Mike Norman Economics

Users of Twitter know the thrill of seeing a tweet so good that you want to have it embroidered on pillows. The form lends itself to aphorisms or clever asides; Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker would have loved it. This week, the economist Stephanie Kelton posted a tweet for the ages: “What is the natural rate of college enrollment?” It’s slyly great. It’s a play on the “natural rate of unemployment,” a discredited concept popular in the 90’’s. The NAIRU was supposed to represent the...

Valdai AnalyticsPrelude to a Conflict: The Psychology of Modern WarfareSputnik InternationalLeaked UN Climate Report Forecasts Rising Oceans, Superstorms, Mass Displacement Internationalist 360ºPresident Evo Morales Joins Firefighters to Battle Wildfires in Bolivia The GrayzoneWestern regime change operatives launch campaign to blame Bolivia’s Evo Morales for the Amazon fires Wyatt Reed Zero Hedge"People Will Be Shocked" - Bannon On Huawei & The Communist China ThreatTyler Durden...

Market rises over time.

As a preliminary exercise, it may be instructive to modify the familiar Keynesian cross diagram to include the effects of a job guarantee within a simple short-run framework. The diagram includes two key schedules. The first is a 45-degree line showing all points for which actual expenditure equals actual income. The second is a line with lesser slope depicting the level of planned expenditure (total demand) at each level of income. Under appropriate conditions, the two schedules intersect...

Ellen Brown summarizes Michael Hudson 's ..and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year (THE TYRANNY OF DEBT Book 1). TruthdigThe Key to a Sustainable Economy Is 5,000 Years Old Ellen Brown

Diane Coyle reviews Robert Shiller's new book, Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events, on the power of narrative, i.e., story. The most ancient from of knowledge transmission in social reproduction was myth. Mythos means "story" in Greek. Ancient cultures were characterized by teaching stories. This so-called primitive technology (concepts and numbers) still works to influence. Why? Because it is holistic, engaging the spectrum of human response. MMT...

Gerald Epstein has written a book critiquing neochartalism from a policy perspective. On an initial look he seems to attack the neochartalists on two things: their reluctance to talk about rise in tax rates and the international aspect — the limited applicability of their ideas to a few rich countries.... Good. The debate is engaged. Having written a book about MMT, the author has no excuse for not knowing the MMT literature in detail and citing it where appropriate for a scholar. I am...

Important. This is a view of neoliberal globalization in terms of the history of imperialism and its financial and economic analysis. It emerges as a natural extension of liberal capitalism in the Western liberal ideology that came to dominate the world scene after the colonial period. Ironically, the practical application of this world view took place in the transition of America from a British colony to the first Western liberal democracy constructed in terms of Enlightenment philosophy...

Economists have reacted negatively to the prospect of Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency. This column, part of the VoxEU debate on the future of digital money, outlines how if we focus exclusively on the efficiencies a currency like Libra brings to payment, there are arguments in its favour. A global digital currency provided by central banks may be preferable, but a private version would offer many of the same benefits.... The Libra operates on a fixed exchange rate with reference to floating...

Marty Weitzman passed away suddenly yesterday. He was on many people’s shortlist for the Nobel. His work is marked by high-theory applied to practical problems. The theory is always worked out in great generality and is difficult even for most economists. Weitzman wanted to be understood by more than a handful of theorists, however, and so he also went to great lengths to look for special cases or revealing metaphors. Thus, the typical Weitzman paper has a dense middle section of math but...