Mike Norman Economics

Dr Jacques R. Pauwels says modern capitalism produces lots of goods but pays poor wages, so their is insufficient demand leading to low profits. War, though, makes huge profits so the elite like them. The government pays for them through taxation and by borrowing.The fact that Bush is keen on war has little or nothing to do with his psyche, but a great deal with the American economic system. This system – America’s brand of capitalism – functions first and foremost to make extremely...

Annual $11 trillion savings offset upfront $73 trillion cost Some of the author’s past findings have been questioned A Stanford University professor whose research helped underpin the U.S. Democrats’ Green New Deal says phasing out fossil fuels and running the entire world on clean energy would pay for itself in under seven years. Bloomberg  Will Fade - Going 100% Green Will Pay For Itself in Seven Years, Study Finds

Scientists are replacing crops and livestock with food made from microbes and water. It may save humanity’s bacon I'm more moderate than I thought I was. For one thing, I'm okay about 'champagne socialists', the more the better, I tell people.Then right-wingers will then tell me that people like Michael Moore make millions out of their books, and I reply, great, the more profitable socialism is, the better.I used to like the Off-Guardian, but if a corporation is behind someone, like...

Amazon employees who speak out about the climate crisis say they have been threatened with firing. Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ) said Thursday that the company's legal and HR teams had questioned some of their members about public statements they had made urging Amazon to take climate action. Some also received emails saying they would be fired if they continued to speak up. Eco Watch Amazon Threatens to Fire Employees Who Speak out on Climate Crisis

Sic Semper Tyrannis (US and "coalition" supports Wahhabi terrorists against Christians)Soleimani and Al-Muhandis are being mourned in Aleppo churches Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.)Strategic Culture FoundationThe Middle East Strategic “Balance” ShreddedAlastair Crooke | founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, and former British diplomat and senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy Russian and Eurasian Politics (POTUS as the godfather)Russia, the...

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...