Category: Social Issues
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
The Middle Class Disappears, Rise of the Praetorian Class / Politics / Social Issues
By: Casey_Research
Pete Kofod writes:
Much attention has been paid to the “disappearing middle class” and the “vanishing American Dream.” While the observations are largely accurate, they are also misleading. The traditional three-tier model of the upper, middle and lower class broadly categorizes people according to income and net worth. One significant problem with this model is that membership in any particular class is very much in the eye of the beholder. One man’s “scraping by” is another man’s “opulent living.” This subjective and arbitrary grouping and boundary assessment inevitably gives rise to the simmering class warfare that is starting to rear its ugly head in many Western countries. Such categorization is therefore meaningless at best, if not outright deceptive as it conflates a variety of economic actors.
Friday, January 13, 2012
If You're Out of Work Blame Your Cell Phone / Politics / Social Issues
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes:
Times are tough out there.
We would like to blame China, incompetent politicians, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the banking system, or some unseen forces for this phenomenon.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Shop the Local Merchant Economy / Politics / Social Issues
By: BATR
Buying at large box stores is a way of life for many consumers. Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Target are routine locations to spend your hard-earned dollars on items of necessity. However, what happens to the profits when the sale is completed and the bills are paid? Does the money stay in the local community, where the transactions are generated, or are they filtered off to the treasury of public companies that dominate the economy? The pitiful answer, well known to the chagrin of the small business enterprises, is a prime reason why the middle class is vanishing. Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, January 09, 2012
Getting Fired Don't Panic / Politics / Social Issues
By: Gary_North
It has happened before. I did not plan on it happening again.
On Wednesday, January 4, the server system that hosts my website, http://GaryNorth.com, crashed.
I did not get fired by my paying subscribers. I got fired by digits that failed.
Fortunately, I was re-hired on Friday. The site came back online.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, January 06, 2012
The Gilded Age of Bankers and Income Disparity / Politics / Social Issues
By: Richard_Mills
As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information
Between 1865 and 1898 the US economy grew at the fastest rate in its history with real wages, wealth, GDP, and capital formation all increasing rapidly:
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, December 30, 2011
Coming of the Violent Global Revolutions / Politics / Social Issues
By: Submissions
Dr. Raju M. Mathew writes:
The seeds of the present Islamic Terrorism, Global Economic Crisis, the Arab Springs and the Occupy Movement had been sown in Information Technology Revolutions, Petro-Dollars, Globalization, Consumerism and Corporate Culture of Greed. They had been programmed within IT, Globalization and Trade-in Services, though nobody was aware of it, even their greatest proponents. All states or religions or their development strategies have been built up within the mindset of the quarreling primitive tribal chiefs or warriors for the last several centuries.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
2012 End of Status Quo? Cumulative Effects of Self-Assembling Dynamic Networks / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
2012 arrives at a watershed moment in the history of humankind. The cumulative effects of SADNs or Self-Assembling Dynamic Networks are not only changing the very nature of our existence but also the perception of each other via our unprecedented super-connectivity. Does this herald the end of the status quo? No-thing appears to remain the same as this contagion spreads faster and faster: accelerating, assimilating and absorbing every aspect of our joint and inter-linked existence.
Monday, December 12, 2011
The Lunacy of Soviet Communist Central Planning / Politics / Social Issues
By: Gary_North
This 1992 documentary, The Engineers' Plot, is a history of Soviet central economic planning. Central planning did not work. This is a planned society that modeled its premier showcase city after Gary, Indiana. The video is a fine demonstration of the truth of Ludwig von Mises' 1920 essay, "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth." Mises argued that the socialist system is irrational, because it cannot price anything rationally. You will especially enjoy the parade of marching working women in white dresses. This is a Busby Berkeley extravananza, Soviet style.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Next Stop The Sustainable Society / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
No longer in the realms of North Korean thinking, the near term prospect is that the runaway train of late stage, financially engineered consumer capitalist culture will hit the debt and deficit buffers and will stop, dead. Fear rules. Mainstream media in Europe continues to wave the scarecrow-with-a-skull of the Eurozone imploding, the euro disappearing, the European Union collapsing. Los Indignados and anti-nuclear crazies will link up with Al Qaeda and show open disrespect to everything from WalMart and McDonalds to friendly smiling atoms. Tahrir Square is the new Global Village. Gloom and doom.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Black Friday Shopper-on-Shopper Violence, Best Indicator U.S. Economy is Alive and Well / Politics / Social Issues
By: PhilStockWorld
I’m very relieved to hear of the various incidents of violence brought on by the "doorbusters" and other Black Friday-related narco-shopping come-ons. This mad rush to buy garbage is the single best indication we have that America’s consumers (and the economy that belongs to their appetites) are alive and well.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Horrible Bosses, Pitchforks & Torches / Politics / Social Issues
By: D_Sherman_Okst
If you haven’t seen the movie “Horrible Bosses” I’d recommend that you do. Please see it. Go enjoy yourself. As bad as things are getting it is incredible to realize that we can still laugh.
