Category: Social Issues
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Monday, April 16, 2018
WINTER IS COMING - The Ongoing Fourth Turning Crisis / Politics / Social Issues
By: James_Quinn
“Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.” – George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones
“Reflect on what happens when a terrible winter blizzard strikes. You hear the weather warning but probably fail to act on it. The sky darkens. Then the storm hits with full fury, and the air is a howling whiteness. One by one, your links to the machine age break down. Electricity flickers out, cutting off the TV. Batteries fade, cutting off the radio. Phones go dead. Roads become impassible, and cars get stuck. Food supplies dwindle. Day to day vestiges of modern civilization – bank machines, mutual funds, mass retailers, computers, satellites, airplanes, governments – all recede into irrelevance.
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Tuesday, February 20, 2018
The Prisoner Promised Land / Politics / Social Issues
By: BATR
Apprise just how much the perception of the world has changed in the last fifty years since the preeminent British series, The Prisoner first aired its run of 17 produced episodes. Essential background is available in the Solitary Purdah essay, The Sovereign Man is the Real Prisoner. For those of a generation who never viewed the definitive treatment of the ongoing globalists attempt to eradicate the human spirit, the subject matter may well be beyond their capacity for understanding. As the collective consciousness is channeled into a communal controlled "PC" culture, most are unable to master philosophical reasoning much less independent thinking. For these clones, utopia is the village and conformity is a continual price to be paid to belong and be happy.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
How to Surpass the Middle-Income Trap / Politics / Social Issues
By: Dan_Steinbock
China will surpass the middle-income trap by continuing to implement structural reforms and focusing on economic development. The lesson to other emerging economies is to distinguish good growth policies from self-serving agendas in the advanced West. According to the World Bank, high-income economies ($12,236 or more) include the US, Western Europe and Japan, while upper middle-income economies ($3,956 -$12,235) feature Turkey, Russia, Brazil and China, among others.
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Wednesday, January 03, 2018
There is a Tyranny in the Womb of Every Utopia / Politics / Social Issues
By: BATR
The Millennial Utopian Society - In order to understand the millennial phenomena that has influenced the beginning years of the 21st century, acknowledgement that the under thirty sect is quite different from their parents generation is crucial. Back some fifty plus years the popular saying coined by Jack Weinberg was "Don't trust anyone over 30". The crowning irony is that this mindset was expressed during the "Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley which was a struggle by students over the right to engage in political speech on campus, which helped to catalyze broader political activism on campuses around the country over student rights, civil rights and the Vietnam War".
Thursday, December 21, 2017
20 Positive Trends That Will Make You Feel Good About the World in 2018 / Politics / Social Issues
By: John_Mauldin
I’m probably one of the most optimistic people you will ever meet. I’m confident in the future of humanity. But I also recognize that we must overcome many challenges to get to the future we ultimately want.
In other words, I try to stay balanced.
For whatever reason, we tend to tune into bad news more eagerly than we do good news. The media is partly to blame, because murders, fires, and nasty weather sell advertising. But something deeper is at work.
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Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Today’s Technological, Monetary, and Political Forces Are Raising a Perfect Economic Storm / Politics / Social Issues
By: John_Mauldin
Identifying incentives is key to analyzing trends and forecasting what different players will do next.
Those who control the tech are intent on bringing the era of superautomation forward as fast as possible. That’s obvious. But between dicey Federal Reserve policies and possible tax reforms, all kinds of businesses seem to get new incentives to automate sooner rather than later.
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Sunday, November 26, 2017
The ‘End of Dreams’, and the Saving of Appearances / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Once again, to my delight, we’re back with former British diplomat and MI6 ‘ranking figure’ Alastair Crooke and his Conflicts Forum organization. We posted a few of his articles this year and last. This time, Alastair writes a reaction to one of his own articles posted at Consortium News, which I included in the November 18 Debt Rattle at the Automatic Earth. My short comment then: “Former (and current?!) TAE contributor Alastair Crooke draws his conclusions.” This morning, the Conflicts Forum reached out again:
Dear Raul, We took the hint on a recent posting your site that referred to one of Alastair’s articles! …. and below is a comment piece he has done. It is an attempt to be strategic at where we’re going.
