthodoxies about debt and government spending.... Matt TaibbiA Quick Note In Response to Naked Capitalism— I'm phobic about...

Productive capital versus fictitious capital.Reminiscence of the FutureWhat Could Be Better Than...[Reading Michael Hudson] Andrei MartyanovSee also from Andrei Martyanov today.Who Would Have Thought. Reading The Signs. Noblesse Oblige 2.0.

These two banks are taking today about a combined $10B loan loss reserve from the Wuhan Virus... Citi and BofA reporting later this week probably count them in for another $10B so maybe $20B total from the 4 money centers...  so far... Chase Bank & Wells Fargo Prepare for MASSIVE Round of Defaults on Credit Cards, #Mortgages & Business Loans... https://t.co/8puIWQm0CJ #ChaseBank #WellsFargo #recession #CreditCards #SBAloans — The Altruist Party - Economic Sustainability...

And much more coming. If they reopen the economy soon, growth could skyrocket. Trade and invest using the concepts and understandings of MMT. Get a 30-day free trial to MMT Trader. https://www.pitbulleconomics.com/mmt-trader/?s2-ssl=yes/

MMT is a theory of empire. This is not to say that its advocates are imperialists. Rather, they are observers who note a reality that the post-colonial thinker has long understood – imperialists can run the world on whims and fictions. The question is ultimately, what are the merits of the whims. Should the US spend a trillion dollars invading a country of herdsmen, or should it build better hospitals, airports, and highways? MMT does not take a position on this; it merely states that the...

The crisis has brought the economy to a near halt, and left millions of people out of work. But thanks to intervention on an unprecedented scale, a full-scale meltdown has been averted – for now....  So far, it's pretty much the same as it was in the previous financial crisis — finance was saved, others ?The potential for civilizational collapse is all too real. This pandemic has so far served as a wake-up call. Will it be heard?The Guardian (UK}How Coronavirus Almost Brought Down The...

Tradeoffs.Conversable EconomistA COVID-19 Two-Pronged Choice: Production Possiblity FrontiersTimothy Taylor | Managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, based at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota

Excellent summary of monetary operations and how they are conducted. The Bank of England has just announced it will now do exactly what I suggested above: type funds into the UK government’s account and give it a "ways and means" overdraft, just to keep the books in order. People are beginning to understand how the system works. They are beginning to understand that governments in monetary systems such as our own can never run out of their own currencies. They are beginning to get modern...

Regulators have given banks the green light to use stimulus funds to pay off debts that individuals owe them. Your money or your life! This week, the $1,200 CARES Act payments Congress approved in response to the coronavirus crisis will begin to appear in Americans’ bank accounts. The funds will be wired to eligible recipients who previously authorized the IRS to post their refunds (or Social Security payments) through direct deposit. This will speed relief far more quickly than...

So how does this end? Michael Hudson: Ha! The same way that Rome ended. In Rome the oligarchy always overreached itself, impoverishing the economy. In Rome that led to a Dark Age. We’re going to be entering something like that at the end of summer in this country, because you’re going to have many homeless pouring onto the street, many families losing their homes, small businesses who’ve had to go under, medium-sized businesses that have decided to sell out to the large private capital...