Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, December 02, 2011
America’s Lost Half Century and the Loss of Values / Politics / US Politics
By: Barry_Elias
Real economic growth in the United States fell precipitously during the last half century.
The reason: A severe values deficit.
During this period, society valued the acquisition of materials in lieu of knowledge and wisdom. The values deficit triggered economic turmoil and the subsequent financial implosion.
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Friday, December 02, 2011
Euro Zone System Crisis Wall Street Backlash? / Politics / Credit Crisis 2011
By: Bob_Chapman
Except for the MF Global scandal Europe still stands at the forefront of world debt problems. Up until now little has been accomplished toward solving these problems and the traditional Christmas season is upon us, which stretches from December 7th, to January 10th, a period in which very little will be accomplished.
Friday, December 02, 2011
Will Higher Oil Prices Save Kyoto? / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
If the goal of the Kyoto Treaty was to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases, its near-15 year life span of shuffling diplomats, journalists and climate "experts" around the globe in CO2-spewing jetliners for talks, and talks about talks has been a total failure. As a 'Scientific American' blog of November 29 put it: "Japan (is) buying its way out of emissions reductions in 2011—and refusing to sign up for more. The European Union will trade its way into greenhouse gas cuts, whereas Canada—among the globe’s worst emitters on a per capita basis—has decided to break its pledge to reduce. The U.S., the world’s largest (per capita) emitter, has never accepted legally binding targets under international climate treaties. Nor has China, which has gone from being a developing nation to the planet’s biggest source of human-made greenhouse gases in that same time span".
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
It's Time to Overhaul the Fed / Politics / Central Banks
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: The average American has no idea how protected the big banks in this country really are.
For the most part we don't even blink when we are lied to publicly by their CEOs.
Maybe that's because the biggest bank in the world, the U.S. Federal Reserve, which happens to be a creation of and 100% beholden to the banks that it is a master shill for, also lies to us and covers up Wall Street's misdeeds.
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Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Debunking the Myth that China is Selling U.S. Treasury Securities / Politics / US Bonds
By: Mike_Stathis
For a couple of years now, the extremists, gold bugs, perpetual doomers and others who know more about marketing than economics and investments have used numerous scare tactics as a manner by which to manipulate gold. These individuals like to mention gold manipulation by banks to explain the selloff, but never mention that the manipulation of gold by banks is a normal situation.
In contrast, they never admit that they are manipulation gold pricing through the use of propaganda, scare tactics, myths and even bold-faced lies. This later type of manipulation borders on securities fraud. It is an issue that the SEC must address.
Regardless which one of these prophets of doom you give your attention to, you are likely to hear 10% fact and 90% fiction; if you’re lucky.
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Tuesday, November 29, 2011
How the U.S. Will Become a 3rd World Country (Part 2) / Politics / US Politics
By: Ron_Hera
The United States is quickly coming to resemble a post industrial neo-3rd-world country. Unemployment, lack of economic opportunity, falling real wages and household incomes, growing poverty and increasing concentration of wealth are major trends in the U.S. today. Behind these growing problems are monetary inflation created by the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies, federal government deficit spending and the dominant influence of “too big to fail” banks and large corporations in Washington D.C., which has altered the direction of law in the United States. To make matters worse, the U.S. government faces a historic fiscal crisis.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Ron Paul on the Folly of Economic Sanctions / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Many people have the misconception that sanctions are an effective means to encourage a change of behavior in another country without war. However, imposing sanctions and blockades are not only an act of war according to international law, they are most often the first step toward a real war starting with a bombing campaign. Sanctions were the first step in our wars against Iraq and Libya, and now more sanctions planned against Syria and Iran are leading down the same destructive path.
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Monday, November 28, 2011
Bankers Have Seized Control of Europe, Goldman Sachs Has Taken Over / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
On November 25, two days after a failed German government bond auction in which Germany was unable to sell 35% of its offerings of 10-year bonds, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble said that Germany might retreat from its demands that the private banks that hold the troubled sovereign debt from Greece, Italy, and Spain must accept part of the cost of their bailout by writing off some of the debt. The private banks want to avoid any losses either by forcing the Greek, Italian, and Spanish governments to make good on the bonds by imposing extreme austerity on their citizens, or by having the European Central Bank print euros with which to buy the sovereign debt from the private banks. Printing money to make good on debt is contrary to the ECB’s charter and especially frightens Germans, because of the Weimar experience with hyperinflation.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Extreme Eurozone Disruption? Peril Threatens Financial Globalisation? / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: DK_Matai
1. The crisis in the Eurozone has reached fever pitch as all the alarm signals have gone on red alert in the bond markets;
2. Italian bond yields at a record of nearly 8% coupled with German bund yields above those of the US and the UK, suggest that the entire core of the Eurozone is now infected;
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Monday, November 28, 2011
U.S. Foreclosure Fraud in a Nutshell, How Average Joe's Home Was Stolen / Politics / US Housing
By: LewRockwell
