Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Facing the Future – Mitigating a Credit Crisis Liquidity Crunch 2014 / Politics / Credit Crisis 2014
By: Nicole_Foss
Despite the media talking up optimism and recovery, people are not seeing the supposed good news playing out in their own lives. As we have discussed here many times before, the squeeze continues on Main Street, while QE has generated asset bubbles at the top of the financial food chain. Complacency reigns, but this is the endgame. Increasingly delusional collective optimism, based on illusory wealth for the few, has ben the driving force for 2013, even as the smart money has been selling everything not nailed down for most of the year – cheerfully handing the empty bag to a public that demands it. It’s been a five year long party, where, demonstrably, no lessons were learned from the excesses preceding the previous peak, and the consequences that followed from it.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Lenin's Goelro And The Myth Of Total Electrification / Politics / Electricity
By: Andrew_McKillop
LENIN AND THE GOELRO
Announcing the Goelro plan on 21 February 1920, Vladimir Lenin said that communism was to politics what electricity is for the economy, saying: “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country”. Without total electrification “industry cannot be developed” and for Lenin, the plan was even a bulwark against barbarism, ignorance and disease, and a silver bullet for Russian recovery from the ravages of WWar I and the October Revolution.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
U.S. Federal Reserve Fuels Global “Financial Parasitism” / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Global_Research
Nick Beams writes: The decision by the US Federal Reserve Board to begin to “taper” its program of “quantitative easing” (QE)—the pumping of $1 trillion a year into the financial markets—was supposed to signal a return to more normal monetary policy.It turned out to be a commitment to continue the provision of ultra-cheap money to fuel the financial parasitism that has brought untold wealth to the corporate and financial elites, while creating ever-worsening social conditions for billions of people the world over.
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Thursday, December 26, 2013
Colossal Fraud - There are No Free Markets - Video / Politics / Market Manipulation
By: Videos
Financial analyst Rob Kirby says, “There is colossal fraud and price control going on. There are no free markets.” Kirby goes on to say, “What we’ve seen over the last six months is a ramp-up in interest rate swaps to the tune of $12 trillion . . . . What the build in these interest rate swaps is achieving, it’s stemming the rise in interest rates.” Kirby, who has 15 years experience in trading derivatives, says these complicated derivatives overseen by the U.S. Treasury control the price of virtually everything. Kirby contends, “I refer to this as a price control grid.
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Why Bankers Created the Fed 100 Years Ago / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Christopher_Westley
The Democratic Party gained prominence in the first half of the nineteenth century as being the party that opposed the Second Bank of the United States. In the process, it tapped into an anti-state sentiment that proved so strong that we wouldn't see another like it until the next century.
Its adversaries were Whig politicians who defended the bank and its ability to grow the government and their own personal fortunes at the same time. They were, in fact, quite open about these arrangements. It was considered standard-operating procedure for Whig representatives to receive monetary compensation for their support of the Bank when leaving Congress. The Whig Daniel Webster even expected annual payments while in Congress. Once he complained to the Bank of the United States President Nicholas Biddle, “I believe my retainer has not been renewed or refreshed as usual. If it be wished that my relation to the Bank should be continued, it may be well to send me my usual retainer.”
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
North Korea's Ferocious, Weak and Crazy Strategy / Politics / North Korea
By: STRATFOR
North Korea's state-run media reported Sunday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered the country's top security officials to take "substantial and high-profile important state measures," which has been widely interpreted to mean that North Korea is planning its third nuclear test. Kim said the orders were retaliation for the U.S.-led push to tighten U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang following North Korea's missile test in October. A few days before Kim's statement emerged, the North Koreans said future tests would target the United States, which North Korea regards as its key adversary along with Washington's tool, South Korea.
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
The Business of the Christmas Season / Politics / Shopping
By: BATR
Commercialism, long criticized, as a distortion of the true celebration of Christmas, has become a crucial profit component for the corporate economy. Very little observation about the religious nature of the holiday rises for reflection. Likewise, even less focus is devoted to the underlying reasons why holiday gifting has become a stable to the season. Heritage and tradition has given way to popular cultural advertisement. A disconnect between purchases of necessity and acquisitions of disposable novelties is the hallmark of the mad rush to buy needless objects.
Monday, December 23, 2013
The Debt Rattle - How Do We Define Value? / Politics / US Debt
By: Raul_I_Meijer
I would like to get your thoughts on one of the most basic questions in an economy: what is value, what creates value, and how can value change or even fluctuate? Sometimes it’s best to take a step back and make sure we properly (re-)define the terms we use, lest confusion rules the day.
As a reference for the question(s) I want to use two articles I read over the past week. In particular, I’m interested in discussing whether the Fed’s Quantitative Easing (QE) programs have created value, and whether QE is capable of doing so in the first place. And I don’t mean obvious views like ‘money has no value at all because it’s created out of nothing as credit/debt’, we know that. I want to start with the idea that an asset, a good, plus the work man is capable of, can be assigned a value in dollar terms, and then see how that value is defined.
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Monday, December 23, 2013
Christmas Wishes of the Bottom 95% / Politics / Social Issues
By: DeviantInvestor
Santa: The following are our Christmas wishes for the bottom 95% of Americans - as measured by either income or total assets.
A People's QE
The Fed creates $85,000,000,000 (perhaps reducing to $75 Billion in January) per month - Quantitative Easing or QE - and feeds it to the bankers, the wealthy, and the politicians. A people's QE is for the Quality Enhancement of the bottom 95% - an additional $85,000,000,000 per month distributed to 315 million people in the U.S. Santa: please deliver $ 270 to each person monthly, or at current prices, about 14 ounces of silver per person per month, or about 3 ounces of gold per person every 14 months.
