Mike Norman Economics

Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, says the escalation of tensions between the U.S. and Iran today is a continuation of two decades of U.S. policy disasters in the Middle East, starting with the 2003 run-up to war with Iraq under the Bush administration. “America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no end in sight? It’s part of who we are. It’s part of...

Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, said higher marginal tax rates for the better off were needed as part of a policy rethink to tackle inequality. In a sign of how the IMF has moved away from the tax-cutting approach that once formed a central part of its policy advice, Georgieva said there needed to be a different approach to tackling what had become “one of the most complex and vexing challenges in the global economy”. The IMF chief, writing in a blog, said: “Inequality...

On January 10, 2020, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – January 2019 – which reveals a labour market that that is still adding jobs, albeit at a slower rate than it was last year. The December performance showed that this moderation has not yet impacted on the unemployment rate – meaning that the employment growth is keeping pace with the underlying population growth with participation steady as indicated by the...

A lesson in economics you won't find in mainstream textbooks. How the rich get richer from stolen land. Using ideas from Thomas Paine and Henry George and encompassing: citizen's income (aka citizen's dividend), the housing crisis and land value tax (LVT). If the ideas in this video were implemented the impact on the poorest in our society and especially the homeless would be enormous. Since making this video I have been informed that Joseph Charlier was the historical figure that made...

As seen in some comments on my recent articles, critics of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) often complain about MMT's treatment of banks. I am largely mystified by these criticisms, as they obviously miss the point. Very simply, the existence of banking system, and the fact that bank deposits to be considered to be part of monetary aggregates, is well understood within the MMT literature. The only real debate is about the implications of private banking. To what extent the banking system...

Positive article on MMT and Stephanie Kelton, who is in Australia now. The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)'All deficits are good for someone': Visiting economist shrugs off debt concerns Andrew Taylor, Senior Reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald

Would be a very simple financial transaction...  first USD zombie head-shot right in the crosshairs... Trump administration warns Iraq could lose New York Fed account if US troops forced to leave: WSJ https://t.co/Uh5metjPey — Davies Wealth Management (@TDWealthNet) January 12, 2020 US has allowed the Iraq USD zombies to accrue over $32B so far: USD Zombie Hall of Shame

Iraq has restarted negotiations to buy Russian S-300 Air Defense Systems to stop the US bombing their country. Russia has suggested they could buy the latest S-400 system instead.Anti-war.comAntiwar com - Iraqis Want Both US And Iranian Forces Out Of The Country

It was only a matter of time before US President Donald Trump got the recognition he deserved for America’s military exploits these past two weeks. Yesterday, Trump received glowing praise from the official international ISIS newspaper, Al Naba, highlighting Washington’s assassination of Iranian IRGC’s General Qasem Soleimani on January 3rd. The loss of Soleimani in the war on terror was echoed by Rev Ibrahim Nseir, a pastor and leading Christian voice in the Middle East from the Arab...

The problem with economics as a discipline, and this generally includes all forms of economics including heterodox economics to some extent, is "economics." That is is to say, economists assume that economics is chiefly or exclusively about economic behavior when economic behavior is embedded in social and political behavior and includes the entire "human condition." The only "economist" that really grasped this in depth was Karl Marx, and he was a philosopher coming from a Hegelian...