Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Governments Spinning Bad Economic News Into Good / Politics / Economic Statistics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Friday’s payroll jobs report says that 96,000 new jobs were created in August and that the unemployment rate (U.3) fell from 8.3% to 8.1%. As 96,000 new jobs are not enough to keep up with population growth, the decline in the U.3 unemployment rate was caused by 368,000 discouraged job seekers giving up on finding employment and dropping out of the work force as measured by U.3. Discouraged workers are not included in the U.3 measure of unemployment, which makes the measure useless. The only purpose of U.3 is to keep bad news out of the news. the U.3 unemployment rate only measures those who have not been discouraged by the inability to find a job and are still actively seeking employment.
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Symptoms and Signs of 'The Shift' / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
Are we on the cusp of a new dawn? From Britain to Brazil and from Kenya to China, ATCA 5000 distinguished members in more than 150 countries around the world are beginning to report an unprecedented yet accelerating individual and collective ‘Shift’ in awareness in the last few quarters. The changes appear to be affecting many at the material, physical, emotional, mental and more subtle levels. We have been examining four key interlocking aspects of those thoughts, observations and views expressed one-to-one by distinguished members from around the world in this regard:
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Sunday, September 09, 2012
Most Germans Want Constitutional Court to Kill the Euro-zone Bailout Fund / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Mike_Shedlock
Moment of Recognition
It appears a majority of German citizens have finally had enough of chancellor Angela Merkel saying one thing and doing another in regards to bailouts. They have also had enough of Mario Draghi and his policies.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
State Schools Are an Inevitable Source of Ethnic Conflict / Politics / Educating Children
By: MISES
Mike Reid writes: The great antifascist scholar Ludwig von Mises warned that government schools are an inevitable source of ethnic conflict, because dominant nationalities can use them to indoctrinate children from other cultures, pulling them away from their parents and communities.[1] In Canada, this was explicitly the aim of the Indian residential schools, which sought to "kill the Indian in the child."[2]
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Barack Obama is a Left-wing Social Climber with a Wife Who Loves to Shop / Politics / US Presidential Election 2012
By: Gary_North
In my article on the letter I received from a lawyer who insisted – inaccurately – that Michelle Obama let her license to practice law go inactive when her husband surrendered his license in early 2008, I responded: “Did Romney surrender his license? No. Did either of the Clintons surrender theirs? No. Did Nixon surrender his? No.”
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Euro-zone Debt Crisis, Germany vs Greece, and Spain and... / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Ian_R_Campbell
Why read: Because things can happen very quickly, and it may be that 'push' finally may be coming to 'shove' in the Eurozone.
Commentary: Even if 'push' and 'shove' don't meet in the Eurozone over Greece (and Spain) in the next few weeks and months, time nonetheless seems to be shortening for Greece (and Spain), and eventually 'push' and 'shove' must meet. I have said for months now that:
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Friday, September 07, 2012
Hungary Throws Out Monsanto AND The IMF / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Raul_I_Meijer
I don't know about you, but I would label my personal knowledge of Hungary as wanting, if not painfully incomplete. It's not an easy country to come to grips with, not least of all of course because Hungarian doesn't look like any western language we know with the possible exception of Finnish. I did visit just after the Wall came down, and remember huge contrasts, almost paradoxes, between rural poverty and a capital, Budapest, that was much richer than other capitals such as Prague, a leftover of Budapest's status as meeting place between western and eastern diplomats and businessmen.
Friday, September 07, 2012
The Fed's Campaign / Politics / Central Banks
By: Peter_Schiff
This past Friday, as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered his annual address from Jackson Hole - the State of the Dollar, if you will - I couldn't help but hear it as an incumbent's campaign speech. While Wall Street was hoping for some concrete announcement, what we got was a mushy appraisal of the Fed's handling of the financial crisis so far and a suggestion that more 'help' is on the way.
It is important to remember that it's not just President Obama's job on the line in this election; in two years time, the next President will have the opportunity to either reappoint Bernanke or choose someone else. So we must understand what platform Bernanke is running on, as his office has an even greater effect on global markets than the President's.
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Friday, September 07, 2012
Mario Draghi Over and Out / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Fred_Sheehan
A collapsing order will do what it takes to retain power, no matter its abuse of law or decency. Writing in Die Zeit on August 29, 2012, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi wrote (in German): "[I]t should be understood that fulfilling our mandate sometimes requires us to go beyond standard monetary policy tools. When markets are fragmented or influenced by irrational fears, our monetary policy signals do not reach citizens evenly across the euro area. We have to fix such blockages to ensure a single monetary policy and therefore price stability for all euro area citizens. This may at times require exceptional measures. But this is our responsibility as the central bank of the euro area as a whole."
