Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, June 12, 2020
US and UK Black Lives Matter Protests, Riots and Looting To Trigger 2nd Covid-19 Wave Peak? / Politics / Pandemic
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Briefly, the protesting and rioting of the past week that has shown little signs of social distancing coupled with relaxation of lockdown's is likely to trigger a second wave of sorts that a few weeks down the road could result in a rising death tolls for both the US and UK.
As things stand the Covid-19 deaths trend in the US continues to move the right direction with the 7 day average at 835 and the 14 day at distant 970, though the rate of decline has slowed over the past couple of weeks that implies that the US could be at risk of at least stalling at an average of about 800 deaths per day and worse risk an upwards trend towards a second peak over the coming weeks.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, June 11, 2020
When Profits and Politics Drive Science: The Hazards of Rushing a Coronavirus Vaccine at “Warp Speed” / Politics / Pandemic
By: Ellen_Brown
More than 100 companies are competing to be first in the race to get a COVID-19 vaccine to market. It’s a race against time, not because the death rate is climbing but because it is falling – to the point where there could soon be too few subjects to prove the effectiveness of the drug.
So says Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish pharmaceutical company that is a frontrunner in the race. Soriot said on May 24th,
Read full article... Read full article...“The vaccine has to work and that’s one question, and the other question is, even if it works, we have to be able to demonstrate it. We have to run as fast as possible before the disease disappears so we can demonstrate that the vaccine is effective.”
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Trump's Final Gamble: From Chinagate to Hybrid Wars / Politics / China US Conflict
By: Dan_Steinbock
The disastrous failure of the Trump administration to contain COVID-19 will result in catastrophic 2nd quarter data. As a result, Trump is risking his re-election on domestic unrest, fatal geopolitics and a global depression.
The cold reality is that the Trump administration learned about the virus already on January 3, when CDC Director Dr. Robert R. Redfield informed Secretary of Health Alex Azar that China had discovered a new coronavirus. Yet no mobilization was initiated until toward late March (see my report here):
Indeed, the Trump White House missed three opportunities to contain the virus outbreak; in January (between CDC alert and WHO’s international emergency), the 1st quarter (between the WHO emergency and the pandemic alert) and the 2nd quarter (since social distancing began 6-8 weeks late and inadequately).
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, June 09, 2020
US Red Shirts and the Boogaloo / Politics / US Politics
By: Richard_Mills
The race riots seen around the United States over the past few days are troubling for sure, but they are nothing new.
If there is one thing uniting the 50 American states of the union, historically, it is divisions over race, primarily Caucasian versus African American. It is disturbing to note that 157 years after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, and many decades after the race riots of the 1960s ushered in an era of equal opportunity and affirmative action, the United States is still struggling with questions of justice and inequality pertaining to its large black population.
Yet there is a marked difference between what is happening now compared to 100 years ago. During the period leading up to the 1920s, it was usually white people who instigated and participated in race riots. The purpose of these violent demonstrations was to assert white dominion rather than to express black anger and frustration.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, June 08, 2020
LOCKDOWN 2020: Everybody Was Kung Flu Fighting / Politics / Pandemic
By: Jeff_Berwick
Suddenly, we’re not "in this together" anymore.
Suddenly, it’s "every man for himself".
Especially when it comes to deliberately destroying old ladies’ shops in the name of Anarchy!
Larken Rose, that "angry white guy with a gun", says it best:
"One common misconception about anarchy is that it means "every man for himself" or "survival of the fittest," where everyone has to be selfish and self-sufficient, where there is no real cooperation or organization, and where people all behave like violent, selfish animals."
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, June 06, 2020
Is America Headed for a Post-Apocalyptic Currency Collapse? / Politics / Pandemic
By: MoneyMetals
Just when it seemed as though America may be turning the corner after months of lockdown… just when it seemed as though we were on a path to reopening and gradually returning to normalcy… just when the prospects of panic-induced social unrest seemed to be behind us…
…America’s cities erupted into flames.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, June 05, 2020
UK Coronavirus Catastrophe Trend Analysis Video / Politics / Pandemic
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Britains half witted response to the coronavirus pandemic continues to unfold catastrophically, with bringing the pandemic under control virtually wholly left to the good sense of the general public to achieve as Government Ministers, MP's and Advisors fail to follow that which they have been preaching since the government ordered lockdown on the 23rd of March (a good 3 weeks too late).
