Mike Norman Economics

“China has a 15-year head start—whatever you want, someone’s doing it,” said Wing Xu, the operations director for Omnidex Group, which helps make large pumps for Pennsylvania-based industrial equipment manufacturer McLanahan Corp.... Checkpoint AsiaManufacturers Want to Quit China for Vietnam. They’re Finding It Impossible. Nobody has China's scale, infrastructure, experience, and supply chains Niharika Mandhana, The Wall Street Journal

"Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA." The bottom line: It should go without saying that Trump doesn't have the authority to order U.S. companies to look for alternatives to China.... AxiosIn tweets, Trump tells American businesses to leave China See also at Axios China announces retaliatory tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. goodsSee also at...

Nice figurative language metaphor here "out of tools!" like "out of money!" blah, blah, blah... no adjustment being made...  or no one "changing their minds!" either... above the fold Washington Post...@GOP With deficit rising, worries grow the U.S. may be out of tools if recession hits @realDonaldTrump is NOT making America great https://t.co/0SYJvaWg14— WyssWriter (@WyssWriter) August 23, 2019

For at least a few moments this week, President Trump suggested a payroll tax cut to stimulate the stalling macroeconomy. Although it appears that he has already changed his mind, it’s worth taking a look at the strategy...just in case. Let’s say for sake of argument that the negative signals we have received of late are accurate. What should we do if we slip into full-fledged recession? Cut interest rates? Lower the budget deficit? Decrease payroll taxes? It turns out that the last one is...

Wealth disparities between the rich and the poor in the United States have broadened over the past 30 years, according to a new dataset released earlier this month by researchers at the Federal Reserve Board. Their Distributional Financial Accounts is the new dataset that provides quarterly estimates of wealth distribution in the country from 1989 to 2019. 2 The new dataset was created by integrating the Federal Reserve Board’s Financial Accounts with the Survey of Consumer Finances....

Some social & political theory. Focuses on Walter Lippmann, The Good Society. Although Eric Schliesser doesn't mention it in this post, Aristotle discussed these issues in detail in his Politics.Digressions&ImpressionsOn Demagogues and DemocracyEric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

This Labor Day, Our Money will gather 500 participants to host a march for Full Employment and Economic Justice in commemoration of the Civil Rights Movement legacy of advocacy for a Federal Job Guarantee. The march will begin at the MLK Memorial in Washington DC at 11 am and end at the Marriner Eccles Building of the Federal Reserve around 2 pm.  Our Money founder, Rev. Dr. Delman Coates, will use this opportunity to draw the connection for lay audiences between the Civil Rights struggle...

Kashkari going to State Fair... Fed in Jackson Hole... these people not doing much work these days... kicking back here in August this month...Pretty good indicator that they wont be doing anything before September meeting... good sign... #JustDoNothing Headed to first day of #mnstatefair2019. Excited for @MinneapolisFed booth in the education building. If I restrain myself from eating at the Fair, did I really go? #fedatthefair — Neel Kashkari (@neelkashkari) August 22, 2019

Looks like a political impasse between these 2 Monetarist morons:Jerome Powell, June 25: “The Treasury Department -- the administration -- is responsible for exchange rate policy -- full stop.''https://t.co/7oe1uoDxy1 https://t.co/Vm1h53tJ1F— Katherine Greifeld (@kgreifeld) August 5, 2019

I keep reading ridiculous articles about Brexit in the UK Guardian. The latest was comparing it to pre-WWI Britain and suggesting there were no signs of a “Damascene moment remainers hoped for”. I thought that reference was apposite – given the reference invokes St Paul’s conversion after he was struck blind. Good analogy – blind and remainer. The Brexit imbroglio is all the more puzzling because it seems to be a massive mismatch of scale – a currency-issuing nation and an organisation with...