Mike Norman Economics

International Rescue CommitteeIRC President and CEO David Miliband's West Point Class of 1983 Distinguished Lecture: CONFLICT IS CHANGING – HUMANITARIANS AND THE MILITARY NEED TO CHANGE TOO”PNASHigher social class predicts increased unethical behavior ("noblesse oblige"?) Paul K. Piff, Daniel M. Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner PNAS March 13, 2012 The Atlantic ("capitalism")How McKinsey Destroyed the Middle Class Daniel Markovits | Guido Calabresi...

In a word, Economics is an Impossible Science because by its own definition the determining conditions of the economy are not economic: they are “exogenous.” Supposedly a science of things, it is by definition without substance, being rather a mode of behavior: the application of scarce means to alternative ends so as to achieve the greatest possible satisfaction—neither means, ends, nor satisfaction substantially specified. "Exogenous,” however, is the culture, all those meanings, values,...

How the mega rich corporations duped people into believing that climate change was a liberal elite hoax. Chomsky claimed that after Koch died last year, the university produced a laudatory obituary presenting the petrochemical billionaire as a model M.I.T. graduate, even funding the university basketball team. He noted that in 2008 the Republican Party had taken some steps towards trying to deal with climate change, with John McCain running for president promising to take measures to deal...

Important. Another must-read to stay abreast of developments in MMT and its promotion.I would like to comment specifically on this paragraph. I am thinking here of the way in which mainstream economics characterises humanity as rational, maximising units who pursue individual self-interest as their sole goal. Those assumptions are foreign to the way the other social sciences construct human decision-making. This is key in understanding the issues. Conventional economists assume that...

Beat the Press There Was No Housing Bubble and Everyone Agrees We Have to Crack Down On China's Practices on Intellectual PropertyTechnology, Patents, and Inequality: An Explanation that Even Economists Can UnderstandThe NYT and WaPo are Both Worried that China is Running Out of People* Dean Baker | Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C* See alsoBill Totten's WeblogHow Technology Saved China’s EconomyRuchir Sharmahttps://www.nytimes.com Opinion...

Well, Trump’s boast turned to dust in 2019. US GDP grew by 2.3% in 2019, well below President Trump’s promise of 3%+ growth. The most recent GDP number proved that the tax cuts championed by Trump had no sustained impact on US growth. Indeed , even the most optimistic forecasts see growth to stay well below 3% for the next few years. Of course, that won’t stop Trump in his State of the Union speech today in Congress proclaiming a huge rise in the living standards of working people under...

"Coding issue"? Hmm.Must have been "the Russians." (snark)Associated PressDemocrats have no Iowa caucus results, blame 'coding issue'See alsoZero HedgeDHS Offered To Test Iowa Voting App, Democrats Declined Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times

A superb podcast about money, relationships, and how we hardly ever used barter before we invented money - we simply did each other favours. Of course, we all keep a mental record of who owes us what, but that isn't strictly true either.I tweeted back saying it might sound business like (keeping a mental record of who owes what), but we make friendships this way, where we start to like each other. But they talk about this at the end of the podcast.They ask in the podcast what would happen...

At least this faction of mankind has had their shit together on methodology since 1860...Bachelor of Science wiki. A Bachelor of Science (Latin Baccalaureus Scientiae, B.S., BS, B.Sc. or BSc; or, less commonly, S.B., SB, or Sc.B., from the equivalent Latin Scientiae Baccalaureus)[1] is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years, or a person holding such a degree.[2]  The first university to admit a student to the degree of...

The Democratic National Congress (DNC) has set up an extensive online communications team of trolls – and is launching it just in time for the Iowa caucus. CNN’s Donnie O’Sullivan spoke to a number of its agents (almost all of whom insisted on remaining anonymous) and reported that the new DNC project is working with government agencies like the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security as well as online media giants like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Reddit.The DNC present the project as...