Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, May 18, 2015
The IMF Leaks Greece, Institutions Forcing a Debt Default / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Whenever secret or confidential information or documents are leaked to the press, the first question should always be who leaked it and why. That’s often more important than the contents of what has been leaked. And since there’s been a lot of hullabaloo about a leaked document the past two days, here’s a closer look. Spoiler alert: the document(s) don’t reveal much of anything new, despite the hullabaloo.
Monday, May 18, 2015
New U.S. Military Spending Bill Expands American Empire But Forbids Debate on War / Politics / US Military
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
On Friday the House passed a massive National Defense Authorization for 2016 that will guarantee US involvement in more wars and overseas interventions for years to come. The Republican majority resorted to trickery to evade the meager spending limitations imposed by the 2011 budget control act - limitations that did not, as often reported, cut military spending but only slowed its growth.
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Sunday, May 17, 2015
UK Election Result Strikes Another Blow Against EU / Politics / European Union
By: MISES
Ryan W. McMaken writes: With the victory of the Conservatives in last week’s British election, the future of both the European Union and the United Kingdom looks more doubtful. Newly re-elected Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, in order to please anti-EU constituents who were essential to his re-election, promised a referendum on EU membership by 2017, although it could come sooner than that.
At the same time, the promised referendum is again inflaming secessionist sentiment among Scottish nationalists and separatists who wish to remain a part of the EU.
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Friday, May 15, 2015
A Novel Way to Kill Jobs and Tax Employers / Politics / Government Intervention
By: MISES
Christopher J. O'Connell writes: The state of Connecticut may be embarking on new territory as they seem to be pushing a rather creative way to extract revenue from for-profit businesses. The state legislature of Connecticut has proposed what’s commonly referred to as SB1044. Muddled in the labyrinth known as legal terminology, we find this gem of a sentence in the bill itself:
Friday, May 15, 2015
Why Not Tell Greece How To Run A Democracy? / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Raul_I_Meijer
I know I’ve talked about this before, but it just keeps coming and it keeps being crzay.Bloomberg ‘reports’ that the ‘German Finance Ministry’, let me get this right, “is supporting the idea of a vote by Greek citizens to either accept the economic reforms being sought by creditors to receive a payout from the country’s bailout program or ultimately opt to leave the euro.” And that’s it.
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Extorting Low-Income Individuals to Help "the Poor" / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
Gary Galles writes: Many policies are supposedly justified because they would “take from the rich and give to the poor.” While that fits with the view that theft “for a good purpose” makes one a philanthropist, from the perspective of self-ownership, it is an assertion that the majority’s might makes their coercion right.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Obamacare Caused The Gas Tax Cut To Go Up In Flames / Politics / Natural Gas
By: Michael_Pento
Wall Street analysts unanimously cheered last fall when the price of oil fell from nearly $100 a barrel in June of 2014, to almost $45 a barrel by the end of January 2015. The theory was that the average American family, paying less at the pump, would plow this savings into other goods and services, giving GDP a much needed boost.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
UK Election 2015 Results Repercussions for America / Politics / UK General Election
By: John_Browne
The British General Election, on May 7th, was an epic in two respects. First, in spite of polls forecasting a hung parliament, David Cameron's Conservative Party was given unexpectedly large support, winning 331 seats, or 51 % for an overall majority of four,and showing once again the failure of left wing parties to make traction in Europe. Second, Nicola Sturgeon's Scottish Nationalists Party (SNP) swept the Labour Party aside in Scotland to achieve an unexpected landslide and rekindle Scottish pressure for independence and, with it, a threat to the continued cohesion of the United Kingdom. Likely there will be important long-term repercussions for the United States.
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Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Is It Illegal To Not Pay Taxes? / Politics / Taxes
By: Jeff_Berwick
Human beings have a major cognitive dissonance problem when it comes to taxes. For some reason they don't see it as an armed extortion racket. Some even think it is "voluntary"... but as we'll show, it is far from voluntary.
Some people may fail to file taxes for numerous reasons, like personal or business problems, feelings of hopelessness or fear due to the burdensome tax process, anti-theft sentiments, or beliefs that the penalty won’t be worse than the expense and trouble of filing.
