Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Don't Bother Raising The Minimum Wage / Politics / Employment
By: Jeff_Berwick
Gary Gibson writes: Elizabeth Warren just realized that the minimum wage should be $22 if it had kept up with economic growth. She suspects in her tender, socially conscious heart that greedy employers have been shafting the lowest level employees. But she's laying her suspicions on the wrong bunch of people. She might want to read up on the currency debasement of the central bank, the command economy vampire that sits at the center of America's supposedly free market economy.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Do We Really Need the Federal Reserve Bank? / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: Last week I spent two days speaking to senior government officials and business leaders in Bermuda, which is one of the world's leading international insurance and reinsurance hubs. The men and women in the room are responsible for hundreds of millions in assets worldwide.
I spoke for over an hour on the implications and opportunities of the financial crisis (I'll have specifics for Money Morning readers next week).
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Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Europe's Disturbing Deposits Theft Precedent in the Cyprus Bailout / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: STRATFOR
The European economic crisis has taken different forms in different places, and Cyprus is the latest country to face the prospect of financial ruin. Overextended banks in Cyprus are teetering on the brink of failure for issuing loans they cannot repay, which has prompted the tiny Mediterranean country, a member of the European Union, to turn to Brussels for help. Late Sunday, the European Union and Cypriot president announced new terms for a bailout that would provide the infusion of cash necessary to prevent bankruptcies in Cyprus' banking sector and, more important, prevent a banking panic from spreading to the rest of Europe.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
The Oligarch's Lost Euros and Alice's Gold / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: Michael_T_Bucci
I met an old acquaintance, a Russian oligarch. He was in tears. "Why, I asked, are you crying?"
"As you know," he implored, "I'm already out of favor with Vladimir Putin and being out of favor with him, I'm shunned by my own class here in New York."
"Yes," I quipped, "but that's old news, yet you are still crying?"
"I'm crying now because I'm about to take a haircut from the barber in Brussels who is going to confiscate 30% of my $1.4 billion left in a Cypriot bank."
"Oh, my!" I replied.
"I don't know how I'm going to eat!" he exclaimed.
"Well, that's an easy one to solve," I replied. So I offered him a solution. "About four blocks down this street is a bank," I explained. "They will take care of you."
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Hayek v. Krugman – Cyprus’ Capital Controls / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Nobelist Paul Krugman has a propensity to spin and conceal. This allows for deception – the type of thing that hoodwinks some readers of his New York Times column. While deception doesn’t qualify as lying, it also fails to qualify as truth-telling.
Prof. Krugman’s New York Times column, “Hot Money Blues” (25 March 2013) is a case in point. Prof. Krugman sprinkles holy water on the capital controls that will be imposed in Cyprus. He further praises to the sky the post-1980 capital controls that were introduced in a number of other countries.
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Monday, March 25, 2013
Neo-Con War Addiction Threatens America's Future / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
William Kristol knows what is wrong with the United States. As he wrote recently in the flagship magazine of the neo-conservatives, the Weekly Standard, the problem with the US is that we seem to have lost our appetite for war. According to Kristol, the troubles that have befallen us in the 20th century have all been the result of these periodic bouts of war-weariness, a kind of virus that we catch from time to time.
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Monday, March 25, 2013
Gazprom Eyes Cyprus' Offshore Natural Gas Deposits / Politics / Natural Gas
By: Andrew_McKillop
THE POTENTIAL IS THERE
Engaged players in unlocking the offshore gas potential of Cyprus at present only concern a few major energy corporations: Noble Energy of the US, Total of France, and Korea Gas. So far and to date, the single major find in 2011 by Noble Energy is estimated, by Noble, as holding about 0.3 billion cubic metres of gas (8 trillion cu feet). But Cyprus’ gas discoveries adjoin Israeli territorial waters where the discovery of the massive Leviathan gasfield (estimated at 425 billion cubic metres) and the smaller Tamar gasfield (250 billion cubic meters) have been enough to make foreign companies rush to cash in on this. European Union total gas consumption in 2012 was about 460 billion cubic metres, in decline for the second straight year, and EU 27 total gas production in 2012 was about 150 bn cu metres, also declining but not at the double-digit rates of annual gas demand in almost all EU countries.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Cyprus Mass Panic Banks Are Collapsing and ATMs are Running Out Of Money / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: Global_Research
Economic Collapse writes: European officials are openly admitting that the two largest banks in Cyprus are “insolvent“, and it is now being reported that Cyprus Popular Bank only has “enough liquidity to cover the next few hours“. Of course all banks in Cyprus are officially closed until Tuesday at the earliest, but there have been long lines at ATMs all over Cyprus as people scramble to get whatever money they can out of the banks. Unfortunately, some ATMs appear to be “malfunctioning” and others appear to have already run out of cash.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Cyprus Bank Battle: The Long-planned Deposit Confiscation Scheme / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: Ellen_Brown
“If these worries become really serious, . . . [s]mall savers will take their money out of banks and resort to household safes and a shotgun.” — Martin Hutchinson on the attempted EU raid on private deposits in Cyprus banks
The deposit confiscation scheme has long been in the making. US depositors could be next …
On Tuesday, March 19, the national legislature of Cyprus overwhelmingly rejected a proposed levy on bank deposits as a condition for a European bailout. Reuters called it “a stunning setback for the 17-nation currency bloc,” but it was a stunning victory for democracy. As Reuters quoted one 65-year-old pensioner, “The voice of the people was heard.”
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Sunday, March 24, 2013
Get Ready for Capital Controls, Right here in America / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: Bill_Bonner
"Can you by legislation add one farthing to the wealth of the country?" The great classical-liberal thinker Richard Cobden asked the House of Commons on Feb. 27, 1846.
