Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
The American Dream Is Still Possible, Just Not in the US / Politics / Social Issues
By: Ron_Holland
Although there are no firm statistics on the number of Americans living outside the US, the US State Department estimates that somewhere between 3 and 6 million Americans now live offshore. I think this is a low estimate and the number is clearly growing.
I now live in Canada but often travel back to the United States. Driving through Customs near Buffalo is usually not a big ordeal but it does involve a time-wasting delay much like visiting the post office or any other US government bureaucracy. But governments should police their borders, as this is one of the few legitimate functions of a central government.
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Sunday, October 26, 2014
Are We Ready for the Fall of Baghdad? / Politics / Iraq War
By: Ron_Holland
I recently was in Vietnam and spent some time in prosperous, capitalist Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City, and toured the American War Museum. I believe there are a number of parallels between the Vietnam and Iraq War and that history could repeat itself now in Baghdad. Who can forget the former Vietnamese supporters of America being left behind as the last helicopter left the roof of the US embassy?
Today, America still has the strongest military in the world but our manufacturing capacity and financial situation shows the US is on a downhill slide like earlier over-extended and bankrupt empires throughout world history.
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Saturday, October 25, 2014
Europe Union, or The 28 Stooges / Politics / European Union
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Europe is fast turning into a freak comedy show. Very fast. Or maybe we should say it’s always been one, and it’s just that the Larry, Curly and Moe moves are only now coming out in droves. Or maybe, what do I know, we’re just starting to understand how much talent for farce and slapstick the boys from Brussels have always had.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
European Commission Mafia Demands £1.7 Billion from Britain, Test for Cameron Man or Mouse? / Politics / UK Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
David Cameron has been huffing and puffing, and stamping his feet all day that Britain would not be held to ransom to the tune of a £1.7 billion 'adjustment' that the European Commission Mafia has conjured out of thin air as the Vig that Britain must pay by 1st of December for apparently economic activity attributed to the black economy such as prostitution. Conversely the EC Mafia's God Fathers, France and Germany rewarded themselves a comparable sum of near £1.7billion as a reward for being at the centre of the European Crime Syndicate.
Friday, October 24, 2014
War And The Law Of Unintended Consequences / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Upping the Ante
Vladimir Putin and several of his senior advisors in published statements have recently said the only logical conclusion of the US and EU goading Russia and upping the ante in the Ukrainian imbroglio is nuclear war. Strident calls for “The Pariah” or “Vlad the Vampire” to back down and back off would theoretically have to end in all-out nuclear war. Insane comments by (of course) unidentified “senior US military strategists” quoted in 'Wall St Journal' in August claimed that first strike nuclear attack by the West could prevent nuclear retaliation by Russia.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Evaluating Ebola as a Biological Weapon / Politics / Ebola
By: STRATFOR
Scott Stewart writes: Over the past few weeks, I've had people at speaking engagements ask me if I thought the Islamic State or some other militant group is using Ebola as a biological weapon, or if such a group could do so in the future. Such questions and concerns are not surprising given the intense media hype that surrounds the disease, even though only one person has died from Ebola out of the three confirmed cases in the United States. The media hype about the threat posed by the Islamic State to the United States and the West is almost as bad. Both subjects of all this hype were combined into a tidy package on Oct. 20, when the Washington Post published an editorial by columnist Mark Thiessen in which he claimed it would be easy for a group such as the Islamic State to use Ebola in a terrorist attack. Despite Thiessen's claims, using Ebola as a biological warfare agent is much more difficult than it might appear at first blush.
Monday, October 20, 2014
Turkey's Position on ISIL Misunderstood / Politics / Turkey
By: John_Browne
As territory in the Middle East falls under control of the brutal fanatics of ISIL, many Americans may be wondering how this could happen in the backyard of major U.S. allies. In particular, frustration with Turkey's reluctance to move against ISIL, even as it massacres civilians and creates instability on the Turkish border, is growing rapidly. Turkey's political calculation with respect to the crisis reveals just how complex and intractable the crisis may become.
Located between Europe and Asia, Turkey was once the epicenter of the vast Ottoman Empire that controlled much of the Middle East and even portions of the Balkans. After the First World War, with Turkey stripped of her empire, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk attempted to realign the non-Arab nation away from the rest of the Muslim world in favor of the West. This was a gigantic task, probably never attempted previously by any nation in history.
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Monday, October 20, 2014
U.S. Responsible for West Africa Ebola Outbreak Says Liberian Scientist / Politics / Ebola
By: Global_Research
Timothy Alexander Guzman writes: A History of Guatemala’s Syphilis Experiment: How a U.S. Led Team Performed Human Experimentations in Central America
Dr. Cyril Broderick, A Liberian scientist and a former professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Liberia’s College of Agriculture and Forestry says the West, particularly the U.S. is responsible for the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Dr. Broderick claims the following in an exclusive article published in the Daily Observer based in Monrovia, Liberia. He wrote the following:
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Monday, October 20, 2014
Ebola lies - The Czar and His Troops / Politics / Ebola
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
A group of 30 doctors and scientists have published their findings on the website of the New England Journal of Medicine that the ebola ravaging West Africa is a new strain of the disease and was not imported from Central Africa. The doctors and scientists’ conclusion is consistent with Dr. Cyril Broderick’s report in the update below that the strain originated in US government biowarfare labs and was injected into humans in Department of Defense field trials that began just weeks prior to the ebola breakout. The US government has a history of using unsuspecting humans for tests. Blacks in Alabama and Guatemalan soldiers and prisoners were infected with syphilis and gonorrhea in order to study the effects of the diseases and to experiment with cures.
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Monday, October 20, 2014
National Service is Anti-Liberty and Un-American / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
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
By: LewRockwell
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
By: Raul_I_Meijer
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.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Europe’s Fatal Flaw Laid Bare For All To See. Again / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Raul_I_Meijer
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
By: Sy_Harding
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
By: Steve_H_Hanke
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
By: Money_Morning
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
By: James_Quinn
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.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
The March Of History And The End Of Nations / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Andrew_McKillop
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
By: Submissions
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
By: Mike_Whitney
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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