Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist, Says Federal Reserve System 'Corrupt' / Politics / Central Banks
By: Submissions
Shahien Nasiripour writes: One of the world's leading economists said Wednesday that the very structure of the Federal Reserve system is so fraught with conflicts that it's "corrupt."
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Sunday, March 07, 2010
Does the Financial System need New Guard Rails? / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Mike_Whitney
There's finally some good news on the housing front, but it has nothing to do with sales, inventory or interest rates. In fact, it has nothing to do with market conditions at all. It's a story about politics and how government can work when elected representatives do their jobs. The details are laid out in an article by Dean Baker. Here's an excerpt:
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Financial Speculation, The Global Casino / Politics / Derivatives
By: Akhil_Khanna
Finance is a support function which assists in smooth running of the economy so that there is a continuous flow of funds from those who have excess of it to those who want to use it to create goods and services for the improvement of living standards of world population at large. The players in fulfilling this function are the banks, financial institutions, hedge funds.
Friday, March 05, 2010
Banks Stress-Testing Tax-payer Patience! / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Sy_Harding
Congress is working on plans to rein in the questionable activities of Wall Street, and re-direct the self-serving focus of major banks. I wish them good luck with that.
The financial firms are fighting back with propaganda blitzes aimed at raising public fear.
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Friday, March 05, 2010
Whither Financial Reforms on Fear of a Second Crash? / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Danny_Schechter
What will it take? What are they waiting for? What part of the reality of a systemic crisis that will get worse don’t they get?
How is it possible that after near three years of economic turmoil, with possibly hundreds of TRILLIONs down the rabbit hole—not that anyone is counting or apparently can count—that the geniuses who run our economy still don’t “get” that the sh*t has already hit the fan? How many more jobs and homes have to be lost?
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Friday, March 05, 2010
Iraqi Elections Likely To Fuel Ethnic Tensions, Further Delay Access To Kirkuk's Reserves / Politics / Iraq War
By: OilPrice_Com
The elections in Iraq on March 7, 2010, are likely to serve as an important indicator of the prospects for a resolution of the long-running dispute over the administration of the ethnically mixed and resource-rich province of Kirkuk in the north of the country.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, March 05, 2010
Brazil, Iran: A Troublesome Relationship for the U.S. / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: John_Mauldin
World economies I get: currency, trading, deficits, surpluses... World politics is another story. I follow what happens: summits, policy changes, elections: but what does it mean for energy markets, potential threats, actual relations between countries? These situations define our future - financial and otherwise.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
The Fall of Greece, Is it a Capitalist Plot? / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Global_Research
Diana Johnstone writes: For Europe’s poorest countries, European Union membership has long held out the promise of tranquil prosperity. The current Greek financial crisis ought to dispel some of their illusions.
There are two strikingly significant levels to the current crisis. While primarily economic, the European Economic Community also claims to be a community, based on solidarity -- the sisterhood of nations and brotherhood of peoples. However, the economic deficit is nothing compared to the human deficit it exposes.