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Monday, December 23, 2013
U.S. Fed 100 Years Is Enough: Time to Make the Fed Bank a Public Utility / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Ellen_Brown
December 23rd, 2013, marks the 100th anniversary of the Federal Reserve, warranting a review of its performance. Has it achieved the purposes for which it was designed?
The answer depends on whose purposes we are talking about. For the banks, the Fed has served quite well. For the laboring masses whose populist movement prompted it, not much has changed in a century.
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Monday, December 23, 2013
Ron Paul - Progress Toward Peace But Neo-con Dark Clouds Remain / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
It is the time of year we feel a sense of joy and optimism. We are preparing for the holidays and looking to spend time with our families and friends. This year as we look back we see several developments that leave us feeling optimistic.
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Monday, December 23, 2013
Americans Believe In Darwin – Six Times Before Breakfast / Politics / Evolution
By: Andrew_McKillop
NEARLY A HALF
Results from a Harris Poll of 2,250 adults surveyed online between November 13 and 18, 2013 shows that belief in Darwin's theory of evolution, while well below levels recorded for their belief in God, heaven and hell, is up in comparison to 2005 findings (47%, up from 42%). The respondents were not asked to what extent they believe in QE and Ben Bernanke's economic miracles, but the survey also found that 42% of Americans believe in ghosts, 36% believe in creationism and UFOs, 29% believe in astrology, 26% believe in witches and 24% believe in metempsychosis and reincarnation - that they were once or still are more than one person.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Twerking Republican Politicians / Politics / US Politics
By: Walter_Brasch
When Muhammad Ali proclaimed, “I am the greatest,” we knew—and he knew—it would psyche out his opponents, get media attention, and receive a bigger box office. But, in the sport of boxing, Ali probably was the greatest.
When Howard Stern proclaims himself to be the “King of all Media,” he knows—and we know—it’s simply a case of hyperbolic promotion, something some celebrities do to get even more promotion.
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Sunday, December 22, 2013
The Incredible, Shrinking Presidency of Barack Obama / Politics / US Politics
By: Mike_Whitney
According to a new Washington Post-ABC poll, Barack Obama now ranks among the least popular presidents in the last century. In fact, his approval rating is lower than Bush’s was in his fifth year in office. Obama’s overall approval rating stands at a dismal 43 percent, with a full 55 percent of the public “disapproving of the way he is handling the economy”. The same percentage of people “disapprove of the way he is handling his job as president”. Thus, on the two main issues, leadership and the economy, Obama gets failing grades.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
The Stealth Renationalization Of Energy In The UK / Politics / Energy Resources
By: Andrew_McKillop
OLIGARCHIC TAKEOVER
Professor Colin Robinson, in a Dec 2013 study published by the UK Institute of Economic Affairs, argues that the energy sector in the UK has been effectively renationalized. He says the proof is that centralized energy planning is back, and this is the root cause of skyrocketing fuel and energy prices, fuel poverty, and accelerating de-industrialisation as industrialists flee the high cost of energy.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
How the Fed Steals from You... and Gives to the Very Rich / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: DailyWealth
Porter Stansberry writes: On December 23, just five days from now, we "celebrate" 100 years of a currency system controlled by a select few private corporations.
In 1913, a bill passed through a poorly attended Senate session... and was rushed to the White House, where Woodrow Wilson signed it into law that same night.
It established the Federal Reserve... which is not technically owned by the federal government, nor does it have any actual reserves.
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Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Federal Reserve Celebrates 100 Years of Failure / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: BATR
Researching economic publications on the first century of the Federal Reserve System provides a wealth of financial information that attempts to explain the way the central bank works. Rarely will the academic studies and official reports address the raw nature of a money creation by a private banking monopoly. The common practice of disparaging sources outside government or corporatist business circles, attempts to avoid addressing, much less confronting the plutocracy that controls the debt created money system.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
The Great U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Experiment / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Adrian_Ash
Miguel Perez-Santalla writes: After 100 years of the US central bank, does it deserve another try...?
SO IT WILL be 100 years on December 23rd since the Federal Reserve was born.
The purpose in 1913 was to form a regulatory body to help stem the tide of bank failures in the United States of America. The Fed's proponents, Senator Nelson Aldrich, Senator Owens, Congressman Glass and others, believed that if an agency controlled the flow of money and the banking institutions, it could prevent many of the economic collapses that plagued the early years of the US.
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Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Ukraine On the Edge of Empires Asking to be Ruled / Politics / Eastern Europe
By: STRATFOR
George Friedman writes: The name "Ukraine" literally translates as "on the edge." It is a country on the edge of other countries, sometimes part of one, sometimes part of another and more frequently divided. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was divided between Russia, Poland and the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, it was divided between Russia and Austria-Hungary. And in the 20th century, save for a short period of independence after World War I, it became part of the Soviet Union. Ukraine has been on the edge of empires for centuries.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Eurozone: A Story of Stability in 2013, But Aggressive Action Awaits / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Submissions
Ronan Keenan writes: It all started in October 2009 when George Papandreou’s new Greek government revealed a black hole in their accounts that was vastly underestimated by the previous administration. Several years of tumult followed, bringing the eurozone project to the brink of failure. But 2013 proved to be a lucky year for the 17-nation group. Relatively few economic surprises and heightened attention on events elsewhere brought a welcome calm to European financial markets.
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