Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, June 03, 2018
Climate Change Mass Extinction - Birds, Bees and Bugs: Going Going Gone / Politics / Climate Change
By: Richard_Mills
The twitter of birds, the buzzing of bees, the drone of insects are all welcome signs of spring, but could species reduction or extinction, made worse by climate change, mute these sounds to the point where we will have to install apps on our phones to mimic them?
The idea of a silent spring might seem a tad alarmist, but the fate of the world’s wildlife - both land-based and marine - is not looking good. According to research by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London, over the past 40 years the number of wild animals living on Earth has been cut in half. Among the most hard-hit species are forest elephants in central Africa, where deaths by poachers now exceed birth rates, the Hoolock gibbon in Bangladesh, the European meadow and asp vipers, grey partridges in the UK and curlew sandpipers in Australia.
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Saturday, June 02, 2018
The EU Respond Angerly to Trump’s Steel and Aluminium Tariffs / Politics / Protectionism
By: Ben_Jardine
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Saturday, June 02, 2018
Making Italy Great Again / Politics / Italy
By: Peter_Schiff
This week, market watchers around the world are justifiably fixated with the high-stakes, high-drama political developments unfolding in Italy. While a political crisis in the world’s 9th largest economy (International Monetary Fund figures, 4/17/18) would normally not be enough to cause an international meltdown, given how thin the global economic ice has become as a result of ever-increasing debt loads, even small disruptions can create systemic problems. But from my perspective, what makes the Italian drama so interesting is that it parallels so precisely developments in the United States. It’s amazing that more Americans do not realize, that when looking at Italy, they are looking at a fun house mirror reflection of the United States.
Saturday, June 02, 2018
Is the EU About to Collapse? Stocks Don’t Think So / Politics / European Stock Markets
By: Graham_Summers
The “Italy Crisis” is over.
I know the headlines read as though Italy was collapsing and the Euro is about to implode. But the headlines are reporting on yesterday’s news.
The collapse of the Italy government means a new election. That, in turn, means a pro-Euro politician heading Italy. And that in turn means the Italy Crisis is over.
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Friday, June 01, 2018
This is Italy Not Sparta / Politics / Italy
By: Raul_I_Meijer
“European Stocks Surge Celebrating New Spanish, Italian Governments”, says a Zero Hedge headline. “Markets Breathe Easier As Italy Government Sworn In”, proclaims Reuters. And I’m thinking: these markets are crazy, and none of this will last more than a few days. Or hours. The new Italian government is not the end of a problem, it’s the beginning of many of them.
And Italy is far from the only problem. The new Spanish government will be headed by Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez, who manoeuvred well to oust sitting PM Rajoy, but he also recently saw the worst election result in his party’s history. Not exactly solid ground. Moreover, he needed the support of Catalan factions, and will have to reverse much of Rajoy’s actions on the Catalunya issue, including probably the release from prison of those responsible for the independence referendum.
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Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Why Philippines Economy Is Thriving, Despite IMD / Politics / Asian Economies
By: Dan_Steinbock
According to the 2018 IMD World Competitiveness report, Philippines ranking plunged nine notches. In reality, competitiveness indexes often fail to capture disruptive change.According to the IMD report, executed in cooperation with the Asian Institute of Management, Philippines fell by nine places to 50th among 63 countries.
Nevertheless, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia called the findings a “misobservation” - and rightly so.
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Sunday, May 27, 2018
How Trump’s Ditching of Iran Nuclear Deal Affirms American Unipolarity with Obama’s help / Politics / US Politics
By: Dan_Steinbock
The Trump White House plans to break the Iran deal by sanctioning companies from Europe and Asia doing business in and with Iran. Ironically, President Obama paved the way to unilateral sanctions.For three years, the comprehensive nuclear accord (JCPOA) has offered Iran relief from US, UN and multilateral sanctions on energy, financial, shipping, automotive and other sectors. But recently that era came to a halt. “The United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal,” President Trump said on May 8.
