Mike Norman Economics

Xi Jinping on the Chinese Financial System— Karl Sanchez

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 03:32:00 +0000

Excerpt from a longer Xi Jinping speech about the Chinese financial system, along with some commentary by Sanchez and comments by Michael Hudson.

karlof1's Geopolitical Gymnasium
Xi Jinping on the Chinese Financial System
Karl Sanchez

>8B now…

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 15:42:00 +0000

Dude alleges Marx’s “capitalism!” was somehow responsible for an acceleration of human progress starting in mid 1800s…

Darwin’s Platonist “origin of the species” published iirc 1855 and marked the apex of the Platonist/neoplatonist academic methodology and fomented the creation of the Science degree in formalized academic institutions which is the causal development at that time which has led to the apparent unprecedented acceleration in human material increase …

It didn’t have anything to do with Marx’s “capitalism!” which itself is a Platonist figurative construct among many others that run under that failed disgraced methodology…

In 2022, global population surpassed eight billion people for the first time, marking an eightfold increase since 1800. Prior to the mid-18th century, population growth and living standards remained stagnant for millennia.

However, the advent of capitalism sparked revolutionary… pic.twitter.com/QKA95a7Rry
— Strider Elass (@StriderElass) January 24, 2026

What Davos 2026 Can Tell Us About the World That Is Coming — Curro Jimenez

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 23:39:00 +0000

Predictive (speculative). In the latter half, the author speculates on the technological transition underway from a traditional (analog) monetary system to a digital one — and the implications thereof.

The implementation of central digital currencies, which are a control mechanism, requires the physical extension of hardware and software—which is well underway—as well as concrete territories of applicability. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why we are seeing a return to the “zone of influence” concept.

If this is to happen—which I think is a question of time—there will be fundamental changes in how our societies work. In a financialized society, in which an individual needs money to eat, drink, sleep, and perhaps soon to even breathe, a change in the nature of money is not a mere secondary consequence but a foundational aspect of how the system works.

This type of change, which is akin to a revolution, will displace some elites and will elevate others. Which is why we are seeing some politicians in Davos coming to terms with an inescapable reality: the system they upheld was a fraudulent design to keep some elites in power.

It was none other than Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, who said those words. He, who previously was the governor of the Bank of England, is realizing his class is being pushed aside. The financiers will be replaced by the technologists.

That is the war being fought right now in the United States. Matt Stoller, in his latest newsletter, brilliantly summarized the conflict and offered this as an update of the current status:
I want to highlight an important moment on Capitol Hill last week that could dictate the future of finance in America. On Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee abruptly canceled its meeting, known as a mark-up, to write little-noticed legislation to deregulate the financial system. And the reason is that two of the more powerful forces in D.C.—the banking lobby and the new MAGA-powered crypto world—came into conflict. The result, so far, is a stalemate.

Naked Capitalism

What Davos 2026 Can Tell Us About the World That Is Coming
Curro Jimenez

China Drags The Shipping Industry Into The Digital Age — Godfree Roberts

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 01:33:00 +0000

Saves $40 billion, makes settlement cheap, instantaneous, invisible to the US Treasury. China designed and hosts it, but everybody has a say.

The savings from efficiency no longer flow to the accustomed rentiers. The wheels of international commerce, the foundation of the global economy, also get greased. The new settlement system also opens doors that were formerly closed or difficult to access. This will increase the pace of the great leveling that neocolonialists are attempting to delay in their favor.

Here Comes China
China Drags The Shipping Industry Into The Digital Age
Godfree Roberts

Is there hope for a post neoliberal world? — Bill Mitchell

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 20:44:00 +0000

I grew up in a society where collective will was at the forefront and it is true to say people looked out for each other. The state – at all levels – had various policy structures in place to provide levels of economic protection for the least advantaged members of society. Having grown up in a poor family, those structures were important in allowing me to stay at school and then go onto to university. It also allowed my friends on the housing commission estate (state housing) who had different skills (not academic) to get apprenticeships and build careers that gave them material security in that way. It wasn’t a perfect period – there was racism, misogyny, and xenophobia – but as mass education spread, my generation left a lot of that behind. I was thinking about that when I read the recent article by Robert Reich in the UK Guardian (December 29, 2026) – Americans are waking up. A grand reckoning awaits us – which carried a resonance of some of the things that I have seen emerge in Australia as well as this 4-decade or so neoliberal nightmare reaches some sort of denouement.

