Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Monday, October 20, 2014
National Service is Anti-Liberty and Un-American / Politics / US Politics
Former Clinton Administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently called on the government to force young people to spend two years either "serving" in the military or performing some other type of government-directed "community service." Neoconservative Senator John McCain has introduced legislation creating a mandatory national service program very similar to Reich's proposal. It is not surprising that both a prominent progressive and a leading neocon would support mandatory national service, as this is an issue that has long united authoritarians on the left and right.
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Sunday, October 19, 2014
Germ Warfare - The US Gave WMD's to Saddam to Attack Iran / Politics / US Politics
Eric Margolis writes: Back in the 1990’s, journalists used to joke, “Of course we know Iraq has chemical weapons. We have the delivery receipts to prove it!”
The joke turned out to be the exact truth.
While covering Iraq in 1990 – just before the first massive US bombing campaign – I discovered the US and Britain had secretly built a germ weapons arsenal for Iraq to use against Iran in the eight year-Iran-Iraq War.
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Sunday, October 19, 2014
Wealth Inequality Is Not A Problem, It’s A Symptom / Politics / Social Issues
A comment on an article that comments on a book. I don’t think either provides, for the topic they deal with, the depth it needs and deserves. Not so much a criticism, more a ‘look further, keep digging, and ye shall find more’. And since the topic in question is perhaps the most defining one of our day and age, it seems worth it to me to try and explain.
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Saturday, October 18, 2014
Europe’s Fatal Flaw Laid Bare For All To See. Again / Politics / Euro-Zone
Da markets today sort of refound their – shaky – feet, oil up a dollar, EU exchanges up 3% or so, Greece even over 7%, while interestingly gold didn’t move much at all during the wild week (no safe haven), and most movement was perhaps, through all the see-saw, in bonds. To sum up the week: panic followed by plunge protection teams. And now the ‘leaders’ hope plunge protection will save another day too.
And they may. Germany sinks a bit, but Germany is strong. US housing is at least not falling further, but US consumer spending stalls and drops. The deep dark weakness has not yet hit the big economies. But the nerves are back. Volatility is back with a vengeance. As it should. And that will paint the picture going forward, plunge protection or not. Da markets will come again and again and dare central banks to plunge protect.
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Saturday, October 18, 2014
Janet Yellen is Wrong About the Cause of Wealth Inequality / Politics / Social Issues
Fed Chair Janet Yellen said in a speech on the subject on Friday, that she is “greatly concerned by the extent, and continuing increase, of wealth inequality in the United States.”, noting the “significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top, and stagnant living standards for the majority.”
She is echoing economists’ growing concerns of recent years.
The statistics are shocking. A 2012 academic study by NYU economist Edward N. Wolff, ‘The Asset Price Meltdown and the Wealth of the Middle Class’, revealed that the richest 5% of Americans hold 88.9% of the nation’s wealth. A study by European Central Bank economists estimates that just the richest 1% of Americans control 35% of the wealth.
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Saturday, October 18, 2014
The Cost of Ebola and the Misery Index / Politics / Ebola
For a clear snapshot of a country’s economic performance, a look at my misery index is particularly edifying. The misery index is simply the sum of the inflation rate, unemployment rate, and bank lending rate, minus per capita GDP growth.
The epicenter of the Ebola crisis is Liberia. As the accompanying chart shows, the level of misery, as measured by the misery index, has decreased since Charles Taylor ruled Liberia.
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Saturday, October 18, 2014
Why OPEC Has Declared an Oil War on Russia / Politics / Crude Oil
Dr. Kent Moors writes: As I discussed recently (A Calculated Saudi Move Aimed at America), Saudi Arabia has grabbed the headlines by cutting oil prices, not production.
It seems the Saudis are more interested in grabbing market share than in attending to the present state of the market.
That move seems calculated to undercut the effect the U.S. has on global oil markets, even though that effect is indirect.
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Friday, October 17, 2014
Either You're The Butcher or You're The Cattle / Politics / Social Issues
I know many people have no interest in watching the boob tube because 99% of the programming is either mindless drivel or government sanctioned propaganda. It's the 1% that reflects the deeper themes and moods engulfing our society. Television shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead reflect the darkening mood of this intensifying Fourth Turning. I wrote one of my more pessimistic articles called Welcome to Terminus in April regarding the season four finale of the Walking Dead series. I essentially argued we are approaching the end of the line and the world is going to get real nasty.
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Thursday, October 16, 2014
The March Of History And The End Of Nations / Politics / GeoPolitics
Dancing at the Victims' Ball
By July 1794, with the surprise execution of ace executioner Maximilien de Robespierre, who himself had probably ordered more than 5000 killings by the then-newfangled and dreaded guillotine in the French revolution, faction rivalry akin to the type that sets al Qaeda against ISIS in the Middle East today was so intense that a new wave of Terror was at hand. Called counter-revolution by some, and even the “death of History” by others, the strident call for Saving the Nation became a powerful excuse for new purges, plots and mass executions leading in 1799 to the emergence of the self-styled supreme leader who could save the nation, Napoleon I.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Gordon Brown, Business and the Monopoly Motive / Politics / Social Issues
Tom Naysburn writes: Adam Smith said if you left businessmen in a room together they would collude and fix the market or attempt to build monopolies. Adam Smith didn’t become infamous because he was inaccurate. What a shame his fellow Kirkcaldy resident, Gordon Brown didn’t have the same insight. Mr Smith’s invisible hand trumps Mr Brown’s withered left fist, every time. Gordon Brown regulated the people and forgot about the stealth concentrations of power in the banks and mega corporations. They say you shouldn’t look back with anger, but that old dog has had his day. Fast forward to the here and now and we see nothing changes under the sun, unless forced to.
