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Zero Hedge — Poszar Was Right: Saudis Confirm Non-Dollar Oil Trade Plans In Davos

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/01/zero-hedge-poszar-was-right-sau…
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 10:32
Earlier this month, former NY Fed repo guru Zoltan Pozsar wrote one of his most important reports of 2022, in which he described how Putin could unleash hell on the Western financial system by demanding that instead of dollars, Russian oil exporters are paid in gold, effectively pegging oil to gold and launching Petrogold.
Then, China's President Xi visit with Saudi and GCC leaders marked the birth of the petroyuan and a leap in China’s growing encumbrance of OPEC+’s oil and gas reserves: that's because with the China-GCC Summit, "China can now claim to have built a 'special relationship' not only with the '+' sign in OPEC+ (Russia), but with Iran and all of OPEC+."
And now, according to Bloomberg, Saudi Arabia is open to discussions about trade in currencies other than the US dollar, according to the kingdom’s finance minister….
End of an era?

Zero Hedge

Grover is in panic mode

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/18/grover-is-in-panic-mode/
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 10:30
His allies don’t understand anything You all remember anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, don’t you? The guy who said they wanted to made government so small you can drown it in the bathtub? He hasn’t had much to say the last half decade but suddenly his issue is front and center. Unfortunately, today’s Republicans don’t understand what they’re supposed to be doing because they are very deluded and very stupid. And he’s upset: As part of his deal to become House speaker, Kevin McCarthy reportedly promised his party’s conservative hardliners a vote on legislation that would scrap the entire American tax code and replace it with a jumbo-sized national sales tax. The assurance got relatively little attention at the time, drowned out by the many other concessions McCarthy made to win his gavel. But with Democrats already attacking the proposal, some conservatives see it as a political headache in the making. “This is a political gift to Biden and the Democrats,” Grover Norquist, the dean of D.C. anti-tax activists, said in an interview.

Welcome to the WHONIVERSE!

https://www.blogtorwho.com/welcome-to-the-whoniverse/
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 10:00

New signage at Wolf Studios hints subtly as big things ahead for the Doctor Who Whoniverse Ncuti Gatwa has posted to his Instragram, proudly showing off the new mural greeting visitors to Wolf Studios in Cardiff. It shows a smiling Fifteenth Doctor, still in the remains of the Fourteenth Doctor’s costume, leaning against what seems […]

The post Welcome to the WHONIVERSE! appeared first on Blogtor Who.

China’s economy is on a rebound — M. K. Bhadrakumar

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/01/chinas-economy-is-on-rebound-m-…
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 09:59
From an Indian perspective, it may seem momentarily that China’s economy is slowing while India’s expanded by nearly 7 percent (per World Bank predictions.) Can India catch up with China in a medium term scenario?

This is where the devil lies in the fine print. The heart of the matter is that China’s GDP growth of 3 percent translates as a year-on-year expansion of its economy by a whopping $18 trillion.

To put matters in perspective, China has added a little over five and a half times the size of India’s economy (GDP: $3.5 trillion) in a single year.…

Clearly, with global economic growth likely to decline sharply and global inflation still hovering at high levels in 2023, the economies of major developed economies are likely to show stagflation. Suffice it to say that the European countries will be inclined to view the Chinese market as holding the key to an early economic recovery. Recasting the global supply chains by decoupling from China is going to be easier said than done.

The Economic and Environmental Effects of a Green Employer of Last Resort: A Sectoral Multiplier Analysis for the United States

https://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/?docid=2775
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 08:18
We assess the sectoral impact of the implementation of a "green" employer of last resort (ELR) program in the US, based on an environmental modification of an extended Kurz's (1985) multiplier framework and data from OECD Input-Output tables. We use these multipliers to estimate the impact of an "optimal" ELR, designed to maximize the impact on both output and employment while minimizing both imports and carbon emissions.

A satisfying “both-sides” takedown

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/18/a-satisfying-both-sides-takedown/
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 07:30
The Washington Post’s Philip Bump predictably does the best analysis of this “both sides” excuses for the “classified documents” story: Look, when there’s no need for your rhetoric not to be lazy, you land on lazy rhetoric. If you can carry the day — at least with those who you’re most worried about convincing — with little effort or logical consistency, why bother putting in the effort or assembling that consistency? If your target audience hasn’t even heard the nuances that undercut your point, why bother rebutting those nuances? So it is that we enter our second (third? Who can keep track) week of apologists for former president Donald Trump seeking to equate his effort to retain documents sought by the government with a clutch of documents with classification markings found at President Biden’s home and an office he used.

Bill Mitchell – EU bonds will not become a ‘safe asset’ – Germany and Co won’t let that happen

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/01/bill-mitchell-eu-bonds-will-not…
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 07:08
It’s Wednesday and I have several items to discuss or provide information about today. Today, I discuss the future of the EU-bonds that were issued as part of two main emergency interventions in 2020 as policy makers feared the worse from the pandemic. The question is whether these assets can ever become ‘safe’ in the same way that Japanese government bonds or US treasury bonds are clearly ‘safe’. The answer is that they cannot and the reason goes to the heart of the problem besetting Europe – the fundamental monetary architecture is flawed in the most elemental way. I also provide some updates for MMTed and a great new book. And, of course, this week, I have to remember Jeff Beck in the music segment....
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
EU bonds will not become a ‘safe asset’ – Germany and Co won’t let that happen
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Old Heterodox Banking Debates — Brian Romanchuk

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/01/old-heterodox-banking-debates-b…
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 06:52
Banking and money is an area of ancient debates between post-Keynesians (and their fore-runners) and mainstream economists. Many of these showed up in my earlier book Abolish Money (From Economics)!, with the theme more focussed on money. Although I believe I need to touch on this topic, I want to keep it short. Partly because it appeared in another book, and partly because I am less and less convinced that these debates are that useful for discussing banking.

