Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Saturday, May 05, 2012
The Euro End's on 6th of May 2012 / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Dr_Volkmar_G_Hable
Few Americans will have noticed that this Sunday the end of the Euro will take place. On that day the final run-off ballot between current French president Mr. Sarkozy and socialist presidential candidate Mr. Hollande will decide over the future of the Euro.
Saturday, May 05, 2012
Americans Are Losing Trust In All U.S. Institutions / Politics / US Politics
By: Washingtons_Blog
The signs are everywhere: Americans have lost trust in our institutions.
The Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index published yesterday shows that only 22% of Americans trust the nationÂ’s financial system.
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Friday, May 04, 2012
Is an Economic Deluge Nigh? / Politics / Social Issues
By: David_Galland
David Galland, Casey Research writes: If history has taught one certain lesson, it is that the less fettered an economy, the better humankind is able to do what it does best: run from trouble and run toward opportunity. In this way mistakes are quickly resolved and progress assured.
Conversely, the deeper the muck of regulation, mandates, taxes, subsidies and other bureaucratic meddling, the slower we humans are in following our natural instincts until the point that progress is slowed or even stopped.
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Friday, May 04, 2012
Forget Global Warming And Move Up To Real Climate Change / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
Ambassador Richard H. Jones, deputy director of the IEA, opened the IEA's April conference by-lined 'Clean Energy Progress', by saying global temperatures are "probably" going to rise by "6 degrees celsius" by about 2050. The main problem, apart from this being totally impossible - barring massive meteorite attack or massive volcanic eruptions - is that fewer and fewer persons believe this story.
Friday, May 04, 2012
The Fate of the Eurozone Hangs on Sunday's French Elections / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Money_Morning
Martin Hutchinson writes:
It now looks as though Nicolas Sarkozy's days are numbered. In the balance lies the fate of the Eurozone itself.
It appears Socialist Francois Hollande will win the French election runoff on Sunday and that June's legislative elections will give the Socialists a powerful position in France's parliament.
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Thursday, May 03, 2012
Americans and Their Totalitarian Government / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
Scott Lazarowitz writes: Morning in American - That was Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign slogan, which manipulated the voters to give Reagan a second term of deficit-spending, expanding the welfare/warfare state, and further enlarging Big Government.
Barack Obama will do similar manipulating of the masses.
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Thursday, May 03, 2012
The Gold Standard is the Pet Peeve of the Power Elite / Politics / Central Banks
By: Gary_North
Ben Bernanke journeyed across town to give a 4-part seminar to 30 undergraduates at George Washington University.
This was clearly a public relations stunt. Why would the head of the world's most powerful central bank lecture to 30 undergraduates? This was not quite the equivalent of George W. Bush reading "My Pet Goat" to third graders, but it was close. Think of it as "My Pet Peeve." His first speech was an overview of central banking. He used PowerPoint to create slides. The presentation had 49 slides.
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Wednesday, May 02, 2012
Big vs Small Bank Loans / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: BATR
If your Main Street business needs capital and seeks a loan, your prospects are slim to none. It is evident that the real economy has never recovered from the collapse of the financial system. TARP was a temporary rescue of the large money center banks. For the local community banks, the massive give away has strings attached and penalties to be paid. Not much consolation for a small business endeavor that is desperate for cash and an improved business environment.
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
Swiss National Bank Loses 10% of GDP in Gold trade! / Politics / Gold and Silver 2012
By: Mario_Innecco
We have heard this morning that the Swiss National Bank or SNB has almost doubled its reserves of pound sterling or British pounds to £14.52 billion in the first quarter of 2012 as they try to diversify away from the euro. With that in mind we dug a bit deeper into the activities of this central bank and especially their gold sales that took place between 1999 and 2008.
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Wednesday, May 02, 2012
A National Network for U.S. Manufacturing Innovation? / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
It’s no secret American manufacturing is in crisis, and that its problems form a significant component of our present economic mess. I’ve written before about how the Obama administration may (may!) be starting to get serious about the problem.
Another small but significant data point on the question of whether the administration is serious took place this last week: the government’s new National Network for Manufacturing Innovation held its first conference, designed to elicit public input on how this program will be designed and run.
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Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Economic Austerity Fires Voter Vengeance Against Euro / Politics / Economic Austerity
By: John_Browne
Over the last few years, as the debt crisis has engulfed Europe, the risk that has most concerned economists has been the possibility that the so-called 'olive growing countries' of Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, joined by Ireland (and known as the PIIGS) might leave, or be forced out, of the Eurozone. The possibility that Germany may choose to leave, however, is something that has received far less consideration. Though there can be little doubt the euro would survive without the Greeks or the Spanish, there is greater doubt of the euro surviving without the Germans solidly behind it. As the world's second largest reserve currency, the collapse of the euro would precipitate a major international monetary crisis.
