Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Russia's Military Options in Ukraine -: Gaming a Russian Offensive / Politics / Ukraine Civil War
By: STRATFOR
Editor's Note: As part of our analytical methodology, Stratfor periodically conducts internal military simulations. This series, examining the scenarios under which Russian and Western forces might come into direct conflict in Ukraine, reflects such an exercise. It thus differs from our regular analyses in several ways and is not intended as a forecast. This series reflects the results of meticulous examination of the military capabilities of both Russia and NATO and the constraints on those forces. It is intended as a means to measure the intersection of political intent and political will as constrained by actual military capability. This study is not a definitive exercise; instead it is a review of potential decision-making by military planners. We hope readers will gain from this series a better understanding of military options in the Ukraine crisis and how the realities surrounding use of force could evolve if efforts to implement a cease-fire fail and the crisis escalates.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Eurozone Crisis - There Is No Better Way Than to Pay for Greece / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Investment_U
Martin Stephan writes: The Oxford Club’s deep international roots are invaluable... A few weeks back, we published a piece titled “How Germany Can Save Greece and the EU.” Since then, the German parliament voted to extend financial aid to Greece by four months - a mere Band-Aid (and a small one at that). In order to right the EU economy, a permanent solution must be found. For an insider perspective on this situation, we asked our colleague Martin Stephan from The Oxford Club’s German office to give his thoughts. We hope you enjoy his unique viewpoint.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
U.S. Perpetual War to Justify the Permanent War of Terror / Politics / War on Terror
By: BATR
The saga of continuous deployment and a garrison empire is a long and sad state of affairs. Using the trumped up fright that America’s enemies are geared up to bomb malls and sporting venues, builds a phony fear that the only response to combat the threat is to wage continuous foreign campaigns. What put such sophistry to rest are the facts that such uninterrupted carnage just feeds the fields of growing hostility towards America. If the War on Terror was winnable, why not start by stopping the War of Terror that is the center piece of aggressive projection of bellicose power.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
The Paradox of America's Electoral Reform / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
George Friedman writes: We are now in the early phases of selecting the president of the United States. Vast amounts of money are being raised, plans are being laid, opposition research is underway and the first significant scandal has broken with the discovery that Hillary Clinton used a non-government email account for government business. Ahead of us is an extended series of primaries, followed by an election and perhaps a dispute over some aspect of the election. In the United States, the presidential election process takes about two years, particularly when the sitting president cannot run for re-election.
Monday, March 09, 2015
Abolish; Not “Audit the Fed” / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Submissions
Antonius Aquinas writes: In recent remarks to the Senate Banking Committee, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen was her typical evasive and non committal self when the topic of interest rate hikes were broached. When the subject of potential oversight of the Fed came up, however, Ms. Yellen became quite forthright in her response.
When asked about a bill introduced by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul to “Audit the Fed,” Ms. Yellen declared: “I want to be completely clear: I strongly oppose ‘Audit the Fed.'”* Ms. Yellen defended her position on the grounds, which have been given by every previous Fed Chairman, that oversight would lead to politicized monetary decision making thus compromising the central bank’s “independence.”
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Monday, March 09, 2015
EU Warmongers Juncker Requests Creation of European Army / Politics / European Union
By: Mike_Shedlock
Warmongers United
European discussion of Russia has gone from dumb to dumber.
Of course, the highly regarded "Warmongers United Think Tank" (WUTT) would dispute that. "Warmongers United" believes more armies, more missiles and more fighting are precisely the right thing to do.
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Monday, March 09, 2015
Financial Crisis Aftershocks - That Austrian Bank / Politics / Credit Crisis 2015
By: John_Rubino
Sometimes little things are the start of much bigger things. Probably the most famous historical example of this is the June 1914 assassination of an Austrian archduke who, it's safe to say, 99% of the world had neither heard of nor cared about. But the aftershocks of the deed produced the biggest war in human history.
