Mike Norman Economics

Financial sector is rattled by John McDonnell’s support for an FTT that would raise about £7bn a year When asked at an event last week if he would support a new plan that would raise an estimated £7bn a year for the exchequer, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, had a one-word answer: yes. The proposals were unchallengeable, he said. That’s not true, obviously. Labour’s plans for a financial transaction tax (FTT) were being challenged even as McDonnell spoke. The City has enormous...

Thomas Pilketty is getting bold. I think he is right, we do need radical solutions.One of the reasons the Right online have so much trouble winning arguments with me is that I agree with them about the benefits of markets. I needed a part for my 20 year old lawnmower the other day, so I looked on eBay and found it for about £4.50, including postage. Amazing!The government can't micro manage the economy, so it's best to let people get on with it themselves. But unfettered markets cause too...

Project Syndicate — Say MoreJayati Ghosh Says More... The Vineyard of the SakerRussia prevents Israeli airstrikes in Syria The Saker FAIRRussia Has ‘Oligarchs,’ the US Has ‘Businessmen’ - In 150 NYT, CNN and Fox articles, ‘oligarch’ seems reserved for Slavic billionaires Alan MacLeod Oilprice.comU.S. And Russia Battle It Out Over This Huge Iraqi Gas Field Simon Watkins Craig Murray BlogThe World’s Most Important Political PrisonerCraig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan...

Thomas Piketty "Entrepreneurs will have millions or tens of millions," he said. "But beyond that, those who have hundreds of millions or billions will have to share with shareholders, who could be employees. So no, there won't be billionaires anymore. How can we justify that their existence is necessary for the common good? Contrary to what is often said, their enrichment was obtained thanks to these collective goods, which are the public knowledge, the infrastructures, the laboratories of...

This is all a complete OPEC scam to get the oil price up in USD terms... let's hope Trump can see right through this ... Saudi's full oil supply could take weeks to resume: source https://t.co/chY6wZRCA5 pic.twitter.com/sC15SgG4ex — Reuters Top News (@Reuters) September 15, 2019

The qualified/competent are leaving to get a better job/pay and the entry level people are all on drugs and booze so they can't get hired...This is potentially a VERY "inflationary!" condition if the government starts throwing munnie around at the construction industry...  everybody is going to start bidding up qualified/competent labor...Situation contained for now but fiscal and monetary have been far from ideal for the last 18 months... Election year might prove different...Record number...

300k dead from booze 4x US drug ODs... Everybody drunk or on drugs...  causes labor shortages and reduces growth... JG won't help... #RealTermsAlcohol killed 291,000 people in 30 European countries in 2016, more than 10 times the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents in the EU that year. The U.S. opioid epidemic only kills about a quarter as many people every year https://t.co/0quiD7ry4E— Bloomberg Opinion (@bopinion) September 14, 2019

This guy gets it wrong about printing money and the national debt (another video), but this is very interesting: US companies do very well in China selling a lot of services, which almost counters the trade imbalance.Donald Trump has been dialing up the tariffs and the rhetoric around the ongoing trade spat with China. Yet Xi Jingping has held a firm line and has been unwilling to fold to increasing pressure from the US. Donald Amstad from Aberdeen Standard Investments believes that Trump...

Capitalism Doesn’t Make Us Rich, and Socialism Doesn’t Make Us Poor — Socialism Makes Us Rich, and Capitalism Makes Us Poor.  I agree with Umar, social democracy (he calls it socialism) has liberated Europeans. The liberty Ron Paul talks about is the freedom of the few to be able to exploit and enslave the many.  In Europe, though, the story was very, very different. Socialism, not capitalism, organized the provision of the essentials of life — and both paid people fairly and...

Martin Sieff is exactly right on this IMHO, recalling his boyhood experience in Belfast as precedent. The protestors and West believes that Hong Kong is a vital resource for China, but they apparently do not realize that this is no longer so. Hong Kong's contribution to the Chinese economy has shrunk greatly, and China has already been planning to replace it with Shanghai as a financial center, as it use to be, and other centers on the mainland. Reports reveal that Hong Kong is already...