Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
The Horrid Consequences of Business, Humanity at the Crossroads / Politics / Social Issues
By: John_Kozy
What's known as the economy has not only had horrid consequences, it is ultimately unsustainable. In two centuries, it has turned human beings into beasts of burden and their rulers into mere teamsters, it has polluted the Earth, extinguished uncounted species and exterminated millions of people, it has denuded forests, melted glaciers, and is in the process of depleting un-renewable natural resources. Someday, no natural resources will be available for industrial processing, and this economy's assets will turn to dusted rust.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Freak-a-nomics and the United States of McDonalds / Politics / US Economy
By: Patrick_Henningsen
This is one of those Freak-a-nomic statistics that, if you were in government, you wouldn’t ever want it to be released to the public, especially during a protracted recession like we are currently witnessing in the US. No would want to admit that the Golden Arches are holding up the American economy.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Bureau of Labor Statistics Playing Old Maid / Politics / Economic Statistics
By: Fred_Sheehan
When my youngest sister was four-years-old, we taught her how to play Old Maid. She learned quickly but played the game like - a four-year-old. When she was dealt the Old Maid, her little thumb would push it a couple of inches above the others in her hand. She did this with a giggle since her maneuver was tricking us (in her 4-year-old mind) into taking the Old Maid. She succeeded; someone would remove it from her hand so that she could say: "Ha, Ha, you have the Old Maid!"
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Friday, June 03, 2011
Global Implications of Offshore Oil Dispute in South China Sea / Politics / Oil Companies
By: OilPrice_Com
The world's unceasing quest for new oil deposits has combined with offshore technology to impel many countries to investigate their offshore resources in their "exclusive economic zone," (EEZ) defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Part V, Article 55 as extending 200 nautical miles from a nation's coastline.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, June 03, 2011
Too Big to Fail, HBO Financial Crisis Propaganda / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: Videos
HBO's fairy tale propaganda piece on the Financial Crisis, masking the truth of Investment Banks engaged in massive fraud aided by central banks, goes a long way towards explaining why the population remains so docile despite the magnitude of the financial crimes that continue to be committed against them (the tax payers).
Friday, June 03, 2011
U.S. Cyber-War False-Flag Attacks / Politics / US Politics
By: Jack_D_Douglas
The U.S. and almost all nations today in our age of mass societies and Big Media Propaganda whip up war-lust among their people before attacking other nations.
The Nazis were masters of false-flag attacks, such as dressing up dead men in Polish uniforms and planting them on German soil and then screaming "Poland Is invading Germany!," which Poland would have done only if they had gone totally insane because it was obvious that Germany could annihilate them quickly, as it did after the false-flag attacks whipped the German people up for war [though probably not as much as the Nazis hoped to do].
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Friday, June 03, 2011
U.S. Debt Ceiling Debate is Just Politicial Theatre / Politics / US Debt
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Although the financial press speculates about a downgrade of the US government’s credit rating and default if political impasse prevents the debt ceiling from being raised in time, I doubt anyone really believes that the debt ceiling will not be raised. It is just all a part of the political theater of the next couple of months.
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Friday, June 03, 2011
Welcome to the Soviet States of America 2011 / Politics / US Politics
By: Mike_Whitney
This must be what it was like in Russia before the Soviet Union collapsed. The government's so crooked that nothing works right, the infrastructure's in a shambles, millions of people are scraping by on government handouts, and everyone's on a permanent downer. Welcome to the Soviet States of America 2011.
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Wall Street's Role in Narco Trafficking, The War on Drugs is a Fraud / Politics / US Politics
By: Mike_Whitney
Imagine what your reaction would be if the Mexican government agreed to pay Barack Obama $1.4 billion to deploy US troops and armored vehicles to New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to conduct military operations, set up check points, and engage in fire-fights that end up killing 35,000 US civilians on the streets of American cities.
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Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Fed Sugar Daddy Providing Free Money to the Banks / Politics / US Debt
By: James_Quinn
“Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is.” – Josey Wales – Outlaw Josey Wales
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
European Union, A Flawed Foundation, But Brilliant Strategy? / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Gordon_T_Long
It was the perception of getting something of value without any meaningful sacrifice that initially fostered the EU Monetary Union. Though the countries of Europe were fiercely nationalistic they were willing to surrender minor sovereign powers only if it was going to prove advantageous to them. They were certainly unwilling to relinquish sufficient sovereignty to create the requisite political union required for its success.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Debit Card Interchange Fees and the Politics of Lobbying / Politics / Credit Crisis 2011
By: Fred_Sheehan
Legislation to modify debit-card interchange fees cannot compete with celebrity gossip. Yet, exhausted carcasses are carried on stretchers from the senate office buildings. The Huffington Post explained: "A full 118 ex-government officials and aides are currently registered to lobby on behalf of banks in the fee fight... Retailers have signed up at least 124 revolving-door lobbyists.... The flood fills the hallways with lobbyists and deluges the airwaves with ads. For weeks, Washington's Metro system has been papered with... ads on trains and station walls."
