Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Stocks and and Price of Butter / Politics / Inflation
By: Fred_Sheehan
"We are poised for progress. Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again." ~ President Barack Obama, State of the Union speech, January 25, 2011
Maybe President Obama was at a loss to validate the rousing economy in his State of the Union address. Whatever the reason, this was a strange appeal to the American people. An even stranger validation of Wall Street's prowess was expressed last week by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke.
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Thursday, January 27, 2011
U.S. Debt Crisis, Stay Ahead of the Curve by Moving / Politics / US Debt
By: Gary_North
A growing minority of the American public is beginning to catch on to the meaning of the Federal government's deficits and the Federal Reserve's QE2. The voters did not understand QE1 in October 2008.
We are beginning to see videos lampooning tax rates. This humor is spreading to Europe. Some choice ones are here.
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Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Energy Security, Why Europe Should Pay Attention to Algeria / Politics / Energy Resources
By: Marin_Katusa
Marin Katusa, Chief Energy Strategist, Casey Research writes: Tunisia's uprising has democracy watchers wondering if the instability will spill over into neighboring North African countries, but really that instability is already there. In the first week of the year, Algeria experienced violent protests after the government hiked prices for staple foods like milk, sugar, oil, and flour. Some 800 people were injured in several days of rioting, prompting President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to cut costs on some foods and lower import duties on others. The rioters went home, but odds are they will return to the streets when prices rise again.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Obama's State of the Union Rhetoric: Denying the Crisis, Ignoring the Lessons of History / Politics / US Politics
By: Global_Research
Kevin Zeese writes: Members of the corporate political duopoly switched seats and sat next to each other making it even harder to tell the corporate welfare party from the crony capitalist party. Sadly, the spokespersons for both failed to learn the lessons of history and as a result the American economy will continue to falter with U.S. militarism continuing to expand.
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Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Obama Fails to Address Inflation in State of the Union / Politics / Inflation
By: Submissions
President Obama's State of the Union address last night did not make one single mention of inflation, when it is the belief of NIA that massive price inflation (especially food inflation) will become America's top crisis by the end of this calendar year. Obama's speech also failed to mention the Federal Reserve, the Federal Funds Rate being held near 0% for over two years, and the Fed's latest round of $600 billion in quantitative easing. Unless Obama addresses our nation's fiat currency system, nothing else he says has any meaning at all.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Obama's Corporate State of the Union Address / Politics / US Politics
By: Shamus_Cooke
Finally, Obama will be delivering real change. But not the kind envisaged by those who voted for him. Rather, Obama's revolutionary change builds upon the foundations laid by Reagan, who drastically altered American society by promoting the corporate sector at the expense of working people.
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Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Why Free Trade Can’t Abolish International Economic Rivalry / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
A recent article criticizing my work contained this multi-faceted gem of fallacies:“Even a dumb lawyer like me can see that modern global supply chains have made "a world of ruthless economic rivalry" a thing of the distant past, and that trade (i.e., voluntary, mutually beneficial exchanges) has never, ever been a zero sum game. (This, by the way, is the entirety of Fletcher's "economic argument" in his eight HuffPo paragraphs.)”Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The Myth of a Middle Class / Politics / Social Issues
By: Global_Research
Cristian Gherasim writes: Almost a year ago, during the State of the Union address, President Obama came up with another plan to ease the economic burden on middle-class families. No news here. In fact, he gave that same do-or-die case for big government we have heard over and over: "The middle class has been under assault for a long time. … We've just come through what was one of the most difficult decades the middle class has ever faced."
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Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Anti Government Protests Spreading Across North Africa and Middle East / Politics / Middle East
By: Barry_Grey
As thousands continued to demonstrate in Tunisia over the weekend against the interim “national unity” government, antigovernment protests spread to Algeria, Yemen and Jordan.
State forces in Algeria and Yemen responded to the protests with deadly force. The Associated Press reported that more than a dozen people were killed in Algeria Saturday when police blocked a march on the parliament building in the capital city, Algiers. Some 300 people intending to march from the city’s Place de la Concorde to parliament were quickly blockaded by police armed with batons, tear gas and other weapons.
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Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Financial Crisis: Mistake or Crime? / Politics / Credit Crisis 2011
By: Danny_Schechter
QUESTION: WHEN IS A CRIME NOT CONSIDERED CRIMINAL? ANSWER: WHEN IT’S HATCHED ON WALL STREET.