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Thursday, March 04, 2010
Why Political Leaders Lie Most of the Time? / Politics / Social Issues
By: Prof_Rodrigue_Trembl
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), French economist
"Certain hierarchs of the Catholic Church in Latin America used prayer as an anesthesia to put the people to sleep. When they cannot dominate us with law, then comes prayer, and when they can't humiliate or dominate us with prayer, then comes the gun." Evo Morales, President of Bolivia (July 13, 2009)
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Thursday, March 04, 2010
CNBC Protects Bad Guys Who Took Huge Bailouts from Taxpayers / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: Janet_Tavakoli
The economy is in trouble because banks borrowed massively, and they borrowed many multiples more than they could afford. CNBC acts as if over-borrowing by U.S. consumers created a global financial crisis. This myth protects Wall Street banks.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Vulture Funds Preying on African Debt Video / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Submissions
In Britain, lawmakers have voted in favor of a bill to restrict so-called vulture funds—that is, financiers that buy up poor country debts cheaply and then sue for massive profits. The Debt Relief Bill would pave the way for banning private investors from pursuing the world’s poorest countries for debts in British courts.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Bill Gates Talks About Vaccines to Reduce World Population / Politics / Social Issues
By: F_William_Engdahl
Microsoft founder and one of the world’s wealthiest men, Bill Gates, projects an image of a benign philanthropist using his billions via his (tax exempt) Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to tackle diseases, solve food shortages in Africa and alleviate poverty. In a recent conference in California, Gates reveals a less public agenda of his philanthropy—population reduction, otherwise known as eugenics.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Real Financial Reform... or Political Gridlock? / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: U.S. senators Christopher Dodd, D-CT, and Bob Corker, R-TN, have fashioned a compromise on stalled banking regulation that straddles divisions over establishing a financial consumer protection agency and addresses unwinding too-big-to-fail firms.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Politicians Hopelessly Bad at Economics / Politics / Government Spending
By: LewRockwell
Wilt Alston writes: Nancy Pelosi claims that the new "healthcare" bill will "create 4 million jobs – 400,000 jobs almost immediately." The audacity and shamelessness of these lying politicians is something to behold. ~ Bill Anderson (on the LRC Blog)
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
On The Road To Armageddon / Politics / Conspiracy Theory
By: Robert_Singer
For the last three days the most popular article on OpedNews, a tough progressive website, has been The Road to Armageddon:
Read full article... Read full article...“Inside the Beltway” report, “Explosive News,” about the 31 press conferences in cities in the US and abroad on February 19 held by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, an organization of professionals which now has 1,000 members.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Paul Ryan, the Man Who Could Save America / Politics / US Politics
By: Doug_Horning
Doug Hornig, Casey Research writes:Since the stunning result of the Massachusetts senatorial race, President Obama has softened his tone quite a bit, essentially saying to Republicans that if they have any good ideas, “Bring ’em on.”
Whether he’s sincere or not remains to be seen, but the implication is that he’s unworried, because in his opinion the opposition party only knows how to criticize and doesn’t have anything constructive to say.
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Tuesday, March 02, 2010
The Case Against Greenspan and Bernanke / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Whitney
Is there enough evidence to indict Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan on charges that they aided and abetted the banks and other financial institutions in the sale of fraudulent loans to investors?
That depends on whether there is sufficient proof to show whether the two men KNEW that the nation's lenders were engaged in large-scale predatory lending and chose to do nothing. As we'll see, both Greenspan and Bernanke were warned repeatedly about the mortgage/derivatives scam by credible professionals and industry regulators, but failed to act.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
New Falklands War for Oil Suits British and Argentinian Politicians / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: OilPrice_Com
The artificially-engendered revival of the dispute, which began in February 2010 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, has been portrayed as a posturing by embattled Argentine Pres. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, taking advantage of both the start of exploratory oil and gas drilling by British company Desire Petroleum in the Falklands waters, and the talks by Latin American and Caribbean leaders of the Rio Group in the Mexican resort of Playa del Carmen, beginning on February 22, 2010. But the crisis may well play into the political posturing of equally embattled United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who faces a general election by June 2010 at the latest.
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Tuesday, March 02, 2010
We Are Being Spent Into Oblivion / Politics / Government Spending
By: Roy_F_Grieder
As we continue to ponder and debate, with way too much focus, on the mundane and inane, the perfect storm grows and rapidly approaches. It brings with it a financial tsunami and a societal train wreck. October 2008 was the outer wall of the storm, we have been living in the eye since then. Now the inner wall approaches: the global debt crisis.
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Tuesday, March 02, 2010
IMF Economic Fear Mongering Comes to America / Politics / US Debt
By: Ellen_Brown
In addition to mandatory private health insurance premiums, we may soon be hit with a “mandatory savings” tax and other belt-tightening measures urged by the President’s new budget task force. These radical austerity measures are not only unnecessary, however, but will actually make matters worse. The push for “fiscal responsibility” is based on bad economics.