Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Germany After the E.U. and the Russian Scenario / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: STRATFOR
Discussions about Europe currently are focused on the Greek financial crisis and its potential effect on the future of the European Union. Discussions these days involving military matters and Europe appear insignificant and even anachronistic. Certainly, we would agree that the future of the European Union towers over all other considerations at the moment, but we would argue that scenarios for the future of the European Union exist in which military matters are far from archaic.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Merkel's Savage Blitz through Euroland, Germany Pushing Eurozone To Cliffs Edge / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Mike_Whitney
Angela Merkel has let a minor brush-fire on the periphery turn into a raging inferno that's sweeping across the continent. Absent Berlin's fumbling diplomatic effort and its ferocious attachment to Hooverian economics, the Greek matter would have been over by now. Instead, the fire continues to burn while the German Chancellor pushes the eurozone closer and closer to the cliff. And what for; to prove that prodigal spending by the member states (Greece) mustn't go unpunished? Is that what this is all about? Is Merkel really willing to break up the EU just to prove her point and to accommodate her towering sense of self righteousness?
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
The New Chaos / Politics / Social Issues
By: Michael_T_Bucci
In last week's edition of Asia Times, Chan Akya correctly induces that the "new world" is one "where the definition of order is a state of continued chaos." He is speaking as an expert generalist about economics and the markets, but so too is this chaos found within every aspect of human society at this time and, I maintain, increasingly for some time to come.
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Monday, May 24, 2010
Congress Writes More Blank Checks for the Military Industrial Complex / Politics / Government Spending
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Congress, with its insatiable appetite for spending, is set to pass yet another "supplemental" appropriations bill in the next two weeks. So-called supplemental bills allow Congress to spend beyond even the 13 annual appropriations bills that fund the federal government. These are akin to a family that consistently outspends its budget, and therefore needs to use a credit card to make it through the end of the month.
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Monday, May 24, 2010
Fix the Economic Recession By Undermining Public Sector Workers Rights / Politics / Social Issues
By: Shamus_Cooke
In the state of Oregon, the most widely distributed paper, the Oregonian, announced on its front page that the state should expect “Ten Years of Pain.” The perpetrator: the budget crisis — $2.5 billion in the coming two-year budget cycle, with $2 billion projected deficits until 2019. Sadly, these depressing numbers assume that the economy will recover, a belief lacking any credible evidence.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Will the Financial Reform Bill Really Rein In Wall Street? / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Money_Morning
Kerri Shannon writes: The Senate on Thursday approved an extensive financial reform bill that would give Washington broad new powers over Wall Street. However, there's still a question over whether the bill will really be able to rein in Wall Street, or if it will simply become another broken barrier tripping up the free market.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Gerald Celente with Max Keiser on Food Riots, Tent Cities, Mob Rule / Politics / Great Depression II
By: Videos
"Here we are in 2012. Food riots, tax protests, farmer rebellions, student revolts, squatter digins, homeless uprisings, tent cities, ghost malls, general strikes, bossnappings, kidnappings, industrial saboteurs, gang warfare, mob rule, terror. How could it have come to this? Across the nation and around the world, it was a variation of the same theme. In the United States it was called “Obamageddon,” in the rest of the world it was “The Greatest Depression.” Did no one see it coming? Yes and no. There were intelligent, informed people who saw it. But for the most part they didn’t want to believe their eyes and didn’t want to hear it.
Monday, May 24, 2010
The 1099 Tsunami in the Healthcare Insurance Bill / Politics / US Politics
By: Gary_North
Earlier this year, some staffer in some office on Capitol Hill dutifully inserted a provision into the health insurance bill that will force businesses to file 1099 forms on every transaction with another business for over $600. Buy a $601 used car for your business? You must file a 1099. The Cato Institute describes this law.
Monday, May 24, 2010
US Senate Rubber-Stamps the Dictatorship of the Big Banks / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Global_Research
Patrick Martin writes: The US Senate’s passage of the Obama administration’s financial reform bill Thursday was hailed in the media and by official Washington as a landmark effort to curb the power of the big banks. But on Wall Street itself, the news was greeted with a mixture of dismissal and applause.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Financial Reform Is Here But Banks Are Still Too Big To Jail / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Danny_Schechter
I was among those raving about the passage of the financial reform bill. And now I am just raving,
“Unbelievable,” said one advocate who hoped for the best but expected the worst. He was amazed it even passed. The wise men in the media immediately began making comparisons with the New Deal. The pundits praised the President and the fact that a handful of Republicans did not just say no this time.