Note: Once again, this is a draft of a manuscript section from my banking book. It will be in a chapter on modelling banking.

Excellent summary of "exogenous" and "endogenous" as applied to "money." This is important for understanding the relationship of finance and economics, and it underlies a good part of MMT, The descriptive aspect of which involves modeling this relationship conceptually. That is to say, MMT as a theory provides an explanation of the relationship of finance and economics in terms of institutional arrangements. One could say that the mathematical aspect of the modeling  involved is provided by the accounting.

On Constitutional Monetary Moments

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/01/18/50849/
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 06:44
Earlier today,  after I tweeted out that “Proposals to mint $1tn platinum coin are designed to circumvent the US constitution’s “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts,” I got lectured by Nathan Tankus for “not grasping the most elementary legal issues in the topic […]

Diffy Demo -- January Drupal for Nonprofits Chat

https://www.drupal.org/community/nonprofit-drupal/blog/diffy-demo-january-drupa…
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 06:05

New year, new Drupal for Nonprofits chat! Join us TOMORROW, Thursday, January 19 at 1pm ET / 10am PT, for our regularly scheduled call to chat about all things Drupal and nonprofits. (Convert to your local time zone.)

This month, frequent chat participant Stephen Musgrave of Capellic will be giving us our long-awaited demonstration of visual regression testing, using tools like Diffy. (Thank you, Stephen!) Got thoughts/questions/concerns? Feel free to share ahead of time in our collaborative Google doc: https://nten.org/drupal/notes!

All nonprofit Drupal devs and users, regardless of experience level, are always welcome on this call.

Krita brushes 2023-01 bundle

https://www.davidrevoy.com/article953/krita-brushes-2023-01-bundle
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 05:48

Intro

We are already past two weeks into the new year, and I wanted to start it with optimizing my new brushes, clean the thumbnails and remove the double. I collected this way this pack of 38 brushes. I'm sharing them today.

You might find that some of these brushes are similar to official default brush of Krita: their aspect, their usability and their thumbnail design. That's because I designed the default brush of Krita and even if my taste evolves a bit, my classic and way to solve problems remains the same.

Trump’s comeback begins

https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/18/trumps-comeback-begins/
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 05:30
On social media, anyway Feel the magic: Mounting a comeback for the White House, Donald Trump is looking to regain control over his powerful social media accounts. With access to his Twitter account back, Trump’s campaign is formally petitioning Facebook’s parent company to unblock his account there after it was locked in response to the U.S. Capitol riot two years ago. […] “Trump is probably coming back to Twitter. It’s just a question of how and when,” said a Republican who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations with Trump about returning to the platform. “He’s been talking about it for weeks, but Trump speaks for Trump, so it’s anyone’s guess what he’ll do or say or when.” Another Trump confidant who also didn’t want to be identified speaking about conversations with him said that Trump has sought input for weeks about hopping back on Twitter and that his campaign advisers have also workshopped ideas for his first tweet. I’ll never get over the fact that they actually “workshop” tweets.

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Diamond Collection – The Fourth Doctor

https://www.blogtorwho.com/doctor-who-60th-anniversary-diamond-collection-the-f…
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 05:00

The Diamond Anniversary celebrations continue with a range of merchandise devoted to Tom Baker Doctor Who’s 60th Anniversary year is officially here! And Forbidden Planet’s celebrations are continuing as their Diamond Collection adds the Fourth Doctor to its range. Each month this year will feature a host of merchandise for a different Doctor and February […]

The post Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Diamond Collection – The Fourth Doctor appeared first on Blogtor Who.

It’s Not You, It’s Me and My Science-Based, Life-Optimizing Podcasts

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-not-you-its-me-and-my-science-based-lif…
Created
Thu, 19/01/2023 - 05:00

Let’s be honest; we’ve been growing apart for a while now. I first noticed it three months ago, right around the time I started listening to five hours of science-based, life-optimizing podcasts per day, and you kept on being a normal person.

In that time, I’ve implemented a series of science-based tools and protocols to optimize every facet of my health, wellness, and longevity. I’ve brought synergistic balance to my hormones, boosted my synthetic happiness, and doubled my VO2 max, all while you’ve just … kept being Steve.

And that’s fine, really. You’ve got your music, your volunteer work, and your kickball team. I get it—you’d rather play KISS covers, house homeless vets, and kick cleanup Tuesday nights than dedicate your free time to marginally improving your already happy and healthy life.

But that’s not the direction an elite group of doctor-podcasters I’ve never met wants my life to be headed in. They want me to leverage molecule regimens to optimize sleep performance, harness nutritional biochemistry to maximize longevity, and maybe take a peek at what’s behind the paywall.