Mike Norman Economics

Control of oil has long been a key aim of U.S. foreign policy. The Paris climate agreements and any other Green programs to reduce the pace of global warming are viewed as threatening the aim of dominating world energy markets by keeping economies dependent on oil under U.S. control. Also blocking U.S. willingness to help stem global warming is the oil industry’s economic and hence political power. Its product is not only energy but also global warming, along with plastic pollution.......

Here some nut jobs out there still think the earth is flat:[embedded content] Always good to look at different points-of-view even if the other person is insane... dialectic/platonist Liberal Art method in action....

Capture from Thursday's DTS showing TGA down to $117b that first day of the month of August... net $60B draw down of the account that day ... set a "debt ceiling!" low here previous low during the recent "debt ceiling!" interval was $139B set in late May which preceded the big June >6% rally in equity prices...Doesn't look like Treasury could have made it through September 1st or at least not safely unless govt didn't raise the debt ceiling Friday... hence Mnuchin/Trump sense of urgency...

Trump signs budget bill on Friday, suspends debt ceiling for  2 years and adds over $300b more spending than previous planned and drives a stake through the heart of 'sequestration'... not a bad day!Gotta be a nightmare for these morons..  gotta be... like a bad dream... hope they had a really shitty weekend over this couldn't happen to a better bunch of morons:POTUS has now signed $4 trillion of additional national debt into law since he took office https://t.co/9o9WcgJO0F— CRFB.org...

Inventories are one driver of the business cycle. A common argument is that the movement towards just-in-time inventories has reduced the inventory cycle, and hence reduced the amplitude of the business cycle. Although plausible, it is very difficult to distinguish this from a lessened amplitude of the business cycle causing less swings in inventories. Since inventory growth is part of investment, one could view it as a subset of the argument that investment trends drive the business cycle...

Basically, what he’s trying to do is blame China and blame foreigners for the fact that a lot of Americans are really hurting. They’re not doing better. They’re not earning enough to break even. They’re going further into debt. But Trump is really saying that it’s not our fault. It’s China’s fault. Don’t blame the financial mismanagement. Don’t blame the corporations. Blame China. He pretends that they’ll pay instead of Americans. But when you levy a tariff, import prices are going to go...

Stephen A Cohen says that over his entire lifetime he has never seen anything as crazy as RussiaGate.To see all those people on TV lying was very disturbing, especially when it could have started WW3. Politicians on both sides as well as people in the media were all parroting the same nonsense. Even the Guardian, a paper I used to love, was pushing the RussiaGate myth.I used to think that politicians and journalists were rather bright, especially as most had good degrees, but then I saw how...

Sensible society would not allow these groups to rig odds as they gamble with economy Even the Financial Times agrees with me. The FT doesn't like you to copy too much, so there is a link is below. They usually let you read one article a day without a subscription.   I remember reading how private equity groups not only hire new management to run the companies they have taken over, but they also get financial advice from other people. So what do they do?...

Max Keiser is not always MMT kosher as he wants to tie currency to gold, but this is an excellent video just the same.Steve Bannon accusese China of unfair trading practices, but Western companies have been dumbing themselves down for decades. Twice as many private equity companies go bankrupt compared to share listed companies.In the U.K Sainsburys owned all their own property, and an equity group starting buying up lots their shared, but they couldn't get enough to influence the Sainsburys...

Britain spends two thirds of its budget on public programmes, like healthcare, education, and welfare, and one third on defence. The British military industrial complex thinks that only one third should be spent on public programmes and the rest on them, so they have put out a massive amount of anti-Russian propaganda, like the Skripal poisoning, Russia-gate, to get the public scared.These people might well view Russia and China as enemies, but because they are crazy, nearing the paranoid...