William Mitchell - Modern Monetary Theory
Is there hope for a post neoliberal world?
Bill Mitchell, Emeritus Professor, University of Newcastle, and co-founder of MMT

The Minimum Wage Jobs Framework — NeilW

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 20:15:00 +0000

The Minimum Wage Jobs (MWJ) Framework is the most operationally efficient version of a Job Guarantee for the United Kingdom. It achieves the dual objective of a modern stabilisation system: eliminating involuntary unemployment while providing a permanent anchor for inflation....

New Wayland

The Minimum Wage Jobs Framework

NeilW

Systemic Entropy and Power: Explaining the Breakdown of World Order — Curro Jimenez

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 22:20:00 +0000

This is a follow-up to the previous post. It is a meta-analysis and explanation of the current transition in the world order, driven by the Second World (China and, previously, the USSR, now Russia) and the Third World (the rest) catching up technologically. At the same time, the First World lags owing to financialization and de-industrialization.

Naked Capitalism
Systemic Entropy and Power: Explaining the Breakdown of World Order
Curro Jimenez

How the BRICS+ Unit Can Save Global Trade — Pepe Escobar

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 20:17:00 +0000

Pepe Escobar explains "The Unit" as an alternative to the USD in international trade, as well as in banking and finance. It is loosely based on the bancor proposed by Keynes at Bretton Woods, which was rejected in favor of the USD fixed to gold.

This would facilitate "de-dollarization" in the sense of providing an alternative settlement vehicle to avoid weaponization of the dollar. Another meaning of "de-dollarization" is replacement of the USD as the global reserve currency. This is not the objective of The Unit.

The Unit is essentially a benchmark token – or an index token; a post-stablecoin, digital monetary tool; totally decentralized; and with intrinsic value anchored in real assets: gold and sovereign currencies.

The Unit can be used either as part of a new digital infrastructure – what most of the Global South is striving for; or as part of a traditional banking setup.

When it comes to fulfilling traditional money functions, The Unit is – pardon the pun – right on the money. It’s meant to be used as a quite convenient medium of exchange in cross-border trade and investments – a key plank of the diversification actively pursued by BRICS+.

It should also be seen as an independent, reliable measure for value and pricing, as well as a better store of value than fiat money....

The Unz Review

How the BRICS+ Unit Can Save Global Trade
Pepe Escobar

Earnings Projections

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 11:48:00 +0000

The NPV of current service subscription contracts at all IT firms will increase solely due to the projected Fed reductions in the risk free interest rate WHEN they happen...

Rate policy has become even more important since the IT sector’s transition to the subscription business model… it’s not just banking/finance any more…

I’m seeing more and more of this. We expect 10% earnings growth over time. NOT NEXT YEAR…but AFTER we spend on AI it will CERTAINLY kick in. pic.twitter.com/QFytAIMJTF
— Brian Wesbury (@wesbury) October 16, 2025

Grok:

Modern-day Yuri Gagarin becomes first Russian to receive salary in digital rubles! — Edward Slavsquat

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 22:26:00 +0000

Russia launches the central bank's digital ruble, based on people having bank accounts at the central bank and transacting directly rather than through an intermediary bank.

The initial response seems to be tepid on roll out.

Adoption is voluntary, at the outset at least. Time will tell whether convenience outweighs security and privacy concerns.

But CBC (central bank currency) is happening.

Edward Slavsquat's Substack
Modern-day Yuri Gagarin becomes first Russian to receive salary in digital rubles!

"Edward Slavsquat"

Riley Waggaman, a.k.a., “Edward Slavsquat,” an American journalist who has been living in Russia. Waggaman is a former RT writer/editor who has recently gone independent and writes on Substack.

Russia Doesn’t Need Foreign Investment — Paul Craig Roberts

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 22:57:00 +0000

As Michael Hudson and I have pointed out several times, Russia can finance her own development by creating rubles. By bringing in foreign money, Russia loses income flows from the development. Moreover, when income from the investments are paid to foreign owners, the rubles exchanged in the currency market for the foreign investors home currencies can put pressure on the Ruble’s value.

Mirable dictu! PCR is getting it, apparently by way of Michael Hudson.

