Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Is This Obama's "Waterloo"? / Politics / US Politics
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: You're reading it right now.
I'm calling it WII (WHY?), which stands for Washington Insights & Indictments.
Enjoy it.
It's likely to be a single issue.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 20, 2013
Stocks Go Long, Scandal! Keep 'Em Coming, Obama! / Politics / US Politics
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: There's a lot of buzz that President Obama's current scandals - Benghazi, the IRS and the Department of Justice - may bring down the financial markets.
I disagree - if anything, they'll provide fuel for another leg up.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 20, 2013
The Feds Are Worried About the U.S. Dollar / Politics / US Dollar
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Over the past month there has been a statistically improbable concurrence of events that can only be explained as a conspiracy to protect the dollar from the Federal Reserve’s policy of Quantitative Easing (QE).
Quantitative Easing is the term given to the Federal Reserve’s policy of printing 1,000 billion new dollars annually in order to finance the US budget deficit by purchasing US Treasury bonds and to keep the prices high of debt-related derivatives on the “banks too big to fail” (BTBF) balance sheets by purchasing mortgage-backed derivatives. Without QE, interest rates would be much higher, and values on the banks’ balance sheets would be much lower.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 20, 2013
Keynesian Phrenology - Our Rulers Are Nutty as Well as Evil / Politics / Economic Theory
By: Richard_Daughty
I am getting more and more upset about the future of the economy, especially the part where I will probably still be alive to suffer through it, instead of being safely dead and gone, laughing disdainfully from whatever circle of Dante’s hell that is reserved for us lousy fathers, worthless husbands, lackluster employees and all-around lazy bastards.
“Hahaha!” I will bellow. “Now suffer! Suffer, you morons who actually believed that the idiocy of Keynesian economics would NOT end in disaster! From the heart of hell I strike at thee!”
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 20, 2013
Ron Paul - The IRS's Job Is To Violate Our Liberties / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
"What do you expect when you target the President?" This is what an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent allegedly said to the head of a conservative organization that was being audited after calling for the impeachment of then-President Clinton. Recent revelations that IRS agents gave "special scrutiny" to organizations opposed to the current administration's policies suggest that many in the IRS still believe harassing the President's opponents is part of their job.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 20, 2013
Can France Save The Euro - Or Even Itself? / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Andrew_McKillop
FRANCE'S CLAIMS ARE NOT ITS GAINS
French media, whether state-owned like 5 of its major TV channels and 2 major radio networks, or simply "government friendly" and entirely predictable, mindless repeater stations for government propaganda, have for several months applied the "ukase" (a French word borrowed from Russian, meaning autocratic law) which claims that France played a decisive role creating the euro system. As an "official truth"it is debatable, but more important is why the propaganda is belted out 24/7.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Big Energy Siezing Landowner Property / Politics / US Politics
By: Walter_Brasch
Julia Trigg Crawford of Direct, Texas, is the manager of a 650-acre farm that her grandfather first bought in 1948. The farm produces mostly corn, wheat, and soy. On its north border is the Red River; to the west is the Bois d’Arc Creek.
TransCanada is an Alberta-based corporation that is building the controversial Keystone Pipeline that will carry bitumen—thicker, more corrosive and toxic, than crude oil—through 36-inch diameter pipes from the Alberta tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast, mostly to be exported. The $2.3 billion southern segment, about 485 miles from Cushing, Okla., to the Gulf Coast is nearly complete. With the exception of a 300-mile extension between Cushing and Steele City, Neb., the rest of the $7 billion 1,959 mile pipeline is being held up until President Obama either succumbs to corporate and business pressures or blocks the construction because of environmental and health concerns.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, May 17, 2013
The UK Green Energy Policy Shambles / Politics / Renewable Energy
By: Andrew_McKillop
GREEN TAPE AND BUSINESS DONT MIX
BusinessEurope president Jürgen Thumann speaking to EurActiv at the European Business Summit, May 15, squarely blamed the European Commission for "the negative effects of green tape”, also saying EU regulations create ‘unnecessary burdensome legislative instruments in climate, energy and environment policies’. The UK Energy Intensive Users Group, an umbrella group that represents a dozen or more energy intensive sectors such as steel, cement, paper and chemicals which have no option but to compete on international markets, often have 70% or more of their operating costs swallowed by energy purchases. These industries are therefore very sensitive to the relative price of energy in the national economy. The EIUG's Director Jeremy Nicholson is outspoken on the negative impacts of Europe's "green tape", like its European continental opposite numbers which include Eurogas, the industry group representing the heavily penalized European gas industry.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Too Big to Jail - Enough to Make Your Blood Boil / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: Here are two items that will upset you...
First, back in February, Attorney General Eric Holder christened the unofficial official doctrine of "Too Big to Jail."
He told Congress, "The size of some of these institutions [TBTF banks] becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute - if we do bring a criminal charge - it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy."
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, May 17, 2013
A Reminder, the Fed Is NOT Printing Money / Politics / Quantitative Easing
By: Jesse
Read full article... Read full article...
So I think central banking, I believe, has learned the dangers of fiat money, and I think, as a consequence of that, we've behaved as though there are, indeed, real reserves underneath the system." Alan Greenspan, 20 July 2005
Friday, May 17, 2013
Remember the $700 Billion Toxic Asset Bailout? / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Bill_Bonner
The financial news is getting boring. The Dow goes only one way – up. But gold fell below $1,400 per ounce yesterday.