The Argentines think so. So do the Europeans. And of course, the Americans.
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Friday, March 22, 2013
Cyprus, Greece Debt Crisis Storm Threatens Europe and America / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: EWI
The similarities between Greece and pre-WWII Germany are striking.
- Nazi salutes.
- Praise for Adolf Hitler.
- Swastika-like banners.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Queen Merkel Says - Off With Their Heads! / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Andrew_McKillop
THE QUEEN OF HEARTS AND THE MAD HATTERS
In the famous children's story, Queen of Hearts Merkel only needed one Mad Hatter - but today has an Airbus load of them, called The Troika's expert analysts, advisor and strategists. Also, Merkel has lost her longtime and truly favourite Mad Hatter - called Mr Nicolas Sarkozy, who she dubbed "Mr Bean".
Today she royally scrapes along in her Economic Kingdom rightly named Wonderland (in the Lewis Carroll story), with a huge rabble of discordant expert halfwits.
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Friday, March 22, 2013
Israel Lobby Goading a Gullible America Into War / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
Patrick J. Buchanan writes: As President Obama departed for Israel, there came a startling report. Bashar Assad's regime had used poison gas on Syrian rebels.
Two Israeli Cabinet members claimed credible evidence. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said, "It's clear for us that (gas is) being used. ... This ... should be on the table in the discussions."
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Friday, March 22, 2013
Could Cyprus Banking Crisis Trigger a War? / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: LewRockwell
Eric Margolis writes: Realizing they will never be a world power, the Cypriots have decided to settle for being a world nuisance. ~ George Mikes, Hungarian writer
Cyprus is a big pain in the neck for one and all. Its banks are bust due to reckless lending to Greece. The sunny island is a beehive of tax evasion, money laundering, dodgy trade and espionage.
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Friday, March 22, 2013
Is the Fed Guilty of Treason? / Politics / Central Banks
By: Brian_Bloom
An important issue that the gold lobby has raised in the past (regarding the application of Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution), gave rise to a court decision that any complainant who wished to challenge the relationship of the Fed and the US Government had to have locus standi in judicio. Apparently, the reason for this was that, because of the fact that Congress must approve borrowing limits of the Federal Government, and because of the double sided bookkeeping entry that clearly links new treasury bond issuance with money creation, it was (at that time) a fact that Congress was ultimately in control of the country’s money supply. Theoretically, if Congress had refused to raise the Sovereign borrowing limit then that would have put a stop to the Fed’s money creation.
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Friday, March 22, 2013
Euro Area In 'Deep Trouble', European Union Could Fall Apart Right Now / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Bloomberg
Paul De Grauwe, a professor at the London School of Economics, told Tom Keene on "Bloomberg Surveillance" today that the euro area is at risk because "so many big mistakes have been made."
De Grauwe went on to say that the "ineptitude of policy makers" allowed Cyprus to "degenerate into systemic crisis" and that European leaders should not allow Russia to take over gas in Cypriot waters as it would allow Russia to "increase its near monopoly."
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Friday, March 22, 2013
Cyprus Lifts the Curtain on Central Banking / Politics / Central Banks
By: Peter_Schiff
This week financial analysts, economists, politicians, and bank depositors from around the world were outraged that European leaders, more specifically the Germans, currently calling many of the shots in Brussels and Frankfurt, could be so politically reckless, economically ignorant, and emotionally callous as to violate the sanctity of bank deposits in order to fund a bailout of Cyprus. The chorus of condemnation may have been the deciding factor in giving the Cypriot parliament the confidence to unanimously vote down the measures in hopes that Berlin will cave or Russia will swoop in with a bailout.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Iraq War: Worth It Or Not? / Politics / Iraq War
By: Andrew_McKillop
THE SIMPLE ANSWER IS NO
Writing for Bloomberg (19 March), Meghan O'Sullivan who is a professor of international affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government avoids any real answer and bows out by saying "we need more time". Nice answer!
She claims this is the "frustrating reality" and, anyway, as she says, talking about Iraq is emotional for many Americans and even for some Brits, given that the 2003 war was a co-production of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, both of them heavily guarded today in sumptuous retirement hideaways, but with problems concerning which countries they could visit without being indicted: for war crime. Costs of the war, as well as the number of deaths are instantly controversial, as well as hard to estimate. Joseph Stiglitz guesses $1 trillion, which could be compared with the number of years of average US oil import spending this equals: given that US imports are on an increasingly steep downtrend, due to rapid shale oil output growth and very slow demand growth, the number of years stretches onward and upward. To be sure, this would imagine the US took all Iraq's oil exports and received it gratis!
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Thursday, March 21, 2013
Cyprus and the Confiscation of State-guaranteed Bank Deposits / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: Fred_Sheehan
Even for those living on a distant continent, the confiscation of state-guaranteed bank deposits in Cyprus is a reminder. (At this stage, it is not clear the Eurocrats will succeed.) Governments and central-banks blew their capital to save a financial Ouija board - not system - in 2008. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker reminded an audience last week there is no financial system: "And what I'm talking about is the international monetary system. Of course you know it's hard to call it a system. A system concerns itself with some interrelated parts and a mechanism that are working together to produce some stability and progress. That's hardly a description of the international monetary system. And as many people have said, 'international non-system.'"
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Hugo Chávez Is Gone, but His Oil Legacy Lives On / Politics / Venezuela
By: Marin_Katusa
On March 5, 2013, Hugo Chávez, one of the most iconic presidents in the world, died at the age of 58. While he was alive, Chávez was a highly controversial figure, calling George W. Bush a drunkard and a "psychologically sick man" and Tony Blair an "imperialist pawn who attempts to curry favor with Danger Bush-Hitler."
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