Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Big Oil Versus The Dangers of Nuclear Power / Politics / Crude Oil
By: Eric_Walberg
As oil prices soar and countries think twice about expanding nuclear power, we should be careful about where to point the finger, says Japan’s trauma following the partial meltdown of nuclear reactors in Fukushima has once again brought to the world’s attention the dangers of nuclear power. From the start, it was clear that a broad advocacy of nuclear energy is bad ecology. Splitting the atom (or worse, fusing atoms) unleashes intense heat and radiation and produces poisonous waste that lasts for up to 10,000 years or more
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Tokyo Residents Preparing For Massive Nuclear Radiation Exposure / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Chris_Kitze
End of the American Dream writes: Does anyone really know what is going on at the Fukushima nuclear complex? When problems at the facility first surfaced, authorities promised that no significant amounts of radiation would be released. Then we were told that only those living within 20 kilometers of the complex needed to take precautions. After that we were told that radiation was showing up in many different types of vegetables all over northern and central Japan but that it was not a major concern. Now we are being told that the tap water in Tokyo is unsafe for infants to drink. So what are they going to tell us next? Should residents of Tokyo be preparing for massive radiation exposure from this disaster? Tokyo is only 150 miles away from the Fukushima nuclear complex. If a worst case scenario plays out at Fukushima, exactly what would that mean for the over 30 million people that live in and around Tokyo?
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Economic Nationalism: Fair or Foul? / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
Because we have a national government, because Americans care about what happens to their economy, and because it is the national debate on the question that will bring changes or fail to, our trade problems will be fixed in Washington or not at all. As economist Herman Daly of the University of Maryland, best known for his work on ecological economics, puts it, “Free trade makes it very hard to deal with these root causes at a national level, which is the only level at which effective social controls over the economy exist.”Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Japan Background Radiation Levels By Prefecture Area / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Jesse
"Updated on March 21, 2011 21:20 (JST)(Japan Standard Time) nGy/h (nano- Grays per hour)Realtime radiation data collected via the System for Prediction of Environment Emergency Dose Information(SPEEDI) These Results are the maximum values of the space those rate distributions shown from local governments in the latest updated date and time.
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Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Dictator Obama's Foolish and Unconstitutional War / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
Patrick J. Buchanan writes: "The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
So said constitutional scholar and Senator Barack Obama in December 2007 – the same man who, this weekend, ordered U.S. air and missile strikes on Libya without any authorization from Congress.
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Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Economic Boom Bust Cycles are Planned / Politics / Business Cycles
By: Bob_Chapman
Cycles and booms and busts just don’t happen. They are planned that way. In the late 1990s Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan commented on irrational exuberance and said he hoped the market would cool down. The amount of money and credit he had introduced into the system had a great deal to do with a forming of a bubble. He indicated that on the short-term there was little he could do about it, when all he had to do was raise margin requirements from 50% to 60% temporarily. We wrote about the solution as a coupe of other writers did, but no one really wanted to take away the dotcom punchbowl. In late March of 2000 the market began its collapse. We removed our subscribers out of the market in the first week of April, as did Joe Granville, a friend and one of the best market timers ever.
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Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Fed's Shortcuts to Greatness / Politics / Central Banks
By: Vitaliy_Katsenelson
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen… the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.–Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
What Was Carbon Finance ? / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
As a leading investment banker put it: “Carbon is getting more and more difficult. A significant amount of the business that is done in the carbon space should shift”, which when translated from finance talk to human language means that the loose “consensus” on creating a global carbon tax, without calling it a tax and trading around this new asset has likely cracked beyond repair. The smart money is now beating a retreat from playing with carbon finance assets, and remaining players in the carbon market are seeking any way out they can find, as turnover on emissions markets goes only one way – down.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
The U.N. Goes to War for Libyan Oil / Politics / New World Order
By: Michael_S_Rozeff
The civil war in Libya is now a new war: the Libyan War. This new war began when the West and/or the U.N. joined the war and escalated it. NATO may be coming aboard too.
The U.N., that supposed instrument of international peace and security, has escalated a civil war into an international war. If the principle it has invoked in doing so stands, which is a supposed humanitarian one, then we face perpetual war, for there are and will be hundreds of civil conflicts within nation-states that are no different than the one in Libya.
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Tuesday, March 22, 2011
The Real Meaning of "Defense" / Politics / Government Intervention
By: Jeffrey_A_Tucker
The horror of Muammar Gaddafi's approach to keeping power in Libya boggles the mind and shocks the moral conscience. But how different is his approach from the way most all governments behave in the face of citizen revolt? There are differences among them with regard to how far they will go to force submission, but the methods and the rationale everywhere are the same in all times and places.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Rival Imperialists Launch War to Dominate Libyan Oil Resources / Politics / New World Order
By: Global_Research
Patrick Martin writes: The United States, France and Britain began air strikes and missile attacks on Libyan targets Saturday, initiating a war of aggression that threatens to destabilize North Africa and the entire Middle East. The first two days of bombing have already claimed many lives among the Libyan population that the imperialist powers falsely claim to be protecting.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Imperialists Shred U.N. Charter for War Against Libya / Politics / New World Order
By: Global_Research
Dr. Webster G. Tarpley writes: On March 19, US and British cruise missiles joined with French and other NATO combat aircraft in Operation Odyssey Dawn/Operation Ellamy, a neo-imperialist bombing attack under fake humanitarian cover against the sovereign state of Libya. Acting under UN Security Council resolution 1973, US naval forces in the Mediterranean on Saturday night local time fired 112 cruise missiles at targets which the Pentagon claimed were related to Libya’s air defense system. But Mohammed al-Zawi, the Secretary General of the Libyan Parliament, told a Tripoli press conference that the “barbaric armed attack” and “savage aggression” had hit residential areas and office buildings as well as military targets, filling the hospitals of Tripoli and Misurata with civilian victims. Zawi accused the foreign powers of acting to protect a rebel leadership which contains notorious terrorist elements. The Libyan government repeated its request for the UN to send international observers to report objectively on events in Libya.
Monday, March 21, 2011
I Was Wrong About President Obama / Politics / US Politics
By: Pravda
Let us call a spade, a spade. Let us call a group of armed marauding thugs, committing acts of terrorism and arson, terrorists and arsonists and let us call those who manipulate the words of others to justify their actions, barefaced liars. President Obama is one of these and how wrong I was to believe that he represented a new America.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, March 21, 2011
Weird Global Warming and Nuclear Science / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Submissions
Satre writes: The catastrophic disaster that swept Japan into a new stone age is truly an earth-shattering milestone. Worldwide grief and empathy is real and deserved. If this occurrence were only, a script out of a Godzilla B movie, or just lyrics from a ringtone song, the hurt or the aftermath would not be so horrible.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Is it America vs. Poor Nations in Trade? No / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
Question: is there a fundamental us vs. them dynamic in America’s trade with the developing world? Is a sound trade policy for ourselves ultimately about nothing better than grabbing an economic advantage at the expense of other nations, especially poorer ones?
Some people certainly seem to think so. To them, ending free trade sounds like a mere invitation for America to become a global economic bully boy.