Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
The Theft of the American Dream / Politics / US Politics
By: Jesse
America must decide what type of country it wishes to be, and then conform public and foreign policy to those ends, and not the other way around. Politicians have no right to subjugate the constitutional process of government to any foreign organization.
Secrecy, except in very select military matters, is repugnant to the health of a democratic government, and is almost always a means to conceal a fraud. Corporations are not people, and do not have the rights of individuals as such.
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Saturday, July 17, 2010
The Food Bubble, How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It / Politics / Food Crisis
By: Submissions
While Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $550 million to resolve a civil fraud lawsuit filed by the SEC, Goldman has not been held accountable for many of its other questionable investment practices. A new article in Harper’s Magazine examines the role Goldman played in the food crisis of 2008 when the ranks of the world’s hungry increased by 250 million. We speak to Harper’s contributing editor Frederick Kaufman.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Federal Reserve Printing Masses of Worthless Paper / Politics / US Politics
By: Fred_Sheehan
We wince at congressional ineptitude but in one category legislative aptitude is improving: propaganda. The on-again, off-again finance bill (it's on-again) was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most extensive remapping of financial regulation since the 1930s." It is nothing of the kind.
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Saturday, July 17, 2010
Don't Listen to Glenn Beck's NeoConservative Propaganda / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
Thomas J. DiLorenzo writes: I’ve been occasionally watching Glenn Beck on the Fox News Channel and think he has done an admirable job of smoking out and identifying the shockingly hardcore, radical socialists who dominate the Obama administration. He has also done a generally good job talking about the libertarian founding principles of America, how they have been lost, and our duty to regain them. But he has been absolutely abysmal when discussing the subject of Lincoln, the War to Prevent Southern Independence, and its legacy.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Guilty of Market Manipulation CEO of IKB Bank, Did Goldman Sachs Commit Fraud? / Politics / Market Manipulation
By: Janet_Tavakoli
Financial news media is abuzz with analyses of Goldman Sachs's settlement with the SEC for $550 million in a case of alleged fraud regarding the packaging and selling of a CDO called Abacus. Goldman Sachs admitted to no wrong-doing. The settlement is less than Tiger Wood's potential $700 million divorce settlement--and Tiger didn't help bring the economy to its knees (he also publicly admitted his transgressions and expressed regret)--but it's a start.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Governments Squandering the Wealth of Generations / Politics / Government Spending
By: David_Galland
David Galland, Managing Director, Casey Research writes:
Watching my children grow older, now heading into the treacherous shoals of the teenage years, has been a visceral reminder of how the human mind develops. As young children, we see the world with fresh eyes and wonderment, and then quickly begin testing the physical and societal bounds as part of morphing into our more mature selves.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Banking Industry Crisis, INSIDE JOB The Movie / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Bob_Kirtley
Having a day out in the big city of Auckland with an old Buddie who is an accountant, we decided to paint the town red and so we went to the Auckland Film Festival to catch a couple of movies one of which is entitled ‘Inside Job‘
Its an all star cast which includes, Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama along with the usual suspects Bernanke and Geithner, some eminent Professors of Colombia and Harvard University who did not cover themselves in glory and the rating agencies who failed miserably in their assessments of the banking industry.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Welcome to Oakland-The Model City, Part 4: Layoffs Won’t Cure the Budget / Politics / US Politics
By: JD_Rosendahl
If you haven't noticed, I've started a series of what might be many blogs in regards to The Model City (Oakland, CA) and their budgetary issues. There are few cities in America that so completely demonstrates the municipal budgetary deficit completely.
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Wednesday, July 14, 2010
James K. Galbraith Says The Financial System Must Be Reformed / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Jesse
Although I differ considerably from Mr. Galbraith's conclusion that government must take on a larger role financing the reconstruction through the active allocation of capital, I cannot fault his call for a serious reform of the financial system as the sine qua non for a sustainable recovery. Why substitute one version of financial engineering by corrupt politicians for another?
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The $15 Million Death Tax Incentive / Politics / Taxes
By: DailyWealth
Dr. Steve Sjuggerud writes: "You don't know whether to commit suicide or just go on living and working," Eugene Sukup told the Wall Street Journal over the weekend.
Sukup is an 81-year-old maker of grain bins in Sheffield, Iowa. If he dies this year, his death tax will be zero. If he dies after December 31 this year, his death tax could be more than $15 million.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Collapse in American Living Standards, More Poverty By Any Measure / Politics / Social Issues
By: Global_Research
Christine Vestal writes: More than 15 million Americans are unemployed, homelessness has increased by 50 percent in some cities, and 38 million people are receiving food stamps, more than at any time in the program’s almost 50-year history.