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Tuesday, May 01, 2012
The Inflation Lovers’ Spat / Politics / Inflation
By: Michael_Pento
Two lovers of the notion that inflation can cure everything that ails an economy recently squared off in a battle over who adores counterfeiting the most. Paul Krugman, who probably has a statue of Al Capone at his bedside, chided Ben Bernanke in a New York Times Magazine article for his unwillingness to raise the Fed’s inflation target in order to reduce the unemployment rate. The recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics penned an article titled “Earth to Ben Bernanke” on April 24th. In it he encouraged Bernanke to embrace the idea that more money printing can save the world by writing, “Higher expected inflation would aid an economy.”
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Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Britain's Strategy of Allying Closely With U.S. Whilst Hedging Bets in Europe / Politics / UK Politics
By: STRATFOR
Britain controlled about one-fourth of the Earth's land surface and one-fifth of the world's population in 1939. Fifty years later, its holdings outside the British Isles had become trivial, and it even faced an insurgency in Northern Ireland.
Britain spent the intervening years developing strategies to cope with what poet Rudyard Kipling called its "recessional," or the transient nature of Britain's imperial power. It has spent the last 20 years defining its place not in the world in general but between continental Europe and the United States in particular.
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Tuesday, May 01, 2012
It Can't Happen America? It Already Did! / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: LewRockwell
Tim Case writes: "Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
If there are two things that can be said with all confidence they are that throughout American history the American public has had and continues to have an enduring commitment to owning firearms. Second is the government’s unerring ability to be the sole cause of economic calamities, regardless of how vibrant the markets.
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Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Is Europe Sailing on the Titanic? / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: LewRockwell
Patrick J. Buchanan writes: U.S. growth in the first quarter fell to 2.2 percent, a disappointment. But in Europe, that news would have caused general rejoicing.
For consider the gathering crisis on the old continent.
With negative growth now for six months, Britain has fallen back into recession. "I don't think we're anywhere near halfway through the eurozone crisis," said Prime Minister David Cameron this weekend.
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Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Brewing a Conflict with China, Military-Industrial Complex's Latest Dastardly Scheme / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Washington has pressured the Philippines, whose government it owns, into conducting joint military exercises in the South China Sea. Washington’s excuse is that China has territorial disputes with the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries concerning island and sea rights in the South China Sea. Washington asserts that China’s territorial disputes with the like of Indonesia and the Philippines are a matter of United States’ national interests.
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Economics Battle! Krugman vs. Ron Paul on Helicopters, Gold and More / Politics / Economic Theory
By: Bloomberg
Sparks flew when Paul Krugman and Congressman Ron Paul faced off today on Bloomberg TV's "Street Smart" with Trish Regan and Adam Johnson....
Watch below to hear Ron Paul's ideas about staying in the Republican race...whether he would support Romney as nominee...how U.S. monetary policy is like the Roman Empire and why there should be legal competition to the U.S. dollar (yes, gold and silver).
Hear NYT columnist Krugman fire back on the role U.S. government should play in regulating the market economy...what economist Milton Friedman really thought about government stimulus...and what is the right level for debt for U.S. taxpayers (that's you).
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Monday, April 30, 2012
Sarkozy's Economic Austerity Gamble: The Failure Of Neoliberal Snakeoil / Politics / Economic Austerity
By: Andrew_McKillop
Outgoing president Sarkozy of France has only a few days to go before his come-uppance. Barring a miracle, pollsters say he is beaten by Parti Soialiste candidate Francois Hollande, but much more than a personal humiliation and a disaster for Sarkozy's fragile UMP party, a victory for Hollande will signal huge challenges for the "only possible policy" of austerity and mass unemployment, forced on the rest of Europe by German chancellor Merkel. In Greece and Spain, and other PIIGS countries this has already had disastrous economic and fiscal impacts - let alone the social damage. For sure and certain failure - either in growth or in recesssion - neoliberalism is above all reliable. Discussing and dissecting this flabby set of laisser-faire slogans and economic horse medecine has become daily fare in French media, throughout the long presidential compaign, almost certainly radicalizing the voting public and intensifying hostility to "Mrs Thatcher's purulent fantasies of 30 years ago", as one leading anti-Sarkozy candidate, Jean-Luc Melanchon has put it.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 30, 2012
Ron Paul on the Costs of War / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
This month Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki announced the addition of some 1,900 mental health nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers to its existing workforce of 20,590 mental health staff in attempt to get a handle on the epidemic of suicides among combat veterans. Unfortunately, when presidents misuse our military on an unprecedented scale - and Congress lets them get away with it - the resulting stress causes military suicides to increase dramatically, both among active duty and retired service members. In fact, military deaths from suicide far outnumber combat deaths. According to an article in the Air Force Times this month, suicides among airmen are up 40 percent over last year.
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Monday, April 30, 2012
Don't End the Fed, Mend the Fed / Politics / Central Banks
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
Congressman Ron Paul has written a book entitled End the Fed. I have to admit that I have not read his book. But I have read many of Congressman Paul's excellent (in my opinion) essays on monetary theory and policy. Based on the essays I have read, Congressman Paul likely argues in End the Fed that the Fed and other central banks have created monetary "mischief" in the past and are likely to continue to do so in the future. Because of this monetary mischief, I assume that Congressman Paul would like to replace the Fed and other central banks with some form of a gold standard.