And trust me, you’ll laugh hard at this movie.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
The Power of Self Assembling Dynamic Networks / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
ATCA 5000 only made one forecast for 2011: Beware "Self-Assembling Dynamic Networks" and boundary-less tribalism! Little did we realise when making the forecast that this year would see:
a. The Arab Spring from Tunisia to Egypt, from Libya to Syria, and from Bahrain to Yemen;
b. Unprecedented riots and looting in London and other British cities like Manchester and Birmingham;
c. Luxury automobiles of the elite being set alight in Berlin and other German cities like D�sseldorf and Hamburg;
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The Police Exist To Serve and Protect the State / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
Wendy McElroy writes: Last month, an international rights tribunal slapped America across the face through a showcase ruling that has no legal force. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found that Jessica Lenahan could sue the Castle Rock, Colorado, police department for its refusal in 1999 to enforce a restraining order against her estranged husband. The American courts had dismissed her case.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
U.S. Homelessness: how many will lose everything? / Politics / Social Issues
By: Pravda
Thomas Kelly, 37, died on July 10, five days after being beaten with electric walking sticks, flashlights, leather and chains, as well as kicking by six police officers who were part of a police patrol in the town of Fullerton, California.
After this incident, Thomas was sent to a nearby hospital, but arrived in a coma. His face revealed multiple bruises, scrapes and minor cuts.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
The ‘International Cities’ of the Developed World – Hotspots of Social Discontent for the West, Playgrounds for the East / Politics / Social Issues
By: Aftab_Singh
The ongoing chaos in London has been widely covered by the press over the past few days. Unfortunately, the lenses with which the consensus views the world have muddled the reality of the situation. Rather than considering this to be another development in a long story of souring social mood, commentators have reported it as random violence — to be likened to a strike of lightening… To be sure, we don’t think that the specifics of the last few days could have been predicted with any precision, but we scarcely consider the ordeal to be a ‘surprise’ as such! Here, I consider the decline in social mood in the developed world and outline the implications for its great ‘international’ cities.
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
London's Burning, Twitter and Facebook Austerity Riots Erupt, House Prices Set to Crash as Buyers Evaporate / Politics / Social Issues
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Britain's economic austerity induced rioting, looting and arson has begun by dispossessed benefits culture youth with little prospects of jobs fuelled by spending cuts of youth services of as much as 75% and few of whom had considered further education now being saddled with a lifetime of debt should they go to university, the trigger for which was the apparent dubious shooting on Thursday night of an Afro-carribean male by police in Tottenham (London) under the Operation Trident which targets black on black gun crime, though the social tinder box was awaiting a trigger so sooner or later it would have been ignited by any excuse for rampant destruction and looting of high streets starting in Tottenham on Saturday, but soon spreading across London as rioters and looters took advantage of an increasingly thinly spread police force via social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, utilising smartphone's such as Blackberries to quickly organise and target lightly policed high streets much as protestors in the middle east used social media sites and mobile phones to quickly organise.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
The End Of The False Flag Wars / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
It is easy and comforting, for some, to see the recent and current western "military adventures" in lower income, smaller, poorly armed countries as simply a neo-colonial rampage, perhaps with the initial aim of pillaging natural resources, but later on for the simple pleasure of trashing already weak and poor countries to thrill middle class graveside voyeurs with gore and suffering TV clips and newsbytes.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
10 Facts About The Financial Condition Of American Families / Politics / Social Issues
By: Submissions
Michael Snyder writes: The crumbling U.S. economy is putting an extraordinary amount of financial stress on American families. For many Americans, "flat broke" has become a permanent condition. Today, over half of all American families live paycheck to paycheck. Unemployment is rampant and those that do actually have jobs are finding that their wages are rising much more slowly than prices are.
Monday, July 25, 2011
The Economics of Big Cities / Economics / Social Issues
By: Robert_Murphy
Large, densely populated urban areas put economic principles in a pressure cooker, as it were. The extremes of urban life make things evident that would not be as obvious in a small town. With the right combination of entrepreneurial drive and the rule of law, metropolitan areas are economic powerhouses.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Falling False Flags: The Norway Massacre and The Rise of Fascist Societies / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
One of Rupert Murdoch's remaining moneygrubbing, gutter filling recyclable fish and chip wrappers, the UK "Sun", was predictably lightning fast with the scoop, its headline screaming: "Al Qaeda's Massacre, Norway's 9/11".