Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Saturday, September 25, 2010
India's Commonwealth Games Fiasco, Shaky Foundations of a Cheap Labour Economy / Politics / India
As the Commonwealth Games open in Delhi, India, the controversy over sub-standard accommodation and facilities for the participating nations continues to rage.
Several weeks ago, visiting country delegates voiced concern over the shambolic state of the newly built facilities. Now, as the games open, the event promises to turn into an embarrassing fiasco for the Indian government, with glaring publicity on what is still being widely reported as filthy and shoddy conditions. Media reports say that cleaners and labourers are “working through the night” in order to salvage conditions at the so-called Games Village, where more than 7,000 athletes from over 70 countries are scheduled to stay for the 12-day sporting tournament.
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Saturday, September 25, 2010
The Credit Meltdown and Wall Street's Shadow Banking System / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
While local banks are held in check by the new banking czars in Basel, Wall Street’s “shadow banking system” has hardly been curbed by regulators at all; and it is here that the 2008 credit crisis was actually precipitated.
The banking system’s credit machine is systemically flawed and needs a radical overhaul.
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Saturday, September 25, 2010
It Is Official, The U.S. Is a Police State / Politics / US Politics
On September 24, Jason Ditz reported on Antiwar.com that “the FBI is confirming that this morning they began a number of raids against the homes of antiwar activists in Illinois, Minneapolis, Michigan, and North Carolina, claiming that they are ‘seeking evidence relating to activities concerning the material support of terrorism.’”Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Ron Paul's Bill to Audit the Fed, A Red-Alert Threat to the Regime / Politics / Central Banks
"Show me the money!" Cuba Gooding made this phrase famous in the 1996 movie, Jerry McGuire. The phrase soon got into the language.
"Follow the money!" That came from the movie, All the President's Men. No one knows who said it. "Deep Throat" didn't. The screenwriter says that he does not know where he got it. It has entered the language.
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Friday, September 24, 2010
America Aping Britain’s Decline Through Free Trade / Politics / US Politics
One of the most inexcusable things about America’s ongoing economic decline by means of free trade is how clear the historical portents are. For example, we are today treading the same path trodden by a nation that Americans know reasonably well: Great Britain. It is easy to forget that until about 1850 Britain, not the U.S., was the world’s leading economic power. But then, of course, they blew it. There were, of course, many causes of this decline, but free trade was undeniably a major one.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The White House Bubble as Summers Backs his Bags and Says Good Bye to the Recession / Politics / US Politics
As the November election approaches, the White House seems to be ending its Rip Van Winkle-like slumber and has begun crawling out of the bubble of its own making. Many fear it’s a bit late.
The shakeup of President Obama’s economic team is long overdue. As Larry Summers slithers back to Harvard to save his tenure and write his book, he is likely to be replaced by exactly the wrong kind of person—a business executive, appointed to try to appease the Repugs and the Right. (Summers was paid $586,996-a-year at Hahvard and picks up all kinds of consulting deals on the side from Wall Street.)
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Thursday, September 23, 2010
30 Trillion for Quantitative Easing (QE) 2? It's Time to Get Radical! / Politics / Quantitative Easing
Yes, it's time to get radical on the economy and no, I'm not talking about going full Karl Marx -- the politicians in Washington appear well down THAT road.. The next set of bailouts could run $30 trillion (as I'll explain in a bit) and that's probably not the end of it because all the future government entitlements are well over $100 trillion. This is not only unaffordable, any attempt to make good on even a small portion of this is a fool's errand. In addition to attempting an impossible task that is doomed to fail, we're bailing out the wrong people! Hopefully, this article will get you thinking -- feel free to leave a comment and help our discussion.
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Thursday, September 23, 2010
Director of the Vatican Bank being investigated for money laundering / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president of the Vatican Bank, known as the Vatican Institute for Religious Works (IOR), is being investigated by Italian courts for alleged money laundering. By order of Italian justice, the country's tax police seized 23 million euros, which were deposited in an account of the Credito Artigiano Bank S.P.A. (joint-stock company in Italian).
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Thursday, September 23, 2010
What Do Empires Do? / Politics / US Politics
Michael Parenti writes: When I wrote my book Against Empire in 1995, as might be expected, some of my U.S. compatriots thought it was wrong of me to call the United States an empire. It was widely believed that U.S. rulers did not pursue empire; they intervened abroad only out of self-defense or for humanitarian rescue operations or to restore order in a troubled region or overthrow tyranny, fight terrorism, and propagate democracy.
