Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Russia Loans Venezuela $2.2 Billion to Buy Russian Arms / Politics / Russia
By: Pravda
Venezuela has spent about $4.5 billion on Russia’s military hardware within the scope of 12 contracts that were officially signed during the recent several years. The Latin American nation particularly bought 24 Su-30 jets, tens of battle choppers and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles.
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Thursday, September 17, 2009
Missile Defense and Washington’s Foolish Eurasia Strategy / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: F_William_Engdahl
Eight months into the Obama Presidency the outlines of Administration foreign policy are becoming very clear and what is emerging is a foreign policy establishment flying blind on automatic pilot, evidently unable to make the fundamental policy changes required of its new geopolitical and economic position in the world since the collapse of the Greenspan “revolution in finance” September 2008.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
9/11 and the Mysterious Collapse of WTC Seven / Politics / Conspiracy Theory
By: David_Ray_Griffin
Why NIST’s Final 9/11 Report is Unscientific and False
At 5:21 in the afternoon of 9/11, almost seven hours after the Twin Towers had come down, Building 7 of the World Trade Center also came down. The collapse of this building was from the beginning considered a mystery. [1]
The same should have been true, to be sure, of the collapse of the Twin Towers. But they had been hit by planes, which had ignited big fires in them, and many people assumed this combination of causes to be sufficient to explain why they came down.
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Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Americans Get Screwed Again by Bought-Off Washington Officials / Politics / Healthcare Sector
By: Mike_Stathis
After meeting yesterday to wrap up the final touches on the Senate Finance committee's healthcare reform bill, Committee Chairman, Senator Max Baucus - a very good friend of the healthcare industry, has announced the bill is ready for a vote as early as next week.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Ron Paul's Battle for Financial Sanity / Politics / Central Banks
By: David_Gordon
Ron Paul has since the inception of his tenure in Congress waged a heroic battle for financial sanity, and in End the Fed he gives us insights from that struggle available nowhere else. Dr. Paul had from an early age an affinity for the free market. "In the 1960s," he tells us, "I discovered the writings of economists such as Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray N. Rothbard, and Hans F. Sennholz. I gradually found the answers I had been searching for. Even for the experts, it literally took centuries to fully understand the nature of money and the business cycle." (p.43)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
How High Will the Financial Fraud Reach? / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Marilyn_M_Barnewall
Most Americans are very aware that something is drastically wrong with their government. The majority doesn’t know exactly how to define the problem(s), but they innately sense that a train is headed down the tracks toward them. Unfortunately, they can see neither the train nor the tracks.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Misreading the Iranian Nuclear Situation / Politics / Iran
By: STRATFOR
The Iranians have now agreed to talks with the P-5+1, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China) plus Germany. These six countries decided in late April to enter into negotiations with Iran over the suspected Iranian nuclear weapons program by Sept. 24, the date of the next U.N. General Assembly meeting. If Iran refused to engage in negotiations by that date, the Western powers in the P-5+1 made clear that they would seriously consider imposing much tougher sanctions on Iran than those that were currently in place. The term “crippling” was mentioned several times.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Smash the Labor Monopolies! / Politics / Employment
By: Ayn_Rand
Thomas Bowden writes: When President Obama addresses the AFL-CIO on Sept. 15, he is expected to reiterate his support for the so-called Employee Free Choice Act. Congress is sharply divided over the proposed law, which would change the voting and arbitration procedures by which federal law forces companies to deal with labor unions.
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Imminent $30 Billion Bailout of Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Nilus_Mattive
I’ve talked about corporate pension plans before, but in a few short weeks I think we’re going to get some shocking news. Namely, that the government backup for failed pension plans is more underfunded than it has ever been before.
Back in April, I told you a bit about the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and its decade of running in the red.
