Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Who Needs the Debt Ceiling? / Politics / US Debt
By: MISES
Russell Lamberti writes: US lawmakers reached a budget deal this week that will avert the sequester cuts and shutdowns. These fiscal “roadblocks” supposedly damaged investor confidence in 2013, although clearly no one told equity investors who’ve chased the S&P 500 up 26 percent this year. But even so the budget deal is seen by inflationists as only half the battle won, because it doesn’t deal with the pesky debt ceiling. Unsurprisingly, the old calls for a scrapping of the debt ceiling are being heard afresh.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Bank of Israel Capitalising on U.S. QE Money Printing / Politics / Central Banks
By: Fred_Sheehan
Mr. Hyde and Mr. Hyde - Stanley Fischer is in the pipeline for the vice chairmanship of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. In this capacity, he would bang heads to gather FOMC votes for (Presumptive) Fed Chairman Janet Yellen. According to the New York Times, Fischer would "exert a moderating influence on Ms. Yellen," ("For No. 2 at Fed, White House Favors Central Banker in the Bernanke Mold.")
This is neither the job of the vice chair nor the inclination of the man.
First, Fed vice chairmen do the dirty work, clearing the path for the chairman.
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Friday, December 13, 2013
Venezuela’s High Inflation Playbook: The Communist Manifesto / Politics / Inflation
By: Steve_H_Hanke
t seems as though each passing day brings yet another piece of bad economic news coming out of Venezuela. For months, I have been tracking the decline of Venezuela’s economy and its currency, the bolivar. As if a collapsing currency, and the resulting inflation and empty shelves weren’t bad enough, Venezuela is now struggling with massive blackouts. Forget the Whig interpretation of history; Venezuela supports the schoolboys’ interpretation: “it’s just one damn thing after another.”Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, December 13, 2013
Does the US Have Enough Military Bases? / Politics / US Military
By: Mike_Shedlock
Inquiring minds might be interested in the analysis of artist Josh Begley who catalogs every U.S. military base in the world. Here is a representation.
Friday, December 13, 2013
U.S. Congress Bravely Chickens Out of Dealing with Debt Crisis / Politics / US Debt
By: Peter_Schiff
Earlier this week Congress tried to show that it is capable of tackling our chronic and dangerous debt problems. Despite the great fanfare I believe they have accomplished almost nothing. Supporters say that the budget truce created by Republican Representative Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray will provide the economy with badly needed certainty. But I think the only surety this feeble and fictitious deal offers is that Washington will never make any real moves to change the trajectory of our finances, and that future solutions will be forced on us by calamity rather than agreement.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Russia and Europe Battle for Ukraine / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Stephen_Lendman
Ukraine matters. It’s strategically located. It’s in Europe’s geographic center. It borders seven countries.
In alphabetical order, they include Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Russia. After Western/Central Russia, it’s Europe’s largest country territorially.
It’s resource rich. Zbigniew Brzezinski once said “without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.”
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Thursday, December 12, 2013
Scientology a Mirror for Christianity and All Religions of Eternal Slavery / Politics / Religion
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Scientology made the news yesterday on the UK broadcast news channels following recognition by the British state that L Ron Hubbard's Church of scientology has been finally accepted as being a religion and therefore has access to all of the trappings that go along with it such as having tax exempt status and liberal use of playing the religious persecution card to perpetuate their version of slavery that overturns the 1970 high court ruling that scientology was not a religion.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Three Words That Will Save Your Life / Politics / Social Issues
By: DailyWealth
Alex Green writes: Talk about a model prisoner...
In 1985, Fleet Maull began serving a 14-year sentence for drug trafficking. During his incarceration, he completed a PhD in psychology, authored a well-received book, became an ordained priest, founded a prison hospice program, and launched the Prison Dharma Network, a non-profit organization that supports prisoner rehabilitation through contemplative spirituality.
