Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Perspectives on the Crisis in Europe / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: John_Mauldin
This week's Outside the Box will be unusual. Rather than one essay, I give you a number of short ones, and links that are representative of the confusion that is Europe, along with a little history. As I noted this weekend, last week's Eurozone announcement was short of details, and very little of the real work had been done. Merkel has to get her own country on board, keep the other nations that are in trouble from demanding haircuts, and keep the markets from trashing Italian and Spanish debt. Berlusconi has to figure out how to get the Italian budget balanced while staying out of jail and "balancing" his social calendar. Maybe he can dollar-cost average with a 70-year-old date? (Sorry, that was snarky, but it is so easy.)
Monday, October 31, 2011
U.S. Leaving Iraq? / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
It is not too often I am pleased by the foreign policy announcements from this administration, but last week's announcement that the war in Iraq was in its final stage and all the troops may be home for Christmas did sound promising. I have long said that we should simply declare victory and come home. It should not have taken us nearly a decade to do so, and it was supposed to be a priority for the new administration. Instead, it will be one of the last things done before the critical re-election campaign gets into full swing. Better late than never, but, examining the fine print, is there really much here to get excited about? Are all of our men and women really coming home, and is Iraq now to regain its sovereignty? And in this time of economic crisis, are we going to stop hemorrhaging money in Iraq? Sadly, it doesn't look that way.
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Monday, October 31, 2011
U.S. Natural Gas Find off Vietnam Could Raise Tensions with China / Politics / Natural Gas
By: OilPrice_Com
First, the good news...
U.S. oil company ExxonMobil is reporting a "potentially significant" gas discovery off the coast of Vietnam, stating in a press release, "We can confirm ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Vietnam Limited drilled its second exploration well offshore Danang in August 2011 and encountered hydrocarbons."
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Monday, October 31, 2011
Is Economics Worthless Ideology? / Politics / Economic Theory
By: William_Anderson
In fêting the latest recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, Christopher Sims and Thomas Sargent, the New York Times editorializes that somehow this is a "victory" for empiricism over theory. Although the editors don't come right out and attack theory, they make their point clear by declaring that the latest award is a "challenge to politicians who are driven more by ideology than by serious consideration of the real-world consequences of their actions." In other words, any worldview that might be influenced by real-live economic theory that reflects human action must be wrong because Sims and Sargent won the Nobel.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Occupying Wall Street 99ers Should Pack up and Get on with Their Lives / Politics / US Politics
By: Douglas_French
The 99 percent occupying Wall Street won't get much satisfaction from J.C. Chandor's Margin Call.
The occupiers want to believe that the 1 percent is Gordon Gekko stepping on their throat. Half the protesters are aged 20–29, highly educated, in hock up to their ears in student-loan debt, and unemployed. Surely this is someone's fault. The 99ers want what Wall Street has to offer: money, power, and a black town car to pick them up and shuttle them to and from work each day.
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Monday, October 31, 2011
How to Lick the Government Budget Deficits / Politics / Government Spending
By: BATR
Government deficits are a way of life in the post republic America. The spending addiction is a plague that swept away the land of the free and the home of the brave. The cultural curse of entitlement ‘rights’ has created a system of mob rule on the bottom of the ladder and champagne wishes and caviar dreams by plutocrat aristocrats. The controllers of the corporatist economy are just as adamant about their ‘right’ to dominate as the unwashed demonstrator defends their latest chanting theme for wealth re-distribution.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Higher Education, Zombified, Parasitic, and Corrupted by Easy Money / Politics / Education
By: Bill_Bonner
When the financial crisis of 2008 hit, we saw how state-managed capitalism works. Favored companies are allowed to make as much money as they can. But they are protected from going broke.
Certain firms are deemed “too big to fail,” by virtue of the key role they play in the economy, or at least by the role they play in a politician’s plans for re-election or future employment. But state-managed capitalism is very different from the real thing. It is capitalism in a degenerate form.
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Monday, October 31, 2011
Resurrection of Eurozone Debt Crisis Imminent? / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: DK_Matai
How fine are the emperor's new clothes? How beautifully spun is the yarn? Eurozone crisis may resurrect in the coming weeks because:
Monday, October 31, 2011
Occupy the Treasury! Reclaim the Monetary System with the NEED Act - HR 2990 / Politics / US Politics
By: Nikki_Alexander
HR 2990 - The National Emergency Employment Defense Act of 2011 could be the catalyst for a global renaissance. The NEED Act eliminates private control of the monetary system and restores the government’s Constitutional authority to create money without creating debt and spend it into circulation to rebuild the productive economy.
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Sunday, October 30, 2011
America Is a Police State, There is No Longer Any Doubt / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
Becky Akers writes: Hard to keep track of what’s illegal these days. The most innocuous deeds can land a serf behind bars even as crimes worthy of a sociopath earn rulers the Nobel Prize.
And so the Feds order some drones to kill American citizens and others to sexually assault them. You might think cops who pretend they joined "the force" to protect rather than lord it over us would hie themselves to DC and collar the criminals preying on us.