Anytime, guys! My first reaction to that piece was that Alastair makes Donald Trump and Jared Kushner’s role in the Saudi crackdown seem very large, which makes the role played by deep state America look small in comparison. And I’m not so sure about that. The riddle of ‘who’s playing who?’ is not a straightforward one. But that’s by no means a criticism (I ain’t criticizing no MI6!). It’s a question.
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Friday, October 27, 2017
Volatility on Steroids / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
It’s been a while since we last heard from longtime friend of the Automatic Earth Dr. Nelson Lebo III, New Englander living in Wanganui, New Zealand. Nelson has written a fine collection of articles on this site through the years.
Of course I thought, when I first saw this piece in my mailbox, that he would have written about New Zealand’s new prime minister, Labour’s 37-year-young Jacinda Ardern, whose first action in her new job will be to prevent foreigners from buying existing homes in her country. It’ll be interesting to see how she intends to do so while remaining inside the Trans Pacific Partnership -TPP- agreement.
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Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Surge in UK Race Hate Crimes, Micro-Racism, Sheffield, Millhouses Park, Black on Asian / Politics / Social Issues
By: N_Walayat
The latest police statistics reveal a huge surge in hate crime in the year to March 2017, up 29% to 80,393 which is the largest annual rise since records began that comes in the wake of last years Brexit vote and a string of terror attacks with most of the hate crimes being racially motivated. However the statistics represent the extreme end of the spectrum of reported race crimes for the vast majority lower level hate crimes tend to go unreported. Also the statistics do not cover the further spike in hate crime in the wake of the most recent terror attacks of the past 6 months.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Globalization is Poverty / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Central bankers have never done more damage to the world economy than in the past 10 years. One may argue this is because they never had the power to do that. If their predecessors had had that power, who knows? Still, the global economy has never been more interconnected than it is today, due mostly to the advance of globalism, neoliberalism and perhaps even more, technology.
Ironically, all three of these factors are unremittingly praised as forces for good. But living standards for many millions of people in the west have come down and/or are laden with uncertainty, while millions of Chinese now have higher living standards. People in the west have been told to see this as a positive development; after all, it allows them to buy products cheaper than if they had been made in domestic industries.
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Thursday, October 05, 2017
How to Fund a Universal Basic Income Without Increasing Taxes or Inflation / Politics / Social Issues
By: Ellen_Brown
Studies have shown that it would actually be cheaper to distribute funds to the entire population than to run the welfare services governments engage in now.
The policy of guaranteeing every citizen a universal basic income is gaining support around the world, as automation increasingly makes jobs obsolete. But can it be funded without raising taxes or triggering hyperinflation? In a panel I was on at the NexusEarth cryptocurrency conference in Aspen September 21-23rd, most participants said no. This is my rebuttal.
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Thursday, October 05, 2017
The Pension Storm Is Coming To Europe—It May Be The End Of Europe As We Know It / Politics / Social Issues
By: John_Mauldin
I’ve written a lot about US public pension funds lately. Many of them are underfunded and will never be able to pay workers the promised benefits—at least without dumping a huge and unwelcome bill on taxpayers.
And since taxpayers are generally voters, it’s not at all clear they will pay that bill.
Readers outside the US might have felt safe reading those stories. There go those Americans again… However, if you live outside the US, your country may be more like ours than you think.
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Tuesday, October 03, 2017
Totalitarian Collectivism / Politics / Social Issues
By: BATR
A Culture of Authoritarianism = A Society of Totalitarianism
The impact of the 21st Century in its short phylogenesis has produced a pseudonymous willingness to accept the most threatening viewpoints and behavior yet seen on the planet. Implied within this overview is the precept that free will is the natural basis of our collective makeup. Nevertheless, the flight from personal liberty and constructive communal cultural values has been in an unimpeded free fall as the coercion of the mob intensifies. According to this groupthink, no competing ontology is acceptable in this brave new world of multicultural purity. This snake pit of toxic venom has been poisoning the popular culture for dozens of decades. So far the battle for sanity has fought off the scourge. However, the recent escalation of pernicious assaults on the decency of human freedom has become indisputable.
