Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Death of the American Empire... / Politics / Recession 2008 - 2010
By: Clive_Maund
The general public, who never understood the global financial crisis in the first place, have been hoodwinked into thinking it's over. It's not. None of the underlying structural abnormalities, distortions and excesses within the global financial system have been addressed and rectified, because to do so in a meaningful way would involve allowing a constructive depression to purge the system of dross and parasitic elements (like much of government itself) in what would amount to a teardown and rebuild.
Friday, September 25, 2009
G20, The Price of Pretense in Pittsburgh / Politics / Global Economy
By: Peter_Schiff
As another G20 meeting rolls around, this time on home soil, the time comes once again for the economically curious but politically unconnected to wonder what is really happening behind closed doors. But while admiring the pageantry, chuckling at the awkward group photos, and parsing the joint communiqués like newly found Dead Sea scrolls, the overwhelming majority of observers will miss the meeting's dominant theme: hypocrisy.
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Friday, September 25, 2009
U.S. Military Prepares for Afghanistan Defeat / Politics / Afghanistan
By: Pravda
American troops are at risk of being defeated in Afghanistan if additional troops are not sent, says the special report that has become available to the Washington Post.
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Thursday, September 24, 2009
Global Warming or Global Freezing, Is the Ice Really Melting? / Politics / Climate Change
By: F_William_Engdahl
President Obama just made a melodramatic appeal at the United Nations for global measures to dramatically curb what he called “the climate threat,” current euphemism for what is more popularly known as Global Warming, the theory that man-made CO2 emissions from cars, coal plants and other man-made sources are causing the earth to warm to the point the polar icecaps are irreversibly melting and threatening to flood a quarter or more of the earth’s surface.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Are You Economically and Mentally Independent / Politics / US Politics
By: Jerry_Salcido
Although America successfully seceded from the British Empire in 1776, today, more than 200 years later, it is in no way "independent." Its many dependencies include its reliance on debt to finance its operations; it looks to foreign manufacturers to provide basic goods; it is at the mercy of oil sheiks for its energy needs; and, it depends on global and regional organizations like the United Nations, NATO, and other entangling alliances to conduct diplomacy.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Climate Change, The Environmentalists Have it All Wrong! / Politics / Climate Change
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Human's driving climate change through the twin forces of pumping green house gasses into the atmosphere and burning of rain forests is a fact. The temperature continues to rise towards a tipping point when temperatures will accelerate towards a new equilibrium level far beyond current levels.
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The Afghan Disaster, More Force, More Money, More Death / Politics / Afghanistan
By: LewRockwell
In the private sector, there is always a test of success. The business must make a profit. It can sustain some losses but the clock is always running on those. At some point, after all cuts have been made and costs are trimmed to a minimum, the business has to close shop. The summer of losses must become the autumn of profits, or else it's all over.
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009
G-20 Globalization Goes Bankrupt / Politics / Global Economy
By: Chris_Hedges
The rage of the disposed is fracturing the country, dividing it into camps that are unmoored from the political mainstream. Movements are building on the ends of the political spectrum that have lost faith in the mechanisms of democratic change. You can’t blame them. But unless we on the left move quickly, this rage will be captured by a virulent and racist right wing, one that seeks a disturbing proto-fascism.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Labour Government to Give NHS Patients Real GP Doctor Choice / Politics / NHS
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The Labour government despite tripling the NHS budget / GP Pay over the past 10 years has resulted in a continuous fall in productivity over the past 6 years or so, has finally announced a proposal to implement a policy that I have long concluded as one of the two key critical reforms necessary to drag the NHS into the 21st century with a view to putting the patient first for the first time since its creation.
Monday, September 21, 2009
The Ballistic Missile Defense Decision and the Global System / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: STRATFOR
The United States announced late Sept. 17 that it would abandon a plan for placing ballistic missile defense (BMD) installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Instead of the planned system, which was intended to defend primarily against a potential crude intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) threat from Iran against the United States, the administration chose a restructured system that will begin by providing some protection to Europe using U.S. Navy ships based on either the North or Mediterranean seas.
