Mike Norman Economics

Hotel Mount Washington where the Betton Woods Conference was held in 1944. Bretton Woods is the name of the town in New Hampshire.Global MonitorThe Bear On The Balcony At Bretton Woods

Professor Guy Standing was invited to speak to a group of leading Silicon Valley executives and they listened taking lots of notes. At the end of the speech a famous multi-billionaire got up and said he agreed with him.Guy Standing explains how the patent system is being abused creating rents for the One Percent and stifling competition.He also explains how privatisation has failed the public. [embedded content] There are three fundamental issues that lie at the heart of our current...

I don't know how to copy tweets along with their photos and videos yet, but here is a text copy of a Branko Milanovic tweet.It's sometimes said that Branko is very pro free markets and doesnt like socialism, hmmm!  I went for a scan recently and I said I to the receptionist that I had forgotten the paperwork. The centre was a 15 minute walk away from where I lived. The receptionist said it doesn't matter and just asked for my name and address and then told me to take a seat. Within ten...

I am often asked, after my talks or on social media, to pass a judgment on the stability, or lack of it, of a particular country. For example, looking across the Atlantic to the United Kingdom, one sees a lot of parallels with the crisis we are currently living through in the US. The rise of populism, increasing fragmentation of the political landscape—do these similarities reflect deep structural trends below the surface? Such questions can only be answered with a proper...

Applying MMT in the EZ. The likely growth slowdown in the euro area in the coming quarters will be the trigger for this new phase of expansionist fiscal policy. However, uncertainty remains as to the scale and the implementation of the stimulus. If it is up to member countries, the stimulus is likely to be under-supplied as many governments will have little incentive to do much. Europe will face the same free-rider problem as in the past, with countries patiently waiting to benefit from...

Gerd Gigerenzer takes aim at Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein for being uncritical and going too far. While not endorsing rational choice theory, he stresses that the truth lies between the extremes of rationality and irrationality and claims behavioral economics tends to over emphasize irrationality consequent on cognitive-effective bias. It's neither reason or all bias, either all or mostly, but a combination of rationality and irrationality.Statistical Modeling, Causal...

An excellent summery of how it all went wrong in the US. It tackles everything from unions, feminism, to race relations, and how the CIA infiltrated these groups to divide and rule.After the New Deal, the industrialists decided to destroy the unions, and during the Mccarthy period the unions were made to throw out their socialists and communists believing the propaganda that the best way out of poverty was the American Dream. As a result, the elite were able to keep wages low and offshore...

France on Thursday became the first major economy to impose a tax on digital giants, with parliament passing the legislation in defiance of a probe ordered by President Donald Trump that could trigger reprisal tariffs.The new law aims at plugging a taxation gap that has seen some internet heavyweights paying next to nothing in countries where they make huge profits. Asia TimesFrance passes law to tax digital giants Hazel Ward

Falling aggregate profit rate? As James Montier, the post-Keynesian economist at GMO, the large asset fund manager, points out, real earnings growth in the corporate sector has been below the rate of real GDP growth even after the significant boost from the financial engineering from share buybacks. According to Montier, when you dig down into the market you find that a staggering 25-30 per cent of firms are actually making a loss. In Montier’s view, “the US is witnessing the rise of the...

A superb interview with Norman Finkelstein. [embedded content] Despite the propaganda Labour leads in the polls. The establishment must be getting worried.Chunky Mark - ‪Oh my god!!!, OH MY GOD!!!!!!‬ ‪Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour are a massive 6pts clear in the Polls [embedded content]