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Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Crony Democracy And Japan's Nuclear Disaster / Politics / Nuclear Power
By: Andrew_McKillop
LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC DISASTER
Abenomics has come, but is already on its way out. A short-term pack of phony reforms to befuddle public opinion, buy time, and develop new bad panic responses to Japan's enduring economic crisis. Because this is New Normal anywhere in the former rich nations - which are called “advanced industrial” as well as “postindustral” (well exhibiting their cognitive dissonance, schizophrenia and existential crisis) - Shinzo Abe and his clique of crony corporate profiteers stumble along to their next crisis with their heads held high. TEPCO, until March 2011, was a peer-respected player in the crony corporate court circus close to power. Today it is special – because it brought down a nuclear disaster of planetary scale, bigger than Chernobyl – but Japan's crony democracy, like its peers is hardwired to only react with panic to any disaster its incompetence produces. Bad panic or good panic, always panic.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Obama's Long War - Enduring Security And Perpetual Illusion / Politics / Middle East
By: Andrew_McKillop
US OBSESSION WITH THE MIDDLE EAST
In a December 6th thinkpiece for 'Washington Post', Andrew J. Bracevich argues that the drift of history and the progression of things signal that now is the time for “ringing down the curtain on (the USA's) 30-plus-year military effort to pull the Islamic world into conformity with American interests and expectations”. As he says, this job befell to Obama and its high time the curtain falls. Almost for sure and certain, this will bring a sense of loss. Bacevich notes that the politics of war in former ages – he quotes Wellington – deals a melancholy sort to the victors of great wars, comparable with what the vanquished resent. They often plot and scheme to make revenge war when they can – not necessarily on their previous enemies. In other words, on collateral country victims of previous defeat.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Kurdistan At the Edge of Empires / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: STRATFOR
Reva Bhalla writes: At the edge of empires lies Kurdistan, the land of the Kurds. The jagged landscape has long been the scene of imperial aggression. For centuries, Turks, Persians, Arabs, Russians and Europeans looked to the mountains to buffer their territorial prizes farther afield, depriving the local mountain dwellers a say in whose throne they would ultimately bow to.
The hot temperament of this borderland was evident in an exchange of letters between Ottoman Sultan Selim I and Safavid Shah Ismail I shortly before the rival Turkic and Persian empires came to blows at the 1514 Battle of Chaldiran in northern Kurdistan. The Ottoman sultan, brimming with confidence that his artillery-equipped janissaries would hold the technological advantage on the battlefield, elegantly denigrated his Persian foes:
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Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Hope and Defiance - A Lot of Hope is Dangerous / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
In the 1st installment of this article – May the Odds Ever Be in Your Favor – The Reaping, I addressed how wealth inequality created by men rigging the system and utilizing media propaganda ultimately leads to rebellion. In Part 2, I will show how hope and defiance can ignite the flame of liberty in the minds of men. Edward Snowden has ignited that flame.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Nelson Mandela the Myth and the Reality / Politics / Africa
By: BATR
Seldom does a cultural test so clearly delineate the rational from the imbeciles. The interminable eulogizing of Nelson Mandel is an unambiguous sign of the lack in historic perspective and understanding that passes for public consensus. The mass media would have you believe that Mandela is a hero, when the evidence and particulars tell a very different story. Let no fact get in the way of making a New World Order icon. Simply put, the elites created Communism as a step towards imposing a universal authoritarian dictatorship.
Monday, December 09, 2013
All The Plans We Make For Our Futures Are Delusions / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
What worries me most about the world today, in the last weeks before Christmas and New Year’s Day 2014, is that all the plans we make for our futures and more importantly our children’s futures are DOA. This is because nobody has a clue what the future will bring, and that’s more than just some general statement. Is the future going to be like the past or present? We really don’t know. But we do exclusively plan for such a future. And that’s not for a lack of warning signs.
Monday, December 09, 2013
The Magic CIA Security Cult And Its Bungled Trip To Paradise / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: Andrew_McKillop
NATIONAL SECURITY
Like a really bad film – certainly not a remake of George Orwell's 1984 – national security “concerns and threats” and the herd political response to these mostly fake threats - produces farce after farce. Absurdity piled on top of imbecility. With body parts on the sidewalk. As we know, although it wore itself out and is winding down now, global warming was an epic challenge to our civilization needing urgent extreme action by stern-jawed great leaders. Now it concerns electric bicycles. Economic challenges, as we also know, mutated into an enduring farce of selectively enriching the rich and the criminal bankster-broker fraternity, and impoverishing everybody else. The record got stuck in the groove. When our great leaders blether and gurgle about “the economic crisis”, these days, everybody turns off.