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Sunday, May 27, 2018
Blackstone, BlackRock or a Public Bank for California’s Money? / Politics / US Politics
By: Ellen_Brown
California needs over $700 billion in infrastructure during the next decade. Where will this money come from? The $1.5 trillion infrastructure initiative unveiled by President Trump in February includes only $200 billion in federal funding, and less than that after factoring in the billions in tax cuts in infrastructure-related projects. The rest is to come from cities, states, private investors and public-private partnerships (PPPs). And because city and state coffers are depleted, that chiefly means private investors and PPPs, which have a shady history at best.
Friday, May 25, 2018
Trump “Victories” on Trade are Anything But / Politics / US Politics
By: Peter_Schiff
Earlier this year when President Trump began beating the drums loudly, causing fear of a trade war (and assuring us that such a conflict could be easily won), I cautioned that he had no idea the trouble he was courting. Based on his spectacular misunderstanding of the power dynamic built in to international trade, he was also in danger of bringing a knife to a gunfight.
As the year has progressed, the underbrush has gotten thornier, Trump’s progress on trade has slowed, and now it has likely stopped altogether. Despite that, in true Trumpian fashion, the President has declared resounding victory. But a quick look back reveals the opposite to be true.
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Friday, May 25, 2018
Spanish Political Crisis - This is the End of the Euro / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Raul_I_Meijer
The Spanish government is about to fall after the Ciudadanos party decided to join PSOE (socialist) and Podemos in a non-confidence vote against PM Rajoy. Hmm, what would that mean for the Catalan politicians Rajoy is persecuting? The Spanish political crisis is inextricably linked to the Italian one, not even because they are so much alike, but because both combine to create huge financial uncertainty in the eurozone.
Friday, May 25, 2018
Trump Puts North Korea Nuclear WAR Back on Track as Plans for Nobel Peace Prize Evaporate / Politics / North Korea
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Trump cancels the summit with North Korea's Little Rocket Man for 'angry statements' that followed Trump spoke persons such as Bolton stating that they were planning a Libya model for North Korea's future i.e. regime collapse. Whilst the announcement may have come as a surprise to the mainstream press. However, as my article of 2 weeks ago illustrated that I thought that even if a meeting took place between the two that it would not amount to more than a publicity stunt for Trump's ego who feels he's due a fake Nobel peace prize like the one handed out to Obama for apparently just getting elected.
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Insane EU GDPR SCAM Triggers Mass Email Spam Attacks! / Politics / European Union
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Once upon a time most spam emails tended to end up in users SPAM folders, but then along came another cunning plan out of the European Union Bureaucracy, The General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR in the run up to which the world's email users have been increasingly subject to the worlds largest Spam Attack, where it has got to the point where most of the emails users are receiving are GDPR SPAM EMAILS! As companies desperate to be compliant in respect of GDPR are repeatedly asking for further consent for being on their customer mailing lists and are thus breaking OTHER EU regulations against the sending of such emails!
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
How TIME’s Bremmer Got Duterte Wrong / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Dan_Steinbock
Today, global dominant media is often exploited as a tool of coercive diplomacy. The recent Time commentary on the Philippines president is a case in point. The real story is behind the story.In early May, Time magazine released the feature story, “The Strongmen Era,” by Ian Bremmer, the venerable president of Eurasia Group. The cover featured the photos of Russian President Putin, Hungarian Prime Minister Urban, Turkey’s President Erdogan, and Philippines President Duterte. It was a promotional piece for Bremmer’s new book on globalization. As Duterte reject the term “strongman,” Bremmer penned a new attack.
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Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Will Pentagon Audit Lead to Missing Money? / Politics / US Military
By: BATR
Detailing the specifics of waste or even graft that has transpired inside the military-industrial-security complex is a task that could get an investigator killed. The biggest cash cow is wrapped in the flag and exists within a culture where mere scrutiny lays open charges of being unpatriotic. Munitions merchants maintain a special relationship with Generals and Admirals who promote, protect or facilitate the continuous development and deployment of weapon systems. The revolving door of influence rewards compromised legislatures or bureaucrats with executive payoffs when they leave government service.