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Sunday, May 23, 2010
U.S. Senate Passes Fake Financial "Reform" Bill / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Washingtons_Blog
The Senate passed a financial "reform" bill today by a 59-39 vote which won't fix any of the core problems in the financial system, and won't prevent the next financial crisis.
The bill doesn't include the Volcker Rule (it wasn't even debated), doesn't break up or even substantially rein in the too big to fails, and doesn't force transparency in the derivatives market.
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Sunday, May 23, 2010
THE GULF OIL SPILL: A Matter Of National Security / Politics / US Politics
By: T_Anthony_Michael
Why does the US Federal Government continue to allow British Petroleum (BP), a serial criminal among oil companies, control the biggest crime scene in American history?!Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, May 22, 2010
U.S. Housing Market Foreclosures Menace, Woman’s Home Confiscated Over Small Water Bill / Politics / US Housing
By: Submissions
One raw day in early February, Vicki Valentine stood by helplessly as real estate investors snatched her West Baltimore home over what began with an unpaid city water bill of $362.
As snow threatened to fall, she watched a work crew hired by the new owners punch out the lock on her front door. A sheriff's deputy was on the scene while Valentine and her teenage son piled whatever they could into a borrowed car.
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Friday, May 21, 2010
World Systems Breaking Down, The Time of Testing is Here / Politics / Social Issues
By: Richard_C_Cook
While skeptics mockingly point out that the “end of the world” has been prophesized over and over again for centuries with nothing happening—the latest being Y2K, they say, and another likely bust coming up when the calendar hits 2012—it’s obvious that mankind faces an increasingly unsustainable future.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Greek Debt Crisis Peoples Heresy / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Submissions
John Pilger writes: As Britain’s political class pretends that its arranged marriage of Tweedledee to Tweedledum is democracy, the inspiration for the rest of us is Greece. It is hardly surprising that Greece is presented not as a beacon but as a “junk country” getting its comeuppance for its “bloated public sector” and “culture of cutting corners” (the Observer). The heresy of Greece is that the uprising of its ordinary people provides an authentic hope unlike that lavished upon the warlord in the White House.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The Declining Value of Work / Politics / Employment
By: Pravda
One of the great joys that men in free societies have long enjoyed is the ability to earn an honest wage for an honest day of work. In particular, the amazing capitalist engine that powered the U.S. economy for decade after decade greatly rewarded the incredible hard work and industriousness of the American people. America was known as the land of opportunity, and we built the largest middle class in the history of the world by working incredibly hard. But today, all of that is fundamentally changing. Thanks to rapid advances in technology, and thanks to the globalization of the work force, the labor of American workers is rapidly losing value. Automation, robotics and computers have made many jobs obsolete.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Where’s the Land of Opportunity These Days? / Politics / Social Issues
By: Doug_Horning
By Doug Hornig, Casey Research :
Recent decades have witnessed an amazing shrinkage of the American manufacturing sector, from #1 in the world to virtual non-existence. Companies, taking advantage of cheaper labor costs abroad, have either outsourced some portion of the workforce or relocated their entire operations offshore. Remember the “great sucking sound” that Ross Perot claimed he could hear? Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, May 20, 2010
A Citizen’s Indictment Of Co-Conspirators BP & BO / Politics / US Politics
By: T_Anthony_Michael
Picture Ali Baba and the forty thieves (read OPEC et al) sitting around a sumptuous dinner table after a big heist at the local commodity exchange. British Petroleum (BP) says to Barack Obama (BO), “Please, just one more day to cap this gusher. Remember, the tanker sitting above this well can hold 1.4 million barrels of oil. At $85 a barrel were talking 119 million dollars every time we fill a tanker. Ahh, nothing like a real undersea gusher sittin’ atop a 3 billion barrel oil field. This is the big one, BO! The real megilla! I mean the CASH COW that never stops giving!” And so it was.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Germany About to Pull the Plug On Europe, This is Going to Hurt! / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Mac_Slavo
We continue to hound on the situation in the European Union, the Euro, Greece and the rest of the PIIGS because of a similar situation that existed prior to the Great Depression. The Great Depression, some argue, resulted not from the bubble and subsequent stock market crash leading up to 1929, but rather, the defaults that spread across Europe (and parts of South America). These defaults had a direct effect on the European banking system, which subsequently led to collapses of the major banks.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Financial Crisis As A Game Of 3 Card Monte / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Danny_Schechter
You Always Think You Are Going To Win Until You lose - We live in a three card monte world. Follow the money as it moves from one shell to another. Now guess where it is. Most of us don’t know the hand can be quicker than the eye. That’s why mostly everyone who has ever been suckered into playing ends up losing except those who are allowed to win to keep the hustle going. We miss the tricks of the trade even as we swear we know where the winning card or money or ball is.