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Health Care Deceit / Politics / Healthcare Sector
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
The current health care “debate” shows how far gone representative government is in the United States. Members of Congress represent the powerful interest groups that fill their campaign coffers, not the people who vote for them.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Lehman Post Mortem, Did Bernanke and Paulson Blackmail Congress? / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Mike_Whitney
"Lehman's fate was sealed not in the boardroom of that gaudy Manhattan headquarters. It was sealed downtown, in the gloomy gray building of the New York Federal Reserve, the Wall Street branch of the U.S. central bank." Stephen Foley, U.K. Independent
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Lehman Bankruptcy and Engineered Financial Armageddon Real Story / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Nadeem_Walayat
During the last few days the mainstream media has been obsessed by Lehman's as though it caused the financial crisis, when all Lehman's was one crack in the credit crisis dam that was destined to burst following the August 2007 interbank market freeze when the game was up on the U.S. mortgage backed securities valuations that bank staff had inflated so as to bank huge bonuses on fictitious profits. From then began a process of ever larger financial collapses, starting in the UK with Northern Rock Bank, which I just so happened to warn of as having a high probability of going bust some 4 weeks before the event. Though of course at the time I had to mask my language lest I open myself upto legal problems.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
U.S. Trade War with China Escalates / Politics / Global Economy
By: Money_Morning
Jason Simpkins writes: Shortly after U.S. President Barack Obama announced hefty import duties on Chinese-made tires, China's Ministry of Commerce over the weekend said it would explore possible sanctions against U.S. automobile and chicken imports.
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Monday, September 14, 2009
Lying Politicians Using Financial Crisis Opportunity to Double U.S. National Debt / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
“Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.” – George Washington
“For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.” – Patrick Henry
Monday, September 14, 2009
Quietly Building the Totalitarian State in America, With the Full Complicity of the Big Media / Politics / US Politics
By: Jack_D_Douglas
All intelligent political analysts have known since Ancient Greece that the Tyrannical State always arrives on gentle cat's paws, as Plato and others put it a few centuries after the basic strategies and tactics of Building The Secret Tyrannical State had been used so effectively by Peisistratus to build the first full-blown tyranny in Athens [though some objected that Solon's "new deal for all" was a tyranny]. The Tyrant always arrives as the Great Friend of the People promising them new freedoms and a vast cornucopia of free goodies. Peisistratus was lucky enough to have new loads of silver to mint real coins to buy the submission of the masses for a while, expand trade and prosperity. Most states in the modern world use the Miracle Cures of Paper Money and the Central Planning of Finance, as has been done in the U.S. to a stunning extreme by the Fed and the Big Banks working under that vast government umbrella of guaranteed free money for them.
Monday, September 14, 2009
The US Golden Age Is Over, Destruction of an Empire / Politics / US Economy
By: Bill_Bonner
Edward Gibbon described the happiest age of mankind as the period of the “five good emperors” between AD98 and AD180, when Marcus Aurelius died.
What was America’s Golden Age?
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Monday, September 14, 2009
Healthcare Reform is More Corporate Welfare / Politics / Healthcare Sector
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last Wednesday the nation was riveted to the President's speech on healthcare reform before Congress. While the President's concern for the uninsured is no doubt sincere, his plan amounts to a magnanimous gift to the health insurance industry, despite any implications to the contrary.
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Monday, September 14, 2009
Socially Useless Syndrome Paralyzes Wall Street And The City! / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Andrew_Butter
It all started with Lord Turner, then Stephen Green of HSBC and right on his heels Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs. Now it's official, investment bankers are "socially useless"; the financial services industry is bracing itself for a tidal wave of press releases, finally the they are coming clean; next the hunt will be on for which branding consultancy got the million dollars to come up with that brilliant tag line.
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Monday, September 14, 2009
Obama Risks Global Trade War With China on Misguided Tariffs / Politics / Global Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
On Wednesday, in a dispute over the price of steel pipe, the US Fires Opening Salvo In Trade Wars With China. Late Friday evening trade wars heated up again as Obama Fires the US' Second Shot In Trade War With China.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
The Credit Rating Firms Are Running Scared / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: When it comes to the U.S. credit crisis, we’ve all heard the numbers. The stock market decline wiped out $7 trillion in shareholder wealth. It forced the federal government to commit to $11.6 trillion in bailout programs and stimulus spending. And it’s led to the longest U.S. downturn since the Great Depression.