Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
The Rise and Fall of the U.S. Dollar / Politics / US Dollar
By: Mark_Thornton
Over the last century America’s money—the dollar—has come to dominate the global monetary system. It is used not just by Americans, but in other countries, in the global black market, and by importers and exporters. And it is the primary reserve currency for central banks. This status is what Barry Eichengreen calls an “exorbitant privilege,” because it confers numerous benefits to individuals, companies, and governments. Collectively, it also confers the ability for Americans to consume beyond our ability to produce.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
How Big Corporations Are Destroying the "Free Market" / Politics / Corporate News
By: Money_Morning
Garrett Baldwin writes:
As an economist, I wince whenever I hear someone say that we live in a true free market.
The reality is we live in a semi-free market where regulation stifles business and corporate money influences and distorts what would normally be a highly competitive marketplace.
And over the last two decades, the situation has only gotten worse for consumers, producers, and defenders of the so-called "free market."
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Wednesday, May 29, 2013
The Real Reason Governments Are Killing Financial Privacy / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Casey_Research
By Nick Giambruno, Editor, International Man writes: At the latest G-20 meeting, central bankers, finance ministers, and an assortment of other central planners touted what they hoped would be a new "global standard" of the automatic sharing of financial information.
The US has taken the lead with the odious FATCA law, and the EU has followed suit with its own version. Through FATCA and other measures, both governments are aggressively seeking new ways to undermine financial privacy.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Why Higher Education Can Be the Worst Investment Ever / Politics / Student Finances
By: Money_Morning
Tara Clarke writes: Benjamin Franklin once said, "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."
But nowadays, you would have to be delusional to assume that an investment in higher education will definitely pay off.
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Monday, May 27, 2013
U.S. Government Of, By, and For The Banks / Politics / Banksters
By: Global_Research
Andre Damon writes: Five years since the 2008 financial meltdown, the speculation and fraud that caused the crash are back in full force in the United States. Flush with the $85 billion in cash printed up and handed to the banks every month by the Federal Reserve, business at the Wall Street casino is booming. Stock values are at record levels and so are bank profits, amidst declining wages and mass poverty.
Monday, May 27, 2013
America's Global Gulag, Congressional Resistance against Presidential Despotism / Politics / US Politics
By: BATR
The authoritarian arrogance of the executive branch is defined by their tyrannical decrees. As any reader of BREAKING ALL THE RULES commentary, knows all too well, the dictatorship of central planning and unlawful administration has hijacked our federalist form of a constitutional republic. The primacy of the legislature over the executive branch was always the intent of our founding fathers. Unfortunately, the exact reverse has taken hold in the den of inequity that holds court in Washington, DC.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Dumbing Down of U.S. Public School Curriculum / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
In addition to shredding civil liberties, launching a utopian global war for democracy, and going on a spending spree that would make LBJ blush, the so-called "conservative" Bush administration dramatically increased federal control over education via the "No Child Left Behind" act. During my time in Congress I heard nothing but complaints about this law from teachers, administrators, and, most importantly, students and parents. Most of the complaints concerned No Child Left Behind's testing requirements, which encouraged educators to "teach to the test."
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Sunday, May 26, 2013
An Even Deadlier Disaster than Bangladesh Garment Factory Collapse for the Third World / Politics / Unemployment
By: George_Reisman
The recent collapse of a garment factory building in Bangladesh, resulting in the death, at latest count, of more than 1,100 workers who were employed there, has led to international outrage not only against the building’s owner but also against the various retailers in the United States and Europe, many of them prominent, that have sold clothing produced in that building. It is demanded that they assume responsibility for working conditions in the factories that supply them and not deal with factories that do not provide safe and humane conditions and pay fair wages.
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Sunday, May 26, 2013
Europe Can't Beat The Bubble, Past Sins And Future Debts / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Andrew_McKillop
BUBBLE TROUBLE
Don't fear the bubble, says Paul Krugman and his talkalikes, but Europe is dealing with another kind of bubble. Call it Bubble Politics. An unworkable Federal Europe with a single money, that nobody wants.
Bubblists say that the flood of money being poured into the global economy by the world's central banks is good, proven by asset prices of several kinds, especially stocks and shares being pumped up far beyond fundamental valuations. When (not if) these valuations revert to sanity and unwind the bubble burst could be disastrous in all manner of unpredictable ways. So what is more logical than to keep pumping and keep the party going?
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Saturday, May 25, 2013
British Government Bribing Islamic Extremists Not to Blow Themselves Up / Politics / UK Politics
By: N_Walayat
The recent events out of Woolwich reinforce my view that multiculturalism is an extremist ideology that promotes inter communal conflict rather than integration and is as a consequence of successive government objectives for the fragmenting of society into creating pools of vested interest voters.