Bill Butler writes: The untold story in the foreclosure crisis unfolding across America is that, following a foreclosure perpetrated by one of the October 2008 Bailout Banks (e.g. Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo) Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac suddenly appear as the record owner of Average Joe’s home. These federal government sponsored entities then go into local housing court and get a court order authorizing them to evict Joe. If Joe resists, these supposedly charitable institutions obtain a writ ordering the local sheriff to forcibly remove Joe from his home.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
The Mega Banks Seizing Control of Europe / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Bob_Chapman
In Europe each time a new player is presented we find he is a Goldman Sachs’ alumnus. Recent entries are Mario Monti “appointed” PM of Italy, Lucas Papademas “appointed” PM of Greece and Mario Dragahi “appointed” President of the European Central Bank. The banks blatantly control governments and agencies presenting us with an oligarchy, which controls most of the nations on the planet. In America politicians are bought and paid for. In Europe there is a different mind set, a shared worldview of bureaucrats, technocrats, politicians and the elite bankers of world government and domination. What has happened in this process is that Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and other mega-banking has retained power for decades. They control all the players in the field, so the outcome is always in their favor. The bankers and others in turn are paid via billions of dollars in bonuses. Banks are now bank holding companies having become that to avoid failure as brokerage firms. That is the case in the US, UK and Europe.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
American's Comfortably Numb on the Highway to Economic Collapse / Politics / Great Depression II
By: James_Quinn
As I observe the zombie like reactions of Americans to our catastrophic economic highway to collapse, the continued plundering and pillaging of the national treasury by criminal Wall Street bankers, non-enforcement of existing laws against those who committed the largest crime in history, and reaction to young people across the country getting beaten, bludgeoned, shot with tear gas and pepper sprayed by police, I can’t help but wonder whether there is anyone home. Why are most Americans so passively accepting of these calamitous conditions? How did we become so comfortably numb? I’ve concluded Americans have chosen willful ignorance over thoughtful critical thinking due to their own intellectual laziness and overpowering mind manipulation by the elite through their propaganda emitting media machines. Some people are awaking from their trance, but the vast majority is still slumbering or fuming at erroneous perpetrators.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
New Chaos And Old Versailles: Is This Guided History ? / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Andrew_McKillop
Everybody knows that Keynes' first (some would say only) claim to fame was to argue that Kaiser Germany's war debt reparations following the 1914-18 war were too high and should be struck down. In modern parlance this is called debt write down and economic bail out by an accelerated turn of central bank money printing presses, and the play of institutions partly-proposed or invented by Keynes, the IMF and Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Next Stop The Sustainable Society / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
No longer in the realms of North Korean thinking, the near term prospect is that the runaway train of late stage, financially engineered consumer capitalist culture will hit the debt and deficit buffers and will stop, dead. Fear rules. Mainstream media in Europe continues to wave the scarecrow-with-a-skull of the Eurozone imploding, the euro disappearing, the European Union collapsing. Los Indignados and anti-nuclear crazies will link up with Al Qaeda and show open disrespect to everything from WalMart and McDonalds to friendly smiling atoms. Tahrir Square is the new Global Village. Gloom and doom.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Black Friday Shopper-on-Shopper Violence, Best Indicator U.S. Economy is Alive and Well / Politics / Social Issues
By: PhilStockWorld
I’m very relieved to hear of the various incidents of violence brought on by the "doorbusters" and other Black Friday-related narco-shopping come-ons. This mad rush to buy garbage is the single best indication we have that America’s consumers (and the economy that belongs to their appetites) are alive and well.
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Saturday, November 26, 2011
NATO Kills 28 Pakistani Troops, Pakistan Army Prepares for Border War / Politics / Pakistan
By: Submissions
PTI Submits: At least 28 Pakistani soldiers were killed today when NATO helicopters and combat jets fired on two border posts in the country's northwest, prompting army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to direct his troops to prepare for ''an effective response'' even as authorities cut off all supplies for US forces in Afghanistan.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Europe is Falling Apart, ECB to the Rescue? / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Bill_Bonner
Markets closed today. And not much from us either. We’ve got family chores to attend to.
As expected, Europe is falling apart. Yields are rising. France’s debt no longer looks safe. And Germany can’t sell its bonds.
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Saturday, November 26, 2011
The Hallmark of the Fed is Duplicity, or, What’s Risky is Safe / Politics / US Debt
By: Rob_Kirby
Tom Foolery at Its Finest: The Truman Show Redux : The purpose of this paper is to highlight how hegemonic American economic doctrine has infected global economics in creating a surreal plutocratic corporatocracy, or in other words, what’s black is white, what’s up is down, what’s safe is risky, you get the idea!
Friday, November 25, 2011
End Of The Road For Kyoto / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
The Kyoto Treaty is threatened by an ever rising groundswell of outright rejection. Limits on CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions may lapse before end-2012. This will above signal the end to the easy money for emission permit traders, brokers and investment bankers playing a small but profitable market in a huge range of complex "carbon related and derived products". Estimated at around $142 billion a year, the market designed to cap CO2 and other GHG emissions, linked to burning fossil fuels, producing cement, deforestation, urbanization and other land use changing activities is still defended by some, as able to "mitigate global warming".
Friday, November 25, 2011
Could Climate Change Be The Next Catastrophic Tail-Risk-Penny To Drop? / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_Butter
As the Durban Climate Change conference wheezes into obscurity with memories of a bunch of what the neo-cons call “balding ex-hippies” on one side; and a stack full of conveniently newly-leaked e-mails on the other…and America conspicuously absent, I am reminded of previous catastrophes.