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Wednesday, October 15, 2014
The Ukraine, As We Know It, Is Gone Forever / Politics / Ukraine Civil War
The Saker is an ex-military analyst who was born in Europe to a family of Russian refugees. He now lives in Florida where he writes the Vineyard of the Saker blog and is a regular contributor to Russia Insider. The international community of Saker Blogs includes, besides the original Saker blog, French, German, Russian, Oceania and Serbian members and will soon include a Latin American member. – Mike Whitney
Mike Whitney: Is the United States responsible for the troubles in Ukraine?
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Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Why's EBOLA So Serious? / Politics / Ebola
The 2014 Ebola outbreak is "Unquestionably the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times... a crisis for international peace and security... I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments... I have never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure... when a deadly and dreaded virus hits the destitute and spirals out of control, the whole world is put at risk... the world is ill-prepared to respond to any severe, sustained and threatening public health emergency...” states Dr Margaret Chan, director general, World Health Organisation (WHO) based in Geneva, Switzerland. Dr Chan dealt with the 2009 avian flu pandemic and the SARS outbreaks of 2002-3.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Building an Ark: How to Protect Public Revenues From the Next Financial Meltdown / Politics / Credit Crisis 2014
Concerns are growing that we are heading for another banking crisis, one that could be far worse than in 2008. But this time, there will be no government bailouts. Instead, per the Dodd-Frank Act, bankrupt banks will be confiscating (or “bailing in”) their customers’ deposits.
That includes local government deposits. The fact that public funds are secured with collateral may not protect them, as explained earlier here. Derivative claims now get paid first in a bank bankruptcy; and derivative losses could be huge, wiping out the collateral for other claims.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2014
What Happened To The Fourth Estate? / Politics / Mainstream Media
Decline and Fall of the Media
Press and broadcast media, or “public information” was, called The Fourth Estate or fourth leg of the state, which itself can have an animal image, whether rabbit, elephant, cow or other. In Ancient Rome, the state was symbolized as a female wolf feeding the people with Capitolian milk.
As the fourth leg of the state, the press and media supposedly feeds the people with all that is right to know - and think - guarding intact and supporting all dominant social paradigms using selected information able to serve and defend the elite. The Fourth Estate was always considered suspect by freethinkers, radicals and the left.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Student Movements: A Subject of Human Geography / Politics / Social Issues
Sim Tack writes: As student protests in Hong Kong continue, memories of the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations naturally spring to mind. Less iconic but no less notable were the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which began as a student movement; the 2007 Venezuelan protests, which started with a group of students demanding constitutional reform; and the 1929 protests in Paris, which challenged the role of churches in education.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2014
CNN in Full Fear Mongering Mode Cashing in on Ebola / Politics / Mainstream Media
2 Cases of Ebola
From the ‘news’ network that covered and beat the Missing MalaysiaAirlines Flight 370 story to death comes the latest hysteria promoting journalistic approach to the 2 cases of Ebola here in the United States. These people should literally lose their broadcasting license as although many Americans have the ability to rationally think about the issue, unfortunately many Americans lack the level of reasoning abilities necessary to rationally think in a level headed manner regarding the actual risks of becoming infected by Ebola.
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Monday, October 13, 2014
Just Blame the Banks / Politics / Banksters
“I think this is a time where people will look back on us and see it as a period of practically central bank worship.” - Jim Grant
Central bank equals big private-publicly owned banks. The populace still holds a collective deference for the banks. The view that the political financial alliance is the problem is still a rare one. Always one step from conspiracy.
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Monday, October 13, 2014
Ron Paul - Liberty, Not Government, is Key to Containing Ebola / Politics / Ebola
According to Forbes magazine, at least 5,000 Americans contacted healthcare providers fearful they had contracted Ebola after the media reported that someone with Ebola had entered the United States. All 5,000 cases turned out to be false alarms. In fact, despite all the hype about Ebola generated by the media and government officials, as of this writing there has only been one preliminarily identified case of someone contracting Ebola within the United States.
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Monday, October 13, 2014
George W. Bushmeat and the Economics of Ebola / Politics / Ebola
Ebola was until a few weeks ago mostly a forgotten affliction in the western world. Something that flared up in the Congo or thereabouts, parts of the world we’re aware of only because of the horrors of machete attacks and other mayhem induced by our own secret services in order to keep ‘our’ access to their mind-boggling amounts of resources going, while their populations live in conditions many miles below squalor.
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Sunday, October 12, 2014
Has Obama Changed His Mind About Syria? / Politics / US Politics
The ISIS siege of Kobane continued overnight while cities across Turkey were set ablaze by Kurdish protestors. At least 19 civilians were killed by Turkish riot police who were trying to disperse angry crowds that had gathered to protest the government’s unwillingness to defend the predominantly Kurdish city. According to Hurriyet, “The worst violence was seen in Diyarbakır during a reported gunfight between the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) supporters and Hizbullah, a radical Islamist group whose members are mostly Kurdish and who allegedly aided the state in the torture and killing of Kurdish activists in the 1990s.” (Hurriyet)
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