Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
European Political Leaders Play With Fire / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: John_Browne
The world economy today stands at the doorstep of great change. A gathering crisis looms in Europe, splitting the Continent into two competing blocs. While leaders there face off against one another in a high stakes game of chicken, the rest of the world powerlessly watches the train wreck slowly unfold. Political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic fail to grasp the fragility of the current world order and do not understand the forces they are unleashing. A parallel here can be drawn with the political situation that existed on the eve of the First World War. For the most part European leaders were not bent upon death and destruction. However these largely ordinary men were held captive by national delusions and a complex system of alliances and treaties that had not been thought through to their logical conclusions. This resulted in a situation where a single assassination was enough to plunge the Continent into a bloodbath.
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Thursday, June 28, 2012
Whatever Happened To Climate Change Crisis? / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
Back in 2009, the failed Copenhagen “climate summit” was with retrospect a founding event for the climate change industry: in many ways it never recovered from this massive hit from what are called "climate sceptics". Since that time, the small but powerful group of OECD country political leaders, corporate elites, and mainstream press and media barons who promoted the image of climate catastrophe with the straightest of faces, seemingly believing every word of the doom-eager rantings of James Lovelock, James Hansen, Al Gore and others, have backed off and edged away from their failing and shrinking monster.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Nouriel Roubini: Germany to Eurozone - You Lost Your Virginity, Can't Commit to Marriage Today / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Bloomberg
Nouriel Roubini and Ian Bremmer of Eurasia Group appeared on "Bloomberg Surveillance" with Tom Keene, Sara Eisen and Ken Prewitt today to discuss Europe's debt crisis.
On Germany bailing out other euro zone countries, Roubini said, "The Germans say, 'you lost your virginity. Now you sign a contract. You say, 'I'm a born again virgin.' Be abstinent for the next two years. Show me your soul and two years from now, we're going to get married. But today, I commit to marriage today? Forget it.'
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Wednesday, June 27, 2012
The United States of Europe has Arrived! / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Axel_Merk
A fiscal union, a banking union, a United States of Europe has arrived! Don’t believe it? Just like many newborns, this one has its shares of wrinkles, but what you see is what you get. We discuss a tough love approach to move forward in Europe, as well as implications for currencies.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
The American War Racket, the No1 Zombie Industry / Politics / US Politics
By: Bill_Bonner
Normandy, France – One of the advantages of moving overseas is that you see home more clearly. We came to France last week. Already, America comes into clearer focus.
The French press seems fascinated by the relationship between Francois Hollande’s two mistresses. The former – a candidate for president herself – dumped him when he took up with the latter. The former is also the mother of Hollande’s 4 children, which complicates things further.
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Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Grotesque Casino Of Corporate Fascism, Who Destroyed The Middle Class Part 3 / Politics / Social Issues
By: James_Quinn
This is the 3rd and final chapter of my series about the destruction of the middle class. In Part 1 of this series I addressed where and how the net worth of the middle class was stolen. In Part 2, I focused on the culprits in this grand theft and in Part 3, I will try to figure out why they stole your net worth and what would be required to restore sanity to this world.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Forget the PIIGS, The Whole of Europe Is Insolvent / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Graham_Summers
Europe is heading into a full-scale disaster.
You see, the debt problems in Europe are not simply related to Greece. They are SYSTEMIC. The below chart shows the official Debt to GDP ratios for the major players in Europe.
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Tuesday, June 26, 2012
South Africa’s Political Wars Begin To Resemble Our Own / Politics / Africa
By: Danny_Schechter
Cape Town, South Africa: When I came to South Africa, I thought I was escaping the way our news programs are totally dominated by political coverage even though the election is months away and everyone knows none of this polling and hyped-up speculation matters until October.
The fight between the Democrats and Republicans is an obscenely costly affair which none of our political pundits care to investigate in terms of why so much is being invested and what the likely payoffs will be, and to whom.
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Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Germany's Finance Minister Lectures Obama On Debt and Defends Euro / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Mike_Shedlock
President Barack Obama should focus on cutting America's own budget deficit before advising Europe on how to tackle its debt problems says German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble in the Spiegel article in Germany Rejects Obama's Criticism in Euro Crisis
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble rebuffed recent criticism of Germany's handling of the euro crisis from Barack Obama, telling the US president to get his own house in order before giving advice.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, June 25, 2012
George Soros: Merkel Leading Europe in the Wrong Direction, German Bond Bubble / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Bloomberg
BLOOMBERG EXCLUSIVE: Billionaire investor George Soros spoke to Bloomberg TV's Francine Lacqua, calling on Europe to start a fund to buy Italian and Spanish bonds.
Soros said, "There is a disagreement on the fiscal side...unless that is resolved in the next three days, then I am afraid the summit could turn out to be a fiasco. That could actually be fatal."
