Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Downward Social Mobility is Crushing the American Dream / Politics / Social Issues
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes:
Forget about getting ahead. For many in the middle class these days it's more about not sliding backwards.
It's called downward mobility and it's crushing the American Dream.
According to a study conducted by the Pew Charitable Trusts, nearly one out of three U.S. citizens born into middle class households in the 1960s have lost their economic status.
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Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Ignore the New CPI™ at Your Peril / Politics / US Politics
By: Submissions
Paul Owen writes: The Corruption Price Index™ (CPI™)
Modern companies and organizations have a great need to quantify the processes and corruption level(s) of our current form of crony capitalist government. The Corruption Price Index™ (CPI™) does this. The CPI™ index will allow for prior planning to prevent poor performance. It will guarantee that you will not make major a faux pas when dealing with economic and legislative issues. Also as individual investors you will begin to understand why most of our major problems will never get fixed and why you must plan for the worst case scenario.
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Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Why Iran Can Whip the US and Israel Without Firing a Single Shot / Politics / Middle East
By: LewRockwell
Mark R. Crovelli writes: To the outside observer, the intensifying conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran (along with some lesser bellicose nations, like Britain) may appear like a classic "prisoner’s dilemma." The best option for both sides seems to be to pacify their domestic constituencies by escalating the conflict, which will ensure the worst possible outcome. The Israeli right-wing government is seemingly beholden to its extremist and terrorist voting blocs, while the American government is seemingly fenced in by the Israel lobby, neoconservative candidates vying for the imperial throne, the US empire and merchants of death, and the Israeli government itself. Meanwhile, the semi-totalitarian Iranian government is seemingly obliged to "stand up" to the aggressive Americans and their "Zionist client state," lest it be seen as "soft" or "weak" by its own citizens.
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.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Russia Least Free Economy Plauged by Rampant Corruption, Hong Kong Most Free / Politics / Russia
By: Pravda
The country with the freest economy on the planet is Hong Kong. Such a statement was made by Heritage Foundation, a US-based NGO. The "Index of Economic Freedom" made by the organization is based on the degree of openness of markets, the effectiveness of the legal framework for business activities and the apparatus of government officials and regulatory authorities.
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Monday, January 16, 2012
Event Horizon For Low Carbon Energy, The End Of Fossil Fuels ? / Politics / Energy Resources
By: Andrew_McKillop
Official plans for Low Carbon energy transition in several countries, and for as long as the European Union's climate-energy package holds together, for all the EU's 27 member states, target a complete and total replacement of fossil energy within as little as 45 years. US president Obama in January 2011 called for a “Sputnik moment” to wean the US completely off fossil fuels. Since then however, carbon cap-and-trade legislation has failed in the US and increasing company failures in solar cell and wind turbine production industries have eroded the credibility of this "Sputnik moment". Today, White House briefing papers attribute much of the rebound in manufacturing which could help Obama back into power, to the boom in cheap shale gas supply made possible by "fracking" technology.
Monday, January 16, 2012
America, Welcome to the Fourth Reich / Politics / US Politics
By: BATR
American Fascism did not start with World War II. Before Operation Paperclip, the codename under which the US intelligence and military services extricated scientists from Germany, during and after the final stages of the conflict, the annals of internal despotism were well established. With the open door policy for German engineering, the political ideology of state worship was bound to travel across the Atlantic.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Why You Should Ignore the Coming Debt Ceiling Debate / Politics / US Debt
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes: Under the guise of yet another debt ceiling debate, Republicans and Democrats will spend much of the week demonizing each other on the Washington stage.
But don't be fooled. This so-called debate will be nothing more than a planned-in-advance sideshow to supply each side with 2012 election campaign fodder.
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Sunday, January 15, 2012
Oil, Dollar Hegemony and Islam / Politics / US Politics
By: Global_Research
Francis A. Boyle writes: Little has changed in the imperialist tendencies of American foreign policy since the founding of the United States of America in seventeen eighty-nine. The fledgling United States opened the nineteenth century by stealing the continent of North America from the Indians, while in the process ethnically cleansing them and then finally deporting the pitiful few survivors by means of death marches (a la Bataan) to Bantustans, which in America we call reservations, as in instance of America's manifest destiny to rule the world.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
DEMOCRATIZE BANKING: How Counties Can Use Land Banks and Eminent Domain / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Ellen_Brown
An electronic database called MERS has created defects in the chain of title to over half the homes in America. Counties have been cheated out of millions of dollars in recording fees, and their title records are in hopeless disarray. Meanwhile, foreclosed and abandoned homes are blighting neighborhoods. Straightening out the records and restoring the homes to occupancy is clearly in the public interest, and the burden is on local government to do it. But how? New legal developments are presenting some innovative alternatives.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Child Benefit Cuts to be Tapered For Higher Rate Tax Payers, Coalition Government Benefits Culture Failure / Politics / Taxes
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The government is seeking to amend the proposed Child Benefit cuts for families where there is a single higher rate tax payer, which is grossly unfair as in its current form would mean a family of 3 children with one tax payer earning £42,375 (Not £44k as stated in the mainstream press) would lose £2,200 in child benefit, whereas a family with two wage earners earning £42,000 each would retain their full child benefit despite having combined earnings of £84,000.
