Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, March 07, 2011
The Social Snobbery of Free Trade / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
Skepticism about free trade is often stigmatized with ad hominem attacks. These mostly come down to variations on the following:“Protectionists are dummies, losers, incompetents, hippies, rednecks, dinosaurs, closet socialists, or crypto-fascists.”
Thomas Friedman’s version in The World is Flat (the Das Kapital of Globalism) runs thus:
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Sunday, March 06, 2011
The Support For Slavery in the United States as Public Unions Bankrupt Cities and States / Politics / Social Issues
By: Mike_Shedlock
A large number of people have recently come out in support of extortion, bribery, coercion, and even slavery. They don't realize it, but I can make a rock-solid case.
Here is a partial list of prominent names willing to support or ignore slavery for political reasons.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Global Food Prices Panic? / Politics / Food Crisis
By: Pravda
Growing demand, falling production, a market based upon speculation. Global food prices have increased for the 8th consecutive month. Most commodity groups have risen. The ones who are going to pay the invoice are the world's poor, as per the humanitarian catastrophe looming in Somalia. The world can no longer feed itself under this model.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Libya Crisis. What the Mainstream Media is Hiding / Politics / Middle East
By: Pravda
Two weeks have elapsed since the first demonstrations in Benghazi and Tripoli. The disinformation campaign about Libya has sown confusion in the world. First a certainty: the analogies with events in Tunisia and Egypt are misplaced. These rebellions contributed obviously to depoliticize street protests in both neighboring countries, but the peculiar Libyan process has characteristics inseparable from the conspiring strategy of imperialism and what can be defined as the metamorphosis of a leader.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
The Class War, March Madness Time in the USA / Politics / US Politics
By: Danny_Schechter
“The worst things get, the harder it is for people to agree on what to do.”
The term class war has been extricated from the archives of another era, while divisions over the future of the economy have become a battleground in which the adversaries yell at each other, but rarely engage in any discourse with each other in a shared language.
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Saturday, March 05, 2011
Enemies of the Middle Class / Politics / Social Issues
By: Gary_North
With less than one quarter of 2011 gone, we have seen the spread of three revolutions. The first is literal. It is happening in North Africa. The second is intellectual: the acceptance by large numbers of voters of a shutdown of the United States government, which is deemed to be out of control. The third is political: the willingness of state legislatures in the rust belt to remove the 70-year government subsidies to public employees' unions.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Doug Casey on Labor Unions / Politics / Social Issues
By: Casey_Research
(Interviewed by Louis James, Conversations with Casey)
Contrarian investor and free-market thinker Doug Casey doesn't mince his words. That's why he is a sought-after speaker at investment conferences - not only for his spot-on investment advice but for his no-holds-barred views of the markets, economy, and politics. In light of the recent events in Wisconsin, here are his musings on labor unions.
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Friday, March 04, 2011
1 In 5 Workers Are Underemployed, What is Capitalism? / Politics / Employment
By: Chris_Kitze
Decline of the Empire writes: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) redefined the "official" jobs reality today, as it does every month. The BLS provides the data Americans incapable of thinking outside the box will cite over and over to reassure themselves and any remaining doubters that the economic "recovery" is on track, though that recovery been a bit slower than the True Believers would like to see.
Friday, March 04, 2011
Capitalism and Socialism / Politics / Economic Theory
By: Art_Carden
How many times have you heard "capitalist" used as an epithet or a put-down? How many people do you know who use variations on "capitalism" to describe pretty much anything they don't like? It's a vice that cuts several ways. As the tea-party movement has risen to prominence, how often have you heard people denounce President Obama as a socialist?
Friday, March 04, 2011
U.S. Taxpayers in Revolt / Politics / Taxes
By: Douglas_French
Jimmy John Liautaud, founder of the Jimmy John's sub chain, just applied to move his residence from Illinois to Florida — and his company's headquarters could soon follow. "All they do is stick it to us," he says of the state legislature's move to jack up the personal income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent — and the corporate income tax from 7.3 percent to 9.5 percent.
Friday, March 04, 2011
Currency Revaluation Won’t Fix America’s Trade Mess / Politics / US Economy
By: Ian_Fletcher
It is sometimes suggested that our trade problems (job losses, international indebtedness) will go away on their own once currency values adjust. Bottom line? A declining dollar will eventually solve everything.
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Thursday, March 03, 2011
Lies and the Truth in the Wisconsin Worker Rights Battles / Politics / US Politics
By: Walter_Brasch
Historian and satirist Thomas Carlyle said "a lie cannot live." However, Mark Twain casually remarked, "It shows that he did not know how to tell them."
