Mike Norman Economics

Trump would have to make a strategic offer that Russia could not resist to get some cooperation on oil prices.…But what strategic offer could Trump make that would move Putin to agree to some new deal?... And what reason has Russia to believe that Trump or his successor would stick to any deal? As the U.S. is non-agreement-capable it has none. The outcome of the phone call will therefore likely be nothing.... Moon of AlabamaTrump, Putin Will Discuss The End Of U.S. Shale Oil See also...

More of the crazy.Mint Press NewsBiden’s Foreign Policy Teams Hints at War with China, Conflict with RussiaAlan Macleod

Bitcoin struggling to remain relevant?Bitcoin ExchangeModern Monetary Theory (MMT) vs BTC to be the Main Event of 2020 AnTy

Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of NeoliberalismRadical imagination and the intellectual edificeJim Vrettos interviews Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

I'm here in NYC. Epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic. Hard to stay focused but here's my outlook. Get a 30-day free trial to MMT Trader. https://www.pitbulleconomics.com/mmt-trader/?s2-ssl=yes/

My base case view matches what is priced into the markets: the crude oil market is glutted and demand is falling off a cliff. Storage constraints are in sight, and I am not seeing an immediate catalyst for a demand rebound. The nearly inevitable outcome is that drilling drops dead, and capacity is shuttered. At some point, one will be able to take the chart of U.S. crude liquid products (conventional oil plus the products of fracking), stick a red line through the maximum value, and all...

As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, the US Congress appropriated a whopping $2 trillion budget to tackle it (about 10% of GDP). The focus was on expanded unemployment benefits and cash assistance to families, as well as grants and loans to small firms and large corporations in hopes that they will halt the torrent of layoffs. Across the ocean, Denmark took a different approach. The Danish government announced that it would cover 75–90% of certain worker salaries for the next 3 months....

After the 2008 financial crisis, we learned the hard way what happens when governments flood the economy with unconditional liquidity, rather than laying the foundation for a sustainable and inclusive recovery. Now that an even more severe crisis is underway, we must not repeat the same mistake.... Project Syndicate Capitalism’s Triple CrisisMariana Mazzucato | RM Phillips chair in the Economics of Innovation at SPRU in the University of Sussex

Americans consume the most toilet paper in the world but it's a very wasteful product to manufacture, according to the numbers. Toilet paper consumption is unsustainable and requires a tremendous amount of resources to produce. Americans use the most toilet paper in the world and have been hoarding it due to coronavirus. Alternatives to toilet paper are gaining more popularity with the public. I was going to plumb in a bidet as it's dead easy to do, but some guy on Amazon said his...

Yves Smith: I think Modern Monetary Theory proponents have made acceptance of their ideas a bit more difficult by not drawing a bright line between their theory, which is a description of how government spending works in a fiat currency system, versus what they believe are resulting sound policy approaches, such as setting the price of labor (a Job Guarantee) rather than the price of money. Some folks seem slow on the uptake. How loud to MMT economists need to shout? (shakes head) Why...