Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Who Controls Libyan Oil? / Politics / Crude Oil
By: Andrew_McKillop
LIBYA'S BEEFEATER LEAGUE DEFENDS THE OIL
In August, Reuters reported from Tripoli: “Libya will use all means, including military force if necessary, to prevent striking security guards at the country’s main ports from selling its crude oil independently, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said”. Zeidan called the security guards a critical challenge to the government, because strikes at Libya’s two largest ports have pushed production and exports to their lowest levels since the civil war that ousted 42-year veteran leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Janet Yellen to the Rescue? / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Axel_Merk
While Democrats and Republicans fight with water pistols, the President may be readying a bazooka by nominating Janet Yellen to succeed Ben Bernanke as Fed Chair. You may want to hold on to your wallet; let me explain.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Brazil To Block The NSA Spying / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: Jeff_Berwick
General Keith Alexander has admitted that Edward J. Snowden's revelations have caused “significant and irreversible damage” to the US's national security, and that national governments and terrorist organizations now know how to get around US spying.
He seems to underestimate the real damage: The NSA revelations are but another smear against brand USA in the global psyche, having done potentially as much damage as the Middle East wars started under President George W. Bush.
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Thursday, October 17, 2013
U.S. Government Shutdown Solution: Opt Out of Tyranny / Politics / US Politics
By: David_DeGraw
“All countries are basically social arrangements, accommodations to changing circumstances. No matter how permanent and even sacred they may seem at any one time, in fact they are all artificial and temporary.” – Strobe Talbott
How much longer are we going to protest and post online reports, rants, videos and launch campaigns that will hopefully raise awareness on issue after issue, problem after problem, as the situation gets worse? How much longer are we going to just keep crying about the need for change and pleading with puppet politicians in hopes that they will care about anything other than what their top campaign contributors think? At what point are we going to start acting like free and responsible citizens and stop acting like disgruntled servants waiting for our masters to save us and do the right thing?
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Wednesday, October 16, 2013
IMF Proposal to Tax Bank Deposits / Politics / Banksters
By: BATR
A report by Agence France-Presse, the International Monetary Fund strongly suggests countries tax the rich to fix deficit, is a caveat for a bigger risk. "The IMF has set off shockwaves this week in Washington by suggesting countries fight budget deficits by raising taxes. In its Fiscal Monitor report, subtitled "Taxing Times", the Fund advanced the idea of taxing the highest-income people and their assets to reinforce the legitimacy of spending cuts and fight against growing income inequalities."
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Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Life-Extending Biotechnologies - Creating and Solving Our Economic Problems / Politics / BioTech
By: John_Mauldin
You know I've always been a dreamer (spent my life running 'round) And it's so hard to change (Can't seem to settle down) But the dreams I've seen lately Keep on turning out and burning out And turning out the same So put me on a highway And show me a sign And take it to the limit one more time -The Eagles, 1975
Straightforward solutions to complex problems: they're nice in theory, but they're rare. Think of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, for instance. It tries to address the complex problems of expanding access to healthcare while simultaneously controlling its skyrocketing costs. But, sadly, there is no simple solution, and certainly not one that is not contentious in the extreme.
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Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Columbus Day - How Banking Invaded America / Politics / Banksters
By: Adrian_Ash
Miguel Perez-Santalla writes: Think the banking crisis can't be repeated...?
Columbus Day is typically a happy and joyous celebration for Americans wherever they are, not just in the United States, but on all continents.
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Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Robert Shiller’s Egalitarian, Regulated, and Subsidized “Good Society” / Politics / Economic Theory
By: David_Howden
What defines a “good society” and how can we use finance to achieve it? Robert Shiller takes the former question as settled, and dedicates his 2012 book Finance and the Good Society to the latter: what is wrong with modern finance, and how should it be restructured to reach this ideal?
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Ron Paul Warns the State’s Education Monopoly Increases Prices and Destroys Choice / Politics / Education
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
The free-market principle of open entry is challenged by governmental restrictions on access to consumer markets. There are many official justifications for these restrictions, but the main one is this: “Customers do not know what is good for them.” They do not know what products to buy, what prices to pay, or what arrangements to negotiate with respect to return and replacement. Customers are in fact woefully ignorant of what they really need, so the state enters the marketplace to restrict what customers are legally allowed to purchase. The idea here is that state officials know what customers really need as distinguished from what customers are willing to pay for.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
The U.S. Debt Crisis from the Founders' Perspective / Politics / US Debt
By: STRATFOR
The U.S. government is paralyzed, and we now face the possibility that the United States will default on its debt. Congress is unable to resolve the issue, and President Obama is as obstinate as the legislators who oppose him. To some extent, our political system is functioning as intended -- the Founding Fathers meant for it to be cumbersome. But as they set out to form a more perfect union, they probably did not anticipate the extent to which we have been able to cripple ourselves.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
U.S. Government Shutdown Synopsis And Which Payment Are Due When / Politics / US Politics
By: Sahil_Hafeez
Shutdown synopsis - Here's a summary of where things stand:
October 1 - Day 1 of the administration shuts down. The news shows veterans who can't visit the WWII Memorial, and cancer patients who can't advantage treatment trials at the National Institute of Health.
October 2 - House Republicans send a bill to the Senate that finances national parks, and veterans' programs.
