Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Sandy Hook Solutions / Politics / US Politics
By: Stephen_Merrill
How do people ever begin to redeem the suffering of twenty tiny souls? What can help diminish the horrible images Americans will long have of that terrible day the week before Christmas at Sandy Hook elementary school?In our modern world the answer, as always, is curative legislation. Legislation is the natural offspring of senseless tragedy wherever it might occur.
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Sunday, January 20, 2013
Does it Take Another Civil War? / Politics / US Politics
By: Michael_T_Bucci
To think that twenty young children massacred in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14 would become catalysts to accelerate the continuing disintegration of American society was unconscionable on December 14th - and it remains unconscionable. While the nation fell into shock followed by grief, many wrote on the web, "Obama's gonna take away guns!" The narcissism of "2nd Amen" cultists is without boundaries it appears; to wit: the NRA rallies.
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Saturday, January 19, 2013
The Trillion Dollar Coin: What You Really Need to Know / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: Rudy_Avizius
Recently a novel idea began circulating in the Washington Beltway that the government could print a $1 Trillion coin and use that to fund its operations in the absence of an agreement on the raising of the debt ceiling. This idea certainly sounds like it came from fantasyland, but if one follows it carefully through to its logical conclusion, it will shine a light on our current monetary system and how it is fundamentally unsustainable. The floating of the $trillion coin has inadvertently opened up a window not just to reform, but to transform our monetary system. The resulting transformational consequences would be welcomed by all political perspectives.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
France and the UK Could Be the Lynchpins of Europe / Politics / European Union
By: John_Browne
Over the past two months, Europe's problems seem to have disappeared from the headlines. However, the new French Socialist government is pushing ahead with policies that favor significantly higher government spending, greater regulation of business and commerce, and severely higher taxes on high earners. The long term effects of these policies, which I believe will lead to further economic decline, may be given fresh scrutiny if France is drawn into a lasting conflict in West Africa as a result of its surprise intervention in Mali last week. The financial discussions that will certainly accompany a longer term strategic commitment to the region may finally make clear that one of Europe's largest economies is heading down a dangerous fiscal path.
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Saturday, January 19, 2013
U.S. Fiscal Farce, Failure, Fantasy & Fornication Forecasts 2013 / Politics / Government Spending
By: James_Quinn
I’ve put off writing an article about what is likely to happen in 2013 so I could peruse the thousands of other articles by reputable bloggers, paid pundits, Wall Street shills and captured charlatans to gather their wisdom. It’s essential that I make predictions for 2013 so I can write another article in December rationalizing why 90% of my predictions failed to materialize. Reading all of these 2013 prediction articles made things much clearer for me. I now know for sure:
Friday, January 18, 2013
CIA Wins 2013 Academy Awards, Dominates Hollywood Movies and TV / Politics / Propaganda
By: Washingtons_Blog
The Winners of the Academy Award and Golden Globe Are … Government Propagandists
Rob Kall points out that the military-industrial complex is the winner of the Golden Globe award:
Read full article... Read full article...Homeland won best TV series, best TV actor and actress. It IS a highly entertaining show which actually portrays some of the flaws of the MIIC system
Friday, January 18, 2013
President Obama Shoots Himself in the Foot on Gun Contro / Politics / US Politics
By: Gary_North
North’s law of knee-jerk politics is this: “When you become a knee-jerk politician, you will eventually shoot yourself in the foot.” This is what President Obama has just done. He has decided that he is going to make gun control one of his two major issues.
The first issue is getting the House of Representatives to raise the debt ceiling. He has made it clear that he will not compromise in any way.
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Friday, January 18, 2013
The Ticking Trillion Dollar Debt Bomb / Politics / US Debt
By: Graham_Summers
Since the EU Crisis went into overdrive in 2010, EU politicians have largely resorted to political posturing rather than implementing any actual financial solutions to the EU’s debt and banking crisis.
To clarify that statement, we view a “real solution” as one that A) cleared bad debts from the system, B) brought debt levels down to manageable levels, and C) got the troubled country’s economy back on track.
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Thursday, January 17, 2013
Open Fort Knox! The Ink at the Money Printing Press Is Dry / Politics / US Debt
By: InvestmentContrarian
George Leong writes: The government needs money fast. The problem is that the bank vaults are closed for the time being, and unless they are opened by early March, America could face a cash crunch.
The intense battle between Congress and President Barack Obama, who is requesting an immediate increase to the current national debt limit of $16.4 trillion, is ongoing, but it needs to be resolved soon, as the current national debt subject to the limit is $16.39 trillion. Obama is threatening possible delays to Social Security and veterans’ benefits, along with an impact on the government payroll, if the cash doesn’t come. (Source: Lee, C.E., and Hook, J., “Obama Escalates Debt Fight,” Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2013.)
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Thursday, January 17, 2013
France's Soupcon Of Economic Austerity - Or Is It A Wall Of Poverty? / Politics / France
By: Andrew_McKillop
THE NUMBERS TALK
France's present and coming economic disaster is relatively well hidden, at least to outsiders who look in the wrong places and read the French official statistics - which are as lively, imaginative and "true to facts" as anyplace else. Above all, France seems for a short while longer to have wriggled out and away from the savage austerity cures which have already steamrolled, and go on crushing the economy and society of Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and other European countries.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
U.S. Government Raids Pension Funds to Avoid Debt Default / Politics / US Debt
By: Money_Morning
Diane Alter writes: The U.S. Treasury, in order to avoid default, has resorted to an eyebrow-raising move: it has borrowed from the federal employee pension fund as the country nears its debt ceiling.
