Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, March 07, 2013
Who Profits From the Fed? / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: David_Howden
We recently looked at the Federal Reserve’s 2012 results. In particular, we pointed to some positive and negative developments. On a positive note, the Fed managed to shrink down the size of its balance sheet by approximately one-third of a percent. (Hey, it’s a start.) On a negative note, this decrease occurred because banks shifted their holdings of reserves into cash, thus forcing the Fed to sell off some of its assets. I explained that this is a potentially negative result, as the shift into cash brings with it inflationary pressure on prices.
Thursday, March 07, 2013
Bernanke the Crony Bureaucrat / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Fred_Sheehan
The bureaucrat is similar to the cockroach. Both "species adapt readily to a variety of environments, but prefer warm conditions found within buildings." Both "are among the hardiest insects." (Wikipedia's descriptions, for interested entomologists) Madonna (the exhibitionist) captured the nexus: "I am a survivor. I am like a cockroach, you just can't get rid of me."
Thursday, March 07, 2013
British Government Stripping Citizenships So The U.S. Can Kill Them? / Politics / UK Politics
By: Jeff_Berwick
Justin O'Connell writes: So you're in an African prison and being tortured after being stripped of your citizenship while on vacation with your family. And then, during your kidnapping, you are forced to sign a Soviet-style confession at the hands of the CIA. That could be your fate if what is happening to British citizens is any sign. But it doesn’t end there…
Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Is Sequestration a Gift or Economic Apocalypse / Politics / Economic Austerity
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: Everybody sing along...
It's a happy day... Oh happy days. It's a happy day...Oh happy days. When sequestration rules it drives the tears away... Oh happy days!
Apocalypse!
Armageddon!
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Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Economics of Gun Control / Politics / US Politics
By: BATR
Money and guns, often goes together. Sometimes used for the protection of cash, other times made on the sales and use of guns and ammo. Manufactured and sold openly, weapons of every description are a stable in the marketplace. Yet, firearms seem especially targeted for ownership extinction by law-abiding citizens. Ironically, the public purchases of personal pistols, rifles and shotguns are systematically restricted and regulated, while law enforcement officials add the latest in advanced ordinances to their arsenals. The obvious message is that the government is preparing for war against their own citizens.
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
The Fed’s Monetary Policy of Zero Interest Rates / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Prof_Rodrigue_Trembl
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd US President
“It is well enough that people … do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” Henry Ford (1863-1947), American automobile industrialist
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Tuesday, March 05, 2013
Economic Fascism and the Power Elite / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
David S. D'Amato writes: The state—the organization of the political means—is the institution that allows an idle, unproductive class of parasites to live at the expense of ordinary, working people, whose means are industrious activity and consensual exchange in the marketplace. We ought not assume, however, that the indigent segment of society, those who receive social welfare aid from the state, are necessarily foremost among the parasites of the political means. Rather, free-market libertarians from Albert Jay Nock to Murray Rothbard and Butler Shaffer have demonstrated that in the statist economy of theft and wealth redistribution, it is the elite—powerful, entrenched commercial players—who most benefit. Historically and empirically, this phenomenon of elite command of the apparatuses of government is readily apparent and unmistakable in its expression, particularly as regards the twentieth-century American economy.
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
Is the U.S. Becoming a Banana Republic / Politics / US Politics
By: Michael_Pento
It is sad to say there are just two reasons why the U.S. is not yet a banana republic. The first reason is that the US dollar has not yet lost its world’s reserve currency status, which is helping to keep interest rates at record low levels. If the dollar, yen and euro were not involved in a currency war, the dollar’s intrinsic decline would become much more evident, causing domestic inflation to soar, and our bond market to immediately collapse.
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Tuesday, March 05, 2013
Does The European Union Exist? / Politics / European Union
By: Andrew_McKillop
IMPORTANT TO WHO?
The justifiably almost forgotten early 19th century French economist Frederic Bastiat is sometimes painted as an "early Austrian School" thinker - but his theories and one-liner aphorisms are also used to defend the various forms and types of "European Union". This started in the early 1950s, to organize iron, steel and coal production - all of them now Sunset Industries, in Europe. The idea of "Union" by 1956, had morphed into Euratom and the lure of almost-free and of course clean and safe nuclear power for every European. Nuclear power, today, is also something of a Sunset Industry. The first European customs and tariff union, with a few add-on political gimmicks was created the same year, in 1956, and called the Rome Treaty.
Monday, March 04, 2013
Ron Paul - Sequester 'Crisis', What Should Be Done / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Despite what the media and politicians would have us believe, the United States did not collapse last Friday when the package of spending reductions known as "sequestration" went into effect. The financial markets hardly blinked, as they have come to be more skeptical about these periodic government-hyped "crises."
What had been portrayed as a drastic reduction in government spending was merely a decrease in the projected rate of increase in government spending over the next decade. Under sequestration, government spending increases by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years rather than $2.5 trillion without it.
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Sunday, March 03, 2013
U.S. Sequester and Negative Economics? / Politics / Economic Austerity
By: Ian_R_Campbell
I am sending this Newsletter today, Saturday, a departure from my normal practice, because of what I see as the importance of the inability of Washington politicians to - at least for the time being - come together on the so-called 'sequester budget cuts' that barring subsequent agreement have now taken effect.
