Mike Norman Economics

Western dissatisfaction with globalization is wrongly diagnosed as dissatisfaction with capitalism, when in fact it is the product of the uneven distribution of the gains from globalization.... ProMarket — The blog of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Why There Is No “Crisis of Capitalism” Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-economic...

What is becoming clearer is that the latest global push for dramatic climate action is more about justifying a major reorganization of the global economy, that to a far less efficient energy mode, implying a drastic lowering of global living standards. In 2010 the head of Working Group 3 of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr Otmar Edenhofer, told an interviewer, ” … one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free...

Apple has been fined 25 million euros (£21m, $27m) for deliberately slowing down older iPhone models without making it clear to consumers. Why didn't Apple inform people that their phones would slow down as their batteries aged? Old batteries can't supply peak current and this can cause a phone to crash, so slowing a phone down might be a good idea, but how many people upgraded their phones when all they needed was a new battery?The fine was imposed by France's competition and fraud...

‘We have now entered the world’s sixth mass extinction event — the biggest, most rapid global biodiversity crisis since a meteor ended the age of the dinosaurs’ This is sad! A massive decline of bumblebees — the world’s most important pollinators — is now underway due to “climate chaos” and other human impacts on the world, scientists have warned. A new study reveals bumblebees are currently disappearing at rates “consistent with a mass extinction”, and are on course to be...

Why is it always an uphill battle?I'm late for work one day:'But of all days why did I oversleep today when I have such important appointment', I scream at myself. Skipping breakfast, I run to the bus stop, and I'm lucky as a bus turns up right way. 'I'm going to make it', I think, so relieved, except the bus is early and the driver waits for two minutes at each bus top. Each of those minutes seem like eternity.No matter how hard we try to get our lives together, things seem to get more...

This is such an informative article that it was difficult to find an excerpt as every bit is pertinent. In Britain the chief generators of climate apartheid can be summed up in two words, “BP” and “Shell.” Hydrocarbon capital is especially concentrated in the UK.... Taken together with the ownership patterns of the big mining companies, these figures indicate a broad pattern of money from global extraction operations being sucked into London as the executive and financial centre; and then...

DAMASCUS, (BM) – Attempts by the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan to intimidate the Russian and Syrian military resulted in colossal losses for terrorists in the province of Idlib, which was caused by large-scale strikes by the Russian Air Force, resumed 36 hours after the military ultimatum of the Turkish leader, learned BulgarianMiltary.com, quoting news agency AviaPro. Large-scale Russian air strikes over Idlib in response of the Turkish ultimatum?

Massive buildup of freshwater could be released into Atlantic, disrupting currents that keep western Europe warm    A major ocean current in the Arctic could reverse amid warming temperatures, a change which would bring significantly colder weather to western Europe, scientists at Nasa have warned. The circular current, called the Beaufort Gyre, moves in a clockwise direction around the western Arctic Ocean, north of Canada and Alaska, where it naturally collects freshwater...

But finally, this week, the U.K. came out with the news which bring about joy especially for  for environmentalists. The government announced that it will ban the sale of fossil-fuel vehicles - including hybrid - starting in 2035. They moved the ban five years earlier than they initially planned for.  It seems like countries are slowly and gradually understanding the climate change issue. The Street  These Countries Want to Eliminate Fossil Fuels for Good

Too much work in our Protestant Work Ethic culture, but only the wealthy can afford to have housewives. The current toxic always-on work culture must be understood as a key factor facilitating the rise of this retro-movement. As overload work culture has become common in many developed countries, governments have also been cutting vital resources that help support families and communities. Combined with entrenched gendered social norms, the burden of care disproportionately falls on...