Rather than trying to figure it out, yesterday evening we drove down to Zombietown. A friend in Washington had promised to introduce us to Neil Barofsky, inspector general of the TARP program.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Could Cuba’s Past Be America's Future? / Politics / US Politics
By: Casey_Research
By Jeff Thomas, International Man
An article was published in Uruguay that has received little notice outside of Latin America. This article refers to Cuban dissident Yoani Sánchez, also little known in the First World. Ms. Sánchez has recently been allowed to travel outside of Cuba for the first time, as a result of the elimination of "exit visas." The requirement for exit visas was imposed in 1961 to stop Cubans who opposed the then-new Castro regime from being able to leave Cuba. (Editor's note: The regime in Washington imposes an "exit tax" for certain Americans who renounce their citizenship.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Mervyn King Mission Accomplished, Bankster's Saved, Debt Monetized Via QE Stealth Inflation Theft / Politics / Central Banks
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Mervyn King delivered his last Bank of England Quarterly Inflation economic propaganda report as he is due to make away for the Canadian Central Bank governor Mark Carney in June. His final message was one of economic optimism in terms of forecasting stronger economic growth going forward of 2% in 2 years time.
"There is a welcome change in the econ comic outlook, today's projections are for growth to be a little strong and for inflation to be a little weaker than we expected 3 months ago, that is the first time I have been able to say that since before the financial crisis"
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
We Are All Going to Die! Looming 6th Major Extinction / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Bill_Bonner
Today, we interrupt our regular coverage of markets, morons and mush-head economics to give you a heads-up:
We may all be doomed!
Not just you... not just us... but the whole friggin' human race may soon be on the endangered species list. Boohoo! We're going extinct. So says an article in Newsweek. (More below...)
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
IRS as a Political Tax Hit Squad / Politics / US Politics
By: BATR
When the Internal Revenue Service admits to violations of law by targeting limited government advocate organizations, you know that the non-divulged crimes are much worse. The discloser in the mainstream media is a pleasant astonishment. The usual pattern of protecting "Big Government" is still intact, while the noise and agency diversion on the abuses of the IRS avoid the fundamental problem with federal taxation, based upon a system of deductions, exemptions, incentives and grants. The extortion and intimidation in the enforcement of the tax code is the entrusted role assigned to the IRS by the political hacks that administer the social engineering experiment that is fundamentally changing America.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Extremist Ideology of Multiculturalism is Why Over 90% of Immigrants Tend NOT Assimilate / Politics / Immigration
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Many of the mainstream politicians actively promote the policy of multiculturalism as the primary way for immigrants to integrate / assimilate themselves with diverse cultures into British society, whereas the facts spanning several decades suggest the complete opposite takes place as the policy of multiculturalism (all cultures being equal) results in immigrants tending to congregate in ghettos that over time displace the indigenous populations, which are further reinforced by subsequent generations most of whom remain within their expanding boundaries of ghetto's which we see in ALL immigrant population groups, which is reinforced by state schools teaching of multiculturalism and by religious schools. The only change that happens over the time is that ghettos can become wealthy i.e. the Jewish immigrants of the 1930's to 1940's now live in rich ghettos such as Gants Hill, Golder's Green, Hampstead and Hendon, similar changes occurred with Hindu and Sikh migrations of the 1950's to 1970's and then for Pakistani's of the 1960's to 1980's and likely for a whole host of more recent influx of migrants from Africa, East Asia (China) and off course Eastern Europe.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Geopolitical Journey: Europe, the Glorious and the Banal / Politics / European Union
By: John_Mauldin
Standing at the edge of the old world and the beginning of the new one, at the tip of Portugal, Stratfor's George Friedman is moved by the exploits of 15th-century European explorers and dismayed by the present fear pervading the Continent that "any decisive action will tear the place apart."
Europeans wreaked much havoc as they spread throughout the world, but they also "left as [their] legacy something extraordinary: a world that knew itself and all of its parts." But now, George asks, with "the death of hubris and of risk-taking … what follows, what is left?" The Europeans are "now reduced to finding a way to resume the comforts of the unexceptional…. Europe has chosen comfort, and now has lost it. It sought transcendence and tore itself apart."
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Why Obama's Syria 'Red' Line Turns Pink / Politics / US Politics
By: Patrick_Henningsen
Back in August 2012, things were a lot different in Washington DC and in the White House.
The Obama administration was brandishing a confident swagger back then, heading into the elections against a hobbling GOP opponent, and Benghazi had yet to unfold in all of its ugliness.
As Hillary Clinton was jetting around on the US State Department budget promoting her 'Friends of Syria' Middle East and European tours, and as the CIA were busy like bees working in the gray shadows of Benghazi, Washington and London were laying the groundwork for their new WMD case is Syria.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Benefits Cuts and Higher Taxes for Seniors in Obama Budget / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: Don_Miller
Some people claim that our Social Security system isn't broke. Technically, they're right. The Old Age andSurvivors Trust Fund (OASI) currently holds $2.5 trillion in special government Treasuries that can be redeemed at any time – in theory of course.
But here's the catch. What happens when the OASI needs those trillions of dollars to pay out benefits? Essentially, the government has to find the money to pay the face value of those Treasuries. So from that standpoint, Social Security is broke. The Treasury IOUs are not backed by any cash surplus, only by faith that the US government will somehow come up with the cash... probably by indebting itself further or by raising taxes.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
3D Printing, Bitcoin, the Digital Age Revolution Has Begun / Politics / Internet
By: Jeff_Berwick
Welcome to the official beginning of the digital age!
When I first heard that the Internet had finally come to fruition in 1994, I could hardly contain my excitement as I'd been waiting for it since I got my first computer in 1981. When I heard about the Internet 13 years later I didn't even know what anarchism really was or had heard the word libertarian, but I instinctively knew that most problems in the world could be solved if people would just have more of an ability to communicate and to get access to real information. Having grown up in Canada, I was certain that the government's Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was not giving me the full and truthful picture of the world!
Read full article... Read full article...