Category: Social Issues
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Friday, May 09, 2014
We’re Not Doing Very Well, Are We? / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
We’re not doing very well overall, are we? We’re always busy chasing something, but we don’t know what it is we’re chasing, and we don’t even know why we’re doing it. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you what they really want is to be happy, but you just know they don’t know how to get there. So they all grab onto stuff, material things, which are much easier to handle than some non-tangible idea or ideal, but exactly because material things are so much easier, they don’t make them happy. One wooden toy under a Christmas tree 100 years ago made a kid then happier than 25 plastic toys do today, and it’s no wonder, and we all sort of understand why that is, but we don’t stop to reflect on it.
Thursday, May 08, 2014
Theocracy Democracy - In Debt We Trust / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
In Debt We Trust
Kevin Phillips is rightly known for his serial books and articles which all focus what he calls “the scary intersection of oil, debt, and religion”. He could have added climate and global warming to the list, but did not. His key theme is that “the financialized economy” is a bunch of speculative froth that creates little or nothing real, a symbolic wealth play with its own high priests, that hinges on more than simple public tolerance. The party can't go on unless the people believe.
Monday, May 05, 2014
Democracy, War, and the Myth of the Neutral State / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
Luigi Marco Bassani and Carlo Lottieri write: The constitutionalist claim to justify the State’s monopoly of violence has been challenged directly by the radical libertarian tradition (Molinari) and by individualist anarchists (such as Lysander Spooner). However, an important role in bringing the modern State into perspective has also been played by European political realism and, in particular, by Carl Schmitt and the Italian elitist scholars (Gaetano Mosca and Vilfredo Pareto).
Thursday, May 01, 2014
The Truth About May Day / Politics / Social Issues
By: Jeff_Berwick
As I write this police are using tear gas on protestors in Istanbul. It appears as if it is going to be another rowdy May 1.
Today is International Worker's Day, which is a celebration of labor and the working classes. May 1 is a national public holiday in more than 80 countries, though in some countries it is called Labor Day or something similar. Almost every year capitals across the world erupt in protest.
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Thursday, May 01, 2014
It How America Grows Its Way Into Poverty / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
It was strange to see two Bloomberg articles side by side yesterday that didn’t look as if they were written in the same universe. Not Bloomberg’s fault, I think, they simply reported on an FOMC statement and incoming US economy numbers. But it was strange nonetheless. First, here’s the FOMC’s reasoning behind its decision to taper more:
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
The Political Future Of Dumbing Down / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
The Once Was New Thing
About 10 years ago in what are called the “mature western democracies” dumbing down had just been discovered, or invented. Journalists peppered their prose with the term, educationists wondered if it was the reason school kids and college students seemed to be so flaky about learning. Political pundits lambasted politicians for being dumbed down, books appeared in the bookstores talking about it. It was a conversational thing for ordinary people, too.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
The Great Recession Grinds On - Measuring Misery around the World / Politics / Social Issues
By: Steve_H_Hanke
The Great Recession grinds on. And as it does, politicians of all stripes ask, usually behind closed doors, "Just how miserable are our citizens?" The chattering classes offer a variety of opinions. As it turns out, there is a straightforward way to measure what is termed the misery index.
The late Arthur Okun, a distinguished economist who served as chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during President Johnson’s administration, developed the original misery index for the United States. Okun’s index is equal to the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates.
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Tuesday, April 22, 2014
The JIS – Junk Ideology Syndrome / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
Global Reach
What I call the JIS has been studied and commented under different names, but the start and end points of political mass movements and political ideology, crystallized as JIS at a peak point, is a process driven by crisis conditions. These can be economic, cultural or national security and geopolitical, or other shocks to society. The examples are numerous and well-documented, and certainly extend from Antiquity. They also exist at a smaller scale in so-called pre-modern non-Western societies.
Friday, April 18, 2014
The Growing Threat to Capitalism / Politics / Social Issues
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: American exceptionalism, the country's qualitatively demonstrable advantage over other nations, used to be characterized by individualism.
Not to mention egalitarianism, republicanism, and populism.
All of this was supported by the government's laissez-faire approach to America's capitalist economic system.
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Thursday, April 17, 2014
SitComs Not Always a Laughing Matter / Politics / Social Issues
By: Walter_Brasch
My favorite new TV comedy is “Growing Up Fisher.”
It’s the story of a blind lawyer, his 12-year-old son, a mid-teen daughter, and an ex-wife who is trying to return to her adolescent years. The show is based upon the experiences of D.J. Nash.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
How I Intend to Survive the Meltdown of America / Personal_Finance / Social Issues
By: Casey_Research
By Louis James, Chief Metals & Mining Investment Strategist
It is with a troubled heart that I look at the continued fighting in eastern Ukraine. I worry about my friends and students in the country who may well be in physical danger soon, if the conflict escalates. As an investment analyst, it’s the financial war the Russians seem quite willing to wage that has my attention.
It should have yours as well.