Monday, May 21, 2018
Is Political Decentralization the Only Hope for Western Civilization? / Politics / US Politics
By: Antonius_Aquinas
A couple of recent articles have once more made the case, at least implicitly, for political decentralization as the only viable path which will begin to solve the seemingly insurmountable political, economic, and social crises which the Western world now faces.
In the last few months, over 3,000 millionaires have fled the hopelessly corrupt and bankrupt state of Illinois. When asked, 47% of Illinoisans would like to leave the state which, over the last decade, has seen over a half million of its residents flee. Naturally, this exodus has exacerbated the Land of Lincoln’s financial straits to catastrophic levels.*
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Friday, May 18, 2018
Bringing the Wild West back to Alaska / Politics / US Politics
By: Stephen_Merrill
Amid Alaska's deep recession with no end in sight, it is the city of Anchorage that suffers the most. Beyond losing jobs and longtime residents on a sharp curve downward, Anchorage has been afflicted by a spike in crime, including violent crime. Downtown Anchorage is dying slowly.
That is quite a conundrum for a place that fate seemed destined to reward as beautiful and prosperous forever, given what the natural world already provides. The remedy I'd like to suggest for Southcentral Alaska is one that has brought sudden, massive economic growth to places far less likely to succeed than Anchorage.
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Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Trump Sounds End Times Armageddon Trumpet for Jerusalem, Israel Evangelical Prophecies / Politics / Israel
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Trump's order to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem took effect today as Ivanka sounded the Trumpet at the opening ceremony whilst at the same time the Israel Military went on a mass shooting spree killing over 60 Palestinians, and wounding more than 2000 as the Palestinians protested against the countdown to their 'Great Catastrophe', the founding of Israel by European Jews fleeing persecution from across Eastern Europe as they set about fulfilling biblical prophecies by taking Palestine by force 70 years ago, forcibly expelling a million Palestinians from their homeland, most of whom were likely descendants of the original Jews of 2000 years ago who long since had converted (usually by force) to Islam. Who's now 6+ million descendants continue to be oppressed within Israeli concentration camps such as the Gaza Strip and littered amongst ever shrinking West Bank towns as Israel's illegal settlements continue to expand towards the goal of achieving Greater Israel.
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Universal Basic Income to the Rescue? / Politics / Social Issues
By: Michael_Pento
The Keynesian Illuminati that run the world are now scrambling to find solutions to the rampant condition of income inequality that they themselves have created. After a decade of global fiscal and monetary policy madness, which were in effect Robin Hood in reverse, they are now seeking to repair the damage caused to the middle classes by making them become permanent wards of the states, just as they strip away ever more of their freedoms.
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Tuesday, May 15, 2018
DARPA's XAI Explainable Artificial Intelligence Future / Politics / AI
By: BATR
The popular scenario has AI deploying autonomous killer military robots as storm troopers. The mission of DARPA is to create the cutting edge of weaponized technology. So when a report contends that the Pentagon now using Jade Helm exercises to teach Skynet how to kill humans, it is not simply a screenplay for a Hollywood blockbuster.
"Simply AI quantum computing technology that can produce the holographic battle simulations and, in addition, "has the ability to use vast amounts of data being collected on the human domain to generate human terrain systems in geographic population centric locations" as a means of identifying and eliminating targets - insurgents, rebels or "whatever labels that can be flagged as targets in a Global Information Grid for Network Centric Warfare environments."
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Monday, May 14, 2018
US Quest for Iran Regime Change: Will EU Sustain the Nuclear Deal / Politics / Iran
By: Dan_Steinbock
Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal was the wrong decision in the wrong time. It is likely to compound global political, economic and security risks. Now EU must sustain the nuclear deal, along with Russia and China.For three years, the comprehensive nuclear accord (JCPOA) has offered Iran relief from US, UN and multilateral sanctions on energy, financial, shipping, automotive and other sectors.
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