As anyone in the world who can hear or read likely knows, last night U.S. President Obama signed an order putting the 'sequester budget cuts' in place. This means that between now and September 30 - the end of the U.S. Federal Government fiscal year, that absent subsequent negotiations and agreement that changes things - $85 billion in spending cuts will be made from the current 2013 U.S. federal spending budget (before these cuts, $3.8 trillion).
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Sunday, March 03, 2013
What You Need to Know About Sequestration / Politics / Economic Austerity
By: InvestmentContrarian
George Leong writes: The day has arrived. Today will see the start of the much-anticipated $1.2-trillion decade-long budget cuts under the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012 (394 pages if you want to read it), which represents America’s own austerity measures to cut the deficit. The proposed cuts will entail about $85.0 billion in annual budget cuts; and while it’s needed, given the runaway national debt of over $16.6 trillion, it will have a widespread impact on the state of the country and the economy, including program cuts, job losses, and chaos.
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Sunday, March 03, 2013
The Coming Global Drone War / Politics / Drone Wars
By: Andrew_McKillop
LETS NOT BE ASHAMED
Mr Barack Obama is never ashamed about the US drone war. The few and short occasions that he, or his administration ever talk about drone war, they praise it. The most recent case was February 5, 2013:
"We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threats—to stop plots, prevent future attacks and, again, save American lives”, White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters. For the Obama administration: "These strikes are legal, they are ethical, and they are wise".
Saturday, March 02, 2013
Bernanke the Comedian Addicted to Asset Bubbles / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Joseph_T_Salerno
Ben Bernanke confided on January 14 that he is unaware of any new method of stimulating economic growth. Bernanke said: “As far as I’m aware, there’s no completely new method that we haven’t [already tapped].” So Helicopter Ben has run out of innovative and unconventional ways to create new money. Lest you be tempted to breathe a bit easier, however, rest assured that the now conventional method of quantitative easing, involving the Fed’s monthly purchase of $85 billion worth of mortgage-backed and U.S. government securities, seems to be working just fine according to Bernanke and he foresees its continuation. Noting the stubbornly high unemployment rate combined with the low inflation rate in the U.S. economy, Bernanke stated, “That is the case for being aggressive, which we are trying to do.” Although he is “cautiously optimistic,” he does promise to closely monitor the risks, efficacy, costs, and benefits of this inflationary policy.
Friday, March 01, 2013
Washington's Biggest Sequestration Lies / Politics / US Politics
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes: Though we've come to expect no better from our leaders in Washington, the sequestration lies rank among the most blatant whoppers ever to come out of the nation's capital.
Sequestration, of course, is the $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts scheduled to go into effect at midnight Friday.
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Friday, March 01, 2013
Crony Capitalists Are the Ruling Class, the Forgotten Cause of Free Markets and Sound Money / Politics / Financial Markets 2013
By: LewRockwell
The Henry Hazlitt Memorial Lecture, Austrian Scholars Conference,
ROCKWELL: Well, it's great to have as our Henry Hazlitt Memorial lecturer this year, Mr. David Stockman. David is a graduate of Michigan State University. He did graduate work at Harvard University. He was elected to Congress three times from the state of Michigan.
And back when I first went to work for Ron Paul in the reign of Jimmy I –
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Friday, March 01, 2013
U.S.A A.D. 2013 - The Worst of Times? / Politics / US Politics
By: Andy_Sutton
We got a rare moment today – it’s what I’m going to call a truth nugget. Anyone who reads this column or any one of several hundred others already knows this, but as you all well know there is nothing to see until the mainstream press declares it to be so. Today we were finally told that no, there will be no exit from the not-so-USFed’s quantitative easing program. Ever. Like I said before, this is no revelation; anyone with even the slightest of brainwaves could easily figure this out without the watchful, benevolent guidance of CNBC.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Be Careful: Russia is Back to Stay in the Middle East / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: OilPrice_Com
Russia is back. President Vladimir Putin wants the world to acknowledge that Russia remains a global power. He is making his stand in Syria.
The Soviet Union acquired the Tardus Naval Port in Syria in 1971 without any real purpose for it. With their ships welcomed in Algeria, Cuba or Vietnam, Tardus was too insignificant to be developed. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia lacked the funds to spend on the base and no reason to invest in it.
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Thursday, February 28, 2013
Eurozone Dangling by a Thread, Another Fine Italian Mess / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes: Four days after the Italian elections only one thing is clear: A majority of Italian voters have rejected austerity.
The problem is their victory came up short by the slimmest of margins.
0.36%. That's the difference between a firm new government that could move Italy out of the Eurozone and the constitutional logjam Italian voters woke up to the next day.
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Thursday, February 28, 2013
U.S. Healthcare Blues, Our Medical Bills Are Killing Us / Politics / Healthcare Sector
By: John_Mauldin
It has been some time since we peeked into my worry closet. A few questions this weekend prompted me to think about things I am paying attention to but have not written about, and one thing that I am not worried about at all, despite the apparent media hysteria.
But first, a quick note. My tenth annual Strategic Investment Conference (May 1-3 in Carlsbad, California) seems to be filling up nicely. The speaker lineup is exceptional: Kyle Bass; Ian Bremmer; Mohamed El-Erian; Niall Ferguson and his wife, Ayaan Hirsi Ali; Lacy Hunt; Charles and Louis Gave; Jeff Gundlach; Anatole Kaletsky; David Rosenberg; Nouriel Roubini; and Gary Shilling.
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