Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Thursday, April 04, 2013
Dallas Fed's Fisher: Cyprus shows danger of too big to fail / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
Dallas Federal Reserve Bank president Richard Fisher spoke with Bloomberg TV's Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle on "Market Makers" today, saying that "there is no QE infinity."
Fisher said that big banks have a "substantial" cost-of-funding advantage and that "Cyprus is a great example, once again, as we saw in Iceland, of banks that jeopardize their entire country. We cannot let that happen."
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Thursday, April 04, 2013
Paulson on Fannie Mae Profit: I Had to Pinch Myself / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson spoke with Judy Woodruff in an interview airing on Bloomberg Television at 9:30 pm/ET this Friday. Paulson said that he "had to pinch himself" in reaction to the news that Fannie Mae generated record profits last year. "I could hardly believe what I was reading."
Paulson also said that the U.S. needs to slow the growth of entitlement programs and raise more tax revenue by closing loopholes: "We may need more revenues...This should be part of doing something with entitlements, because I think to just keep postponing entitlement reform is a big mistake."
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Thursday, April 04, 2013
Natural Gas Starts Flowing from Israel's Levant Basin, What Now? / Politics / Natural Gas
The first gas has started flowing from Israel's supergiant Tamar gasfield in the Levant Basin. Where it will go will redraw the Mediterranean energy map and the geopolitics that goes along with it.
The Tamar field stakeholders announced on 30 March that the gas had started flowing, raising the value of Texas-based Noble Energy Inc. (NYSE: NBL), which holds a 36% stake, and Israel's two Delek Group subsidiaries, which each hold a 15.6% stake.
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Thursday, April 04, 2013
Left Leaning BBC Ignores Britain's Benefits Social Class in Calculator / Politics / UK Politics
The BBC with much fanfare has been publicising it's Great British Class Survey, which seeks to extend Britain's class structure from the three traditional classes of upper, middle and working class to now comprise 7 social classes of Elite, Established middle class, Technical middle class, New affluent workers, Traditional working class, Emergent service workers, and the Precariat.
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Thursday, April 04, 2013
This is What Societal Collapse Looks Like / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Add the total and complete hypocrisy of France to the list of reasons to avoid putting a cent in the EU.
We already know about Spain where Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was “allegedly” receiving bribes from property developers throughout the housing bubble… while THREE different treasurers have been accused of everything from money laundering to fraud.
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Thursday, April 04, 2013
Are All G20 Bank Depositors Exposed to a Cyprus Style Seizure of Deposits for a 'Bail-in?' / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
Dave from Golden Truth has let me know of an interesting quote from an article by Eric Sprott titled Caveat Depositor which *could* explain why countries like New Zealand and Canada are quietly tilting towards seizing bank deposits to recapitalize failed banks.
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Wednesday, April 03, 2013
France Stumbles Towards Political Meltdown / Politics / France
THE CAHUZAC CRISIS
France woke up Wednesday 3 April to the image of the country’s former budget minister and tax czar Jerome Cahuzac looking haggard and shaken on the front pages of all the leading dailies, and all TV news stations following his final and forced admission that he had repeatedly lied about secret accounts in Switzerland and Singapore, and his medical sector business dealings also using tax havens, as well as potential grave charges such as imported beyond-date medical products that may have been re-labelled and sold in France.
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Bank Depositors Take Your Money and Run / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
It is a wonder of the times that, in matters of money, such trust endures when those in whom it is invested work so hard to demonstrate they will squander or confiscate it. Both money and trust. At the very least, the mandarins have made no attempt to hide their inability to think and act beyond today's headlines. Every day is writ anew, with complete ignorance of previous decrees and assurances.
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Wednesday, April 03, 2013
America's Long War on North Korea / Politics / US Politics
On July 27, 1953, the Korean War ended. An uneasy armistice persists. The heavily fortified 2.5 mile Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separates North and South. Occasional incidents occur.
Truman's war never ended. Its origin was misreported. IF Stone's Hidden History of the Korean War explained.
Monthly Review co-founders Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy wrote in the preface:
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Wednesday, April 03, 2013
The New “Argo: Evil North Koreans, White House In Latest Hollywood Fear Vehicle / Politics / Propaganda
New York, New York: The trend towards movies ripped from the news, or perhaps ripping off the news continues.
Olympus Has Fallen is the latest in the popular “learn to fear thy enemy even more than you did before” category, as director Antoine Fuqua visualizes a story that can’t be more topical with the White House (Secret Service Code: "Olympus") occupied by a North Korean terrorist fanatic and his barbaric followers.