As President Obama Delivers His State Of The Union Address, calls for tough financial rules and a crackdown on the Crimes Behind The Crisis Have Moved Off Of His Agenda.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Will China's Yuan Overtake US Dollar? / Politics / US Politics
By: Andrew_G_Marshall
US President Barack Obama is hosting China's President Hu Jintao to discuss their economic co-dependence, currency and trade. Does this mean the US is losing ground to China's new found success?
RT's Kristine Frazao is joined by Andrew Gavin Marshall from the Centre for Research on Globalization and Michael Hudson, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri.
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Saturday, January 22, 2011
U.S. Wars to Continue Until Economy Goes Bust / Politics / US Politics
By: Submissions
Chris Hedges writes:American wars will continue until the country's giant corporations, which pay the politicians in Washington's corridors of power, become financially unsustainable, says senior fellow at the Nation Institute, Chris Hedges.
Hedges told Press TV's U.S. Desk in a Wednesday interview that the economy will fail "because we're paying for it through debt, through borrowing."
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Saturday, January 22, 2011
The Libertarian Delusion That "Real" Free Trade Would Work / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
In the angry responses to my recent blog post, "Libertarianism, the new Anti-Americanism," one argument came up again and again:
"The problems with free trade that we see today are not the result of true free trade; they are the result of the bastardized version inflicted on us by treaties like NAFTA and the proposed Korea free trade agreement, and if only we had true, authentic free trade, all these problems would go away."
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Friday, January 21, 2011
Net Worth of the 25 Richest People in Congress and the White House / Politics / US Politics
By: Chris_Kitze
To paraphrase author Jim Hightower, our political system doesn't need a third party. It needs a SECOND party.
Every time you encounter someone bashing Conservatives or Liberals, think back on this chart (which is only the tip of the iceberg). Our members of Congress all belong to the same party: the party of the rich and elite.
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Friday, January 21, 2011
U.S. Breaking China Legally / Politics / US Politics
By: Walter_Brasch
Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States this past week has been met by both praise and political posturing. Hu, an intellectual with a strong sense of culture, hopes he is leading what he wishes to be "a Harmonious Society" with peaceful development. To that end, Hu said his government was prepared to “engage in dialogue and exchanges with the United States on the basis of mutual respect and the principle of noninterference in each other's internal affairs” on human rights questions. Although it seems as if Hu is saying that he wants each nation to continue to conduct its business without interference, he also acknowledged that “A lot still needs to be done in China in terms of human rights."Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, January 21, 2011
Irish Government Collapses, Election March 11; How To Negotiate Debt Bond Market Haircuts / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Mike_Shedlock
In a fitting tribute to a disgraceful performance by Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen in which Cowen crammed losses of Irish banks down the throats of taxpayers, his government has at long last collapsed. Six cabinet members (40%) resigned representing justice, health, trade and enterprise, defense and transport. Earlier in the week his foreign minister resigned making the total six.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
The Fourth American Revolution / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II. - The Fourth Turning - Strauss & Howe -1997Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Europe Debt Defaults, Austerity, and Death of the “Social Europe” Model / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Michael_Hudson
Prof Michael Hudson and Prof. Jeffrey Sommers writes: A spectre is haunting Europe: the illusion that Latvia’s financial and fiscal austerity is a model for other countries to emulate. Bankers and the financial press are asking governments from Greece to Ireland and now Spain as well: “Why can’t you be like Latvia and sacrifice your economy to pay the debts that you ran up during the financial bubble?” The answer is, they can’t – without an economic, demographic and political collapse that will only make matters worse.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Libertarianism, the New Anti-Americanism / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
Sometimes the bad guys do us all a big favor, by openly stating what they stand for after spending years denying it. I recently received exactly this sort of favor from an economist, one Don Boudreaux, at the renowned libertarian Cato Institute, a hotbed of free-trade thinking. He wrote:
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Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Greenspan Confirms the Fed's Highly Leveraged Fix / Politics / Central Banks
By: Fred_Sheehan
On January 7, 2011, Kelly Evans of the Wall Street Journal interviewed former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. He rooted for the stock market.
Greenspan's circular logic was unenlightening: "Stocks are cheap if earnings are to continue higher." Taken as a whole, this does not mean much, akin to prophesizing: "The Red Sox will win if they score more runs than the Tigers." Greenspan's successful impoverishment of the American people often hinged on the suppression of his dependent clauses: "Stocks are cheap," was all we needed to know.