Mike Norman Economics

As Mario Draghi’s tenure at the helm of the ECB draws to a close, he becomes (slightly) more pointed and looser with his public statements. On Friday (October 11, 2019), he gave a speech – Policymaking, responsibility and uncertainty – at the Università Cattolica in Milan on the occasion of receiving the Laurea Honoris Causa (honorary degree). He broadened the scope of his policy ambit by saying that “I will not focus strictly on monetary policy or the business of central banking, but I...

Why I don't link to the NYT, The Vineyard of the SakerThe Terrorists Among US10| The IO Echo Chamber Scott Shane Joel Harding George EliasonSee alsoNot just the Times.Ray McGovernQuick! Someone Tell Amy Goodman What Actually Happened – and Didn’t Happen – in Ukraine 5 Years Ago

Backgrounder.Asia TimesAn alternative view of HK protests George KooA US viewThe American ConservativeMortal Kombat Against Beijing’s Agents Rod Dreher Which is off the wall?

The model, in its present form, is short run in nature. It concerns an economy for which total employment, within-sector productivity and productive capacity are all taken as given. Variations in total output are achieved by workers transferring between two broad sectors that have differing productivity. In considering this economy, discussion has touched on aspects of a steady state and system behavior outside the steady state. It has been supposed, in the event of exogenous shocks, that...

Backgrounder of black blocs in general and of the HK black bloc.Global ResearchBehind Hong Kong’s Black Terror Pepe Escobar Crossposted at Strategic Culture Foundation

Chinese President Xi Jinping has issued a blunt and unambiguous warning to any foreign actors trying to tear Hong Kong from Beijing, stating that such plots would not end well for the perpetrators. "Any attempt to split China in any part of the country will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones," he told Nepal's Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli in a meeting on Sunday, according to China's state broadcaster CCTV. He added that the Chinese people would consider any outside effort to divide...

Hong Kong is the most important market in Asia for luxury brands – as a stepping stone to mainland China and a magnet for shoppers from there and wider region Brands are unlikely to invest more in the city now, and could start downsizing as soon as January, an adviser to the luxury retail industry says South China Morning PostClock ticking on Hong Kong luxury store closures if protests continue – it could end up like a third-tier city in China, LVMH executive says Vincenzo La Torre See...

This is a critique of all the journalists I like, especially those at Greyzone and the Western journalists who work for RT. Gilbert Achcar has a point, but I have watched loads of videos by Putin and he always seems to be fairly reasonable and sensible up me, unlike our Western bellicose politicians. I think Oliver Stone captured the Putin the way he has always appeared to me, so I'm going with that for now. Although I don't get on with his conservativism or his lack of concern about climate...

Review of Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King.Boston ReviewThe Critical Bite of Cultural Relativism Gili Kliger

Marxian economist Michael Roberts reviews Branco Milanovic's Global Inequality. And finds it wanting. It's the assumptions, stupid.In my view, the problem is the same as it is with almost economists with whom I am familiar. They don't read widely out of their field in relevant fields like sociology, political science, and history and anthropology. They look through an economic lens that is colored by their ill-informed assumptions regarding context. Used to mathematical modeling, they are...