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Wednesday, April 03, 2013
UK Benefits Culture Extreme, Philpott's Risked Killing Their Children for Increased Benefit Payments / Politics / UK Politics
Tuesday, Mick and Mairead Philpott, along with Paul Mosley were found guilty of the manslaughter of their six children in May 2012 in what amounted to the culmination of a botched attempt to be in receipt of increased benefits payments and be given a larger council property by burning down their existing property.
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Wednesday, April 03, 2013
When It Comes Time to Steal… They’re Coming After YOUR Money / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
Cyprus should scare the living daylights out of everyone.
Cyprus has shown us that when things get bad enough in Europe, bureaucrats will STEAL money from the people. That is bad enough as it completely goes against the central tenants of Capitalism and Democracy. Not to mention it also targets the wrong people (average citizens) instead of the banks that created this whole mess.
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Tuesday, April 02, 2013
The Technocracy Plague / Politics / Social Issues
CONFUSED ORIGINS
Theories about how Technocracy emerged - and became so powerful it is now a dominant theme in Europe's unraveling macrame player's nightmare mix of economic, financial and political crises - are as confused as its true origins. What we can be sure of is that defenders of what are basically unelected Old Boy administrators like to give their Technocrats a classic pedigree, claiming it can be traced back to Ancient Greece and Rome.
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Fiat Currency Collapse / Politics / Fiat Currency
Lance Burnham writes: If all fiat currencies in history eventually collapse, how do we see it coming? Could it happen to the US dollar? How do you survive something like that?
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Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Cyprus Crisis the Story of All Western Nation-states / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
The news of the month comes from the large Mediterranean island of Cyprus, where Keynesian economic planning left the economy facing complete bankruptcy. The result was an unprecedented step forward in the financial collapse of the West: direct forfeiture of bank deposits.
Despite official protestations to the contrary, this fallout will spread to a bank near you.
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Monday, April 01, 2013
Canadian Bank Deposits As Safe As Cypriot Deposits / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
Rest easy, Canadians, for your bank accounts are going to be made as safe as those bank accounts in Cyprus. Just take a look at the Canadian government's budget plan for 2013, particularly pages 144 and 145 of Economic Action Plan 2013. There the Canadian government promises to use Canadian deposits to save "systematicaly important" banks (emphasis ours).
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Monday, April 01, 2013
Cyprus Kills the Myth That European Monetary Union Is Benign / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
This piece from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is about as hard-hitting an analysis of Cyprus as I have read and really makes an interesting introduction to this week’s Outside the Box. No messing around:
Capital controls have shattered the monetary unity of EMU. A Cypriot euro is no longer a core euro….
The complicity of EU authorities in the original plan to violate insured bank savings – halted only by the revolt of the Cypriot parliament – leaves the suspicion that they will steal anybody’s money if leaders of the creditor states think it is in their immediate interest to do so.
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Monday, April 01, 2013
Solar Cycle Warnings / Politics / Environmental Issues
RECORD LOW SUNSPOT NUMBERS
For reasons including "pure politically correct", NASA has fought a losing battle - against reality - on the subject of Global Warming, which it feels obliged to believe in as a "scientifically correct" theory. Linked to this, quite directly, NASA has also battled against reality on the subject of sunspot frequency, size, location on the Sun's surface and other variables linked to sunspot cycles in this present Cycle 24 of approximately 11-year-long cycles. These have been accurately recorded since Cycle 1 set by convention between astronomers as starting in Feb 1755.
Monday, April 01, 2013
Ron Paul on the Great Cyprus Bank Robbery / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
The dramatic recent events in Cyprus have highlighted the fundamental weakness in the European banking system and the extreme fragility of fractional reserve banking. Cypriot banks invested heavily in Greek sovereign debt, and last summer's Greek debt restructuring resulted in losses equivalent to more than 25 percent of Cyprus' GDP. These banks then took their bad investments to the government, demanding a bailout from an already beleaguered Cypriot treasury. The government of Cyprus then turned to the European Union (EU) for a bailout.
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Monday, April 01, 2013
What Have Central Bankers and Governments Learnt From Cyprus Crisis? / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
Since 'The Great Unwind' began in 2007, a lot of water has passed under the bridge. Yet, what is extremely important now is to focus attention on the most recent bank bail-ins by way of bailouts! No matter what the authorities say, what has been learnt cannot be unlearnt: the dangerous bail-in cat is now finally out of the bag! It remains to be seen how big and predatory this new cat can become.
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