More recently, the US government's 2008 decision to allow mid-tier investment bank Lehman Brothers to fail is frequently blamed for turning a mortgage bubble into a global financial collapse.
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Monday, March 09, 2015
Don't Be Fooled by The Federal Reserve's Anti-Audit Propaganda / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
In recent weeks, the Federal Reserve and its apologists in Congress and the media have launched numerous attacks on the Audit the Fed legislation. These attacks amount to nothing more than distortions about the effects and intent of the audit bill.
Fed apologists continue to claim that the Audit the Fed bill will somehow limit the Federal Reserve's independence. Yet neither Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen nor any other opponent of the audit bill has ever been able to identify any provision of the bill giving Congress power to dictate monetary policy. The only way this argument makes sense is if the simple act of increasing transparency somehow infringes on the Fed's independence.
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Sunday, March 08, 2015
How Putin Blocked the U.S. Pivot to Asia - Get Vlad! / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Mike_Whitney
Read full article... Read full article...“The collapse of the Soviet Union removed the only constraint on Washington’s power to act unilaterally abroad…. Suddenly the United States found itself to be the Uni-power, the ‘world’s only superpower.’ Neoconservatives proclaimed ‘the end of history.'”— Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury
“Don’t blame the mirror if your face is crooked.” — Russian proverb
Sunday, March 08, 2015
Europe, The Morally Bankrupt Union / Politics / European Union
By: Raul_I_Meijer
The European Union is busy accomplishing something truly extraordinary: it is fast becoming such a spectacular failure that people don’t even recognize it as one. People have no idea, they just think: this can’t possibly be true, and they continue with their day. They should think again. Because the Grand European Failure is bound to lead to real life consequences soon, and they’ll be devastating. The union that was supposed to put an end to all fighting across the continent, is about to be the fuse that sets off a range of battles.
Friday, March 06, 2015
The Dark Side of the American Dream / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
Ryan McMaken writes: A Most Violent Year (2015, 125 minutes) is the third film from writer-director J.C. Chandor who wrote and directed 2011’s Margin Call about a Lehman Brothers-like firm in the early days of the 2008 financial crisis. Margin Call explored the complex relationships between white collar workers, corporate executives, and the firm’s customers in the face of economic ruin. With A Most Violent Year, Chandor returns to similar themes. But in this case, he focuses on a privately-owned heating oil business in 1981 New York City made successful by the relentless determination of Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac), an immigrant who has clawed his way to the top of his industry through a commitment to salesmanship and slow-and-steady growth.
Friday, March 06, 2015
From Organised Religion to Government - The Fall of Confidence / Politics / Social Issues
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
Institutional confidence is akin to gravity. We know it’s there, and we understand a lot about it - but we haven’t yet been able to explain it adequately enough. At least not enough to quantify its relationship - or unify gravity with the other physical forces that we do understand. Of course, we are much further from unification of the interactions between confidence (behavior), the economy, and finance.
It’s easy to see the effect finance has on the economy. One can even map the ultimate effect through history, which is riddled with failed currencies. Ultimately, the failure of an untethered financial system culminates with the collapse of a currency.
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Friday, March 06, 2015
Ukraine, Neocons and Neonazis / Politics / Ukraine Civil War
By: Raul_I_Meijer
See, by now you would think that anyone who reads that all 31 US banks that were tested have passed the Fed stress test, knows this says absolutely nothing about the banks, but all the more about the test. You would think. But the media try – and succeed – to cram it down the public’s throat as a success story anyway.
There’s simply a very strong feeling, if not conviction, in the western media, that they’ve won the propaganda battle. They have no adversary other than the blogosphere, and since they reach a thousand times more people, who are to a (wo)man more complacent and gullible than any of your typical interwebs readers, Bob’s their uncle.
