Mike Norman Economics

The US government should pull out all the stops in mitigating the economic fallout from COVID-19, not just by disbursing cash to all households, but also by implementing a federal job guarantee and many other long-overdue policies. After all, for a self-financing government, money is no object. Project SyndicateWhat Would Roosevelt Do? Pavlina Tcherneva | Assistant Professor of Economics at Bard College, Research Scholar at The Levy Economics Institute, and Senior Research Associate at the...

Now that toilet paper has become an asset in addition to a commodity.... ?Dances with BearsWAR ON THE TOILET PAPER FRONT — RUSSIA’S TISSUE BATTLES SWEDES, TURKS, AMERICANSJohn Helmer

My thoughts on the markets, Fed and other things while on lockdown here in NYC. https://www.pitbulleconomics.com/mmt-trader/?s2-ssl=yes/

Even before the novel coronavirus appeared, many American families were falling behind on student loans, auto loans, credit cards and other payments. America’s debt overhead was pricing its labor and industry out of world markets. A debt crisis was inevitable eventually, but covid-19 has made it immediate. Massive social distancing, with its accompanying job losses, stock dives and huge bailouts to corporations, raises the threat of a depression. But it doesn’t have to be this way. History...

In some earlier posts, a job guarantee is added to an otherwise condensed income-expenditure model. This enables comparisons of steady states under different scenarios akin to the typical exercises conducted in introductory macroeconomics courses. What follows is a summary of the model, bringing together aspects that are dealt with in greater depth – but disparately – elsewhere on the blog, along with brief indications of how the model can be extended to include simple dynamics and short-run...

Catching up with Brian's posts.Bond EconomicsA Comment On Ramanan's Critique Of Fulwiler's Debt Sustainability AnalysisPrimer: The Trillion Dollar Coin Ending Lockdown?Brian Romanchuk

The world is changing that is for sure. Governments around the world are promising to spend billions to address the coronavirus crisis and no-one (other than a few so-called progressives – see below) are talking about how governments will pay for the interventions. Everybody knows how. They have always known. The shams about governments not having enough money to provide adequate housing, schooling, health care, employment, other services, and a sustainable response to climate change are...

Tom back in Iowa City catching up on posting.I don't usually link to the NYT owing to the paywall and the propaganda, but this is an exception. The Times is making this op/ed available free. If you didn't catch Stephanie's opinion piece already, here it is. Congress has all the firepower it needs. It just needs to send spending instructions to the Federal Reserve, as it always does. New York Time Stephanie Kelton: Just Use ‘the Computer’ to Give People More Money Stephanie Kelton |...

Being a veqan I used to eat lots of soy products and drink soy milk. Then I read an article that I didn't realise was indirectly sponsored by the meat companies which said that soy puts dangerous levels of estrogen into men's bodies, and that it was cancerous too. Yikes! The article also said soy was dangerous for women.It was rubbish, and although soy does increase estrogen type chemicals in the body, it is not harmful at the amounts normally consumed.Anyway, Mary Enig, who wrote the...

Most people develop only mild symptoms. But some people, usually those who are older or have other medical complications, develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia, which can be fatal.Coronavirus: How eyes may play a role in its spread