Mike Norman Economics

But the impact of the tax hike on the economy remains uncertain, and numerous experts have already said it may lead to further stagnation. The country is in the middle of an economic downturn, they say, and the tax increase will only worsen low inflation.Some U.S. scholars agree. "Taxes are for subtraction and to remove spending power from someone," said Stephanie Kelton, a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University. Kelton, a leading MMT advocate, criticized the...

On July 26, 2018, UK Guardian columnist Phillip Inman published an article – Household debt in UK ‘worse than at any time on record’ – which reported on the latest figures at the time from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). He noted that the data showed that “British households spent around £900 more on average than they received in income during 2017, pushing their finances into deficit for the first time since the credit boom of the 1980s … The figures pose a challenge to the...

He might be on to something here: With almost no inflation, our Country is needlessly being forced to pay a MUCH higher interest rate than other countries only because of a very misguided Federal Reserve. In addition, Quantitative Tightening is continuing, making it harder for our Country to compete. As good..... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2019 You can see in this graph below that the 2018 policy rate increases caused significant unrealized losses in the large amounts of...

WaPo take: The pending deal would seek to extend the debt ceiling and set new spending levels for two years, ratcheting back the budget brinkmanship that led to a record-long government shutdown earlier this year.  But instead of the $150 billion in new spending cuts recently demanded by White House acting budget director Russell Vought, the agreement would include a significantly lower amount of reductions. And those reductions aren’t expected to represent actual spending cuts, in part...

Beijing could be forever tarnished if it does ‘dirty business’ with the Bolsonaro government in Brazil Asia TimesChina must avoid a role in destruction of AmazonPepe Escobar

The theory of value and distribution is at the heart of economics. To be clear, when I say that it is at the center, it means that discussions of almost any topic in economics, in one way or another, depend on a certain theoretical position about the theory of value and distribution. However, most economists have no clue about it, about the centrality of value. Not only they don't understand the original and now infamous labor theory of value (LTV), that dominated between Petty and Ricardo...

 Crops already suck up a lot of carbon dioxide. One scientist thinks they can do much more. Super plants to the rescue!  The fight against climate change may seem hopeless, but humanity has a simple and powerful ally in plain sight: plants. At least that’s the belief of the botanist Joanne Chory and her team of scientists at the Salk Institute or Biological Studies in San Diego. As part of her Harnessing Plants Initiative, Chory is focused on genetically modifying plants to absorb...

Here comes more monetarism all over the globe:5/ Central bankers the world over are easing monetary policy and the IMF will likely justify such shifts when it updates its forecasts for the global economy on Tuesday. In April it forecast growth of 3.3% this year, the weakest since 2009 https://t.co/nbiKxeCxUb pic.twitter.com/I7yUazlBBC— Bloomberg Economics (@economics) July 21, 2019

Lambert Strether posed these links at Naked Capitalism. The VoxEU article was posted here at MNE when it came out. It is cited here if you missed it. The operative post is the Twitter thread that Scott Fullwiler tweeted in response to it.Modern money theory and its implementation and challenges: The case of Japan VoxEU. Thread in response by Fullwiler.Naked CapitalismSee also at Naked Capitalism today.Michael Hudson exceeded himself on this one. Here is the conclusion. The American promise...

Economists still leave out the role that money plays in the economy, says Steve Keen, in fact, they accuse him of confusing stocks with flows. They believe the economy is all based on barter, i.e, one to one, not understanding how bank credit can distort prices.To get the Australian economy going again, the Australian government will boost the housing market, but this makes the problem worse in the long run, says Steve Keen.In Part 2 Steve Keen says he differs from the MMTers in that he...