Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Beyond the Greek Impasse / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: STRATFOR
George Friedman writes: The Greek situation — having perhaps outlived the term "crisis," now that it has taken so long to unfold — appears to have finally reached its terminal point. This is, of course, an illusion: It has been at its terminal point for a long time.
The terminal point is the juncture where neither the Greeks nor the Germans can make any more concessions. In Greece itself, the terminal point is long past. Unemployment is at 26 percent, and more than 50 percent of youths under 25 are unemployed. Slashed wages, particularly in the state sector, affecting professions including physicians and engineers, have led to massive underemployment. Meanwhile, most new economic activity is occurring in the untaxable illegal markets. The Greeks owe money to EU institutions and the International Monetary Fund, all of which acquired bad Greek debts from banks that initially lent funds to Greece in order to stabilize its banking sector. No one ever really thought the Greeks could pay back these loans.
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Monday, June 29, 2015
Obamacare's Best Allies: The Courts and the Republicans / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
By ruling for the government in the case of King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court once again tied itself into rhetorical and logical knots to defend Obamacare. In King, the court disregarded Obamacare's clear language regarding eligibility for federal health care subsides, on the grounds that enforcing the statute as written would cause havoc in the marketplace. The court found that Congress could not have intended this result and that the court needed to uphold Congress's mythical intention and ignore Obamacare's actual language.
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Sunday, June 28, 2015
I Fear The Greeks, Even When They Bring Gifts / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Just another normal morning at the Automatic Earth. Shaking off the local drink – when in Rome.. – and perusing a thousand views and pieces, many on the inevitable topic of ‘Da Referendum’. And I got to say, I can’t even tell whether it’s just me, but there is this huge divide between what a simple vote can and should be, and how it is perceived and presented.
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Greece Crisis OXI / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
While many voices will be seeking to define the precise terms of the referendum announced last night by Alexis Tsipras for July 5, I think perhaps the general gist is more important. It’ll be a vote between being governed by Tsipras, and Greeks in general, on the one hand, and being governed by Germany, the ECB and IMF on the other. “Who do you want to decide your future?”
And the Greek population will have to understand that voting to go with the latter, voting yes to the troika proposals, will mean there will be no getting out of the stranglehold of the institutions, there will be no more sovereignty, and there will be far more severe austerity, all for years to come. All that must be caught in the exact wording of the referendum question, but what lies underneath is what really counts.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
EU Migration Crisis Solution - Settle Migrants in Depopulated Eastern Europe, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia / Politics / European Union
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Over 1 million people will succeed in their attempts to migrate to the European Union this year alone (2015), where whilst first port of call is Spain, Italy, France, and Greece, who soon funnel migrants northwards to the UK, Germany, Netherlands etc.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
Greece - The People Must Be Overthrown / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Perhaps I should apologize for writing about Greece all the time. Thing is, not only have I just arrived in Athens last night (and been duly showered in ouzo), but Greece is the proverbial early harbinger of everything that’s wrong with the world (not to worry, I know that’s a hyperbole), and of everything that could be done about it.
That places a responsibility on the shoulders of Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras and his team that maybe they don’t want, and for all I know don’t deserve either. But they’re all we have, and besides, they’re all their own people have. In that sense, this is not about everything that’s wrong with the world, other than that’s the same as everything that’s wrong with Greece.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
How Companies Are Using PIP To Humiliate and Get Rid of Workers / Politics / Employment
By: EconMatters
In my last two posts, I talked about why hiring now takes longer and how some companies use interview to score free consult from job applicants, today I'd like to discuss the increasing popularity of PIP. This is not your forex trading pip, PIP in the corporate lingo means Performance Improvement Plan.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Why Banks Rob Depositors: "Because That's Where the Money Is" / Politics / Banksters
By: MoneyMetals
One of America's most notorious bank robbers, Willie Sutton (1901-80), is said to have remarked that he robbed banks "because that's where the money is." In a strange twist, the banks themselves are now beginning literally to rob their own customers.
The theft occurs via the innovative practice of "paying" (i.e. "charging") negative interest rates on savings and checking account balances combined with account maintenance fees. Cash strapped Greece is looking to go even further – charging customers for daring to withdraw cash! So what gives here?
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Thursday, June 25, 2015
Nature Rebounds - Trends in America Portend a Global Restoration of Nature / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: John_Mauldin
The common meme in today’s world is that we are slowly (or perhaps even rapidly in some instances) destroying our global environment. Not just by way of global warming, but pollution, over-farming, water usage, and increasing use of all sorts of resources taken from the ground. Post-apocalyptic movies and books are the rage, showing us living in a world where man has ravaged his environment and our lives have been degraded if not destroyed. Our failure to deal with global warming and the destruction of the environment are key components of the mantra repeated by the mainstream media, pundits, and politicians.
Technology is supposed to somehow save us from our dystopian future by creating new ways to clean the environment, feed us, and help us become more thrifty and less wasteful. But when? When will we see those breakthroughs, that light at the end of the tunnel?
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Wednesday, June 24, 2015
China Syndrome / Politics / China
By: Mike_Whitney
China’s meteoric rise has Washington worried, not because China is a threat to its neighbors or to US national security, but because China’s influence is expanding across the region. It’s creating the institutions it needs to finance its own development (AIIB and New BRICS Bank), it’s building the infrastructure needed to connect the continents with state-of-the-art high-speed rail (New Silk Road), and its attracting allies and trading partners who want to participate in its plan for growth and prosperity. This is why Washington is worried; it’s because China has transformed itself into an economic powerhouse that doesn’t conform to the neoliberal model of punitive austerity, pernicious privatization, and madcap asset inflation. China has slipped out of the empire’s orbit and charted its own course, which is why Washington wants to provoke Beijing over its negligible land reclamation activities in the South China Sea. Washington thinks it can succeed militarily where it has failed economically and politically. Case in point; check this out from Bloomberg News:
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Greece - The Only Good Deal For Greece Is NO Deal / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
The only thing that would really go towards beginning to solve the problems with Greece is for Athens to NOT sign a deal. The short version of why that is so: it would leave the EU intact for longer. And the ECB.