More than a century later, newly-elected Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-dominated Wisconsin legislature have proven themselves to be "quick studies," having learned how to tell whoppers about the working class and unions. Here are just a few.
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Thursday, March 03, 2011
Global Financial System is One Gargantuan Ponzi Scheme... / Politics / Social Issues
By: Global_Research
Hon. Paul Hellyer writes: An Address to the International UFO Congress, Fort McDowell Resort, Scottsdale, Arizona, Saturday, February 26, 2011 by Hon. Paul Hellyer, P.C. Former Canadian Minister of National Defence
The world financial system is a total fraud. It is one gargantuan Ponzi scheme, no better than the one Bernie Madoff used to swindle his friends and neighbors, and thousands of times worse if you add up the total number of victims it has ripped off over countless generations.
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Thursday, March 03, 2011
Mainstream Press and the GM Pump-and-Dump / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: Mike_Stathis
I wanted to point out another example of the need to be critical when you come across "news."
In the vast majority of cases, news stories are centered on hidden agendas that come from the top of the organization. Often, when the hidden message or twist on facts is meant to assist the agendas of America's fascist government, the orders are sent from a PR official at the White House. When the deceit is meant to help the agendas of the corporate side of America’s fascist government, the orders come from corporate executives themselves.
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Thursday, March 03, 2011
NHS GP Doctors Putting Profit Before Patient Care, Channel 4 News Investigation / Politics / NHS
By: Nadeem_Walayat
"Your doctor making a profit out of your health care, your GP Sending you to a clinic that he or she owns shares in, we are seeing the biggest shake up of the NHS in its history, Channel 4 news can reveal tonight that there is nothing on the legislation currently before parliament to prevent the outcome no one wants, doctors putting profit before the care of patients, in our special report tonight we show how the new arrangements will create fundamental conflicts of interest potentially harming the trust at the very heart of the doctor patient relationship". Channel 4 News
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Yellen and Gadhafi - Studies in Paranoia / Politics / Central Banks
By: Fred_Sheehan
The continued existence of the Federal Reserve System is both the greatest threat to national solvency and an insult to the American people.
On February 25, 2011, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet L. Yellen explored new depths of dishonor. (For an earlier depth, see: Liquidate the Fed.) At a University of Chicago Business School forum, the life-long academic claimed: "I'll highlight the role of central bank communications in bolstering the effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy." [All Yellen statements are in italics.] The title of Yellen's speech was: "Unconventional Monetary Policy and Central Bank Communications." It was dishonest from beginning to end.
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Wednesday, March 02, 2011
The New Math and the New Geometry Bringing Down the State / Politics / US Politics
By: Butler_Shaffer
They [feminist groups in Iraq] are very strong. Their approach is unique because they have no leaders. They do not have a head or branch offices. . . . This movement is made even stronger by not having leaders. If one or two people lead it, the organization would weaken if these leaders were arrested. Because there is no leader, it is very strong and not stoppable. ~ Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Recipient
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
NATO Re-surfaced Map of the New Middle East / Politics / Middle East
By: Chris_Kitze
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya writes: A relatively unknown map of the Middle East, NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, and Pakistan has been circulating around strategic, governmental, NATO, policy and military circles since mid-2006. It has been causally allowed to surface in public, maybe in an attempt to build consensus and to slowly prepare the general public for possible, maybe even cataclysmic, changes in the Middle East. This is a map of a redrawn and restructured Middle East identified as the “New Middle East.”
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
How American's Lost Control of Economy, Constitution and Civil Liberties / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
This essay is about three recent books that explain how we lost our economy, the Constitution and our civil liberties, and how peace lost out to war.
Matt Taibbi is the best--certainly the most entertaining--financial/political reporter in the country. There is no better book than Griftopia (2010) to which to turn to understand how stupidity, greed, and criminality, spread evenly among policymakers and Wall Street, created the financial crisis that has left Americans overburdened with both private and public debt. Taibbi walks the reader through the fraudulent financial instruments that littered the American, British, and European financial communities with toxic waste. He has figured it all out, and what in other hands might be an arcane account for MBAs is in Taibbi’s hands a highly readable and entertaining story.
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Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Ron Paul, Congress Must Reject the Welfare/Warfare State / Politics / Government Spending
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
During the past few weeks, Congress has been locked in a battle to pass a continuing resolution to fund government operations through September. Both supporters and opponents of the bill, HR 1, claim it is a serious attempt to reduce federal spending. However, an examination of the details of the bill call that claim into question.
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