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Saturday, January 14, 2012
Wall Street’s Ratings Agencies Undermine Europe’s Attempt at Economic Recovery Acting Like Financial Terrorists / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Danny_Schechter
We live in an increasingly degraded country. Our politics are degraded and a laughing stock to the word. Our military is demoralized and degraded with soldiers urinating on dead civilians and awaiting deployment orders for the next illegal intervention.
Our education system has been degraded with standards falling and pervasive defunding. Our transportation system, ditto.
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Saturday, January 14, 2012
Fed Plays PR Games / Politics / Central Banks
By: John_Browne
The world was taken by surprise recently by the Federal Reserve Board's announcement that it would publish some of its economic forecasting that forms the basis for its short-term interest rate strategy. The Fed claims that the move will vastly increase so-called transparency, which has become a buzz word for honesty and virtue. However, the new policies do nothing to remove the cloak of secrecy that conceals still many of its most significant activities. This myth of new transparency will do little to lure investors back into the markets but as an unintended consequence will reveal just how profoundly the markets are currently guided from the top.
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Saturday, January 14, 2012
Burning Eurozone, All is Quiet on the Eastern Front? / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Andy_Sutton
2011 had been touted as the year that everything would change. Massive paradigm shifts would rock our world and many a prophecy was made regarding financial crises, currency crises, wars, rumors of wars, and there was even one fellow who said the world itself would end, although he later retracted his predictions, but not before his followers had spent their life savings putting up billboards. Such hysteria is certainly the hallmark of times such as these, but we have to keep in mind that just because some of the predicted events didn’t happen yet, we’re a long, long way from being out of the woods. There is an old saying that if you do what you’ve always done; you’re going to get what you’ve always gotten. If we continue to sow the seeds of false fixes and faulty economics, we’re going to continue to reap financial and economic crisis. It really is that simple.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Food Provisions Shortage Sparked Arab Spring / Politics / Food Crisis
By: Richard_Mills
In 1798 32 year-old British economist Malthus anonymously published "An Essay on the Principle of Population" and in it he argued that human population's increase geometrically (1, 2, 4, 16 etc.) while their food supply can only increase arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4 etc.).
"The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man". Thomas Robert Malthus
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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.
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Friday, January 13, 2012
The US Lusts To Rule the Globe, The Next War on Washington’s Agenda / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Only the blind do not see that the US government is preparing to attack Iran. According to Professor Michel Chossudovsky, “Active war preparations directed against Iran (with the involvement of Israel and NATO) were initiated in May 2003.”
Washington has deployed missiles directed at Iran in its oil emirate puppet states, Oman and the UAE, and little doubt in the other US puppet states in the Middle East. Washington has beefed up Saudi Arabia’s jet fighter force. Most recently, Washington has deployed 9,000 US troops to Israel to participate in “war games” designed to test the US/Israeli air defense system. As Iran represents no threat unless attacked, Washington’s war preparations signal Washington’s intention to attack Iran.
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Thursday, January 12, 2012
United States, the Worlds Biggest Zombie, All Empires End Badly / Politics / US Debt
By: Bill_Bonner
Not much action at the end of last week… Gold closed the week over $1,600. Oil remained over $100.
The show goes on!
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Thursday, January 12, 2012
Washington’s Plan to Isolate Iran is Drifting Towards a Profitable Stalemate / Politics / Middle East
By: Patrick_Henningsen
On the surface, the latest spat between the West and Iran looks like a step closer to war, with tensions reaching a fever pitch on both sides of this potential conflict. Upon closer examination however, present conditions are not particularly ideal for a preemptive strike against Iran by the US and Israel. There is still much money to be made from the current crisis – on both sides, before the winds of war could be unleashed on the region.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Another Iranian Nuclear Scientist Killed as Covert War Against Iran Escalates / Politics / Middle East
By: Finian_Cunningham
The US covert war against Iran raised the stakes even higher today with the assassination of yet another nuclear scientist, with some analysts saying that the Islamic Republic is being pushed into a corner to either back down in its confrontation with the US or retaliate – the latter most certainly triggering an all-out war.