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Sunday, October 30, 2011
U.S. Debt Day of Reckoning Is Coming, Despite Universal Blindness of the Masses / Politics / US Debt
By: Gary_North
The debt ceiling battle led to a compromise. Congress and the President promised to submit to mandatory budget cuts. A bipartisan super committee was set up to put together a package of debt reduction cuts totaling several trillion dollars over supposedly a decade. If the committee deadlocks, the cuts will begin automatically on January 2, 2013. These must be $1.2 trillion in cuts, or $120 billion a year.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Occupy Wall Street “What’s Your Agenda?" / Politics / US Politics
By: Danny_Schechter
One of the most frequently repeated, recycled and dismissive questions about Occupy Wall Street is its supposed lack of an “agenda.”
The “what do you people want” question has featured in media interviews almost to the exclusion of all others.
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Sunday, October 30, 2011
Eurozone Bailout Deal: Hold the Cheers / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Stephen_Lendman
More debt agreed on exacerbates an out-of-control problem. Only its final resolution is delayed. The longer crisis conditions continue and grow, the worse they'll be when day of reckoning time arrives.
Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance and punisher of hubris and arrogance in Greek mythology, may have final say.
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Sunday, October 30, 2011
Carbon Fear And Loathing In Riyadh / Politics / Crude Oil
By: Andrew_McKillop
A little trip to Riyadh is interesting. There, young western educated planners and cadres are all rigorously indoctrinated, or self-indoctrinated with Postcarbon Sustainability themes and memes. All government agencies are full of them. The holy city of Mecca now boasts an urban rail system able to carry 60 000 passengers per hour, and Saudi railway boomers intend to rival American and Russia railway builders of the 19th century, with 2400 miles of rail track currently under construction. To be sure, the main goal is replacing and substituting oil in the Saudi economy. In their colorful powerpoints, the Postcarbon Prophets of the Kingdom show these rail networks lined by Super Grids fed with clean green energy from huge windfarms and glistening solar power plants, miraculously protected from airborne sandstorm grit and stones. Whatever it is, Future Energy is not oil.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Euro-zone Treaty of Debt, ESM Bailout Mechanism Explained / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Mike_Shedlock
Inquiring minds are interested in the terms of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) accord scheduled to replace the EFSF. The following video highlights the key sections of the proposed treaty.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Euro Trillion Bailout Deal, Devil is in the Detail / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Bob_Kirtley
Euphoria hit the financial markets as the news was announced of a one trillion euro bailout package. The large European banks jumped by as much as 20% in a single day increasing their market caps by billions. This burst of excitement followed through to the United States where the DOW leaped forward as the banking sector lead the way to higher ground.
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Saturday, October 29, 2011
Saving The Eurozone, Will it Work? / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Bob_Chapman
It is now clear to the most casual observer that the world’s monetary and financial system cannot function without massive amounts of additional money and credit. That means the system no longer functions the way it should. Europe really doesn’t know what to do and neither does the Fed and the Bank of England. The exception is throwing more money at the problem and keeping interest rates near zero indefinitely. Many US, UK and European banks are insolvent. The real estate market continues to deflate throughout Europe with the exception of Germany, which never really rose in price. Again, there are no solutions offered to solve this problem. Just as there are no solutions elsewhere. These conditions tell us the euro has serious problems to face as does the pound and the US dollar. You have to then say to yourself against what. Each currency has its own problems, thus, the only alterative is to measure each currency versus gold and silver. These are the true benchmarks, and when compared over the last 11-1/2 years, versus nine major currencies gold and silver on average annually have appreciated more than 20%. That tells you anyone holding currencies has been a major loser.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Americans Drowning In Spin / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
I have come to the conclusion that Big Brother’s subjects in George Orwell’s 1984 are better informed than Americans.
Americans have no idea why they have been at war in the Middle East, Asia and Africa for a decade. They don’t realize that their liberties have been supplanted by a Gestapo Police State. Few understand that hard economic times are here to stay.
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Saturday, October 29, 2011
The 1% Loves Socialism / Politics / US Politics
By: Submissions
Scott Cruickshank submits: You’ll notice if you’ve been paying attention to the war of propaganda that the 1% and their obedient lickspittles are going all out to frame the 99% VS. 1% showdown as a battle between Capitalists and Commies. Capitalism of course being good, socialism bad. I laugh every time I hear it because logic and common sense just doesn’t support the spin.
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Saturday, October 29, 2011
The Never Ending Euro Fiasco / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Mike_Whitney
Imagine if the local fire chief, in the spirit of conservation, decided he’d use no more than 1,000 gallons of water to put out any given house fire. Do you think the citizens would support that policy if their town was burned to the ground? And, yet, this is the same approach that eurozone leaders are using to address the debt crisis. The central bank (ECB) has virtually limitless resources (Think: printing press) to defend the debt of the individual states and to act as lender of last resort, but the eurocrats won’t hear of it. They refuse to use the ECB as every other central bank in the world is used. They’d rather reinvent the wheel by creating a funky, improvised emergency fund (European Financial Stabilization Facility or EFSF) that’s massively leveraged and which only provides a 20 percent “first-loss” guarantee on sovereign bonds. So, for example, if Italy goes belly-up in the next year or so and can’t repay its debts, then Mr. bondholder gets a whopping 20 cents on the dollar. Such a deal!