Paul Craig Roberts-Institute for Political Economy
Russia Doesn’t Need Foreign Investment
Paul Craig Roberts | formerly Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate

Nobody needs reserves

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 02:27:00 +0000

Stablecoins increasingly replacing reserves for settlements… lol nobody needs any… RRR still 0% … btw MMT silent on this technological development … will allow Fed to continue to do their QT system reserve asset balance reduction ie “destroying money!” more than most people realize… they could probably go to zero reserves … monetarist brain dead zombies will think “no money!” … monetarist morons will be all bearish on their “M1!” or “M2!” gong to zero…

…

NY FED RECEIVES NO BIDS AT OVERNIGHT REPO OPERATION
— First Squawk (@FirstSquawk) September 2, 2025

The Economy of Narratives-How We Become the Guardians of Our Own Ideological Prison — Robert Cauneau

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 21:48:00 +0000

Why is it that visibly false economic analogies, such as that of the state managing its budget « as a responsible father, » dominate public debate with such unwavering force? How can we explain that the anxiety-inducing narrative of the « wall of debt » or the « burden on future generations » continues to justify austerity policies, even though detailed operational analyses, describing the system’s actual « plumbing, » demonstrate its inadequacy? The paradox is not so much that misconceptions persist despite the facts, but that they impose themselves as organized narratives, conveying emotion, legitimacy, and power. These narratives are not intellectual accidents, but cognitive and political instruments, shaped to be believed and to make alternatives unthinkable.

This article advances a simple thesis: the battle for a better understanding of economics is not simply a battle of facts against errors, but a battle of narratives. Technical reality, however rigorous and demonstrable, struggles to assert itself because it clashes with a dominant narrative that is much older, simpler, and, above all, more emotionally powerful. The main challenge for approaches like Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is not to prove its technical coherence—it is—but to overcome its own narrative deficit.

This accounts for the persistence of the "fable" of monetarists that underpins the Fed's rationale for interest rates as the single variable "control knob" of the economy, despite not only the lack of evidence but also the admission that there is no justifiable theory of inflation based on the historical data in the present narrative.

MMT France

The Economy of Narratives-How We Become the Guardians of Our Own Ideological Prison
Robert Cauneau

The dollar system in an age of market-based finance - financial globalization beyond banks — Adam Tooze

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 17:10:00 +0000

How, after the GFC, the dollar is of key importance in global finance owing to the role of US Treasuries as a safe, high-liquidity asset.

Chartbook
Chartbook 401: The dollar system in an age of market-based finance - financial globalization beyond banks (The World Economy Now, July 2025)
Adam Tooze, Shelby Cullom Davis chair of History at Columbia University and Director of the European Institute

Grok on “money!”

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 11:53:00 +0000

Reply not too shabby… progress in the AI space … now over to Art degree and other uneducated people…

No, the USA isn't "out of money." As of July 2025, national debt is ~$36.6T, with a FY2025 deficit projected at $1.9T (6.2% GDP). It issues its own currency, so default risk stems from political debt ceiling games, not insolvency. Risk of shortfall by August if unresolved.…
— Grok (@grok) July 27, 2025

Michael Hudson: The Economics of a Civilizational Conflict (Transcript)

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 17:51:00 +0000

Full transcript of world-renowned classical economist Prof. Michael Hudson in conversation with Norwegian writer and political activist Prof. Glenn Diesen on “The Economics of a Civilizational Conflict”, July 17, 2025.

Historical backgrounder. It focuses on the history of economic rent — financial rent, and its implications for the changing world order. The world order is now based on the transition of the West from industrial capitalism to financial capitalism, and the corresponding rise of China as the dominant industrial nation.

The subtext is that the solution involves replacing privately created finance with sovereign funds for public purpose, as MMT economists and proponents also advise. This requires reversing the current order that is based on neoliberalism by recognizing public goods and the ability of monetary sovereigns to provide for them as the currency issuer.

This post also encapsulates what Michael Hudson has been saying in most of his books and interviews.

Hudson self-identifies as a classical economist, a school that focuses on addressing economic rent extraction. The principal exponents of classical economics include Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo, Thomas Robert Malthus, and John Stuart Mill. Ricardo is remembered especially for his focus on economic rent. Marx wrote in response to classical economics, among others. Husdon is also a neo-Marxist in the sense that he adapts some of Marx's analysis without the dogmatism of the Marxist schools.

The Singu Post

Michael Hudson: The Economics of a Civilizational Conflict (Transcript)

Pressure on Powell

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 10:56:00 +0000

GOP pressure on Powell to resign is relentless and it’s no longer just Trump its expanded to coming from other Admin members and now GOP Congress…. Powell not looking well… ashen coloring.. very thin...