Monday, December 09, 2013
The Reaping of Wealth, Bread, Circuses & Reality TV / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
“Human history seems logical in afterthought but a mystery in forethought. In every prior Fourth Turning, the catalyst was foreseeable but the climax was not.” - The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997
We are five years into the Crisis that will not resolve itself until sometime in the 2020’s. No one can predict the specific events that will fundamentally change history over the next decade, but the catalysts of debt, civic decay and global disorder were evident sixteen years ago when Strauss and Howe wrote their prophetic generational history. The volcanic eruption occurred in 2008 when the worldwide financial system blew and the molten lava continues to spew forth and flow along the Federal Reserve created channels, protecting the corrupt establishment while incinerating senior citizens, the working middle class and Millennials. Deep within the volcano the pressure is building again as the mood of the country darkens. It will blow again and the economic, social, political and military distress will catalyze into a catastrophic emergency that will tear the fabric of the country asunder. The existing social order will be swept away and replaced by a new paradigm which could be better or far worse.
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Monday, December 09, 2013
NSA Inks Landmark Deal to Share Information With Central Banks / Politics / Central Banks
By: David_Hague
Dear reader put away your charts and graphs. Forget about fundamental and technical analysis. Ignore financial statements and trends. The extraordinary agreement to share information between the National Security Agency [NSA], a host of European, Russian, Canadian and Chinese spy agencies and the world's Central Banks will ensure that the only relevant force in Global Stock markets will be the trading activity of the world's Central Banks. Thanks to the data gathering of the NSA and its subsidiary spy agencies around the world, the Central Banks will be privy to the most confidential conversations and communications from the boardroom, the bedroom and the trading floor. Central Banks will now be able to trade with inside information that could only be dreamed about in years gone by.
Monday, December 09, 2013
Detroit Can Go Bankrupt! / Politics / US Debt
By: Submissions
Kerry Lutz writes: As predicted many months, Detroit’s bankruptcy filing has been validated in a ruling by Bankruptcy Court Judge Steven Rhodes. He rejected numerous objections posed by unions, pension funds and retirees. They’re the big losers under any reorganization plan that scales back Detroit's long-term liabilities.
As a Financial Survival Network listener you knew this day was coming. The decision, which will be appealed, will eventually allow the city to proceed with what is currently the largest public bankruptcy in U.S. history.
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Sunday, December 08, 2013
Defeated By The Taliban, Washington Decides To Take On Russia And China / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
The several days of organized protests in Ukraine are notable for the relative lack of police violence. Unlike in the US, Canada, Thailand, Greece, and Spain, peaceful protesters have not been beaten, tear gassed, water cannoned, and tasered by Ukrainian police. Unlike in Egypt, Palestine, and Bahrain, Ukrainian protesters have not been fired upon with live ammunition. The restraint of the Ukrainian government and police in the face of provocations has been remarkable. Apparently, Ukrainian police have not been militarized by US Homeland Security.
Sunday, December 08, 2013
Central Bankers Will Ruin the Economy, America's Demographics Destiny / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: John_Mauldin
I'm not certain how many interviews I've done over the last decade. Hundreds? I know it is a lot. There are some interviewers who can somehow tease out what you really have in you. Tom Keene at Bloomberg, for instance, forces you to bring your A game, at whatever level you play. He brings it out of you. You know that he is smarter than you will ever be and that you should really be asking him the questions. Except that you're not smart enough to ask the questions. I have to confess that every time I walk into the room with Tom I'm a little intimidated. I try never to show it, somewhat like the new kid on the block trying to put on a brave face, but inside I keep looking for the exit doors just in case I throw up all over myself. At the end of the day I'm still a small-town country boy from Bridgeport, Texas, trying to figure out how the big city works.