Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, November 09, 2021
How to hold up the world / Politics / Social Issues
By: Michael_T_Bucci
As Thanksgiving in America approaches, a time for reflection on the deeper meanings of friendship, family and colleagues who have come into our lives - some who we like and others we dislike - we remind ourselves that underneath the masks and roles we play on the great stage of life we are all human beings. We all need oxygen, sun, food and, most importantly, we need validation for who we are, what we believe and acknowledgment for help we give others.
As we give thanks to those who have given meaning to us, we shouldn’t ignore the perfect strangers. In that light, I thank Market Oracle and its editor, Nadeem Walayat, for providing its readers this website; for providing a platform for astute thinkers and analysts to showcase their expertise. Thank you.
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Sunday, October 10, 2021
Can US Save Taiwan From China? Taiwan Strait Naval Battle - PLA vs 7th Fleet War Game Simulation / Politics / China US Conflict
By: N_Walayat
China over the past week has been ramping up it's incursions into Taiwanese air space culminating with Emperor Xi Jinping reiterating that Taiwan is a province of China and will reunify with the mainland either by peaceful means or by force. Whilst recently the US deployed 3 carrier groups accompanied by Britain's sole aircraft carrier near Taiwan though not in the Straits.
This war game simulation pits the Chinese PLA Navy against the US 7th Fleet that comprises 70 war ships including 2 air craft carriers, also deployed is a third carrier group with the objective of deterring the Chinese Navy from attacking Taiwan.
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Saturday, October 09, 2021
US China War over Taiwan Simulation 2021, Invasion Forecast - Who Will Win? / Politics / China US Conflict
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The War with China Mega-trend. If you have been following my analysis over the past 5 years then you will know that I expect a war with China is being inevitable with many flashpoint's for an hot war likely culminating in the nuking of the spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
This simulation covers what is most probable outcome if China launched an all out assault to seize Taiwan and the US chose to intervened with determined force i.e. its 7th Fleet comprising 2 air craft carriers and about 70 ships to deter such an attack.
So who would win such an engagement of largely naval forces on an epic scale?
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Thursday, September 30, 2021
America’s Revolving-Door Politics Behind the Fall of US-Sino Ties / Politics / China US Conflict
By: Dan_Steinbock
The US-Sino ties plunged in the Trump era, but the downfall has intensified in the Biden era. Without policy shifts, the tensions, fueled by defense contractors, translate to arms races and elevated nuclear risks in Asia.
In just nine months, Biden’s net ratings have plunged by a stunning 20 percent, which leaves him behind all U.S. postwar presidents except for Trump, many of whose policies his White House has embraced. Today, Biden’s performance divides the nation, just as Trump’s did before him.
True, Biden pledged to end America’s longest war in Afghanistan. That does not spell end to the “forever wars.” It only means shifts of resource allocations to new regions. Last June, Bernie Sanders warned that such policies could "start another Cold War” against China.
The global challenges America faces – climate change, pandemics, nuclear proliferation, massive economic inequality, corruption and authoritarianism – are shared challenges. They cannot be overcome unilaterally, Sanders warned. It is “distressing and dangerous that a fast-growing consensus is emerging in Washington that views the U.S.-Chinese relationship as a zero-sum economic and military struggle.”
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Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Why Workers Are NOT Returning to Work as Lockdown's End - Wage Slaves Rebellion / Politics / Social Issues
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Britains has a record near 1 million vacancies despite economic contraction courtesy of the Chinese virus global pandemic. And similarly is true right across the western world as millions of workers even in relatively well paid jobs are refusing to return. This video answers why it is happening as a message I have been iterating for over 2 decades resonated with the west's wage slave workers, as to why are they wasting their lives creating wealth for others when all they had to do was gather enough courage to take the leap and do what the rich and wealthy have been doing for centuries!
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Wednesday, September 29, 2021
UK Fuel PANIC! Fighting at the Petrol Pumps! As Lemmings Create a New Crisis / Politics / Social Issues
By: N_Walayat
The lemmings are at it again Last year it was toilet paper. This year it's petrol and diesel. Crazy, insane lemmings. Even fighting at the pumps!
\As soon as their fuel needle drops from 100% to 99% off they go to join the queues to full up their tanks back to 100%.
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Saturday, September 25, 2021
Cryptocurrency policy choices and consequences / Politics / cryptocurrency
By: Raymond_Matison
Almost all countries of the producing and developed world have made a policy decision as to how to define crypto currencies, and they do not define them as securities. The United States has not finalized its singular definition as its designation is not uniform among agencies: the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission defines virtual crypto currencies as commodities, while the Internal Revenue Service defines them as property on which to collect capital gains taxes. The U.S. Treasury Department Financial Crimes Enforcement Network sees them as “counterfeit money” to be treated accordingly, and the Securities Exchange Commission wants to treat them as securities, which they would regulate. It is clear, that there is a “turf war” taking place as to which agency is to exert control regulation over this new virtual asset. There is much at stake: much more than which agency will regulate cryptocurrencies or be able to “extract favors” from the implementers of this new asset class. However, if policy decisions are not constructive to supporting this fast-growing industry, or if this decision takes too long to reach, the dynamic entrepreneurs will move to countries which are more supportive.
