Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Princes of the Yen: Central Banks and the Transformation of an Economy / Politics / Central Banks
By: Jesse
"Central banks have the power to create economic, political and social change. This is how they do it."
While I cringed at some of the early parts of the film and the mid-century American attitudes towards the Japanese, even if it was in the aftermath of a long and viciously fought war, I think this documentary provides some valuable insights into the evolution of the modern economy that is Japan. I direct your attention to the things that we are often saying about different peoples today.
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Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Spain Podemos Populist Economic Manifesto Revolution / Politics / Spain
By: Mike_Shedlock
As noted last week, Spain's top-polling political party, Podemos, released an "Economic Manifesto" that called for "Debt Restructuring" and for Spain to "Abandon the Euro Trap".
The manifesto is 600 pages long and I did not dig into the detailsany further.
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Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Countering Terrorism And Fundamentalism With The Ancient Indian Wisdom: ‘Sanadhana Dharma’ / Politics / Religion
By: Dr_R_M_Mathew
Terrorism and Religious Fundamentalism have emerged as the greatest threat to the humanity in the twenty first century. The international community and the world religions like Islam, Buddhism and Christianity and their leaders, including Pope Francis, do not have much solution or answer for this growing cancer of the mankind, for it is based on the misguided faith and knowledge. The ancient Indian wisdom, originated at the Indus Valley Civilization, gives a lot of insight in tackling the current problems of the humanity.
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Russia's Sergey Lavrov on the Clash of Civilizations / Politics / Russia
By: BATR
"NATO is going beyond all borders. We are really disturbed over this barbaric action. We are outraged...and we call and demand an immediate investigation." - Sergey Lavrov
Since the Western Press has directed their wrath at Vladimir Putin as their latest villain, while his approval rate soars to 88% in Russia, most Americans are not familiar with Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov, much less know his public statements. Lavrov is a thoughtful contrast to the rigid and contemptuous foreign policy spokesmen's from the Soviet era. It is well worth the time to investigate the actual sentiments that Lavrov has expressed throughout his diplomatic career. An insight of the mindset that underpins his thinking is revealed over two years ago, in the Voltaire Network, which published Sergey Lavrov's account, On the Right Side of History and provided the following assessment.
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Tuesday, December 02, 2014
New Banking Rules: Cyprus-style Bail-ins to Take Deposits and Pensions / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Ellen_Brown
On the weekend of November 16th, the G20 leaders whisked into Brisbane, posed for their photo ops, approved some proposals, made a show of roundly disapproving of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and whisked out again. It was all so fast, they may not have known what they were endorsing when they rubber-stamped the Financial Stability Board's "Adequacy of Loss-Absorbing Capacity of Global Systemically Important Banks in Resolution," which completely changes the rules of banking.
Monday, December 01, 2014
Ukraine War Driven by Gas-Dollar Link - Defending Dollar Imperialism / Politics / Ukraine Civil War
By: Mike_Whitney
If there was a way the United States could achieve its long-term strategic objectives and, at the same time, avoid a war with Russia, it would do so. Unfortunately, that is not an option, which is why there’s going to be a clash between the two nuclear-armed adversaries sometime in the near future.
Let me explain: The Obama administration is trying to rebalance US policy in a way that shifts the focus of attention from the Middle East to Asia, which is expected to be the fastest growing region in the coming century. This policy-change is called the “pivot” to Asia. In order to benefit from Asia’s surge of growth, the US plans to beef up its presence on the continent, expand its military bases, strengthen bilateral alliances and trade agreements, and assume the role of regional security kingpin. The not-so-secret purpose of the policy is China “containment”, that is, Washington wants to preserve its position as the world’s only superpower by controlling China’s explosive growth. (The US wants a weak, divided China that will do what it’s told.)
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Monday, December 01, 2014
US Exceptionalism And White Supremacy / Politics / US Politics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Obama Fumbles and the World Burns
An excellent summary and analysis of why the Obama White House has been overwhelmed by what we can call “legacy policy”, and has become the most paranoid US administration in decades – far surpassing rven Georfe W Bush – is given by professor Joel Migdal in his latest book (' Shifting Sands: The United States in the Middle East ). Migdal traces the basic problem to US exceptionalism – the cornerstone of foreign policy since Roosevelt and Truman – being totally unsuited to a “multipolar world” in which the US has to engage with and against a shifting set of allies and enemies on constantly changing issues, where today's friend is tomorrow's rival and vice versa. Like others (including Kissinger and Brzezinski!) he divides the post-1945 world into the period ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-90, and what happened after a 10-year “reflexion and incubation period” ending in 2001.