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Thursday, September 23, 2010
Mutant Rat Epidemic spreading Economic Black Plague, Part II / Politics / US Politics
Brief Recap of : "Mutant Rat Epidemic Spreading Economic Black Plague - Part I"
The Slave-Release Program: For 227 days of every year Americans are slaves to the Public Debt Rat. So much for the the 13th Amendment or the Civil War of 1861-1865.
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Thursday, September 23, 2010
U.S Government Tops in Google User Data Request - 4,287 in Six Months! / Politics / US Politics
In one of my posts published in April this year, I briefly mentioned that Google unveiled a “transparency tool” that gives information about requests it receives for user data or content removal from government agencies. The government data is recorded from around the world in an effort to shed light on censorship and flow of information according to Google.
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Thursday, September 23, 2010
Larry Summers’ End / Politics / US Politics
There is something poetic, I suppose, about Larry Summers announcing his upcoming departure from the Obama administration on the last day of summer. The Obama administration has been accused of having a "tin ear" when it comes to its relations with the business community, perhaps because its principal economic advisers never had to "meet a payroll." As I recall, the administration that preceded the current one was loaded with "payroll meeters". Although that administration might have had superb relations with business, these good relations did not translate into great economic performance.
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Vince Cable's Anti-Capitalism Conference Speech, From Mr Bean to Stalin / Politics / UK Politics
Coalition Government Business Secretary, Vince Cable attacks all aspects of capitalism from bank bonuses to executive pay. His speech included contradictory delusional statements such as capitalism kills competition as opposed to what ? Socialism ?
Full transcript of Vince Cables speech to the Liberal Democrat Conference below:
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010
JFK ASSASSINATION: E. Howard Hunt's Death Bed Confession on CIA Assassination Squad / Politics / Conspiracy Theory
The "deathbed confession" audio tape in which former CIA agent and Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt admits he was approached to be part of a CIA assassination team to kill JFK was aired this weekend - an astounding development that has gone completely ignored by the establishment media.
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010
What Baby Boomers Should Do! / Politics / Demographics
Gary Corseri writes: In all fairness, one ought to spread the blame around: the editors of the Atlantic, and the mainstream media in general, are even more culpable than Michael Kinsley for promulgating the absurd fictions of Mr. K’s “The Least We Can Do”—the cover piece in the current issue of the once notable Atlantic.
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010
What's Going Wrong With America - Must Watch Video / Politics / US Politics
Bernie Marcus, the co-founder and former CEO of Home Depot spends 10 minutes discussing what's going wrong with America, as a consequence of Washington's anti-business, anti-hard work, anti-personal responsibility policies and rhetoric.
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Banking System Collpase, on the Edge of The Precipice, Basel III / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
The Global Too Big To Fail Banks are so precarious that literally anything can trigger a collapse in the coming months.
I have read recent commentaries on Basel III posted to various renowned websites and financial publication, but they missed (or deliberately misled) the underlying message of the proposals, the implementation of which will be delayed till 2017 and some till 2019.
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010
U.S. Keynesian Socialist Central Planning or Life, Liberty, and Property / Politics / US Politics
Scott Lazarowitz writes: Here is a comparison of two Americas. The first one is our current America, a country whose federal government is based on a Constitution that gives the government powers it shouldn’t have, and gives the government various monopolies it shouldn’t have, and allows agents of the State to have the power of compulsion over others that no one should have, all of which have led to the grief we now face on a daily basis. The second America is much closer to what the Founding Fathers envisioned and what anyone who loves and desires Liberty would want. Like Greece and other countries, America must make a choice.
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010
The Game is Changing and the U.S. is Now on the Defensive / Politics / GeoPolitics
The People’s Republic of China’s PLAN in the Indian and Pacific Oceans: The Game is Changing and the US is Now on the DefensiveTwo warships of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) docked at a port in Myanmar on August 29, 2010, in the first publicized PLAN ship visit — but not the first actual PLAN visit — to Myanmar.
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Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Why Hyperinflation Isn’t Coming to the U.S. / Politics / HyperInflation
For more than two years now, many Americans have heard warnings of hyperinflation from the large consensus of misguided individuals, whose agendas serve as the basis for their ridiculous claims.
Much of this nonsense has come from the gold bugs and perma-bears, although it is often difficult to distinguish between the two.
Sprouting from this group of fear-mongers is a larger number of naïve followers whose mission is to also be inducted into the media club, while they too profit from selling gold ads and other financial arrangements made with gold dealers.
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