Mike Norman Economics

There's integrity in honesty. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has praised Donald Trump, saying the billionaire real estate magnate is the “best” US president he has dealt with “because he is the most transparent”. “He’s the best American president,” Mr Assad told NBC News from Damascus. ”Not because his policies are good, but because he’s the most transparent president.” Referring to Mr Trump’s predecessors in the White House, President Assad said: “All they are is a group of criminals...

29.3 percent of Americans still believe that the US dollar is backed by gold, a new study published by Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency company Genesis Mining has found, cryptocurrency news website CryptoCoinsNews has reported.… The survey also found that Americans have other misconceptions about banking and finance, discovering, for example, that only 52 percent of respondents know that banks do not hold 100 percent of their customers’ deposits in their vaults, with the other 48 percent...

Are the most successful people in society just the luckiest people? This is based on an article I put out here sometime back, but this goes further into the subject, although it reaches the same conclusions. Tallent certainly helps you to become successful, but luck trumps all. So what did the simulation find? On the one hand, talent wasn't irrelevant to success. In general, those with greater talent had a higher probability of increasing their success by exploiting the possibilities...

NEOChina Breaks the Western Debt Stranglehold on the World Peter Koenig India PunchlineEurope’s gas alliance with Russia is a match made in heaven M. K. Bhadrakumar | retired diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service Progressive PulseA government can never ‘over’spend… Peter May RTTear gas, water cannons, fuel bombs & barricades as protesters clash with police in Hong Kong Zero HedgeHong Kong Protestors Firebomb Xinhua News Agency Office Tyler Durden Strategic Culture FoundationWhat...

It came on twitter without any explanation of what's happening. I can only think it's Christian.

Backgrounder.The Vineyard of the SakerRussia, China, and the European Peninsula Godfree Roberts

The geopolitical tensions surrounding the development of Nord Stream 2 are unprecedented. To begin with, Russia has very poor relations with the Baltic states and Poland, nations who will almost always fight against anything they see as empowering Russia geopolitically. Then there is Ukraine, a nation that is strongly against the pipeline due to its fear of losing the transit fees that it currently charges Russia for exporting gas to Europe. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the United...

Then there’s the nagging issue that simply won’t go away: the American drive to “secure the oil” (Trump) and “protect” Syrian oilfields (the Pentagon), for all practical purposes from Syria. In Geneva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – alongside Iran’s Javad Zarif and Turkey’s Mevlut Cavusoglu – could not have been more scathing. Lavrov said Washington’s plan is “arrogant,” and violates international law. The very American presence on Syrian soil is “illegal,” he said. All across...

There have been protests (mostly pointing up economic stress) across the region for some months: from Egypt to Iraq. But the Lebanese demonstrations have caught the global attention. And there is no doubting that the Lebanese protests represent a major phenomenon. We may ask whether they are essentially a local manifestation, reflecting only the well-attested Lebanese problems of corruption, widening disparities in wealth, nepotism and failing state structures, or do they signal something...

This comes amid US President Trump's announcement that the signing site of the 'phase one' trade deal with China would be announced 'soon'.A World Trade Organization’s arbitrator ruled Friday that China could impose $3.6 billion worth of tariffs on US goods over its unfair anti-dumping practices. "We determine that the level of nullification or impairment of benefits accruing to China as a result of the WTO-inconsistent methodologies used by the United States in anti-dumping proceedings...