Mike Norman Economics

Later this week I will be in Japan for a series of presentations and meetings with a broad spectrum of Japanese politics. The various hosts of the events which I will confirm in Wednesday’s blog post are all committed to advancing an MMT understanding in Japan and ending the hold that ‘sound finance’ has on the public policy debates and regularly lead to poorly contrived policy shifts (such as the recent sales tax hike) in pursuit of lower fiscal deficits. As part of my preparation for my...

The leaders of the Catholic Church hated Liberation Theology with its left-wing roots and so killed it off. After that, the American Pentecostal Church got a foothold in Brazil because of the vacuum left by the Catholic Church.The Brazilian evangelicals are taught to be very right-wing and to praise capitalism and so they vote for Bolsonaro. They may be poor, but they are told they will be rewarded in Heaven one day if they suffer gracefully, that is, don't try to change the system.  And...

Looks like Snowden just rained on the conspiracy theorists' parade. Edward Snowdon puts to rest some of the most craziest conspiracy theories on the net: Chemtrails, the fake moon landings, the Pentagon and aliens.Snowdon said, "I had ridiculous access to the networks of the NSA (National Security Agency), the CIA, the military, all these groups. I couldn't find anything". News 18 Edward Snowden Confirms Aliens Never Contacted the CIA and Moon Landing Did Happen

Apparently misleading headline at Nikkei. There is nothing in the article that reflects what the headline asserts. To the contrary, in the last paragraph the article states the opposite. The situation in China apparently heralds an era of ubiquitous facial recognition, when greater tech-supported convenience comes at the cost of privacy. In China, however, the name of the game is "ease to use." There is no particularly strident criticism in the country, at least for now, about the use of...

For the last 12 years, the banks have lurched from one crisis to another. None more so than Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS), which taxpayers were forced to bail out to the tune of £45bn. There could be more trouble ahead, so watch out. It’s an absolute scandal...  Yahoo Finance Harvey Jones - Could this looming threat destroy RBS and every other FTSE 100 bank?

The research shows that happy workers are more productive. If a company is deemed to be fair, people work harder for it. Some companies have shortened the hourly week and yet productivity went up.  Workplace harassment is far from unusual in Japan, with its hierarchical company structure and culture of subservience and long hours. The government has taken steps to tackle this, introducing legislation specifically to eliminate harassment at work and encouraging companies to draw up...

lol! ... hate to break the news to you but checkmate (again!) to all the hypocrite Darwin people here...After napping on it, I have a theory of what ails capitalism: it is not Darwinian enough.The “selfish” motive in Adam Smith corresponds to personal fitness rather than inclusive fitness. Taxation is a crude and insufficiently precise mechanism to add inclusive fitness back in. https://t.co/JWLNC8egy3— Venkatesh Rao (@vgr) October 26, 2019

Imagine inviting your mates around and your mum's the best guitarist in town. [embedded content]

Ex-Green Party politician puts the record straight about the EU. All my friends think the EU is committed to social democracy and they weren't happy with me when I said I voted to leave.Greg Palast says how the Euro was designed to destroy Europe's welfare state. Also at the Climate Change Conference in Warsaw in 2013 we were told that “continuing with economic growth over the coming two decades is incompatible with meeting our international obligations on climate change”. But the UK...

SouthFront U.S. Is Looting Syrian Oil Fields To Fund Mercenaries And Intelligence Operations RTRussian MoD says US protects oil smugglers in Syria, offers aerial images as proof RTThe Russians are meddling again, this time in Chile, warns US diplomat Sic Semper TryannisExposing John Brennan's Secret CIA Trump Task Force? by Larry C Johnson