Mike Norman Economics

It is not common for an OECD county to shoot and kill 16 people in two days of socially motivated riots. (Perhaps only Turkey, in its unending wars against the Kurdish guerilla, comes close to that level of violence.) This is however what Chilean government, the poster child of neoliberalism and transition to democracy, did last week in the beginning of protests that do not show the signs of subsiding despite cosmetic reforms proposed by President Sebastian Piñera.The fall from grace of...

When the Blackouts occurred in Venezuela the right blamed socialism, well, we can certainly blame neoliberal capitalism for the blackouts in California. Palast blasted the outages as a result of PG&E’s alleged venality — but also reserved some ire for the deregulation agendas pursued by liberal Democrats over the past few decades. “Leaving hospitals, schools and 1 million homes without power — and that means without water — in California is the endgame of deregulation mania,” the former...

The depths of the planet offer a rock-hard potential solution to climate change. Stephen Leahy believes a significant amount of carbon can be removed from the atmosphere. He's quite excited about its potential but doesn't mention how much it might cost.  These new discoveries about the ability of the Earth to absorb carbon “give me tremendous optimism,” Hazen says. Watching rock grow One of these sequestration methods involves a large slab of rock pushed up from Earth's upper...

US oil giant Exxon Mobil is being sued for misleading investors and consumers for decades about the role fossil fuels play in climate change. Boom Bust talks to oil and gas historian Doug Elenbaas about the historic climate fraud case. “For quite a number of years Exxon understood the impact of fossil fuels and climate change,” the expert says, adding that the company recognized “the cost of carbon was going to be going up.” However, Exxon kept that valuation lower for investors so that...

Oxfam Blogs — From Poverty to PowerWill Open Access disrupt Books even more than Journals?Duncan Green, strategic adviser for Oxfam GBAndrew Batson's BlogWho deserves the Nobel for China’s economic development?Andrew Dances with BearsGORILLA RADIO — THE SYRIAN TUG OF WAR IS STILL WAR AGAINST SYRIA, AND RUSSIANS TRUST THE ARMY MORE THAN PRESIDENT PUTIN TO WAGE ITJohn HelmerFairFretting About Progressives’ ‘Electability,’ Establishment Dems Are Really Worried About Their Power in the...

Stocks at record highs, but there are things coming up that you need to know.

No housing bubble 2.0 and no recession on the 12-month horizon. Calculated RiskMy Slide Deck: "2020 Economic Forecast featuring the UCI Paul Merage School of Business"Bill McBride

Review of  Stuart Russell’s Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control. A major problem is programming AI lies in choosing criteria. Should criteria be based on what people do (behavior, homo economicus) or what people should do (rules, homo socialis). The Enlightened EconomistThe gorilla problemDiane Coyle | freelance economist and a former advisor to the UK Treasury. She is a member of the UK Competition Commission and is acting Chairman of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the...

By the time the inaugural Russia-Africa Summit closed on Thursday afternoon in Sochi, Russia, president Vladimir Putin and his administration had signed dozens of memorandums of understanding (MOU) and other agreements with the African countries that attended. The agreements include military cooperation, agricultural development, biotechnology, and oil and gas. They range from the minor, like Democratic Republic of Congo’s deal to sign data storage software, to more ambitious, like...

The bottom line is that we have become a nation of haves and have-nots. Of people who are falling behind economically, and people who are moving ahead. The Democratic Party represents the economic winners; the Republican Party, the economic losers. This graphic shows how much things have changed in a decade. The Democratic districts got richer, and the Republican districts got poorer…. The final slide says:Why does this matter? “When folks have less in common with one another, it’s hard to...