Let’s be clear, decisions have consequences, and how we define and regulate cryptocurrencies will have long-term nation-impacting consequences. Political leaders base most of their decisions and cast their votes in Congress for near term political benefits – as most will be out of the government when the long term consequences become operative. For example, politician’s support for increased government spending is nearly universal, despite the fact that over the longer term government debt accumulates to consequential levels.
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Thursday, September 23, 2021
Should School Children be Jabbed with Pfizer Covid-19 Vaccine To Foster Herd Immunity? - UK / Politics / Coronavirus 2021
By: N_Walayat
Covid-19 is less severe in children though some do get long covid symptoms Astrazenica was the Aldi version of vaccines, good but higher risk, Pfizer is more the Tesco or Sainsbury version, a little more effective and a little safer. Yes, the risks of covid and its many variants in Children is very low.
However, the key benefits of vaccinating kids is that it greatly reduces transmission, spread of the virus to others i.e. the vaccinated infected shed much less viral particles, given that the virus has not gone away as the latest graphs illustrate.
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Thursday, September 23, 2021
Corruption at the Fed: Are America’s Money Masters Engaged in Self-Dealing? / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: MoneyMetals
By Jp Cortez : America’s central bankers are tasked with impartial oversight over aspects of the American economy. But could these individuals be making decisions on interest rates and bailout operations based on what is best for their own personal investment portfolios?
After some embarrassing revelations regarding the trading activities of two senior officials, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell abruptly ordered a comprehensive examination last week into internal compliance with an ethics rule directing Fed employees to avoid “actual and apparent conflicts of interest.”
Monday, September 20, 2021
New arms race and nuclear risks could spell End to the Asian Century / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Dan_Steinbock
Since 1945, the only successful economic modernization worldwide has occurred in Asia, with focus on economic development. After a decade of US pivot to the region, arms races and nuclear risks are rising.According to the new trilateral security pact (AUKUS) between the United States, the UK and Australia, Washington and London will “help” Canberra to develop and deploy nuclear-powered submarines.
The $66 billion deal effectively killed Australia’s $90 billion conventional sub deal with France, thereby causing a major ruckus with Washington’s NATO partner.
Stunningly, US and Australian officials had been in secret talks for months over the plan that was hatched more than a year ago by the far-right Trump administration. Yet, it was both embraced and accelerated by the Biden White House, which claimed to offer an “alternative” to four years of Trump devastation.
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Thursday, September 16, 2021
An Update on the End of College… and a New Way to Profit / Politics / Education
By: Stephen_McBride
It was one of my most popular (and controversial) essays to date…Last summer, I laid out my case for why “college is never coming back”…
Of course, it wasn’t the first time I wrote about this idea. That was back in 2019.
But last year made the idea “real” for most people…
COVID was a lightning bolt of disruption that fried the business model of college practically overnight.
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Tuesday, August 31, 2021
The Delta Variant Scam / Politics / Coronavirus 2021
By: James_Quinn
“This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.” ― George Orwell, Animal Farm
“There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.” ― Benjamin Disraeli
It’s amazing how you can lie with statistics when you don’t provide context and/or leave key information out of your false narrative. As of July 4, the entire covid fear narrative was dying out, with cases crashing to new lows and the Big Pharma vaccine profit machine sputtering. That is when those controlling the media narrative began running the stories about the Indian variant and the imminent tragedy. As cases soared over 350,000 per day, the MSM was predicting bodies piling up in the streets.
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Sunday, August 29, 2021
CENTRALIZATION, BLOCKCHAIN and DECENTRALIZATION / Politics / BlockChain
By: Raymond_Matison
Brief history of centralization
One important but mostly uncomplimentary history of man is recorded through his activities in war. Thousands of years ago large marauding bands of tribesmen descended on small communities or villages pillaging or killing its inhabitants. As centuries of time passed, small communities coalesced to become larger villages, some of which eventually expanded and grew to become city states or petty kingdoms.
In 480 B.C. Xerxes invaded Greek city states, but after taking Athens had to retreat. As William McNeil, author of his magnificent book “The Rise of the West” states: “free men organized into city-states need fear no military danger from without”. This early centralization of men and weapons protected cities from conquest at that time. The concept of certain centralization and its benefits became acknowledged and gained momentum over future centuries. In the seventeenth century, after the 30 year war, new legal principles for states and sovereignty were established in 1648. Under the new Westphalian system, states would exist with agreed-upon borders as each state’s sovereignty was recognized by others. This became another historical benchmark for increasing centralization.
Over the next several centuries, the so called industrial revolution with its centralization of production and factories provided heretofore unforeseen job and income opportunities for the general populace, further rapidly accelerating growth of cities and population movement from rural to urban areas. Increased production and worker incomes spurred sales providing useful products to the masses, and profits creating a dramatic centralization of wealth and power for these owners of productive facilities.
