Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Obama's Climate Transition / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
TRANSITION CAN BE EASY
Returning from the lackluster climate conference in Doha, Qatar, the USA's main envoy Todd Stern said in interview with news agencies: “The president is completely committed to climate action,” but “It’s too early to say what the specifics of policy are going to be. We are still in the transition period.”
Monday, December 10, 2012
Ron Paul - Expanding Covert Warfare Makes Us Less Safe / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Earlier this month we learned that the Obama Administration is significantly expanding the number of covert Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) agents overseas. From just a few hundred DIA agents overseas today, the administration intends to eventually deploy some 1,600 covert agents. The nature of their work will also shift, away from intelligence collection and more toward covert actions. This move signals a major change in how the administration intends to conduct military and paramilitary operations overseas. Unfortunately it is not a shift toward peace, but rather to an even more deadly and disturbing phase in the "war on terror."
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Monday, December 10, 2012
Real U.S. Unemployment Rate is 22.9% / Politics / Economic Statistics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) calls the government’s latest jobs and unemployment reports “nonsense numbers.”
There are a number of ongoing problems with the released numbers. For example, the concurrent-seasonal factor adjustments are unstable. The birth-death model adds non-existent jobs each month that are then taken out in the annual downward benchmark revisions. Williams calculates that the job overstatement through November averages 45,000 monthly. In other words, employment gains during 2012 have been overstated by about 500,000 jobs. Another problem is that each month’s jobs number is boosted by downside revision of the previous month’s jobs number. Williams reports that the 146,000 new jobs reported for November “was after a significant downside revision to October’s reporting. Net of prior-period revisions, November’s seasonally-adjusted monthly gain was 97,000.”
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Sunday, December 09, 2012
Fiscal Cliff, Why The Rich Will Not Abandon Dividend Stocks / Politics / US Politics
By: Richard_Shaw
WHO ARE THE RICH? First an apology for using the term “rich”. Because this is about pending tax policy, we are using the Washington D.C. working definition of rich. You know — the movement that began with soak Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, because billionaires don’t pay enough and actually want to pay more — the soak the billionaires movement that quietly became the soak the millionaires movement, that morphed into soak the rich, who we find are those couples who make $250,000 per year or more (and singles who make $200,000 per year or more).
Sunday, December 09, 2012
How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: MISES
Robert Higgs writes: Many people are misled by formalities. They assume, for example, that the United States went to war against Germany and Japan only after its declarations of war against these nations in December 1941. In truth, the United States had been at war for a long time before making these declarations. Its war making took a variety of forms. For example, the U.S. navy conducted "shoot [Germans] on sight" convoys - convoys that might include British ships — in the North Atlantic along the greater part the shipping route from the United States to Great Britain, even though German U-boats had orders to refrain (and did refrain) from initiating attacks on U.S. shipping. The United States and Great Britain entered into arrangements to pool intelligence, combine weapons development, test military equipment jointly, and undertake other forms of war-related cooperation.
Sunday, December 09, 2012
Public Bank Option for Scotland Independance, Ensuring Economic Sovereignty / Politics / Central Banks
By: Ellen_Brown
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and the Bank of Scotland have been pillars of Scotland’s economy and culture for over three centuries. So when the RBS was nationalized by the London-based UK government following the 2008 banking crisis, and the Bank of Scotland was acquired by the London-based Lloyds Bank, it came as a shock to the Scots. They no longer owned their oldest and most venerable banks.
Sunday, December 09, 2012
Doha Climate Talks: End Of An Expensive Sideshow / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
SETTING THE TONE
Playing the impatient master of ceremonies tired with the behaviour of delegates late in the night of 7 December, the Doha climate conference's director, Qatar's vice-PM and member of the al-Attiya "family firm" which runs the mini-emirate with maxi-gas resources, Abdullah al-Attiya, thumped his fists on the table. He then ran a video clip to the music track of the World War II Italian left-wing and communist resistance song "Bella Ciao". Some musicologists say this song is in fact only the Yiddish swing music number "Koilen", first written and played in 1919 by Mishka Ziganoff.
Sunday, December 09, 2012
America’s National Security Vulnerabilities / Politics / US Politics
By: Submissions
Raymond Matison writes: Article I, Section 7 of our Constitution states that “Congress shall … provide for the general Defence …”. At its root, our national security requires for Armed Forces to keep the United States from being invaded by foreign military forces that would harm America and its citizens. According to Wikipedia, the “objective of National Security Strategy is to create a stable situation in the world”. Admittedly, this is a very broad concept in relation to just providing for general defense. Therefore, the very term national security has a meaning that changes with the preferences of the president and other elected and appointed officials then in office. It follows also from this definition that America’s involvement in the affairs of other sovereign countries in the world is dependent on the perceived level of stability sought by the then leaders in charge. Finally, this definition implies that for the purposes of our National Security Strategy, we will take unilateral actions that may be contrary to the interests and desires of other sovereign nations.