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, June 04, 2020
Social Unrest Rises as Confidence Falls / Politics / Pandemic
By: MoneyMetals
Protests egged on by the legacy media quickly devolved into large-scale riots and looting over the weekend in more than a dozen U.S. cities.
Some important institutions have betrayed the public trust, and Americans facing quarantine and staggering unemployment have arrived at the boiling point.
Meanwhile, the ranks of people buying gold and silver as a hedge against economic chaos and financial malfeasance swelled again in recent months.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, June 03, 2020
The Corona Riots Begin, US Covid-19 Catastrophe Trend Analysis / Politics / US Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
President Trump recently successfully bullshitted the gullible mainstream media into believing that he was self medicating on the anti malaria Hydrosychloroquine, that includes side effects such as paranoia, delirium and herat attacks, so unlike Vitamin D, definitely not to be taken on a whim, bur rather after considering the evidence in its favour of actually working to combat a coronavirus infection for which there is a building case against as previous tweets by nut jobs have been exposed as being BS.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, June 02, 2020
UK Corona Catastrophe Trend Analysis / Politics / Pandemic
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The devastating consequences of the chinese Coronavirus catastrophe continues in terms of lives lost and severe economic contraction, which given who it's effecting and to what extent (the West) has all the hallmarks of being a bio-weapon that has in large part been engineered to target western population groups to a greater extent but which through negligence prematurely leaked out of the Wuhan bio lab and then proceeded to go on the rampage across world aided by infected Chinese travelers allowed to travel internationally whilst domestic flights out of Wuhan were suspended.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, May 28, 2020
Europe’s Coronavirus Pandemic Dilemma / Politics / Pandemic
By: Dan_Steinbock
In the ongoing battle against the global pandemic, belated responses will result in huge human costs and massive economic damage. In Europe, losses are climaxing in the 2nd quarter of 2020.
Before advanced economies – including those in Europe - began to flatten the epidemic curve, they fattened it for 6-8 weeks. These COVID-19 delays will prolong the global pandemic and cause secondary waves of imported infections and residual clusters both in Europe and worldwide (for the full story, see my report on the historical COVID damage: https://www.differencegroup.net/coronavirus-briefs ).
In the United States, the Trump administration's futile effort to “protect the economy” (read: the markets) backfired disastrously. The European Union was more willing to battle the virus but was unable to do so proactively because it lacks the needed common institutions for effective response.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, May 14, 2020
The Tragedy Of Missed Covid-19 Opportunities / Politics / Pandemic
By: Dan_Steinbock
As China’s economy is rebounding, the belated COVID-19 mobilization in the United States and Europe has resulted in huge human and economic damage. New policy plunders could make the situation much worse globally.
My new report, “The Tragedy of Missed Opportunities,” focuses on the huge COVID-19 human costs and economic damage. Released by a global think-tank, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS), it identifies the missed opportunities in the virus battle and its consequent human and economic costs " [link and here].
In the United States, the Trump administration's futile effort to “protect the economy” (read: the markets) has had disastrous repercussions. Yet, the White House continues to suppress science-based medical policies.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
The Fed Now Owns All Markets / Politics / Market Manipulation
By: Michael_Pento
Since the Great Recession hit in 2008, central banks have been in the business of keeping insolvent governments from defaulting through the process of pegging borrowing costs near zero. These money printers are now in the practice of propping up corporations--even those of the junk and zombie variety--by ensuring their cost of funds bears absolutely zero relationship to the credit quality of the issuer. To be clear, central banks have been falsifying public and now private bond prices to historic and monumental degrees just as the intensity of issuances and insolvency deepens.