Jay Powell just can’t do the job. He was too late raising rates when Democrats set the economy on fire, refuses to cut rates now that it might help Trump, and may have even lied to Congress about the $3.1bn Taj Mahal he’s building at the Fed.

Time to go. pic.twitter.com/AFc5tp3d9a
— Bernie Moreno (@berniemoreno) July 25, 2025

Someone Is Clo's ''ade Announcements — Thomas Neuburgers Trade Announcements — Thomas Neuburger

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 17:44:00 +0000

Was someone leaking his information? The timing looks suspicious.

God's Spies
Someone Is Closely Front-Running Trump's Trade Announcements

Thomas Neuburger

Someone Is Clo's ''ade Announcements — Thomas Neuburger

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 13:06:00 +0000

Former Monty Python star and bonehead, Eric Idle, says he'd be proud to be thrown out of America. Is he here? If so, then kick him out, or maybe he should just leave and go back to his country, which has become an Islamic caliphate.

Do you see what's going on in Europe?

Europeans think they're so special and enlightened. I lived in Europe for 10 years. I know what it is. Get out if you don't like it here.

MMT: Heuristics versus Paradigm Shift? — Randy Wray

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 02:52:00 +0000

Randy Wray, one of the co-founders, critiques the current way of presenting MMT and finds it wanting. He suggests a path to a more realistic one.

Randy's presentation of MMT was previously somewhat different from the most prevalent one, owing, for example, to his featuring of Hyman Minsky, under whom he studied. This is a much more radical and thorough break with the "old school" method of presentation.

It's a big step forward but still lacks inclusion of economic sociology, which emphasizes class as the basis of power asymmetry.

This piece is important for all interested in MMT. It's relatively short, longer than a blog post but shorter than an article. To stay current it is a must-read. Hopefully, it will provoke discussion in the MMT community.

Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
MMT: Heuristics versus Paradigm Shift?
L. Randall Wray | Professor of Economics, Bard College

A (belated) Look at Finding the Money —Steve D. Grumbine

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 23:39:00 +0000

Other than Bill Mitchell, MMT economists largely pass over the implications of MMT for social, political and economic reform, all of which are connected at the foundation. Steve Grumbine argues that without class analysis, the job is incomplete. The problem is not with the superstructure but the foundation.

Real Progressives
A (belated) Look at Finding the Money
Steve D. Grumbine

MMT and Post-Keynesian Economics: A New Paper on Ontological Differences— NeilW

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 18:35:00 +0000

In our new paper we utilise Marc Lavoie’s 2024 critique of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to contrast the ontological foundations, methodologies, and policy implications of MMT with those of Post-Keynesian (PK) economics. We argue that disagreements between these schools reflect fundamental ontological divergences rather than technical nuances.

New Wayland Blog
MMT and Post-Keynesian Economics: A New Paper on Ontological Differences—
Comparing Post-Keynesianism and Modern Monetary Theory: The Importance of Ontology and Sociology, Phil Armstrong and Neil Wilson
NeilW

“Debt Ceiling!” increased by $5T

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 12:01:00 +0000

Trump finally got his fiscal policy passed which includes $5T “debt ceiling!” increase which btw liberal Democrats shitting all over…

The One Big Beautiful Bill hikes the U.S. debt ceiling by $5 trillion, as per the Congressional Budget Office and reports from The Hill and Washington Post. This accompanies $3.3 trillion in projected deficit spending over the next decade for tax cuts, border security, and…
— Grok (@grok) July 4, 2025

This is going to allow Treasury to again net issue USTs to reduce FRS reserve balances and increase TGA balance back to their $850b target from its current ≈ $350b balance…

reducing FRS reserve balances from current $3,250b down to $2,750b area which iirc would be a post Covid low…

Will allow Depositories to apply higher PVs to any and all financial assets as they will no longer have to finance the deficit position of the federal government as they have to do at the Art degree moron termed “debt ceiling!” …. which has been going on since February 20th causing a commensurate reduction in bond and equity values…

Mike epic rant

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 01:09:00 +0000

This from Mke years ago but 100% still in play… 100% still in play… maybe Trump at best delaying it.,,

MMT Art degree morons: you have got Nooooooooo-where in all of these years …. Noooooooooo-where… proceed according…

Trump should have allowed Israel to kill the fucking Ayatollah

contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 15:05:00 +0000

Iran issues fatwa against Donald Trump: "Enemy of God"

Why did Trump let this piece of shit murderous cocksucker live? I have no idea. Israel could have taken him out, but Trump said no. Big mistake.