Sunday, December 09, 2012
46 Trillion Reasons To Evolve Society Right Now / Politics / Social Issues
By: David_DeGraw
Due to technological advancements,over the past 35 years there has been an explosion in production, distribution, profits and wealth creation. Most of that wealth increase has gone to only one-hundredth of one percent of the population, to the modern day aristocracy. In the United States, the 400 richest people now have as much wealth as 185 million people combined, nearly 60% of the entire population. US millionaire households have at least $46 trillion in wealth, yet only one-tenth of one percent of the population makes one million dollars a year.
Sunday, December 09, 2012
The New Serfdom, Lord Obama Owns You / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
Anne Wortham writes: In President Obama's much-discussed speech in Roanoke, Virginia, among his remarks on the source of success was his assertion that
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business – you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.[1]
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Sunday, December 09, 2012
The Federal Reserve Is Socialism's Insidious Tool / Politics / Central Banks
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes:
If you think for one second that the Federal Reserve System is a Godsend that backstops America's banks and our economy in times of trouble, you'd be right for that one second.
But if you take any time to learn how the Fed really works and in whose interest they operate, you'd make yourself sick for a long, long time.
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Saturday, December 08, 2012
2012 Doomsday Psychology, Millions of Chinese, Russians and Americans Believe the End of the World Is Nigh / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
Panic buying of candles and essentials has accelerated not only in China and Russia, but there has been a simultaneous explosion in the sale of survival equipment, food, fuel and emergency shelters in America in preparation for the Mayan calendar's long count deadline: December 21st, 2012. The precise mechanism for the Armageddon to manifest remains vague, ranging from:
Saturday, December 08, 2012
U.S. Looming Pensions Crisis: State Budgets Soon to Be Under Siege / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: John_Mauldin
In 2003, I was writing about the unfunded liabilities of state and local pensions. It was part of Bull’s Eye Investing, which came out in 2004. I caught some flak for being so pessimistic about the potential problems. Quoting:
Unless steps are taken soon, it is possible we can see shortfalls approaching $1 trillion–$2 trillion in state-sponsored pension funds within 10 years. A deficit of this size on the state level can truly be called a crisis. A tax increase or other adjustments to fund this will be a large drag on the economy.
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Saturday, December 08, 2012
Identity Politics and Political Correctness / Politics / US Politics
By: Casey_Research
L: Doug, I hear that a friend of yours, Indian activist Russell Means, has passed away. He was an unusual and interesting character. Are you up to talking about it?
Doug: Yes. You know, I've gotten into the habit of doing obituaries in recent years in The Casey Report – but generally of people I don't like. I know that's considered improper, because you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but –
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Friday, December 07, 2012
IMF Capital Controls Danger for Emerging Market Investors / Politics / Emerging Markets
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes:
The IMF is up to no good again.
On Monday they released a new report on international capital flows which relaxed its opposition to exchange controls.
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Friday, December 07, 2012
Fiscal Cliff Means 50% Tax Rates for the Middle Class / Politics / Taxes
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes:
If I didn't know any better, I'd think there's a small but growing group of people in Washington who think it would actually be good if we temporarily went over the fiscal cliff.
I say that because I am seeing a smattering of articles recently suggesting that somehow going over the cliff "won't be all that bad" or that we're "really just talking about cuts that need to happen in the first place."
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Friday, December 07, 2012
Starbucks £23 Million Tax Dodge Facts, Offers £10 million Donation per year for 2 years / Politics / Taxes
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Starbucks is feeling the heat as the general public is seeing through the smoke and mirrors of its publicity machine's assertions that it effectively makes no profits in the UK when the reality is that Starbucks for well over a decade has been transferring its profits abroad to the likes of the Bermuda tax haven and instead reporting losses, giving it an unfair advantage over smaller competing UK coffee houses who do pay an infinitely greater amount of tax on profits.
Thursday, December 06, 2012
Are American's Having Enough Babies to Stop Turning Japanese? / Politics / Demographics
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes:
A new study by The Pew Research Center shows that the birth rate in the United States has dropped to the lowest level since 1920, when reliable statistics were first made available.
The birth rate dropped precipitously last year to only 63.2 per 1,000 women of childbearing age (which is defined as 15 to 44 years of age). That is half of what it was in 1957 at its peak.
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Thursday, December 06, 2012
The Battle for Damascus, Assad's Last Stand / Politics / Syria
By: STRATFOR
The battle for Damascus is raging with increasing intensity while rebels continue to make substantial advances in Syria's north and east. Every new air base, city or town that falls to the rebels further underlines that Bashar al Assad's writ over the country is shrinking. It is no longer possible to accurately depict al Assad as the ruler of Syria. At this point, he is merely the head of a large and powerful armed force, albeit one that still controls a significant portion of the country.
Thursday, December 06, 2012
Neoliberal Terror / Politics / US Politics
By: Andrew_McKillop
What is neoliberal terror? In a recent on-line article ('Hurricane Sandy in the Age of Disposability and Neoliberal Terror') Henry Giroux claimed that firstly hurricane Katrina, then hurricane Sandy imprinted their "haunting images of the abandoned, desperate and vulnerable", "and for a moment imposed themselves on the collective conscience of Americans".