Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Monday, February 03, 2014
The Real State of the Union / Politics / US Economy
Before anyone gets all bent out of shape, this is NOT going to be a political essay. To restate my position on the issue of politics, I couldn’t care less what group or party anyone belongs to, but rather, about how they do the job they were entrusted with doing. In my lifetime we’ve had but a few lawmakers who truly did their jobs with the trust and stewardship of their constituents in mind. That group grows fewer as we egress from the former America into this brave new world of offshoring, economic microcephalism, and blatant malfeasance.
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Monday, February 03, 2014
Ron Paul on America's and the Continuing Al-Qaeda Threat / Politics / Al-Qeeda
Appearing last week before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that he could not say the threat from al-Qaeda is any less today than it was ten years ago. It was a shocking admission. Does he mean that the trillions of dollars spent fighting the war on terrorism have resulted in no gains? That those who urged us to give up some of our liberties to gain security have, as Benjamin Franklin warned, lost both?
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Sunday, February 02, 2014
Who Wants Ukraine? / Politics / Eastern Europe
Stalin and Krushchev Wanted Ukraine
For most Europeans, Ukraine is a gas transport corridor for bringing overpriced Russian gas to Europe and Ukraine either overcharges Gazprom for gas transit fees, or does not pay Gazprom for the gas it takes for national consumption. This Russian-Ukrainian gas game occasionally tips into gas embargoes hitting consumers further down the line. As a geopolitical bargaining chip, conversely, Ukraine had considerable import and weight during the Cold War period which ended in 1989-91. Russia relatively quickly withdrew “nearly all” its nuclear-tipped missiles, atomic warheads and nuclear military equipment and component inventories from Ukraine, in the 1990s.
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Sunday, February 02, 2014
Israel’s Secret Nuclear Weapons Program / Politics / Israel
It’s an open secret. It’s been known for years. Mainstream media suppress it. They pretend none exists.
It’s real. It’s menacing. Imagine ignoring what threatens humanity. Imagine pretending Iran’s peaceful nuclear program does so. Imagine risking regional or global war by doing it.
London’s Guardian is an establishment broadsheet. It’s usually conformist. Once in a while it’s not.
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Sunday, February 02, 2014
Kill the Minimum Wage and Give Teens a Future / Politics / Employment
G. Joseph McLiney writes: Business owners know when a product is not selling, regardless of whether it’s apples or automobiles, they must lower the price.
Sometimes they’re forced to cut it severely and take a loss. Most reasonable people would contend that it’s a right of the owner to sell his product at whatever level the owner determines is in his best interest.
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Peter Schiff on How The Daily Show Trapped Me / Politics / Mainstream Media
When I accepted “The Daily Show”’s invitation to be interviewed about my opposition to a minimum wage increase, I knew that I was walking into a trap. But given how counterproductive I know such an increase would be to those the law proposes to help, I took the risk anyway.
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Sunday, February 02, 2014
Education: Transforming The Most Unscientific And Mismanaged Industry Into A Scientific, Competitive And Learner-Friendly Industry / Politics / Education
The Lost Generation
Education is the most unscientific and mismanaged industry. For the ‘lost generation’ of the Global Economic Crisis, Education has become a necessary evil. Without education, one’s life is doomed; life is also doomed, if one goes for education, it turns everybody a life-long debtor or at least a debtor during the prime time of the youth. The steady decline of the quality, the increasing irrelevance and the exponential rise of the social and personal cost of education have been fermenting into political upheavals and revolutions worldwide.
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Sunday, February 02, 2014
Enough is Enough: Fraud-Ridden Banks Are Not L.A.’s Only Option / Politics / Banksters
“Epic in scale, unprecedented in world history.” That is how William K. Black, professor of law and economics and former bank fraud investigator, describes the frauds in which JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has now been implicated. They involve more than a dozen felonies, including bid-rigging on municipal bond debt; colluding to rig interest rates on hundreds of trillions of dollars in mortgages, derivatives and other contracts; exposing investors to excessive risk; failing to disclose known risks, including those in the Bernie Madoff scandal; and engaging in multiple forms of mortgage fraud.
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Sunday, February 02, 2014
The State of the States: Post-Bernanke Bellum / Politics / US Politics
One can almost imagine ex-chairman Bernanke shaking his head in disbelief. (For the record, I cannot conceive of Simple Ben possessing the capacity for what follows, so this is an indulgence in creative writing.):
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Saturday, February 01, 2014
Laundromat Banks Too Big To Fail / Politics / Banksters
Money laundering is the process by which illegally obtained cash is made to appear as if it has been obtained by legal means.