The U.S. government stopped investing in the federal employee pension fund Tuesday "to avoid breaching the statutory debt limit," according to a letter Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sent to Congress.
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Thursday, January 17, 2013
Tim Geithner, the King of a Cloud Cuckoo Land Stock Market / Politics / US Politics
By: Raul_I_Meijer
On January 25, Timothy Geithner will step down as US Treasury Secretary. A lot of people will say and write a lot of things about him at that point, and it sounds like a good idea to be ahead of the game and provide some perspective.
There are voices claiming (there will be many more, promise) that Geithner pulled us out of the recession and the crisis, and saved the economy. That seems presumptuous. It may just as well be true that Geithner has fooled us into thinking that. Just because the stock markets are pulling through so far doesn't mean, let alone prove, that the economy has recovered or been saved. You would need something better, more substantial than that. While acknowledging that relatively strong stock market numbers are at least in potential a great way indeed to fool people about the economy.
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Thursday, January 17, 2013
Washington's Trillion Dollar Banana / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: Michael_Pento
It should be clear to all that Keynesian Counterfeiters now control many of the major governments across the globe. Fiscal and monetary "stimulus" led to the bond market collapses of southern Europe a couple of years ago. The Greek bond market was the first to crack at the beginning of 2010. Borrowing massive quantities of printed money caused yields on their 10-year note rose from 5.8% in January, to over 40% two years later. But the problem in Europe wasn't confined to just a Greek tragedy. In Portugal, their 10-year note yield soared from 4.07% at the start of 2010, to 15.4% in just 24 months. Similar, but less dramatic, bond duress occurred in Spain and Italy as well.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
How Does the System of the Crooks Operate In America and Why Worry About It? / Politics / US Politics
By: Jas_Jain
Early in the morning, I watched an interview on Bloomberg with Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren, who just became a voting member on FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee, but it is more of a Foul Open Mouth Committee because these days they talk on TV lot more than they deliberate in the meeting, i.e., they are in propaganda business). Bill Cohan (that is the correct spelling according to Bloomberg), who had worked on Wall Street before the Crisis of 2008 and these days he is a Bloomberg commentator after writing a book on the Crisis, was infuriated after the interview because "all that the Fed is doing is enriching the banks." (Rosengren being the most supportive of Fed doing more QE, i.e., he is left of the left interventionist).
Thursday, January 17, 2013
America's Un(der)employed Youth, The Man with the Broom... / Politics / Employment
By: Don_Miller
One of the greatest joys of writing Miller's Money Weekly and our premium publications is working with Alex Daley, Casey Research's resident technology guru, who also wears many other hats. While I can walk and chew gum, Alex can also whistle and juggle.
I've never reported to someone considerably younger than I am. What a treat! We are different in so many ways: I have a black book, he has a cell phone; my appointments are written on my big desk pad and his are programmed into his cell phone. You get the picture.
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Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Price for Eurozone Collapse is Too High / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Pravda
The Eurozone will not fall apart, because the price of getting out of the game is too high for each country. When, in early September, it was announced that the ECB would buy government bonds in unlimited quantities, the bridges behind the Euro area countries have collapsed. There is no way back, and this means that one can only move forward and fight for their own happiness.
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Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Marooned Global Warmers Face Shrinking Floes Of Money / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
CRISIS IN PARADISE
Once upon a time any New Age journalist could make an easy living spouting global warming crisis themes and memes: it was only necessary to pick and mix the one-liners from Al Gore, James 'Gaia' Lovelock, James Hansen and other hopefuls supping at the brimful trough of "hard edged scientific facts" on climate change which show we are on the path to the Apocalypse, and-or the Olduvai Gorge. Today however, even the UK Met Office has been forced to heavily tone down, we should say cool down its gripping hockey stick forecasts of ever-leaping-upward temperatures, which for years it so confidently communicated (with a straight face) as a somber warning of Very Bad Things to Come.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
The Economics of Sequestration / Politics / Government Spending
By: BATR
Delaying the sequester process for two months confirms that business as usual is well on Capital Hill. The egregious idea of abiding by a former deal that would trigger automatic spending cuts is just too much for Congressional leaders to bear. March 1, 2013 is said to be the new due date. Senatorial magic escapes any semblance of facing up to the obvious. Administration spending is so habitual that even a government shutdown is immune from observance. The true economics of sequestration centers within the next imaginative episode of delay and denial. It is little wonder that commerce and business is a far more risky endeavor, when the principal problem of the national debt is abnegated as an excessive spending crisis.
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Wednesday, January 16, 2013
The Trillion Dollar Coin Trick / Politics / US Debt
By: Peter_Schiff
The birth, and the apparent death, of the trillion dollar platinum coin idea may one day be recalled as a mere footnote in the current debt crisis drama. The ultimate rejection of the idea (which was to use a loophole in commemorative coinage law to mint a platinum coin of any denomination) by both the the President and the Federal Reserve seems to offer some relief that our economic policy is not being run by out-of-touch academics and irresponsible congressmen. In reality, our government has been creating more than one trillion dollars out of thin air every year for the past five. The only difference is that the blatant dishonesty of a trillion-dollar platinum coin is so easy to understand that the public simply couldn't be expected to swallow it. The American people are more than willing to be fooled, but they won't tolerate so simple a ruse.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
America Stepping Back as Global Policeman, Avoiding the Wars That Never End / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: STRATFOR
Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the United States would transfer the primary responsibility for combat operations in Afghanistan to the Afghan military in the coming months, a major step toward the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Also last week, France began an intervention in Mali designed to block jihadists from taking control of the country and creating a base of operations in France's former African colonies.Read full article... Read full article...