Mike Norman Economics

This piece from Smith is getting a lot of airplay on the right this week...Interesting assertion that "Trump changed rules & ended 40 years of US presidents refusing to hold Iran responsible for killing Americans."Look for more of this type of direct action from Trump for confirmation ... if true...THREAD I have two pieces tonight on developing situation re Iran: One, why is Iran launching missiles at US troops? Because Trump changed rules & ended 40 years of US presidents refusing...

Probably a fair assessment...Footnote 3: In his defense, Trump started by trying to "negotiate" with the Persian regime. They said no. Then he rapidly saw they have relatively ZERO military power & shd start making them aware of it.He thinks he can one day make them an offer they can't refuse.— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) January 8, 2020

Elijah MagnierIranian messages behind attacking US bases in Iraq, and the consequences IrrussianalityReflecting on 20 years of anti-war failures Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa Consortium NewsPEPE ESCOBAR: Trump to De-Escalate: Intel Source Russia ObserverTWENTY YEARS LATER – HOW DID PUTIN DO?Patrick ArmstrongSic Semper Tyrannis (with Tulsi Gabbard. BTW, in the process of clicking through I was warned away from...

Valdai Analytics (pessimistic outlook for entire region for foreseeable future)What Awaits US in the ‘Post-Soleimani’ Middle East? Hamidreza Azizi Reminiscence of the Future (more optimistic – if the US got the message that they are vulnerable)First Impression.Andrei Martyanov Moon of AlabamaIran's Missile Launch Against Two U.S. Bases in Iraq Calls Trump's Bluff - Updated Anti-EmpireSomali Islamists Breach a US-Kenyan Military Base, Destroy Several US Aircraft, Kill 3 AmericansAbdi...

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday accused President Donald Trump of breaking his repeated 2016 campaign promise to protect Social Security from cuts, pointing to a proposed rule change that could terminate disability benefits for hundreds of thousands of low-income and vulnerable people. "Trump said he wouldn't cut Social Security. He lied," tweeted Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. "He is working to stop Americans from getting the benefits they paid for and need."... Is SS...

Interview with Ms Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, in "Challenges" magazine, conducted by Mr Pierre-Henri de Menthon and Ms Sabine Syfuss-Arnaud, and published on 8 January 2020. BISChristine Lagarde: Interview in "Challenges" magazine

War is bad for nearly everyone. But as long as we allow the leaders of our privatized war economy to reap unlimited rewards, their profit motive for war in Iran or anywhere will persist.... Putting some numbers on it.Other WordsCongress: War Profiteering Is Real. We Need To End It.Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-editor of Inequality.org

The assumption of isolated individuals transacting in free markets has underpinned highly damaging economic policies since the 1980s. Given the interdependent nature of the digital world, economic researchers need to ditch their unscientific attachment to this paradigm and instead focus on the economy of the 2020s. The 2020s will be the decade when the idea that economic problems can be “left to the market” to solve is finally put to rest – after some 40 years during which that belief has...

I've been arguing with loads of climate change deniers on twitter for over 24 hours now, and I knocked them out with one fact after another.Tony Heller, a prominent academic climate change denier, turned up getting all bolshy, so I asked him if he would like to debate live with Peter Hadfield (Potholer54), but I never heard from him again after that, although he liked other people's tweets to me, so he was listening in.Eventually, one of the deniers tweeted -'It's hard to tell mockery from...

What determines the price level is a theoretical topic that pops up in Mosler's White Paper on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT - link to my discussion). Mosler's argument is that only MMT provides a proper understanding of price level determination. That is a strong claim, and difficult to assess. However, the discussion of price level determination is a distinctive part of MMT, and should receive greater prominence in discussion.... Bond Economics MMT And Price Level DeterminationBrian...