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Monday, October 14, 2013
Central Planning, Lying Career Politicians, and the US Ponzi Debt Scheme / Politics / US Debt
By: Graham_Summers
The political class in Washington has failed to reach a deal. They are effectively playing a game of chicken with the markets to see who blinks first. As usual, there are plenty of lies and spin swirling around this situation.
The US Treasury has stated it will run out of cash on October 17.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Ron Paul and the Price of Freedom / Politics / US Politics
By: Casey_Research
The Gold Report: Doug, we are at your conference in Tucson, Arizona, the day after former Congressman and presidential candidate Dr. Ron Paul gave the keynote speech to a sold-out crowd. How did you two first meet?
Doug Casey: It was about 30 years ago. Ron used to attend my Eris Society—named after the Greek goddess of discord—meetings in Aspen, Colorado. Everyone from Sonny Barger of the Hells Angels motorcycle club to Burt Rutan, inventor of SpaceShipOne, would meet to discuss ideas.
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Monday, October 14, 2013
Climate Crazies Meet The New Normal / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
THE BASIC PROBLEM
The climate crazies with paint on their faces yipping on the runway to greet hero Al Gore landing his Gulfstream 5 private jet – for yet another 45-minute Climate Crisis tirade billed at $100 000 – are all gone now. Like Darwin's theory says, primitive life forms die out sooner or later.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Janet Yellen New Fed Boss Same as the Old Boss / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
The news that Janet Yellen was nominated to become the next Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System was greeted with joy by financial markets and the financial press. Wall Street saw Yellen's nomination as a harbinger of continued easy money. Contrast this with the hand-wringing that took place when Larry Summers' name was still in the running. Pundits worried that Summers would be too cautious, too hawkish on inflation, or too close to big banks.
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Monday, October 14, 2013
The Illusion of Freedom - Democracy, Religion, Science and Propaganda / Politics / Social Issues
By: Nadeem_Walayat
This is my latest article in the housing bull markets series which directly seeks to continue on from analysis of August 2013 (Peak Evolution - Benefits Culture, Shrinking Brains, Are Human's De-Evolving? ) which examined the change in humans from 10,000 years from hunter gathers to farmers, during which time humans have been on a de-evolving trend trajectory as evidenced by shrinking brain size, physical and genetic robustness as a consequence of the end of natural selection amongst many other indicators which in recent times has accelerated as a consequence of both technological advances and welfare state systems which favour survival of the weakest in every capacity over that of the strongest as today the least successful genes are encouraged to out reproduce the more successful / productive genes into a population of humans that is more subservient and less adapted to survival than that which proceeded it, which as I touched upon in my earlier article that just as the past 10,000 years seen the domestication of many animals such as cattle, sheep and chickens, so have human's effectively been domesticated by the various ruling elite's at the time into highly docile and compliant population's in the service of the ruling elite's of each society which enables a small ruling elite to relatively easily manage an every increasing mass of slaves to their advantage.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Israel’s Dangerous Path / Politics / Israel
By: Washingtons_Blog
There are two kinds of countries or societies or places to live. In the first kind, decent, fair, kind, and respectful treatment of every person takes precedent over anyone’s preferences for how a culture changes or how much effort is expended trying to slow the change of a culture, or which cultures mix with each other, or which groups intermarry. In this first type of society — admittedly a nonexistent ideal — people identify with humanity and welcome any member of humanity into their group of associates, their neighborhood, and their family. Desire to keep some corner of the globe inhabited by people with a particular skin color or language isn’t just slightly outweighed by diligent observance of individuals’ rights. Instead, such sectarian or tribal desire doesn’t exist. And its absence leaves room for concern over war, environmental destruction, hunger, poor healthcare, illiteracy, and all sorts of problems not involving the exclusion of some people from a group.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
U.S. Government Shutdown, Debt Default a Dress Rehearsal for Privatization of Federal State System? / Politics / US Politics
By: Michel_Chossudovsky
The “shutdown” of the US government and the financial climax associated with a deadline date, leading to a possible “debt default” of the federal government is a money making undertaking for Wall Street.
Several overlapping political and economic agendas are unfolding. Is the shutdown –implying the furloughing of tens of thousands of public employees– a dress rehearsal for the eventual privatization of important components of the federal State system?
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Saturday, October 12, 2013
IMF Proposing 10% Supertax Bail-in On All Eurozone Household Savings / Politics / Banksters
By: Raul_I_Meijer
This is a story that should raise an eyebrow or two on every single face in Europe, and beyond. I saw the first bits of it on a Belgian site named Express.be, whose writers in turn had stumbled upon an article in French newspaper Le Figaro, whose writer Jean-Pierre Robin had leafed through a brand new IMF report (yes, there are certain linguistic advantages in being Dutch, Canadian AND Québecois). In the report, the IMF talks about a proposal to tax everybody's savings, in the Eurozone. Looks like they just need to figure out by how much.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
There Is Life after Debt Default / Politics / Global Debt Crisis 2013
By: Peter_G_Klein
In following the debates over raising the US debt ceiling, I’m struck by the frequent claim that defaulting on public debt is unthinkable because of the “signal” that would send. If you can’t rely on the T-bill, what can you rely on? Debt instruments backed by the “full faith and credit” of the United States are supposed to be risk-free — almost magically so — somehow transcending the vagaries of ordinary debt markets. The Treasury bill, in other words, has become a myth and symbol, just like the US Constitution.