Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, October 28, 2013
America's Culture of Ignorance / Politics / Social Issues
By: James_Quinn
“Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.” - Thomas Edison
The kabuki theater that passes for governance in Washington D.C. reveals the profound level of ignorance shrouding this Empire of Debt in its prolonged death throes. Ignorance of facts; ignorance of math; ignorance of history; ignorance of reality; and ignorance of how ignorant we’ve become as a nation, have set us up for an epic fall. It’s almost as if we relish wallowing in our ignorance like a fat lazy sow in a mud hole. The lords of the manor are able to retain their power, control and huge ill-gotten riches because the government educated serfs are too ignorant to recognize the self-evident contradictions in the propaganda they are inundated with by state controlled media on a daily basis.
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Monday, October 28, 2013
Ron Paul - Saudi Arabia Insists that the U.S. Fight its Battles, a Welcome Reset / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last week it was reported that Saudi Arabia decided to make a "major shift" away from its 80 years of close cooperation with the United States. The Saudi leadership is angry that the Obama administration did not attack Syria last month, and that it has not delivered heavy weapons to the Syrian rebels fighting to overthrow the Assad government. Saudi Arabia is heavily invested in the overthrow of the Assad government in Syria, sending money and weapons to the rebels.
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Monday, October 28, 2013
Nuclear Power Dirty Bomb / Politics / Nuclear Power
By: Andrew_McKillop
THE 100-YEAR CURSE
Within the next 15 – 20 years as many as 100 industry standard Westinghouse-type 900 MW PWR pressurized water reactors, concentrated in the "old nuclear' countries will have to be decommissioned, dismantled and their sites made safe - unless political deciders maintain the sinister farce of rubber stamping reactor operating lifetime extensions. The decontamination process could take as long as 100 years. In several countries, especially Germany, Switzerland and probably Japan the dangerous game of politically-decided reactor life extensions – to push back the date of final decommissioning - has already ended or is ending.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
NSA Spying on America's Closes Allies - Merkel, Hollande, Rouseff, Nieto, … / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: Stephen_Lendman
On October 24, London’s Guardian headlined “NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders after US official handed over contacts,” saying:
Snowden released documents revealed it. “An official in another US government department” gave NSA over 200 private phone numbers.
Thirty-five world leaders were included. They weren’t named. It’s not hard imagining likely targets. Germany’s Angela Merkel is one. So is France’s Francois Hollande.
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Sunday, October 27, 2013
Why Did Global Warming Stop? / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
TRY, TRY, TRY AGAIN
Have you heard the one about how global warming stopped in 1998? The warmist lobby certainly heard it, and it hurts.
They tried calling it a “pause,” a “hiatus,” a “slowdown” and then groped around to an “unknown mechanism”. Of warming, of course. Despite everything, warming goes on. Even when the figures show it isn't happening it is happening but you, the ignoramus, are unable to appreciate its subtleties. Warmists and their glove puppet friends in the media therefore made a point of ignoring NASA's most recent satellite report on the world's ice sheets.
The Antarctic ice sheet has grown to its biggest on record since regular satellite recordings started in 1979. The Arctic ice sheet has also grown, by a huge amount in the past 12 months.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Time Out For The PetroDollar Conspiracy / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: Andrew_McKillop
FIRST YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE
I have plenty of articles published on this subject, and I break up the 40-odd years of “the petrodollar system” into at least 3 clear main phases. More important, the present one is the last one. For a valedictory and uncertain, but official argument for the present phase, the US Federal Reserve Bank of NY has a full statement http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/current_issues/ci12-9/ci12-9.html.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
What an 81% Increase in Food Stamp Use Really Means for the U.S. Economy / Politics / US Economy
By: DailyGainsLetter
Mohammad Zulfiqar writes: Each day, there’s growing evidence that suggests the American economy isn’t experiencing any economic growth. Unequal job creation is just one of the main topics discussed in the mainstream, but sadly, there are many other facts and figures that show a gruesome image of the U.S. economy as well.
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Thursday, October 24, 2013
Mexico's Zetas Are Not Finished Yet / Politics / Mexico
By: STRATFOR
Scott Stewart and Tristan Reed write: During the question-and-answer portion of our quarterly Mexico Security Monitor webinar, we were asked a question pertaining to the current status of Los Zetas. The question was something to the effect of: "Some Mexican media outlets and analysts claim that Los Zetas have been dismantled as an organization and are now little more than a 'ragtag operation.' Why do you disagree with that assessment?"
This question apparently came in response to our quarterly cartel report (an abbreviated version is available here), in which we wrote that despite the leadership losses suffered by Los Zetas, including the arrest of their leader, Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales, there were no signs that other leaders were challenging the current leader and Miguel's brother, Omar Trevino Morales. We also wrote that we believed Los Zetas have maintained their operational capabilities in terms of drug smuggling and other criminal activity, and that they have retained the ability to defend their operations and to continue conducting offensive operations deep in their rivals' territory.
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Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Greenspan - No Apologies, I'm Not Superman! / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Bloomberg
In an interview with Bloomberg Television's Sara Eisen, Alan Greenspan defends his actions on monetary policy, offering no apologies for missing economic forecasts.
Greenspan said: "I am in the business where, Harry Truman once said, 'If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen'... I apologize for something I did wrong, and I do apologize. I don't apologize...I was doing the best I can. The arguments, some of which are quite accurate is I missed certain forecasts, you don't apologize for that. Do you? I don't. We are not omniscient. I am a human being. I cannot see beyond the horizon any more than anyone else can. Now to apologize for not being Superman, I just refuse to do that because that never entered my mind."