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Thursday, March 05, 2015
Japan's Intelligence Reform Inches Forward / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: STRATFOR
When the Allies defeated Japan at the end of World War II, they dismantled the Japanese security apparatus and deliberately left the country dependent on outside powers. This entailed not only taking apart the military but also the extensive imperial intelligence apparatus that had facilitated Japanese expansion in Asia. As it reconstituted itself, postwar Japan opted for a decentralized intelligence system as an alternative to its prewar model. The result was more a fragment of an intelligence apparatus than a full system, with Tokyo outsourcing the missing components to its allies. This system worked through the Cold War, when Japan was more essential to U.S. anti-Soviet strategy. Since then, however, Japan has found itself unable to count on its allies to provide vital intelligence in a timely manner. The Islamic State hostage crisis in January, during which Japan depended on Jordanian and Turkish intelligence, reinforced this lesson.
Thursday, March 05, 2015
Freedom from America - Getting Out Of Dodge / Politics / Social Issues
By: James_Quinn
LLPOH Writes: About 30 years ago, I took a series of jobs in Australia, turning around failing manufacturing businesses. We were there for a very few years, and during this time became eligible for Australian citizenship, which we took up. In return for saving one such failing business, I received shares in it, which I still hold today. Over the years I have remained an employee of that small private company, as has my wife, and visit regularly to see that it survives and thrives.
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
Five Steps to Fixing Greece’s Debt Problem / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Frank_Hollenbeck
The ECB decision to limit liquidity to Greek banks was another nail in the euro-coffin, and rumors of a “Grexit” caused bank withdrawals to accelerate. Over 25 billion euros have been withdrawn from Greek banks since the end of November 2014. But there’s a problem. Fractional-reserve Greek banks do not have the funds to cover all the withdrawals if trends continue. Current non-performing bank loans in Greece are close to 40 percent and banks hold large amounts of high risk Greek government debt.
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Wednesday, March 04, 2015
Chicago's Only Possible Salvation: A Detroit-Like Bankruptcy / Politics / US Debt
By: Mike_Shedlock
Is the Chicago pension system so messed up and union work rules so entrenched the only way to change either of them is bankruptcy? I think so.
So does Dennis Byrne who wrote on his blog today Chicago's Only Salvation: A Detroit-Like Bankruptcy.
This is a guest post from Byrne.
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Wednesday, March 04, 2015
Greece Debt Crisis Born From Socialism / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: John_Browne
Like many of the important discussions in the economic world today, the negotiations between Greece and its European creditors has become increasingly absurd (see "A Patient Fed Considers Losing Patience" in our latest newsletter). Late on Friday, February 20, in a tense meeting between the new Greek Finance Minister and a host of ministers from 19 Eurozone countries, Germany apparently 'authorized' negotiators to accept a four-month extension of the $272 billion bailout so long as the Greeks promised to make a series of difficult fiscal steps needed to stay solvent over that time frame. Given that they desperately need the money, it should be no great surprise that the Greeks complied.
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
Great Big Fat Greek Expectations / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
From what I read in the press every day, as well as from private communication, a pretty wide divide seems to appear between what many people think the Syriza government in Athens should do, and what they actually can do at this point in time. It should be useful to clarify what this divide consists of, and how it can be breached, if that is at all possible.
In particular, many are of the opinion that Greece cannot escape its suffocating debt issues without leaving the eurozone and going its own way, reintroducing the drachma and defaulting on much of its €240 billion debt. Those who think so may well be right. But right now that is mostly irrelevant. Because Alexis Tsipras and his men and women simply don’t have their voters’ mandate to go down that road. They may at some time in the future, but they don’t today. The expectations are too great, and certainly too immediate.
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Monday, March 02, 2015
The Absurdity of "Reform" in Washington DC / Politics / US Politics
By: MISES
James Bovard writes: In the 1930s, peasants who were starving because of the Soviet regime’s brutal farm collectivization policy lamented, “If only Stalin knew!” Nowadays, American social scientists look at floundering federal programs and lament: “If only Congress knew!” And the solution is the “evidence-based” reform movement which will magically beget a new era of good governance.