Monday, September 21, 2009
How the Bank Bailout Money is Being Used / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Michel_Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky and Bonnie Faulkner write: Where is the bank bailout money ultimately going?
Michel Chossudovsky, interviewed by Bonnie Faulkner, Guns and Butter
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Monday, September 21, 2009
Welcome World to Pittsburgh: Time For More Than Yak at the G20? / Politics / Global Economy
By: Danny_Schechter
Can Obama Help Forge A Global Consensus for Deep Economic Change?
Dear International Leaders and Guests,
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Monday, September 21, 2009
Trade Wars and Protectionism are Not Free Trade / Politics / Global Economy
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Two weeks ago, both the administration and the Fed announced with straight faces that the recession was over and the signs of economic recovery were clear. Then last week, the president made a stunning decision that signals the administration’s determination to repeat the mistakes of the Great Depression.
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Monday, September 21, 2009
How Deregulation Trashed the US Economy and Government Intervention Became the Only Way Out / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Greg_Guma
Remember the panic-inducing headlines of 2008? Government Takes Over Troubled Mortgage Giants, Lehman Brothers Files for Bankruptcy, Bank of America Buys Merrill Lynch, and Stock Prices Plummet – that last one just as the government announced an $85 billion emergency loan to rescue insurance giant AIG. And that was just the beginning.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Liberal Democrats to Tax the Rich Out of Britain with 0.5% Property Tax / Politics / UK Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
One of the great things about being the third small party is that there is literally ZERO chance of becoming the next government, hence the party can announce ridiculous policies that pander to the masses but make little if any economic sense.
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Saturday, September 19, 2009
Afghanistan, Where Empires Go to Die / Politics / Afghanistan
By: Dahr_Jamail
Genghis Khan could not hold onto Afghanistan. Neither will the United States
On September 7 the Swedish aid agency Swedish Committee for Afghanistan reported that the previous week US soldiers raided one of its hospitals. According to the director of the aid agency, Anders Fange, troops stormed through both the men's and women's wards, where they frantically searched for wounded Taliban fighters.
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Saturday, September 19, 2009
For Britons, The Party Game Is Over / Politics / UK Politics
By: Submissions
John Pilger writes: On the day Prime Minister Gordon Brown made his “major policy speech” on Afghanistan, repeating his surreal claim that if the British army did not fight Pashtun tribesmen over there, they would be over here, the stench of burnt flesh hung over the banks of the Kunduz River. Nato fighter planes had blown the poorest of the poor to bits. They were Afghan villagers who had rushed to siphon off fuel from two stalled tankers. Many were children with water buckets and cooking pots. “At least” 90 were killed, although Nato prefers not to count its civilian enemy. “It was a scene from hell,” said Mohammed Daud, a witness. “Hands, legs and body parts were scattered everywhere.” No parade for them along a Wiltshire high street.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, September 19, 2009
A Radical Solution for America's Insolvent Financial System / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Mansoor_H_Khan
The core problem of the United States' banking system (and maybe the world's banking system) is not liquidity but insolvency. The liabilities of the United States' banking system exceed the value of its assets. The issue is not only the toxic assets (toxic mortgage backed securities, toxic commercial real estate loans, sub-prime mortgages, alt-A loans, adjustable loans likely to go bust, increase in prime mortgage default rates, etc) but also off-balance sheet liabilities (such as expected huge unaccounted for future derivatives losses).
Friday, September 18, 2009
Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy Revisited / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Peter_Schiff
As we pass the one year anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers, journalists, politicians and market analysts have seized on the occasion to offer seemingly sober assessments of what went wrong and what went right in the lead up and aftermath of the biggest financial event since Black Tuesday.
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Friday, September 18, 2009
The Cold War Fraud / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Mark_G_Brennan
For fifty years after the end of World War II, the United States based much of its Cold War strategy on the principle that the Soviet Union thought nothing of nuclear annihilation. In order to counter the communist hordes from the east, the United States spent itself into insolvency building up its defense forces, both conventional and nuclear. American leaders spared no expense – in terms of taxpayer treasure or military conscripts’ blood – to counter the postwar communist threat.
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