The following snippet is fromRobert Mazur's 'How to Halt the Terrorist Money Train' article that appeared in The New York Times:
"The House Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management issued a shocking report documenting the collaboration between Mexican and Colombian drug cartels and Hezbollah in narcotics and human trafficking, smuggling and financial crimes in the United States and Latin America -- a partnership that, in just the border region between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, produces an estimated $12 billion in cash each year.
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Friday, January 31, 2014
IRA Accounts - Whose Money Is It, Really? / Politics / US Politics
I don't usually watch the State of the Union address, but when I do, I hear something different than most everyone else. As I recall, the State of the Union Address went something like:
"My fellow Americans, things do not look too good for our collective future.
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Thursday, January 30, 2014
Prosperity for Main Street, NOT Wall Street - Video / Politics / Social Issues
The key reason that communities are struggling is the huge burden of interest payments that are flowing to the big banks. Think about this, if you buy a home for say $100,000 dollars, typically you will have paid $250,000 once the loan is paid off. This means the typical loan will incur $150,000 in interest charges.The same concept applies when a community builds an infrastructure project such as school, road, bridge, sewer or other project. That $1 million dollar school could end up costing taxpayers in the community $2.5 million after interest charges.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Iraqi Government Threatens Action Against Kurds as Oil Exports Set to Begin / Politics / Iraq War
Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Affairs firmly stated the central government will take action, "including fiscal measures," if Kurdistan begins exporting oil without coming to an agreement with Baghdad. The remarks came as Minister Hussain al-Shahristani spoke at a conference in London on January 28. The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) announced in mid-January that oil had begun to flow through a pipeline towards Turkey and that exports would officially start by the end of the month.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Politics, Gibraltar and British Sovereignty / Politics / European Union
By Grant Williams
Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory.
It has an area of 2.6 square miles and juts from the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, overlooking the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. Roughly 30,000 people live in the territory, whose sole distinguishing feature is the very large rock which runs along the eastern edge of the territory and culminates in a dramatic promontory in the northeastern corner.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Great Healthcare Fraud - Defend Your Life / Politics / Healthcare Sector
It's all too easy to get lost in the misinformation and politicking surrounding Obamacare. Dr. Vliet, an independent physician and the past director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (whom I had the good fortune to meet when she spoke at the last Casey Summit) graciously agreed to sit down and clear the fog shrouding the new healthcare law for us. A warm thank you to Dr. Vliet for carving out time in her busy schedule to chat with us today.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Ukraine Protests Perspectives / Politics / Eastern Europe
A reply given me by an Obama loyalist - a neighbor - several weeks ago could have been a replay of a reply given me in 2008 and 2012 when I warned Progressives and Democrats that Mr. Obama was not the person he pretended to be, nor the president they projected him to be. "He's disappointing, but he's still better than the opposition," quipped the loyalist.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Democracy was Won by the Few for the Many / Politics / US Politics
A reply given me by an Obama loyalist - a neighbor - several weeks ago could have been a replay of a reply given me in 2008 and 2012 when I warned Progressives and Democrats that Mr. Obama was not the person he pretended to be, nor the president they projected him to be. "He's disappointing, but he's still better than the opposition," quipped the loyalist.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2014
America's Empire of Drones and Robots / Politics / US Military
Is there any doubt that America’s foreign policy, based upon maintaining a global empire, actually makes us less safe? The misgiving is that such intercession has any actual benefits to the citizens of the country. What once was a respected leadership role of non-interventionism in international affairs, has become a dominating imperium for worldwide control and subjugation. Exporting the "land of the free" is a myth, especially when domestic freedom is a dying memory. Internationalists tell us that military and surveillance drone technology promises enhanced security, with little concern for collateral damage or loss of innocent life. However, the facts do not bear out such claims.
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Monday, January 27, 2014
Labour 50p Tax Rate Shows Labour Wants Every Street to Become Benefits Street / Politics / Taxes
The Labour party appears hell bent on putting the UK economy back into reverse gear, back to where it was during the worst economic collapse since the great depression, back to a state that had the annual budget deficit soaring towards £200 billion per year that manifested itself in an over 5% official inflation rate (Real 8%) as its primary strategy for winning elections is to bribe 80% of voters through means of benefits payments such as housing benefits and tax credits and thus have a vested interest in the expansion of Labours welfare state all the way towards an inevitable hyperinflationary collapse.
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Monday, January 27, 2014
America Is a Vast Slave and Prison Nation / Politics / US Politics
The US has a vastly greater proportion of people than any other nation in various stages and degrees of police and military confinement and state control. These vast government gulags–”prisons” and “labor camps” and confinement camps in Russian–in the U.S. range from death row absolute control, maximum security prisons, all the way down to juvenile detention camps, probation, parole, minimum security prison camps, indictments, trials, jails and so on.
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