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Friday, May 24, 2013
Real Risk of Imminent Implosion of Eurozone / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Last weekend, a group of influential British business people published a letter in the Independent which attempts to "make the economic case" for having the UK stay in the EU. The letter of course is a reaction to unrest within PM David Cameron's Conservatives (over half of Tory backbenchers demand a referendum on the topic), as well as the rise of Nigel Farage's UK Independence Party, which in recent polls is almost as big as the Tories (which trails Labor by a mile and a half). The letter raises a bevy of interesting questions, some of which are not nearly as easy to answer as people have come to believe.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
U.S. Bogus GDP Economic Growth Statistics - More Government Manipulation / Politics / Market Manipulation
By: Money_Morning
Gary Gately writes: America's about to become more wealthy - on paper, at least.
That's because the way the country's gross domestic product, or U.S. GDP, is measured will change significantly come July 31, enough to boost the closely watched economic barometer by 3%, or $400 billion.
That translates to the equivalent of about $1,500 more worth of goods and services per person in the United States.
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Thursday, May 23, 2013
7 Reasons Not to Trust the Bernanke Testimony to Congress / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes: As usual, the markets were hanging on every word of the Bernanke testimony to Congress today (Wednesday).
By now, everyone should know better.
In the years that U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has been a member of the Fed - both as a member of the Board of Governors from 2002 to 2005, and in his two terms as chairman beginning in 2006 - he has been stupendously wrong time and time again.
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Thursday, May 23, 2013
Is the United States the Next Argentina? / Politics / US Debt
By: Money_Morning
Garrett Baldwin writes: Drive the streets of Buenos Aires, and you will see regal architecture that rivals wealthy European enclaves in Monaco or London.
And along tree-lined walkways, you will witness monuments that speak of the legacy of Argentina's finest moments.
But all of it is just a façade-a reminder of what used to be.
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Thursday, May 23, 2013
How Ben Bernanke Is Destroying Your Retiremen / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes:
Uncle Sam has an unfunded pension liability of $800 billion.
Corporate pension funds have an unfunded liability around $400 billion.
State and local pension funds have an unfunded liability in the tony neighborhood of $3 trillion.
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Thursday, May 23, 2013
The 4th Turning - Millennials Will Replace the Baby Boomers / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
A confluence of events last week has me reminiscing about the days gone by and apprehensive about the future. I’ve spent a substantial portion of my adulthood rushing to baseball fields, hockey rinks, gymnasiums, and school auditoriums after a long day at work. I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed every moment. Watching eight year olds trying to throw a strike for two hours can become excruciatingly mind-numbing. But, the years of baseball, hockey, basketball, and band taught my boys life lessons about teamwork, sportsmanship, winning, losing, hard work, and having fun. There were championship teams, awful teams and of course trophies for finishing in 7th place. As my boys have gotten older and no longer participate in organized sports, the time commitment has dropped considerably. Last week was one of those few occasions where I had to rush home from work, wolf down a slice of pizza and head out to a school function. It was the annual 8th grade Spring concert.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Iran’s Search for a “Master of the Economy” / Politics / Iran
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Iran’s Guardian Council announced yesterday that former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been barred from Iran’s presidency poll—reportedly due to his old age and debilitating health. In recent weeks, speculation over a Rafsanjani comeback bid had spurred some optimism among Iranians who recognize that their broken economy desperately needed a jolt. Some Iranian voters have described him as a “master of the economy” and the solution to their economic woes. However, a closer look at Iran’s misery index shows just how fatally flawed this perception is.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
iAvoid - Apple's New Pay No Tax App / Politics / Taxes
By: Jeff_Berwick
There has been an angry uproar recently because Apple has hardly paid any extortion fees in the last four years on its billions in profits. Why this warrants an angry uproar and not a giant cheer for them for not supporting criminal governments is beyond us. But the slave-on-slave action has been thick on this one.
One particular comment on a mainstream site caught my attention, "If our budget geniuses in Congress would hire enough IRS agents, this stuff would stop. But our beanies are cutting IRS budgets. Mitt's servants along with Bill Gates's are doing their job."
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Thursday, May 23, 2013
Huge Discrepancy Between Investment Income and Public Liabilities / Politics / US Politics
By: Fred_Sheehan
The difficulty of institutions that need cash for payment have grown acute during the chalk-brained professors' zero-interest-rate pogrom. Insurance companies are one victim, pension plans another. Looking specifically at defined-benefit pension plans, the plan sponsor (corporation, maybe, or municipality) is obligated to pay current and future retirees a specific dollar amount from now until a spouses' death.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Why The Petrodollar System Is Crippled / Politics / Global Financial System
By: Andrew_McKillop
BRETTON WOODS BREAKDOWN, VIETNAM AND THE GREAT SOCIETY
For Jerry Robinson (http://ftmdaily.com/documents/Preparing-for-the-Collapse-of-the-Petrodollar-System.pdf) the reasons why the so-called Petrodollar System must collapse is ultimately because the political and monetary drivers of the system date back to the fast-fading times of 1945-1971 when the the USA's global hegemony and monetary power was almost unchallenged.