Monday, December 01, 2014
U.S. Federal Reserve - The Birth of a Monster / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: David_Howden
The Federal Reserve’s doors have been open for “business” for one hundred years. In explaining the creation of this money-making machine (pun intended — the Fed remits nearly $100 bn. in profits each year to Congress) most people fall into one of two camps.
Those inclined to view the Fed as a helpful institution, fostering financial stability in a world of error-prone capitalists, explain the creation of the Fed as a natural and healthy outgrowth of the troubled National Banking System. How helpful the Fed has been is questionable at best, and in a recent book edited by Joe Salerno and me — The Fed at One Hundred — various contributors outline many (though by no means all) of the Fed’s shortcomings over the past century.
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Monday, December 01, 2014
Who Wants to be U.S. Defense Secretary? / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
It seems nobody wants to be Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration. The president's first two Defense Secretaries, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, both complained bitterly this month about their time in the administration. The president's National Security Council staff micro-managed the Pentagon, they said at a forum last week.
Former Secretary Gates revealed that while he was running the Defense Department, the White House established a line of communication to the Joint Special Operations Command to discuss matters of strategy and tactics, cutting the Defense Secretary out of the loop. His successor at the Pentagon, Leon Panetta, made similar complaints.
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Sunday, November 30, 2014
Egypt's Military Dicatarship Adding Insult to Injury / Politics / Egypt
By: Stephen_Lendman
Egypt's military dictatorship holds absolute power. Has no legitimacy whatever.
Rules by decree. Controls the media. Ignores fundamental international laws, norms and standards. Its own constitutional law.
Prohibits dissent. Tolerates no opposition. Killed at least 3,000 Muslim Brotherhood members. Imprisoned tens of thousands more. Brutally tortures many.
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Saturday, November 29, 2014
Ferguson Reexamined - Do the Police Recruit Psychopaths? / Politics / Social Issues
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Few, if any, of the correct questions were asked in the grand jury hearing to decide whether policeman Darren Wilson would be indicted for killing Michael Brown.
The most important unexamined question is whether police are trained to use force immediately as a first resort before they assess a situation or determine if they are at the correct address. Are the police trained that the lives of police officers are so much more valuable than the lives of possible suspects, or a houseful of people into whose residence a heavily armed SWAT team enters, that police officers must not accept the risk of judicious behavior when encountering citizens? If this is the case as all evidence indicates that it is, then the police when they gratuitously murder members of the public are merely doing what they have been trained to do. As police are trained to use violence as a first resort, the police cannot be held accountable when they do.
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Saturday, November 29, 2014
Will Iran Commit Nuclear Hara-Kiri? / Politics / Nuclear Weapons
By: LewRockwell
Eric Margolis writes: To no surprise, nuclear talks between Iran and major world powers have become stalemated.
Iran will not sink “to its knees” to win a nuclear deal with the great powers, said its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after the failure of six months of talks in Vienna.
However, the talks will continue until at least next March. Pity the poor negotiators: besides being excruciatingly boring, dealing with the tough, savvy Iranians is like pulling teeth. The only nationality I ever saw get the better of Iranians in negotiations were Armenians.
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Friday, November 28, 2014
Britain's Immigration Catastrophe Continues, David Cameron's Impotent Speech on Stopping In Work Benefits / Politics / Immigration
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The latest immigration statistics out of the ONS reveal the truth of what amounts to continuing out of control immigration of the last Labour governments disastrous policy of importing several million new Labour voters into Britain. Meanwhile all that David Cameron can do is to make impotent speeches in a desperate attempt to fight off the UKIP threat ahead of the next general election, promises of withholding in work benefits to migrant workers for upto 4 years. However virtually all of his proposals CANNOT be implemented and were immediately rejected by European Union bureaucrats as being illegal if implemented.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Perceptions of Reality — And a Failure to Indict / Politics / Social Issues
By: Walter_Brasch
She quietly walked into the classroom and stood there, just inside the door, against a wall.
The professor, his back to her, continued his lecture, unaware of her presence until his students’ eyes began focusing upon her rather than him.
