Mike Norman Economics

I cannot access John Helmer's site, Dancing with Bears. Cloudfare reports a denial of service attack and the site has been struggling with DoS attacks recently. Here is the post from Russia News Now, which reproduced it. I cannot find anything else on the Internet about this, so I am unable to confirm or disconfirm it. See also Rob Slane, An Update on the Inquest Into the Death of Dawn Sturgess at The Blogmire, October 17, for background. SKRIPAL-STURGESS CASE CORONER BACKS DOWN – NEW...

I explain this.

Andrew Korybko is more pessimistic than Pepe Escobar on this. I think he may be a bit too pessimistic. India's strategic alignment is a balancing act for the government in power. India has along history of playing the US and Russia against each other for its own advantage. The really big issue is the relationship of India and China, traditional enemies that are still locked in various disputes over boundaries. Here again, India is using the US as a hedge with respect to China. Getting...

Why economists get it so wrong, especially the ones that rely on a lot of abstract maths which doesn't relate to the real world, the one where people have desires, wants, needs, aspirations, and a need for safety and companionship. Cut the maths out, roll up your sleeves, and talk to the public to see how they see it.  Absolute efficiency is not always what they want. Going to the shops often involves stopping to chat with people.  In my opinion, the MMT folk understand the real...

Interesting form the point of view of the changing nature of the mode of production from industrial to digital.  This suggests that an economic system more appropriate to emerging conditions is in the making — and in the interregnum it will be somewhat messy, especially given the accumulated challenges arising from negative externalities such as climate change  This further suggests a new phase on the historical dialectic where opposing forces hammer out the response to systemic...

Russia doesn’t just look West, it looks East – and increasingly so. China’s economy has developed very rapidly over the past two decades, becoming the world’s largest exporter from a low base. Its goods have flooded Russia, eating into the EU’s export share. The changing global environment has helped re-orient Russia’s economic relationships eastwards, especially towards China. Chinese-Russian ties are also developing in the context of China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative. This raises...

“This set of circumstances is unsustainable and certainly can no longer be pushed as it has been pushed since 2008. That is why I believe that the world is approaching a big paradigm shift,” Dalio wrote. Governments are also battling large deficits, while pension and health care liabilities are increasing. The latter circumstance, he says, will result in an escalation of the wealth gap battle as the government decides whether to cut benefits, raise taxes or print money to address it. This...

This is a good analysis of the political economy of capitalism in general and as it applies specifically to the UK now. The links are important in developing the nuance.Stumbling and MumblingShoring up capitalismChris Dillow | Investors Chronicle

The concept of the fiscal multiplier can be viewed as simple, but there are many potential complexities to analysis. In this text, I keep the discussion simple (with a nod towards the complexities). There are multiple potential definitions of the fiscal multiplier, but I will use a straightforward one: it is the coefficient relating the expected change of nominal GDP based on an assumed change in a fiscal variable. For example, if a policy change scenario is expected to raise the fiscal...

She'll be a vegan next! But Buckingham Palace has signalled that the Queen is finally ready to move with the times, acknowledging that attitudes towards fur have shifted. Any new garments made for the monarch from now on, including coats, hats and ceremonial robes requiring fur, will be made with the fake variety. The Telegraph. Queen will no longer wear clothes with real fur, Her Majesty's dresser reveals