Evidence of rising economic hardship is ample. There’s one commonly used standard for measuring it: the U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty rate. It guides much of federal and state spending aimed at helping those unable to make a decent living.
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Wednesday, July 14, 2010
U.S. Senate Financial Reform Too Little, Too Late To Prevent System Crash Again? / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Danny_Schechter
Is Anyone Really Capable Of Fixing Our Many Deeper Crises?
Progress is, as we have seen, “stalled” in Haiti six months after an earthquake that struck with the impact of a nuclear bomb. A country, we are told, that is trapped in its past actually may exemplify a more frightening future---a world whose institutions, agencies, governments and corporations are sinking in a swamp of their own making, unable and perhaps unwilling to repair catastrophic crises that are morphing into each other.
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The Insidious Transformation of Markets Into Casinos, How Financial Brokers Became Bookies / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Ellen_Brown
"You all are the house, you're the bookie. [Your clients] are booking their bets with you. I don't know why we need to dress it up. It's a bet." - Senator Claire McCaskill, Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, investigating Goldman Sachs (Washington Post, April 27, 2010)
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Has the BP Gulf Spill Opened Pandora’s Box for Obama? / Politics / Oil Companies
By: Marin_Katusa
By Marin Katusa, Chief Energy Strategist, Casey’s Energy Report : The White House might be gaping in shock that the U.S. federal court overturned the six-month drilling moratorium, but it really isn’t all that surprising. Amid the finger pointing and political posturing, the Obama administration seems to have missed a vital detail – the U.S. oil industry is in a spot of bother.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The Disappearing Intellectual in the Age of Economic Darwinism / Politics / US Politics
By: Global_Research
Henry A. Giroux writes: We live at a time that might be appropriately called the age of the disappearing intellectual, a disappearance that marks with disgrace a particularly dangerous period in American history. While there are plenty of talking heads spewing lies, insults and nonsense in the various media, it would be wrong to suggest that these right-wing populist are intellectuals. They are neither knowledgeable nor self-reflective, but largely ideological hacks catering to the worst impulses in American society. Some obvious examples would include John Stossel calling for the repeal of that "section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that bans discrimination in public places."[1] And, of course, there are the more famous corporate-owned talking heads such as Glenn Beck, Charles Krauthammer, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, all of whom trade in reactionary world views, ignorance, ideological travesties and outlandish misrepresentations - all the while wrapping themselves in the populist creed of speaking for everyday Americans.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Galveston’s Alternate Plan Offers Insight into U.S. Social Security’s Problems / Politics / US Politics
By: Nilus_Mattive
I have devoted a number of my recent columns to the problems with Social Security and many state pension plans. And in one particular article, I also told you how the Amish have used a little known provision to opt out of the entire system.
Today, I want to talk about another group of people who took their retirements into their own hands back in the early 1980s — the employees of three counties in Texas (first and most famously, Galveston, but also Brazoria and Matagorda).
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Russian Spies and Strategic Intelligence / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: STRATFOR
The United States has captured a group of Russian spies and exchanged them for four individuals held by the Russians on espionage charges. The way the media has reported on the issue falls into three groups:
- That the Cold War is back,
- That, given that the Cold War is over, the point of such outmoded intelligence operations is questionable,
- And that the Russian spy ring was spending its time aimlessly nosing around in think tanks and open meetings in an archaic and incompetent effort.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Chris Whalen Calls for Reforms, But Gives Crony Capitalism and the Neo-Liberals a Rewrite / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Jesse
I enjoy Chris Whalen of the Institutional Risk Analyst. His outlook and perspective are generally well-informed and well to the point, fresh and practical.
In his most recent essay titled Building a New American Political Economy, excerpted below, he spends quite a few words in taking Paul Krugman and the stimulus crowd to task, or more accurately, out to the woodshed for what we used to call a 'proper thrashing.'
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Global Warming Climate Change Disregarded for Consumers' Comfort / Politics / Climate Change
By: Pravda
Consumers learn to love environmentally clean products promoted by governments and corporations, demonstrating a high degree of loyalty to eco-brands and worrying about climate change. The world is saving resources, using energy-saving devices and counting gallons of water. In Russia this is promoted by the growth of tariffs of natural monopolies.
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010
BP Gulf Oil Gusher: Butterfly Effect, Edge of Chaos & World Wide Summit? / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Submissions
DK Matai writes: Does the flap of a Butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas? How we strive for predictability, which eludes us more than ever before, yet we don't often stop to ask ourselves: why? According to the Butterfly Effect, the slightest disturbance in one part of the world can trigger a chain of events that create a hurricane in another part of the world. Let us just think about how fragile the earth is: from volcanoes to earthquakes and from sinkholes to an uncontrollable gusher spewing crude oil and gas at the bottom of the ocean.