“Yes?” he asked, turning to her. Just “Yes.” Nothing more.
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Friday, November 28, 2014
British Government Publishes UK, Scotland DevoMax Smith Report Suicide Note / Politics / UK Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The consequences of the panicking Westminister politicians making unlimited promises of DevoMax in the last days of the Scottish Independence Referendum campaign that sowed the seeds for the destruction of the United Kingdom have now started to become manifest in the Smith report that details the transfer of tax and spending powers to the Scottish Parliament which will amount to approx 50% of governance that would still be coupled with a NET subsidy to Scotland of approx £9 billion per year to be born by predominantly England's Wage slaves where now the Scottish parliament will also be allowed to print billions in debt without inflation or interest rates consequences as the debt will be underwritten by the United Kingdom that sows the seeds for stealth destruction of the United Kingdom as Scotland effectively sucks dry the financial blood of the United Kingdom. Furthermore the whole basis of the SNP argument of an Independant Scotland living off of North Sea Oil has already gone up in smoke following the collapse in crude oil prices!
Thursday, November 27, 2014
The Great Thanksgiving Hoax / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
Richard J. Maybury writes: Each year at this time, schoolchildren all over America are taught the official Thanksgiving story, and newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines devote vast amounts of time and space to it. It is all very colorful and fascinating.
It is also very deceiving. This official story is nothing like what really happened. It is a fairy tale, a whitewashed and sanitized collection of half-truths which divert attention away from Thanksgiving's real meaning.
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Thursday, November 27, 2014
The Solutions to Ferguson And All The Worlds Problems Lie Within You / Politics / Social Issues
By: Jeff_Berwick
On this day, Thanksgiving, which is a celebration of a day centuries ago where Americans welcomed and fed undocumented immigrants... and then those undocumented immigrants went on to wholesale slaughter the early Americans... and with so many problems in the world today from Ferguson, to Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria (note which government is intricately involved in all these and many more conflicts) we thought we'd make today's communique short and sweet.
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Thursday, November 27, 2014
Thanksgiving and Puritan Geopolitics in the Americas / Politics / Social Issues
By: STRATFOR
The first winter took many of the English at Plymouth. By fall 1621, only 53 remained of the 132 who had arrived on the Mayflower. But those who had survived brought in a harvest. And so, in keeping with tradition, the governor called the living 53 together for a three-day harvest feast, joined by more than 90 locals from the Wampanoag tribe. The meal was a moment to recognize the English plantation's small step toward stability and, hopefully, profit. This was no small thing. A first, deadly year was common. Getting through it was an accomplishment. England's successful colony of Virginia had had a massive death toll — of the 8,000 arrivals between 1607 and 1625, only 15 percent lived.
Thursday, November 27, 2014
The Digital World, The Opiate of The People / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: Michael_T_Bucci
What leads me to think again about state surveillance and its devastating effects on privacy, freedom and liberty is a recent article posted at Asia Times, "Tomgram: Shamsi and Harwood, An Electronic Archipelago of Domestic Surveillance", (1) which presented just another reminder to Americans and the world of what the U.S.A. is threatening to become: a veritable police state, a totalitarianism and a military/intel controlled nation. In addition to allegations of illegal wars, occupations and assassinations, drone strikes, provocations of Russia, China and the global South; in addition to proposed federal and state neoliberal and neocon policies that promise to further shred the already torn social and welfare fabrics; in addition to its chronic addictions to materialism and consumerism that destroy the environment and deplete the soul; in addition to its racism (officially denied); in addition to reports about legalized forms of mobsterism in financial houses, hedge funds, vulture funds; in addition to its de facto command over nations fearful of its military prowess and financial sanctions; America is also the world's unabashed spy, espionage agent and unrivaled, unabated master of all data it ingests, scans, records, stores and analyzes! And all is done for one and only one purpose: CONTROL But for whom?
Thursday, November 27, 2014
China Strengthening Claim To South China Sea Oil And Gas / Politics / China
By: OilPrice_Com
Not gone and not forgotten, China is ready to solidify its claim to the South China Sea (SCS). Recent satellite imagery confirms China is conducting significant land reclamation operations in the Spratly Islands in the SCS. The SCS is an important fishing ground and is believed to hold large amounts of oil and gas. Undermining the United States' influence in the region, China intends to play the shepherd in one of the world's busiest trade routes.Read full article... Read full article...