And now, the Fed is bailing out bankrupt consumers with helicopter money in the form of enhanced and extended unemployment, grants through the Payroll Protection Plan and direct UBI to consumers through the CARES Act Recovery Rebates clause. All together there has been about $2.8 trillion worth of deficit spending so far.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 11, 2020
We Are On The Verge of the Entire World Becoming Like East Germany / Politics / Pandemic
By: Jeff_Berwick
Only You Can Stop It
East Berlin citizens woke up on 13 August 1961 to more than 30 miles of barbed wire barrier through the heart of Berlin. Overnight they were forbidden to pass into West Berlin, and the number of checkpoints in which Westerners could cross the border was drastically reduced. And when it became clear that there would be no major action to protest the closing, the tyranny of East German authorities became silently ratified.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 11, 2020
Brave New Corona World – A heated Debate between Steven Pinker and Aldous Huxley / Politics / Pandemic
By: Submissions
Aldous Huxley: Did I not make sufficiently clear what I think about principled optimists and ideological perfectionism when I wrote a masterpiece of world literature on the subject? Don’t believe that a man of the mind ever takes leave of thinking and simply retires. Instead I’m anxiously following what you’re doing down there – and certainly that gives me no rest. Coronavirus is only one among many threatening forebodings. Homo sapiens insapientissimus seems to do everything in his power in order to put himself on the red list of species without a future. And you don’t even know what you are doing! *0*
Steven Pinker: Here you go, I don’t talk to the dead; you’ve had your time, now the living are calling the shots. What you delivered in your great masterpiece was after all nothing but poetry, that is to say nothing but fantasy. But I can prove – figures at hand – that almost everything is much better today than it has ever been in the past. People live longer, they kill themselves less, they eat better, they have fewer illnesses than ever before – even though their numbers have increased sevenfold during the last two hundred years. *1* What better proof is there to reduce all your objections to absurdity – together with those of all other naysayers and prophets of doom, both living and dead?
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, May 08, 2020
RABBITS in the HEADLIGHTS! US and UK Government Response to Coronavirus / Politics / Pandemic
By: Nadeem_Walayat
RABBITS IN THE HEADLIGHTS that's what the UK and US Government response to Covid-19. Nearly always acting about 6 weeks after they should have done so and only then when in the midst of a panic, likely due to being advised by mad scientists who should not have been let out of their ivory towers!
They do not have a clue, not a single clue whatsoever, literally are rabbits in the headlights cannot even understand the most basic aspects of what's taking place. If anything should come out of this crisis than it should be less reliance on governments! Though I fear the exact opposite may transpire as governments use the pandemic to expand their reach into every aspect of ordinary citizens lives which does not bode well for the next crisis!
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Crushing the States, Saving the Banks: The Fed’s Generous New Rules / Politics / Coronavirus Depression
By: Ellen_Brown
The new terms could be harnessed for local governments to own and operate their own banks.
Congress seems to be at war with the states. Only $150 billion of its nearly $3 trillion coronavirus relief package – a mere 5% – has been allocated to the 50 states; and they are not allowed to use it where they need it most, to plug the holes in their budgets caused by the mandatory shutdown. On April 22, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was opposed to additional federal aid to the states, and that his preference was to allow states to go bankrupt.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
To Avoid a Collapse of the Eurozone, Europe Moves Closer to a European Megastate / Politics / European Union
By: Frank_Hollenbeck
The French president Macron recently fired a warning shot across the bow of the European ship of state. He said that without making all EU countries mutually responsible for the debts of individual countries the EU could collapse. In March, Christine Lagarde asked eurozone finance ministers to consider a one-off joint debt issuance of “corona bonds” to assist with the coronavirus pandemic. But this has been met with opposition by Germany and other northern European countries, since they do not want to be responsible for the debts of the more spendthrift nations of the EU.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
United States Coronavirus Trend Trajectory Update / Politics / Pandemic
By: Nadeem_Walayat
A quick update for the US Corona catastrophe trend trajectory. Over 1 million testing positive and 61,656 reported deaths resolves to a case fatality rate of 5.8% up from 2.1% at the start of April. Which just reiterates how badly wrong ALL those who were touting that the CFR would fall when the US starts to test many more people, we'll just as I warned at the time that is NOT what's going to happen and HAS not happened!
Regardless of what President Trump and the mad scientists state about flattening the curve , in reality there is little sign of the curve flattening on even the official data which just like the UK UNDER REPORTs the actual number of deaths by likely 70%-80%! Still official data is all I have to work with and the curve on this graph does not look like it's flattening. Instead projects towards an End May death toll of about 110,000!
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
Boris Johnson Orders CHARGE of the NHS Light Brigade Charge into the Valley of Coronavirus Death / Politics / Pandemic
By: N_Walayat
The magnitude of incompetence and negligence of the UK government is unprecedented, a death toll that should be in the hundreds now runs into the tens of thousands, not even 100 Bin Laden's could have inflicted as much damage as Boris Johnson's government has.
Nothing illustrates this then NHS workers being sent like the Light Brigade to Charge into the Coronavirus valley of death without any protection!
Read full article... Read full article...