Mike Norman Economics

At Wednesday’s debut of the impeachment hearings there was one issue upon which both sides of the aisle seemed to agree, and it was a comic-book caricature of reality.House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff led off the proceedings with this:  “In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation’s embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin’s desire to rebuild a Russian empire…”  Five years ago, when Ukraine first came into the news, those...

This is an excellent backgrounder. But where did the American deep state come from? Has it always been there?In fact, the evolution of the deep state (and this choice of term, “evolution” as opposed to “creation”, will be explained later) is — some might say ironically — found in a nearly 140-year old anti-corruption “reform” measure; one that was explicitly focused upon depoliticizing the civilian component of the United States government.... The architects of the reform also failed to...

G Carchedi and I have been working on some new empirical work, trying to gauge which countries are the imperialist ones and how much value they are able to extract from the dominated or periphery (we prefer those names rather than ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’, which is too geographical). We emphasise that we are looking at the economic foundations of imperialism, not the political aspects or the superstructure if you like, ie the political control by imperialist countries over the...

This dog enjoys his walks.Connor Cassidy said that the pug appeared to being enjoying this unusual style of walkies and was a little bamboozled how it managed to hold on. When he asked the man why he was carrying his dog in such an unusal way, he told him it was the pug's preference. Connor said: "I've seen him a few times and we were talking to him. "I asked him why he did it and he said 'that's just where the dog likes to be'. Short video Daily Record ...

Michael D Higgins says climate change is most pressing issue facing the global community The world needs to move away from the prevailing neo-liberal economic model to one linking ecology, economy and society if humankind is to successfully address climate change, according to President Michael D Higgins. The President said climate change is the most pressing issue facing people as a global community and the window of opportunity to act and address it in a meaningful way is closing...

The very latest interview. [embedded content]

A good article from the Guardian.  The indigenous-socialist project accomplished what neoliberalism has repeatedly failed to do: redistribute wealth to society’s poorest sectors and uplift those most marginalized. Under Evo and MAS leadership, Bolivia liberated itself as a resource colony. Before the coup, Evo attempted to nationalize its large lithium reserves, an element necessary for electric cars. Since the coup, Tesla’s stocks have skyrocketed. Bolivia rebuked imperialist states...

An excellent video on Brexit, explaining why patriotic British people feel the way they do. [embedded content]

Rock star Sir Rod Stewart has unveiled the huge model railway city he has been building for the past 23 years. Amazing! He made 90% of it. He wasn't so good at electrics.  Sir Rod Stewart unveils unbelievable model railway city which took 23 years to build

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of Medicare for All. That's why I'm impressed that Senator Elizabeth Warren's campaign reached out to me to independently review her proposed financing plan for the program. Her numbers add up and her plan fully finances the program without imposing any new taxes on middle-class families. The most important source of revenue for Warren's Medicare for All plan is simply to have businesses pay their employees' health insurance premiums to Medicare instead of...