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Offshoring has Destroyed the US Economy / Politics / US Economy
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
These are discouraging times, but once in a blue moon a bit of hope appears. I am pleased to report on the bit of hope delivered in March of 2011 by Michael Spence, a Nobel prize-winning economist, assisted by Sandile Hlatshwayo, a researcher at New York University. The two economists have taken a careful empirical look at jobs offshoring and concluded that it has ruined the income and employment prospects for most Americans.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
IMF Make or Break Time / Politics / Global Financial System
By: Andrew_McKillop
The IMF's real goal, today, has mutated from supplying rapid aid to countries in balance of payments crisis (BOP crises) and more vague official goals for stabilizing exchange rates, aiding the growth of world trade, fighting poverty and newer elite fear themes, most recently global warming until its sudden fall from grace, after the disastrous and embarrassing Copenhagen "summit" of Dec 2009. Since the collapse of global warming as the underlying theme for generating new underlying financial assets, tied to emissions credits and carbon finance and thought able to generate at least one $ 100-billion-plus new funding vehicle for the IMF, it has shifted to its last and probably make or break role.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Ron Paul on Enabling of a Future American Dictator / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
These are truly troubling days for liberty in the United States.
Last week the 60 day deadline for the president to gain congressional approval for our military engagement in Libya under the War Powers Resolution came and went. The media scarcely noticed. The bombings continued. We had a hearing on Capitol Hill on the subject, but the administration refuses to bother with the legality of its new war. It is unclear if Mr. Obama will ever obtain congressional consent, and astonishingly it is being argued that he doesn't need it.
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Monday, May 30, 2011
HBO’s 'Too Big to Fail', A Fascist Fairy Tale / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
By: LewRockwell
Jens C. Kolbjørnsen writes: "Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." ~ Benito Mussolini
Now that we are pushing the three years anniversary of the dramatic financial events of September 2008, it is fair to say, for anyone who has researched the subject on their own, that this movie is nothing but a popularization of the mainstream version of a crisis that only has been postponed and worsened. It portrays the criminals of the revolving door between Washington D.C. and Wall Street as heroes, without so much as touching upon the real reason for the boom and bust phenomenon.
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Monday, May 30, 2011
The Fed Is Not Printing Money The Fed Is Not Printing Money / Politics / Quantitative Easing
By: Mike_Whitney
I know what you've heard from "reliable sources" on the Internet, but it's hogwash. In fact, there is not one economist--to my knowledge--who would characterize the Fed's Quantitative Easing program (QE2) as a money printing operation.
What the Fed's doing is buying a bunch of long-term bonds (US Treasuries) in exchange for bank reserves. What this does is reduce the average maturity of the debt held by the public, which reduces long-term interest rates.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Innovation, the American Economy’s Most Surprising Deficit / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
I argued in a previous article why, despite America’s current obsession with government budget issues, the real key to bringing back our economy lies in a) fixing our trade deficit and b) restoring our capacity for innovation.
Although the former problem has now grabbed significant public attention, most Americans seem to think that our national capacity for innovation is healthy and without problems.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Dysfunctional, Thy Name Is Europe, Risks Transferred to ECB, A Random Walk Through the Minefield / Politics / Financial Markets 2011
By: John_Mauldin
"All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome." - George Orwell
"Hindsight is not only clearer than perception-in-the-moment but also unfair to those who actually lived through the moment." - Edwin S. Shneidman, Autopsy Of A Suicidal Mind
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Sunday, May 29, 2011
Things Get Curiouser and Curiouser / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: Bill_Bonner
As if it were not strange enough! Microsoft bought a phone company with no phones for $8.5 billion. Then, the public bid up the price of another Internet company, LinkedIn, to the point where buyers were paying more than $20 for every dollar of revenue that came the company’s way. As for profits, they capitalized each one at more than 700 times. At this rate, an investor wouldn’t earn his money back until 2,711AD.