Friday, September 07, 2012
'About To Be Retired' Persons Views / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: Ian_R_Campbell
In a survey of Canadians now between 50 - 60 years old, said to have an statistical error rate of not more than 3.5%:
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on average 53% said they planned to work following retirement; and,
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almost 50% said they had retirement savings of under $100,000.
Thursday, September 06, 2012
9/11 & Plato’s Allegory of the Cave / Politics / Conspiracy Theory
By: Robert_Singer
Below is an animated image of Flight 175 "crashing" into the south tower.
Thursday, September 06, 2012
September 12th Looms Large for Germany on Euro-zone Debt Financing Decision / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: John_Browne
The German economy is undoubtedly the powerhouse of Europe. As a result, an understanding of the developments within Germany can offer a strong indication of the path that the rest of Europe is likely to take. Until recently, Germany stood as a bastion of sound money against those Keynesian led regimes in the developed nations that favor continual currency debasement as an economic panacea.
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
The Permanent Unemployment Economy / Politics / Unemployment
By: BATR
The official underreporting of the unemployment statistics is a well-known fact. The cavalier dismissal of the systemic dismantling of the market economy by the Obama administration is undeniable. Notwithstanding, the lack of living wage jobs is not simply a partisan issue. Ever since the adoption of the globalist free trade betrayal, the national suicide of the free enterprise economy has continued. Transiting skilled employees into government dependents is an overt component of the "New Age" of reduced wealth and servitude for the ordinary American.
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
NHS Baldrick Cunning Plan to Export Best Doctors Abroad to Treat Foreign Patients / Politics / NHS
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The latest cunning plan out of the NHS high command / coalition government is for Britains best and brightest doctors and consultants to set-up 'NHS' hospitals abroad at huge tax payer expense to treat foreign patients under the illusion that this will generate profits that will be reinvested into the UK NHS.
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Cellulosic Ethanol Production: One of the Decade's Biggest Examples of Wasteful Government Spending / Politics / Ethanol
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes:
In February we told you that despite nearing $15 trillion in debt - now close to $16 trillion - the U.S. government decided to spend $592,000 last year to figure out why chimpanzees throw poop.
Now we've discovered yet another example of wasteful government spending that has burned up more than $1.5 billion of your tax dollars - with nothing to show for it.
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Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Character, Policy and the Selection of Leaders / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
The end of Labor Day weekend in the United States traditionally has represented the beginning of U.S. presidential campaigns, though these days the campaign appears to be perpetual. In any case, Americans will be called on to vote for president in about two months, and the question is on what basis they ought to choose.
Many observers want to see intense debate over the issues, with matters of personality pushed to the background. But personality can also be viewed as character, and in some ways character is more important than policy in choosing a country's leadership.
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Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Ron Paul, How Long Will the U.S. Dollar Remain the World's Reserve Currency? / Politics / US Dollar
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
We frequently hear the financial press refer to the U.S. dollar as the "world's reserve currency," implying that our dollar will always retain its value in an ever shifting world economy. But this is a dangerous and mistaken assumption.
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Monday, September 03, 2012
Will Obama Manipulate the Dow Divisor, from Fiction to Reality? / Politics / Market Manipulation
By: Submissions
Wim Grommen writes: Dow Jones Index to 58 points
After intensive consultation with his advisors, President Obama has decided to modify the formula used for calculating the Dow Jones Index. On January 1, 2013 the Dow Divisor will be changed to 30. The result of this change will be that the Dow Jones Index drops from the current 13,124 points to about 58 points. The underlying value of the 30 component stocks of course remains unchanged. With this modification to the formula Obama aims to make the large Dow fluctuations of recent decennia a thing of the past, and hopes that this will bring stability to the stock market. Banks, major investors and pension funds welcome this change in the Dow Jones Index formula.
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Monday, September 03, 2012
What Makes People Happy? Ten Key Trends / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
What's happiness? Does it really exist? Can happiness last? How does one become happy? How many people do you know that are really happy? What are the habits of happy people and the principles that might be at the root of their happiness? We asked ATCA 5000 distinguished members over the last several months and here are some of the results that we distilled from those one-to-one conversations around the world.
Monday, September 03, 2012
Is the Ron Paul Revolution Over? / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
Allan Stevo writes: At 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, Mitt Romney became the GOP nominee for President.
At about the same time, 5:15 p.m., I watched a man involved with Ron Paul’s Louisiana victory box up phones at an outpost of the Ron Paul Revolution – a place from which some of the dispersed grassroots campaigns were run. Boxing up those phones marked the end of the 2012 phone-banking effort in that remote location. A room that I had seen abuzz with volunteer activity for months from early morning until whatever hour it is that Hawaiians start to no longer accept political phone calls was now being packed into a few small boxes and being shipped away. A few small boxes of equipment, a few hundred dollars to keep the lights on, and a dream for freer times ahead filled rooms like that across the country night-after-night. Tuesday that was all packed up.
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