Mike Norman Economics

Prof. Harry Targ, in his important piece “United States foreign policy: yesterday, today, and tomorrow,” (MR online, October 23, 2919), reminds us of the factional dispute among U.S. foreign policy elites over how to maintain the U.S. empire. On the one hand are the neoliberal global capitalists who favor military intervention, covert operations, regime change, strengthening NATO, thrusting China into the enemy vacuum and re-igniting the Cold War with Russia. All of this is concealed behind...

In the run up to the Iraq War, then-US Vice President Richard Cheney declared that even if the risk of weapons of mass destruction falling into terrorist hands was tiny, say 1%, we should act as if it were certain by invading. The US is at it again, creating a panic over Chinese technologies by exaggerating tiny risks.... With all respect due, Professor Sachs is simply wrong about the logic here. The logic for attacking Iraq had to do chiefly with control of the Middle East, the center of...

On a tech roll. Copier no more? Sputnik InternationalChina Announces Development of 6G Network Less Than Week After 5G Rollout See also Asia Times5G policy ‘biggest strategic disaster in US history’ David P. GoldmanZero HedgeAs US Moves To Ban Huawei 5G, CEO Says Good Riddance Ahead Of Great DecouplingTyler Durden

Global trade policy uncertainty has increased significantly, largely because of a changing tariff regime between the United States and China. In this blog post, we argue that trade policy can have a significant effect on firms’ organization of supply chains. When the probability of a trade war rises, firms become less likely to form long-term, just-in-time relationships with foreign suppliers, which may lead to higher costs and welfare losses for consumers. Our research shows that even in...

This article begins with a review of the two main textbook approaches that had evolved by the early 1960s to incorporate the musings of Keynes: the Keynesian cross from Samuelson’s (1948) introductory textbook and the complete, well fleshed-out model in Gardner Ackley’s (1961) advanced macro textbook. This Keynesian- neoclassical synthesis followed a pattern set by Hicks (1937) by focusing on certain elements of Keynes, while setting aside others. Some potential weaknesses of the specific...

I cannot access John Helmer's site, Dancing with Bears. Cloudfare reports a denial of service attack and the site has been struggling with DoS attacks recently. Here is the post from Russia News Now, which reproduced it. I cannot find anything else on the Internet about this, so I am unable to confirm or disconfirm it. See also Rob Slane, An Update on the Inquest Into the Death of Dawn Sturgess at The Blogmire, October 17, for background. SKRIPAL-STURGESS CASE CORONER BACKS DOWN – NEW...

I explain this.

Andrew Korybko is more pessimistic than Pepe Escobar on this. I think he may be a bit too pessimistic. India's strategic alignment is a balancing act for the government in power. India has along history of playing the US and Russia against each other for its own advantage. The really big issue is the relationship of India and China, traditional enemies that are still locked in various disputes over boundaries. Here again, India is using the US as a hedge with respect to China. Getting...

Why economists get it so wrong, especially the ones that rely on a lot of abstract maths which doesn't relate to the real world, the one where people have desires, wants, needs, aspirations, and a need for safety and companionship. Cut the maths out, roll up your sleeves, and talk to the public to see how they see it.  Absolute efficiency is not always what they want. Going to the shops often involves stopping to chat with people.  In my opinion, the MMT folk understand the real...

Interesting form the point of view of the changing nature of the mode of production from industrial to digital.  This suggests that an economic system more appropriate to emerging conditions is in the making — and in the interregnum it will be somewhat messy, especially given the accumulated challenges arising from negative externalities such as climate change  This further suggests a new phase on the historical dialectic where opposing forces hammer out the response to systemic...