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Saturday, September 30, 2017
I Thought I Was Middle Class / Politics / Social Issues
By: James_Quinn
“The best way to teach your kids about taxes is by eating 30% of their ice cream.” – Bill Murray
When I saw that slimy tentacle of the Goldman Sachs vampire squid, Gary Cohn, bloviating about Trump’s tax plan and how it was going to do wonders for the middle class, I knew I was probably going to get screwed again. And after perusing the outline of their plan, it is certain I will be getting it up the ass once again from my beloved government.
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Tuesday, September 26, 2017
The Left Behind of America and Germany, Europe / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
“Forget Germany, Spain Is The Real Problem”, reads a headline. Eh… no. Germany is definitely the problem in Europe. Spain is a bit player. That doesn’t mean nothing major could happen in Spain in its fight with Catalonia, and soon, but Spain, like all EU nations, is a de facto province of Germany.
What matters in the end is how Brussels and Merkel deal with Spain. And while it’s tempting to say that perhaps Brussels, the EU, is the main European problem, the European Union is run exclusively by and for Germany, so that doesn’t work either.
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Saturday, August 26, 2017
Racism & Divisiveness: The Real-Life Economic Solutions / Politics / Social Issues
By: Harry_Dent
As a new generation emerges into the workforce, it brings with it revolution, be it technological, social, or political. They have fresh new ideas and their own, unique values, which grow to dominate as the older generation filters into retirement.That’s part of what’s going on today in America, where extreme divisiveness and racial stresses threaten to tear us apart. (Another part is that this is all part of a larger 250-Year Revolutionary Cycle, and an 84-Year Populist Movement Cycle, to name just two.)
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Monday, July 17, 2017
Perfect Storm - This Fourth Turning has Over a Decade of Continuous Storms to Come / Politics / Social Issues
By: James_Quinn
Several weeks ago I had to drive west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to pick up my son after his sophomore year at Penn State. I’ve made this trip a dozen times over the last few years, since this is my second son attending Penn State, with a third starting in the Fall. It’s a tedious, boring, protracted, four hour trek through the rural countryside of the Keystone State. During these trips my mind wanders, making connections between the landscape and the pressing issues facing the world. I can’t help but get lost in my thoughts as the miles accumulate like dollars on the national debt clock.
More often than not I end up making the trip in the midst of bad weather. And this time was no different. The Pennsylvania Turnpike is a meandering, decades old, dangerous, mostly two lane highway for most of its 360 mile span. Large swaths of the decaying interstate are under construction, as the narrative about lack of infrastructure spending is proven false by visual proof along the highways and byways of America.
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Friday, July 14, 2017
Clarion House Social Housing for Grenfell Fire Residents / Politics / Social Issues
By: Submissions
BWTUC CALLS ON CLARION HOUSING (Formerly Affinity Sutton) TO BRING BACK INTO USE 159 SOCIAL HOUSING UNITS IN CHELSEA LYING EMPTY AND OFFER THEM AS HOMES FOR GRENFELL TOWER FIRE RESIDENTS
If Kensington and Chelsea Council won't use its powers to force action on this it should be ordered to bring back into commission these flats that the Sutton Trust/Affinity Sutton itself vandalised in 2015 after decanting the residents says BWTUC
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Thursday, May 18, 2017
Subversion And Constructive Synthesis Of Capitalism And Socialism / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raymond_Matison
In America today there is evidence of long-term subversion undermining our democratic Republic. Often tactics and propaganda are attributed to liberals, conservatives, Democrats or Republicans. Unless we can be more precise in identifying and labeling persons or political parties responsible for this subversion, we will not be able to protect or maintain our Republic. At a minimum, there is a need to review political party current platforms, and to find the source of subversion which dramatically is veering our republic away from its Constitutional origins towards a socialist state.
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Brace Yourself For The Coming Economic Transformation, Sliding Down the Social Class Scale / Politics / Social Issues
By: John_Mauldin
If the average person in the US feels as though they are going nowhere fast, there is a real reason for it.
Federal Reserve data shows people are earning less than they did 17 years ago. But the real story is even worse than that.
The chart below shows that median income in the US is actually down over the last 17 years and is only 3% higher now than it was 30 years ago. Those are inflation-adjusted numbers.
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