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Monday, June 25, 2012
Ron Paul, U.S. Government is Already Too Involved in Healthcare / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
This week the Supreme Court is expected to issue its long-awaited decision regarding the constitutionality of the "Obamacare" law. I recently discussed absurd legal arguments by Obamacare advocates that Congress can compel the purchase of health insurance, and the dismal record of federal courts applying so-called "judicial review" in protecting liberty. It is obvious that Obamacare's legal apologists either are wholly ignorant of constitutional principles, or wholly lawless in their blatant disregard for those principles.
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Monday, June 25, 2012
Why Democracy Is Dangerous, the Enemy of Freedom / Politics / Social Issues
By: LewRockwell
Karel Beckman writes: People around the world are fighting autocratic regimes in the name of freedom and democracy. They are right to fight for freedom, but wrong to fight for democracy. Libertarians should try to make it clear to them that the democratic path will not lead to freedom, but to slavery.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Crimson Tax Tide / Politics / Taxes
By: Christopher_Westley
If you ever visited my part of the country, you would likely hear about a long-standing controversy over occupational taxes and the right of my state's most populous county to impose them.
That state would be Alabama, and that county would be Jefferson County, established through violent, extramarket means in 1819 yet named for an antitax radical who eventually became the third president of the United States. Although Thomas Jefferson would die five years later, his eponymous county is still with us.
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Sunday, June 24, 2012
Post Sustainable Modernism? / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
The phrase “sustainable development” was thrust into widespread use by the 1987 UN report of the Gro Harlem Brundtland commission, a group of “eminent persons” supposedly setting “a global agenda for change” in response to the alleged interaction of failing economic development, depleting natural resources and a deteriorating environment. Media treatment naturally went a lot further, rooting sustainable development in a soup of hysterical forecasts of environmental apocalypse, man-made global warming driving sea levels up so far they swamp most cities, mass species die-off and extinction, spiraling oil and other resource depletion, nuclear and industrial catastrophes, rampant overpopulation, mass starvation, epidemics and global poverty. Without explicitly saying it, the Brundtland report implied that unfettered capitalism was the basic driver.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Ron Paul Warns Neocons, Hands Off Syria! / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Before the US House of Representatives: Statement Introducing HR 5993, The Syria Non-Intervention Act of 2012
Mr. Speaker: The Administration is marching toward another war in the Middle East, this time against Syria. As with the president's war against Libya, Congress has been frozen out of the process. The Constitution, which grants Congress and only Congress the authority to declare war, is once again being completely ignored.
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Saturday, June 23, 2012
Panic in the New World Order / Politics / New World Order
By: Gary_North
For the first time in my career, I see the international establishment, sometimes called the New World Order, facing a crisis so large that its very survival is at stake. For the first time, these people are scared.
There are not many of them. In his book, Superclass, author David Rothkopf estimates that there are only about 6000 people at the top of the pyramid of world power and influence. They are mostly males, and at least a third of them have attended America's most prestigious universities. Most of the others have attended comparable universities in Europe.
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Saturday, June 23, 2012
Italy Gasping for Economic Breath Like a Beached Whale / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Mike_Shedlock
Berlusconi Reiterates Euro Exit "Not Blasphemy"; Beppe Grillo Discusses "Taboo of the Euro"
On June 1, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said "Italy should dump the euro unless the European Central Bank agreed to inject more cash into the economy". One day later Berlusconi said the idea Italy should dump euro was a "joke".
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Saturday, June 23, 2012
U.S. Trickle Up Economics / Politics / US Politics
By: Peter_Schiff
The political left wing has long tried to cast doubt on the fairness, and even the efficacy, of free market capitalism by branding it as a "trickle down" system. This epithet is meant to show how the middle and lower classes are dependent on scraps of wealth that happen to fall from the buffet table of the rich. This characterization of an unfair and inefficient system has helped them demonize policies that lower taxes (if they also extend to the wealthy) and reduce regulation on business.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Trade Tariffs as Welfare State Economics / Politics / Protectionism
By: Gary_North
I have found over the years that when I debate with people who promote tariffs, meaning sales taxes on imported goods that are enforced by people with badges and guns, they always adopt arguments that apply only to America's side of the border. They refuse to adopt those very same arguments for people on the other side of the border.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
New World Order Blueprint Leaked / Politics / New World Order
By: Rudy_Avizius
On June 12, a leaked copy of the investment chapter for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was made public. This copy was analyzed by Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and has been verified as authentic. This agreement has been negotiated IN SECRET for 2-1/2 years and no information has ever been released until this leak. So why have the details of this negotiation been so secret? This agreement has been framed as a “free trade” agreement and yet out of 26 chapters only two have anything to do with trade. The other 24 chapters grant new corporate privileges and rights, while limiting governments and protective regulations.