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Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Part of Green New Deal, Jacks Up Debt / Politics / Infrastructure
By: MoneyMetals
As the U.S. Senate moves closer to passing a trillion-dollar spending bill that includes some infrastructure priorities, critics are warning that the public is being taken for a ride.
President Joe Biden and his allies in Congress have actually claimed that the new spending won’t add to the national debt or increase pressures on inflation. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pitched the package as an investment in the economy.
It’s certainly true that much of the nation’s infrastructure is badly in need of upgrades. Roads, bridges, pipes, and airports across the country are in poor shape.
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Monday, August 02, 2021
From vaccine inequality to economic apartheid / Politics / Coronavirus 2021
By: Dan_Steinbock
Thanks to the containment failures of Covid-19 and the resultant new variants, coupled with vaccine inequality, global prospects are overshadowed by economic apartheid – the polarization between the West and poorer countries.Today, sub-Saharan Africa is in the grip of a third wave, parts of Latin America continue to see high levels of new deaths, and concerns remain about the Covid-19 situation in parts of South and Southeast Asia.
In Africa, the highly infectious Delta variant of coronavirus is spreading like a wildfire. Infection numbers have soared for 1.5 months with 224,000 new cases being recorded every week. Due to the low degree of testing, detection and vaccination, real numbers are much higher than official estimates.
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Thursday, July 29, 2021
WEALTH INEQUALITY WASN'T BY HAPPENSTANCE! / Politics / Social Issues
By: Gordon_T_Long
Global sovereign debt has been expanding at historic rates with the US Debt quickly now approaching $30T with the US Debt Ceiling moratorium ending Saturday July 31st. Overlay this with a $3.5T US budget reconciliation bill presently on the floor of congress (which along with other planned expenditures will total over $5T) policy setters are soon going to have to ask whether this spending is actually helping or hindering? Maybe just as important a question is who has been winning or losing during this era of exploding debt?
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Thursday, July 29, 2021
New set of Priorities needed for Unstoppable Global Warming / Politics / Climate Change
By: Richard_Mills
Heads of state gathered on Dec. 12, 2015, for the 21st conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). When the Paris agreement, as it came to be known, came into effect on Nov. 4, 2016, 196 countries agreed to try and limit the warming of the Earth by 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably 1.5 degrees C, compared to pre-industrial levels, by mid-century.
The 2-degree threshold is often used by researchers as a target in efforts to slow climate change, including a recent report by Wood Mackenzie entitled ‘Champagne supercycle: Taking the fizz out of the commodity price boom’.
In the report, the Scotland-based consultancy says another commodities supercycle is on the horizon, but it will be different from any that have come before:
Fossil fuels won’t be in the vanguard and the winners will be the industrial metals needed to electrify society — cobalt, lithium, copper, nickel, and aluminium.
Under Wood Mackenzie’s Accelerated Energy Transition-2 (AET-2) scenario, which is consistent with limiting the rise in global temperatures since pre-industrial times to 2 °C, 360 million tonnes (Mt) of aluminium, 90 Mt of copper, and 30 Mt of nickel will feed the energy transition over the next 20 years. This level of additional metal presents obvious challenges for producers and consumers alike.
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Sunday, July 25, 2021
Indian Delta Variant INFECTED! How infectious, Deadly, Do Vaccines Work? Avoid the PCR Test? / Politics / Coronavirus 2021
By: N_Walayat
We managed to dodge the covid bullet for a good 18 months but no ,more as at least one person is INFECTED with the Indian DELTA Variant! Here's what it's like to get infected from the first Lateral flow test on. What to expect, how to limit the spread to other members of the household without going over board and whether one should get the PCR test given that as soon as you do your life is taken out of your hands and you are told what you MUST do! Then there are the school drama queens that make up the rules as they go along! And above all find out if the vaccines work against the Indian delta variant if not or it's off to the local hospital for a ventilator holiday.
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Saturday, July 24, 2021
Biden’s Dangerous Inflation Denials / Politics / Inflation
By: MoneyMetals
This week he superficially addressed the problem by admitting the obvious – that prices have been rising rapidly this year – while denying that the inflation surge represents anything out of the ordinary.
“Some folks have raised worries that this could be a sign of persistent inflation, but that’s not our view,” Biden said. “Our experts believe and the data shows that most of the price increases we’ve seen [were] expected and expected to be temporary.”
Trust the experts! After all, when have they been wrong about anything…besides wars and pandemics?
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Friday, July 23, 2021
The Government Is Culpable for America’s Retirement Crisis / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: MoneyMetals
America faces a retirement crisis.
The chairman of the world’s largest asset management firm is sounding the alarm. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told CNBC last week that he sees a “silent crisis of retirement.”
Fink cited ultra-low interest rates, combining with elevated inflation rates, as steadily diminishing the real value of retirement savings.
“People are going to have to, unfortunately, whether they like it or not…work longer because they’re not earning the same returns on their savings,” he said.
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