Mike Norman Economics

This week is a big data week. Today the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released of the latest labour force data (April 13, 2023) – Labour Force, Australia – for March 2023. The March result is weaker than February’s strong outcome but still relatively robust. Employment rose with a bias towards full-time work and kept pace with population growth such that unemployment fell marginally. The employment to population rose modestly. Overall a good result. Some caution needs to be observed...

So now he’s going to tell the Biden people to keep increasing the rates… Summers wants to demonstrate that Monetarism works and re-establish Monetarisms dominance after 15 years of ZIRP which resulted in no Art Degree “inflation!” …. This over any other real economic or Democrat political objective... Democrat left AWOL on this except maybe Pocahontas…iow if they think their "inflation" comes down but there is no commensurate recession after all of these extreme unprecendented rate increases...

NOTE: THIS IS THE ENGLISH ORIGINAL OF A COLUMN SPECIALLY COMMISSIONED BY LEADING RUSSIAN BUSINESS DAILY VEDOMOSTIVKWaiting for the end of the worldPepe EscobarSee alsoPresident of RussiaMeeting on economic views

Most assessments of the effectiveness of sanctions on Russia, with some exceptions, hold them to have been highly effective. My new INET Working Paper analyzes a few prominent Western assessments, both official and private, of the effect of sanctions on the Russian economy and war effort. It seeks to understand the goals of sanctions and bases of fact and causal inference that underpin the consensus view. Such understanding may then help to clarify the relationship between claims made by...

Last Friday (April 7, 2023), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – March 2023 – which revealed continuing employment growth and rising participation with unemployment falling modestly. A good confluence of events. We have been looking for a turning point in the US labour market after several months of interest rate increases. But it hasn’t come yet. Indeed, it is going in the opposite direction to that envisaged by...

Asia TimesXi topping Biden in New Cold War’s economic gameWilliam Pesek Asia TimesMacron has no interest in ‘decoupling’ from ChinaScott FosterBreaking DefenseUS tech firms should wargame response if China invades Taiwan, warns NSA cybersecurity chief Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.

I have been tied up courtesy of a major power failure, Easter, and other family obligations. Over the weekend, there was a blow up on Twitter between Richard J. Murphy and what appeared to be dozens of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) proponents. (I ignore any Twitter thread involving lots of people and lasts more than a day, so I cannot fill in more details.) The dispute was about the role of taxes (although it devolved into whining about attitudes). Since many of my readers will have found me...

Map of US states.Real Progressives (MMT based)Race to the Bottom

Goldman Sachs says public not afraid of banks anymore. So what was that all about?

The turning point came on 26 February, 2022, when Washington’s neocons – in a glaring display of their shallow intellects – decided to freeze and/or steal the reserves of the only nation on the planet equipped with all the commodities that really matter, and with the necessary nous to unleash a momentous shift to a monetary system not anchored in fiat money.That was the fateful day when the cabal, identified by journalist Seymour Hersh as responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines,...