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Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Europe's Very Distressed Energy Transition / Politics / Energy Resources
By: Andrew_McKillop
DISTRESSED ASSETS
Excepting Europe's stalled and shrunken, and totally uneconomic biofuels programme, and its more successful energy saving, the continent's energy transition is almost entirely focused on the power sector, aiming to “back out” fossil fuels for power generation by nearly-100% within 35 years.
Not so long ago, in 2008, Europe's top-20 market traded electric power companies bundled into European utility indices like Stoxx Europe 600 Utilities, the Bloomberg European Utilities Index and the MSCI European Utilities Index had a combined market value of more than 1000 billion euros.
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Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Transfers Excluded, JP Morgan Chase is Wired / Politics / Banksters
By: BATR
The rumblings of capital and currency controls are causing a stir among perceptive financial observers. You do not have to be a business-banking customer to fear the consequences of restricting the transfer of money. Both domestic and international wires are no longer available to be sent from a business savings account, may seem unimportant to the average Chase customer. Many do not have enough money on deposit to pay the wire fee. However, the kicker is that you can still receive wire transfers.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
ObamaCare: What If It Were Fire Insurance? / Politics / US Politics
By: Gary_North
What if ObamaCare were fire insurance? It would be very special. You could buy a policy after a smoke detector in your home started blaring.
When you hear “pre-existing condition,” think “blaring smoke detector.”
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Fed Flying Blind - Fixing the Economy as Easy as 1-2-3 / Politics / US Interest Rates
By: Axel_Merk
With the economy stuck in first gear, a couple of common sense steps that wouldn't cost taxpayers an arm and a leg could help the economy shift into a higher gear.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
U.S. Foreign Policy from the Founders' Perspective / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
Last week I discussed how the Founding Fathers might view the American debt crisis and the government shutdown. This week I thought it would be useful to consider how the founders might view foreign policy. I argued that on domestic policy they had clear principles, but unlike their ideology, those principles were never mechanistic or inflexible. For them, principles dictated that a gentleman pays his debts and does not casually increase his debts, the constitutional provision that debt is sometimes necessary notwithstanding. They feared excessive debt and abhorred nonpayment, but their principles were never completely rigid.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
The Selfish Gene, Social Darwinism, and Human Cooperation / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
Toby Baxendale writes: It took me until my 43rd year to read The Selfish Gene, written in 1976 by Richard Dawkins. In many respects, it is a testament to its success that I felt no compelling desire to read it. What I perceived to be its central message had been absorbed into the very fabric of our culture. I thought the message was simply put. To summarize: we are driven to survive by our genes and via competitive and selfish natural selection; we follow our own self-interest in order to survive and procreate; genes that adapt more quickly and better to the competitive world survive at the expense of the others, and so forth. The state of nature is a Hobbesian nightmare of there being “no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” It is survival of the fittest for most, but armed with this knowledge, we could overcome some of these rough edges of life.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Peter Schiff Warns Collapse Of The U.S. Dollar Is Unavoidable / Politics / US Dollar
By: GoldSilver
In a Q&A with GoldSilverWorlds, Peter Schiff, CEO and Chief Global Strategist of Euro Pacific Capital, explained why the mother of all collapses is still in front of us and shared his top tips on how to protect financially.
Peter Schiff has an outspoken libertarian view on the world and economics. It is no coincidence he will be one of the keynote speakers at the first Liberty Forum Conference 2013 on December 4 to 8. His libertarian view was mainly influenced by his father, more so than any of the books he has read. From a young age, he discussed with his father topics related to government, economics, the Constitution, and history of the US. His personal view and the free market oriented perspective were a perfect fit even if these ideas were in contrast with the majority of economic experts and governments. According to Schiff “many people just buy the establishment; they accept a lot of nonsense.”
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Monday, October 21, 2013
U.S. Debt De-Crowning the Dollar / Politics / US Debt
By: Michael_Pento
The gradual erosion of the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency has been greatly hastened of late. This is due not only to the perpetual gridlock in D.C., but also our government’s inability to articulate a strategy to deal with the $126 trillion of unfunded liabilities.
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Monday, October 21, 2013
Zero Population Growth – A Forgotten Fear / Politics / Demographics
By: Andrew_McKillop
EXIT THE HYSTERICS
Government-friendly environment and development aid NGOs avoid this one like the plague: they never say the world is massively overpopulated and left that role for a few privileged hard line speakers - like Obama's chief science adviser John P. Holdren, guru ecologist Paul Ehrlich, the Club of Rome and its WorldShift Network, and a few others. Occasionally, reputed organizations like Britain's Royal Society joined in with arguments for ZPG, calling for a “radical rebalancing" of global consumption, to go hand-in-hand with linked and stronger attempts to curb the rapid rise of global population.
Monday, October 21, 2013
What the U.S. Debt Ceiling Deal Did Not Fix / Politics / US Debt
By: Money_Morning
Garrett Baldwin writes: While everyone in Washington right now is patting themselves on the back in the wake of Wednesday's debt ceiling deal, the reality is that it does little to address the nation's deepest budget issues.
True, the Band-Aid agreement will fund the U.S. government through Jan. 15 and lift the debt limit through Feb. 7.
But all it means is that Congress has just 90 days to take meaningful action on the problems that led to the government shutdown and debt ceiling fight in the first place.
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Monday, October 21, 2013
The First Thing Yellen Should Do to Save America / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: How do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume? It isn't easy, but I'll try...
- Lulu, To Sir, With Love (1967)
There is so much to say about the United States government not defaulting.
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