Mike Norman Economics

— Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent testimony was a reminder that Russia attempted to influence the outcome of the 2016 election and very well may try to do so again in 2020. — This begs the question: Is there any evidence that Russian interference may have impacted the results, particularly in key states? — The following analysis suggests that the 2016 results can be explained almost entirely based on the political and demographic characteristics of those states. So from that...

But if Germany’s manufacturing woes were not sufficient in and of themselves, then combined with the threat of trade war with Trump, the prospect indeed is bleak for Europe: And the likelihood is that any of that ECB stimulus – promised for this autumn, as Mario Draghi warns that the European picture is getting “worse and worse” – will be very likely to meet with an angry response from Trump – castigated as blatant currency manipulation by the EU and its ECB. EU Relations with Washington...

Cultural paradigms and national models. Andrei Martyanov doesn't go into how the US is trying to impose its traditional cultural paradigm and it contemporary national neoliberal model on the rest of the world in an imperial fashion and how this is not going to work, but he alludes to it in the its assumption is the basis of his post. He focuses here on the incompatibility of the Russian and Chinese cultural paradigms and their respective national models as incompatible. I have...

Did you hear the joke about the economists who tested their theory by defining it to be true? Oh, I forgot. It’s not a joke. It’s standard practice among mainstream economists. They propose that productivity explains income. And then they ‘test’ this idea by defining productivity in terms of income. In this post, I’m going to show you this circular logic. Then I’ll show you what productivity differences look like when productivity is measure objectively. They’re far too small to explain...

Head in the sand, so far. Massive denial."Capitalize the gains, socialize the losses" is becoming an unsustainable business model.Tax Research UKThe world’s companies should be forced to account for Global Heating Richard Murphy | Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London; Director of Tax Research UK; non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics, and a member of the Progressive Economy Forum

Last week (August 9, 2019), the British Office of National Statistics (ONS) – GDP first quarterly estimate, UK: April to June 2019 – told us that the UK economy contracted by 0.2 per cent in the June-quarter 2019 after having grown by 0.5 per cent in the March-quarter. The UK Guardian pundits and the Remain cheer squad all screamed Brexit and were heard to be walking around in circles saying “see, we told you so”. Meanwhile (August 7, 2019), not far away (according to the Remain crowd’s...

Trees to the rescue, although they might not be the complete solution. Scientists around the world are working on new technologies to combat climate change, like carbon capture and solar radiation management, but could simply planting enough trees stave off some of the devastation?  We’re actually in the midst of an international effort to do just that, but researchers have found there are some flaws in our approach. In 2011, the United States, Brazil and many other countries around the...

Supplementing with 800iu of Vitamin D everyday reduces the risk of getting cancer by 16%.It's a very long medical article.https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l4673

 The FT's global China editor James Kynge says for all Donald Trump's rhetoric about how tariffs are working, the numbers show that China's trade surplus with the US is widening. China has the upper hand.  Contains video.  https://www.ft.com/video/74311d7d-d602-4181-a276-5e22f48267d2

Cost of manufacturing insulin ??: $6.00 Cost of manufacturing insulin??: $6.00 Cost of a vial of insulin in the US: Around $340 Cost of a vial of insulin in Canada: Around $30 'The free market drives down prices!' 'Greatest country in the world!' For who? Big pharma execs? ?