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Monday, April 14, 2014
Spanish Style Riots Coming to a Country Near You / Politics / Social Issues
By: Jeff_Berwick
James Guzman writes: Screams and sirens pierce the air as rocks, firecrackers, and sharp glass go flying in every direction. Police try to beat back the hordes of protesters by smashing indiscriminately into the crowd with their billy clubs.
This was the scene recently in Madrid, Spain, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets to fight against the budget cuts and tax increases put into place by Mariano Rajoy, the current Prime Minister of Spain. The protesters chanted “no more cuts” as they demolished storefronts and threw firecrackers at police.
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Sunday, April 13, 2014
Four Horsemen - Top Economists Explain the Source of Our Economic Crisis - Video / Politics / Social Issues
By: Videos
FOUR HORSEMEN is an award winning independent feature documentary which lifts the lid on how the world really works.
As we will never return to 'business as usual' 23 international thinkers, government advisors and Wall Street money-men break their silence and explain how to establish a moral and just society.
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Wednesday, April 09, 2014
CORPORATOCRACY / Politics / Social Issues
By: BATR
Record US corporate profits are the beneficiary of easy money, near zero interest rates and monopolist aided government tax policies. The upward surge in earnings since the depths of the financial collapse proves one incontrovertible fact; namely, tax regulations, implemented to aid favorite companies, is the operational model of the corporatist economy. Americans for tax fairness for 2013 report on 10 Companies and Their Tax Loopholes. Included in this examination on Bank of America, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, FedEx, General Electric, Honeywell, Merck, Microsoft, Pfizer and Verizon, indicated "corporations have stepped into the fray with some of the most aggressive lobbying we’ve seen in years – calling for cuts to corporate tax rates, a widening of offshore tax loopholes."
Monday, April 07, 2014
Humans, A Smart Species? / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
And once again the markets are happily and excitedly awaiting more free zombie capital from a major central bank, this time the ECB. Of course this is capital the markets, judging from where stock exchanges find themselves, absolutely don’t need, but, you know, gift horses have foul breath and all that.
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Monday, April 07, 2014
Zombification of America - Welcome To Terminus, Collapse will be Sudden / Politics / Social Issues
By: James_Quinn
“Life improves slowly and goes wrong fast, and only catastrophe is clearly visible.” – Edward Teller
I was a late arrival to the Walking Dead television program. I don’t watch much of the mindless drivel passing for entertainment on the 600 worthless channels available 24/7 on cable TV. I assumed it was another superficial zombie horror show on par with the teenage vampire crap polluting the airwaves. Last year a friend told me I had to watch the show. I was hooked immediately and after some marathon watching of seasons one and two, I understood the various storylines and back stories. What the show doesn’t openly reveal is the deeper meanings, symbolism, and lessons we can learn from viewing human beings trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. In my opinion, the horror and gore is secondary to the human responses to horrific circumstances and the consequences of individual and group decisions to their survival.
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Wednesday, April 02, 2014
Underground Shadow Commerce is the Real Economy / Politics / Social Issues
By: BATR
As the deadline for filing yearly income taxes is rapidly approaching, businesses especially hard pressed to make a profit in a depressed economy struggle with their tax compliance. Reporting legitimate deductions and costs is the easy part. When you are losing money, disclosing a diminished income stream based upon lower margins, is not a difficult decision. Nevertheless, small enterprises burdened with government regulation costs and tax obligations, often are unable to conduct business and retain a net return. Self-proprietorships frequently are so scared that many look to the cash underground economy to hide income earnings.
Friday, March 28, 2014
It’s Gut-Check Time for America / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andy_Sutton
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one…. We’re sure that almost all of you will recognize the beginning of this historic document. Notice its title; it was a declaration. Could just as easily have been called an affirmation. But it merely stated in words what was already reality. For all of Jefferson’s wisdom, his most popular piece was merely a restatement of fact. That it needed to be restated was the problem. In today’s world – on so many levels, we have this type of ersatz freedom rather than the real thing. We’re not independent. We’re not really free in any sense of the word. But because we can hop on a plane and, after having ourselves and our companions treated like cattle, fly off to Disney World, we think we’re free.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
When Corporations Take Precedence Over People / Politics / Social Issues
By: Jesse
"There is felt today very widely the inconsistency in this condition of political democracy and industrial absolutism. The people are beginning to doubt whether in the long run democracy and absolutism can coexist in the same community; beginning to doubt whether there is a justification for the great inequalities in the distribution of wealth, for the rapid creation of fortunes, more mysterious than the deeds of Aladdin’s lamp." -
Louis D. Brandeis, The Opportunity in Law, Speech to Harvard Ethical Society, May 4, 1905
Friday, March 21, 2014
Feed the Rich and Starve the Middle Class: There’s Only So Much To Go Around / Politics / Social Issues
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: The Dow fell 200 points yesterday when Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen dared to suggest a timetable for raising interest rates.
But then they recovered and ended down only 114 points on the day.
Gee, that was a close one, the 1% sighed.
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