Mike Norman Economics

Politicians often tell us that we should live within our means. Quite right. Unfortunately, many of them do not appear to understand what this actually entails when it comes to fiscal policy. So far as most economists are concerned, the events of the last decade have thoroughly discredited advocates of austerity. Yet, it remains quite common to hear politicians from across the political spectrum calling for reductions in fiscal deficits or even fiscal surpluses. There appears to be little...

Experts concerned young people’s mental health particularly hit by reality of the climate crisis I've been debating with some deniers for three days now. I would have given up after the first day because it gets boring, but two guys who really knew their stuff about climate change joined in, and together we wiped the deniers out. They a now bouncing off the walls. What a load of junk their science is, just twigs and dust, I call it. Over the past few weeks Clover Hogan has found...

The world has never seen anything like it. Over five months, bushfires along the south-east coast of Australia have blackened an area bigger than Ireland. They have taken 33 lives, destroyed thousands of homes, shrouded cities in toxic smoke and devastated the country’s unique wildlife. They have also changed how many Australians think about the climate crisis. What was, for many, an abstract idea set in a distant future has, in the space of one summer, begun to feel like a dystopian...

I have two days of teaching left in Helsinki and my next stop on Friday is Dublin where I will be discussing unification and exit. Should be a fun topic. Its Wednesday back home already and today I consider a matter that came up in one of my classes that I am taking in macroeconomics at the moment at the University of Helsinki. Students really struggle when first introduced to the idea of a stock and a flow. They can easily be led into defining a flow as a stock. Getting this absolutely...

Is the dollar really all that strong? Some perspective provides a clue. Trade and invest using the insights and understandings of MMT. Get a 30-day free trial to MMT Trader. https://www.pitbulleconomics.com/mmt-trader/?s2-ssl=yes/

The warmest January on record is making life difficult for oil and gas traders. It turns out that global warming isn't good for fossil fuel companies either.They are using artificial snow at some sky resorts.For global energy markets it’s a disaster—and as the world continues to get hotter it’s something producers, traders and government treasuries will have to live with long after the acute dislocation of the coronavirus has passed. The industry relies on cold weather across the northern...

Old one here from Stevie Wonder still applicable...Money line which I'm sure will go right over most heads here: “When you believe in thingsThat you don't understand,Then you suffer,Superstition aint the way” Oh well enjoy the music anyway....[embedded content]

Telling Congress that spending must be cut to prepare for the next downturn is totally ignorant and if followed, will create the next downturns. Get a 30-day free trial to MMT Trader. Trade and invest using the concepts of MMT. https://www.pitbulleconomics.com/mmt-trader/?s2-ssl=yes/

“Fiscally responsible” is one of the more Orwellian phrases in American politics. Lawmakers earn that coveted title by affirming the three tenets of the Beltway’s official budgetary orthodoxy: (1) Deficits are inherently undesirable, (2) all new spending (on things that cannot be used to kill foreigners) should be fully offset by new taxes, and (3) reducing America’s existing national debt should be a top-tier policy priority. But these premises are rooted less in economic science than...

I guess I cannot avoid commenting on the European Commission’s recently released (February 5, 2020) – Economic governance review – which, allegedly, “seeks to assess how effective the economic surveillance framework has been in achieving three key objectives: ensuring sustainable government finances and economic growth, as well as avoiding macroeconomic imbalances; … promoting convergence in Member States’ economic performance.” The short answer is that the framework has failed on all...