Neither have any viable future, but as they go down, they can cause a lot of damage and pain. It’s mitigating that pain which should now be our priority no. 1, the pain that will result from the demise of Europe’s institutions. But we see precisely zero acknowledgment of this. Anywhere.
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Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Corporations vs. Entrepreneurship / Politics / Social Issues
By: BATR
The corporate culture would have you believe that it is the foremost structure of the economy. That the entrepreneur is a nuisance and is tilting at windmills. Since competition is a dirty word, the innovative venture poses no threat, but might qualify as an acquisition. Only if the business model is such that duplicating the endeavor is too time consuming or difficult will the corporatist take interest. Yet, in the end, the design of the corporate organization is more about brute force than creative invention. So why is it so difficult for the enterpriser to get their project off the ground? And what is the compelling motivation to start your own business?
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
What Borders Mean to Europe / Politics / Immigration
By: STRATFOR
George Friedman writes: Europe today is a continent of borders. The second-smallest continent in the world has more than 50 distinct, sovereign nation-states. Many of these are part of the European Union. At the core of the EU project is an effort to reduce the power and significance of these borders without actually abolishing them — in theory, an achievable goal. But history is not kind to theoretical solutions.
Today, Europe faces three converging crises that are ultimately about national borders, what they mean and who controls them. These crises appear distinct: Immigration from the Islamic world, the Greek economic predicament, and the conflict in Ukraine would seem to have little to do with each other. But in fact they all derive, in different ways, from the question of what borders mean.
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Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Banksters Responsible for Irish Crash / Politics / Banksters
By: Antonius_Aquinas
In testimony before the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry, Thomas O’Connell, the ex-head economist of Ireland’s central bank, attempted to deflect blame for the part he played in the financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent bust that occurred.
O’Connell had the nerve to say that “[It] should never have been allowed to happen with all the consequences of huge increases in unemployment, rising emigration, enormous debt, suicides . . . that we have seen.”* No kidding, Sherlock!
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Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Why the TPP Agenda Is Straight out of Alice in Wonderland / Politics / US Politics
By: Ellen_Brown
"Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
`No, no!’ said the Queen. `Sentence first–verdict afterwards.’
`Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. `The idea of having the sentence first!’
`Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.
`I won’t!’ said Alice.
`Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.
— Lewis Carroll, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”
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Monday, June 22, 2015
Why British Muslims Are Leaving Elysium Paradise for Syrian Hell / Politics / Religion
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The 2014 movie Elysium depicts what in many respects has been taking place in Britain for over a decade as literally millions of economic migrants from across the world have descended upon Elysium (Britain) that erodes the social and economic fabric of the nation and ultimately risks an economic, social and cultural destruction of Britain.
This year (2015) continues the exponential mega-trend of an ever increasing flow of migrants as this year could see as many as 800,000 people attempt to make it to the promised land, to what many across the world as imagined to be the closest thing to paradise on earth, and to to get to paradise many hundreds of thousands of people are literally risking death as illustrated by the DAILY stories of the migrant ships drifting across the Mediterranean, that have cost several thousand lives this year.
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Monday, June 22, 2015
Will Seizure of Russian Assets Hasten U.S. Dollar Decline? / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
While much of the world focused last week on whether or not the Federal Reserve was going to raise interest rates, or whether the Greek debt crisis would bring Europe to a crisis, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague awarded a $50 billion judgment to shareholders of the former oil company Yukos in their case against the Russian government. The governments of Belgium and France moved immediately to freeze Russian state assets in their countries, naturally provoking the anger of the Russian government.
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Monday, June 22, 2015
Public Pensions: Live and Let Die / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: John_Mauldin
When you were young and your heart was an open book
You used to say live and let live…
But if this ever-changing world in which we're living
Makes you give in and cry… Say live and let die.
– Paul McCartney, the Bond movie theme, performed by Wings
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Saturday, June 20, 2015
David Cameron Warns British Muslims Not to Condone Islamic Extremist Ideology / Politics / Religion
By: Nadeem_Walayat
David Cameron finally responds to the continuous stream of stories of young men, school girls and even whole families with young children leaving Britain for the promise of fulfilling prophecy in the 'promised land' of ' Syria and Iraq / Islamic State / Bilad al Sham'. The latest DAILY obsession is focused on 2 stories, that of a 17 year British suicide bomber from Dewsbury, and the other being 3 sisters taking their 9 children to Syria.
Friday, June 19, 2015
Troika Inciting Greece Bank Runs as a Negotiating Tactic / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
The troika of Greek creditors has gone into full-frontal morals-be-damned attack mode, handpicking arms from a weapons arsenal we haven’t seen used before, and that we never should have seen in an environment that insists – and prides – on presenting itself as a union, both in name and in spirit. Now that they are being used, there no longer is such a union other than in name, in empty words.
This has turned into the kind of economic warfare one would expect to see between sworn and lethal enemies, that the US would gladly use against Russia for instance, but not between partners in a union founded on principles based entirely and exclusively on being mutually beneficial to everyone involved.
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