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Wednesday, May 13, 2015
China-Japan Before China-Taiwan / Politics / China
By: EconMatters
Some long time readers probably know I occasionally write about Asian geopolitics related to China and Taiwan. Since Taiwan typically goes under the radar of major news media, I usually google browse both Chinese and English news about Taiwan. Over the weekend, I came across one disturbing piece of article by Hugh White who's a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. Excerpt below:
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
World War II and the Origins of American Unease / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: STRATFOR
We are at the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. That victory did not usher in an era of universal peace. Rather, it introduced a new constellation of powers and a complex balance among them. Europe's great powers and empires declined, and the United States and the Soviet Union replaced them, performing an old dance to new musical instruments. Technology, geopolitics' companion, evolved dramatically as nuclear weapons, satellites and the microchip — among myriad wonders and horrors — changed not only the rules of war but also the circumstances under which war was possible. But one thing remained constant: Geopolitics, technology and war remained inseparable comrades.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
The Secretive Bank of England / Politics / Central Banks
By: BATR
With the enactment of the privately owned central bank, the Bank of England provided the model for the financial enslavement of governments, and their citizens. Well before the conflict for establishing a National Bank in America or the eventual surrender to the money changers with the betrayal in instituting the Federal Reserve, the history of the Bank of England needs to be studied. Relying on British historians may seem to invoke a cultural bias; however, the range and wealth of information on this topic comes from an earlier age. Further research will expand this understanding and many of the sources cited can fulfill this objective.
Monday, May 11, 2015
The Grand Old Strategies for the Islamic Conquest of The West and The Counter Strategies... / Politics / Religion
By: Dr_R_M_Mathew
... for The Total Disintegration of Islam and The Islamic World
Till the Suez Canal Crisis in 1956, the rise of the petro-dollar in 1970s, the proposal for the Islamic Bomb put forward by the Pakistani scientist, Prof. Abdul Salam and the Grand Strategy of Islamic Conquest of the West and the Rest of the World formulated in early 80s, neither the West nor the rest of the world, including Israel had taken Islam seriously other than some peripheral academic or religious interests.
Monday, May 11, 2015
The US Leads All Other Countries In Citizen Defection / Politics / US Politics
By: Jeff_Berwick
When it comes to extortion, or as they call it, income tax, the places where you want to be a citizen are colored green on the following map. Those countries have no income tax on individuals. The next best countries to be a citizen of, but not live in (as per the Permanent Traveller/Prior Taxpayer - PT Theory) are the ones shaded in blue. Those countries will charge you income tax if you are a citizen of that country AND also residing there... but if you are not residing there they will not charge you income tax.
Monday, May 11, 2015
The Cycles of the Human Capital / Politics / Social Issues
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
One must go beyond the ‘Housing Crisis’, ‘Lehman’, ’Dot Com’, or LTCM. Beyond the Peso Crisis, before the Gold window closed; go back to the lead up to the Great Depression.
We must go backward to frame this reality. Backward in time.
But at each point we must let the ‘accepted’ interpretation dissolve as we move on to the next.
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Sunday, May 10, 2015
Splitting Up Iraq / Politics / Iraq War
By: Mike_Whitney
“Iraq’s fate was sealed from the moment we invaded: it has no future as a unitary state … Iraq is fated to split apart into at least three separate states…This was the War Party’s real if unexpressed goal from the very beginning: the atomization of Iraq, and indeed the entire Middle East. Their goal, in short, was chaos – and that is precisely what we are seeing today.” — Justin Raimondo, editor Antiwar.com
Sunday, May 10, 2015
The Rich Get Richer / Politics / Social Issues
By: Mike_Whitney
Why are stocks still flying-high when the smart money has fled overseas and the US economy has ground to a halt?According to Marketwatch:
Read full article... Read full article...“For the eighth week in a row, long-term mutual funds saw more money flowing out of U.S. stocks and into international stocks, according to the Investment Company Institute……For the week ended April 22, U.S. stocks saw $3.4 billion in net outflows from long-term mutual funds…For the year to date, net outflows for U.S. stocks are $13.79 billion, while inflows for international stocks are $41.12 billion.
Saturday, May 09, 2015
Seven Changes Needed in Baltimore and Ferguson Right Now / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
I am regularly asked what can be done to solve the problem of “urban blight” in places like Detroit. The question is usually asked with exhausted desperation and a shrug, as if there are no possible answers. The cause of this “blight” is the root of the problem, and when ignited by police brutality, sets off riots in cities like Ferguson and Baltimore. There are a whole range of answers that we know will work to at least improve the situation.
Saturday, May 09, 2015
Britain: A Functioning Democracy It’s Not / Politics / UK Politics
By: Raul_I_Meijer
We at the Automatic Earth always try to steer clear of elections as much as possible, because there are no functioning democracies left in the west -no more than there are functioning markets-, and no journalists reporting on them either. Interesting question, by the way: how can a journalist report on a democracy that isn’t there? And where in that setting does news turn to mere opinion, and where does opinion then become news ?
Friday, May 08, 2015
Resilience is The New Black / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
This is another essay from our friend Dr. Nelson Lebo III in New Zealand. Nelson is a certified expert in everything to do with resilience, especially how to build a home and a community designed to withstand disasters, be they natural or man-made, an earthquake or Baltimore. Aware that he may rub quite a few people the wrong way, he explains here why he has shifted from seeing what he does in the context of sustainability, to that of resilience. There’s something profoundly dark in that shift, but it’s not all bad.