Mike Norman Economics

And the winner is — wait for it — Xi Jinping. This is an important backgrounder to understand the direction that the Chinese leadership is taking. Very dialectical. Xi is bent on effecting a consolidation of Chinese history and culture in the New China. Xi is emerging as one of the most significant thinkers in the history of Chinese thought. Chinese thought is very subtle and quite unlike Western thought. Xi, of course, understands it in depth, but very few Western commentators are able...

This is important in that one of the most significant factors influencing economic growth is population growth. The other significant factors are economic reproduction (upgrading, replacement and repair) and technological innovation that increases the living standard. That is to say, social reproduction is a function of individual reproduction. New Geography US Population Growth Down 1/3 in 5 Years, California Down 85%? Wendall Cox

I have been commissioned to write the Introduction (Preface) to the upcoming book – The Last Colonial Currency: A History of the CFA Franc – by Fanny Pigeaud and Ndongo Samba Sylla, which is an English version of the original 2018 book, L’arme invisible de la Françafrique. It will soon be published by Pluto Press (UK) – as soon as I finish this introduction. The book is incredibly important because it shows the role that currency arrangements play in perpetuating colonial oppression and...

Emily Stewart's private equity explainer for Vox is a great explainer on how the PE con works: buy up businesses, load them with debt, sell off their assets, slash their costs, then walk away as the house burns, leaving society to put out the fire -- all while enjoying special tax status on your gains. Boing.Boing  Cory Doctorow - Explaining the con that is private equity

What does it mean that some of the decade’s big market winners were companies with no real net worth? This should be of concern because it suggests that capitalism’s process of creative destruction isn’t working. Zombie companies tend to be less productive than others, so their survival may well be a part of the explanation for the low productivity that has bedeviled the West since the financial crisis.  All of these factors, I believe, are at work in the rise of negative-value...

Gold, Goats, 'n GunsAfter Soleimani Killing Suddenly the U.S. is Alone Tom Luongo Dances with BearsAGAINST THE BLITZ WOLF — RUSSIAN REINFORCEMENTS FOR IRAN’S DEFENCE IN WAR AGAINST ALLJohn Helmer India PunchlineIran loathes Pompeo’s Chabahar giftM. K. Bhadrakumar | retired diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service Caitlin Johnstone — Rogue JournalistOn The Idiotic Partisan Debate Over Regime Change In Iran Or SyriaCaitlin Johnstone Moon of AlabamaThe Axis Of Resistance Announces The...

We at CleanTechnica have been looking at the various 2020 US Democratic candidates for president (here, here, and here) and their funding plans for a clean energy future. We (and they) have learned a lot about what it will take to not only usher in an energy future devoid of fossil fuels but also to pay for such a transition. Maybe it’s time, though, to put at least some of the politics aside and see what economists and researchers out there are saying about investing in clean energy,...

Economics is sometimes portrayed as a contest between saltwater and freshwater, between the coastal pseudo-Keynesians and the Great Lakes neo-Walrasians, between the flaws-and-friction model-builders and the free-market hard-liners. As evolutionists know, both habitats are fairly sterile. Evolution occurs in the backwaters, in the mudflats, bogs, lagoons, cypress swamps and wetlands, in the shadows of perpetually endangered habitat. In this article I will sketch my personal journey through...

I have been commissioned to write the Introduction (Preface) to the upcoming book – The Last Colonial Currency: A History of the CFA Franc – by Fanny Pigeaud and Ndongo Samba Sylla, which is an English version of the original 2018 book, L’arme invisible de la Françafrique. It will soon be published by Pluto Press (UK) – as soon as I finish this introduction. The book is incredibly important because it shows the role that currency arrangements play in perpetuating colonial oppression and...

Sign up for a 30-day free trial to MMT Trader. MMT concepts and understanding to trade and invest. https://www.pitbulleconomics.com/mmt-trader/?s2-ssl=yes/