Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Friday, August 31, 2012
Mainstream Media, The Voice of Tyranny / Politics / Mainstream Media
Mike Reid writes: The reporting on a violent incident at the Occupy protests last year reveals the linguistic lengths to which newspapers can go to hide responsibility. The National Post said it best:
Read full article... Read full article...Scott Olsen, 24, a former U.S. Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq, was struck in the head by a tear gas canister fired on Tuesday by police trying to prevent protesters from reclaiming a public square.
Friday, August 31, 2012
A Big Bad Brick Wall / Politics / Social Issues
As America settles in for a three month long across-all-media screening of Dumb and Dumber, Europeans are setting up for a valiant effort to put up an even more mind-boggling spectacle. Competition is healthy, right? The world of finance hangs on ex-Goldman Sachs vice chairman and managing director Mario Draghi's lips almost as much as it sucks up to Ben Bernanke's Jackson Hole. Central bankers become ever more important simply because in the absence of honest profits they are the only source of money left standing. If you can't make it, fake it.
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Friday, August 31, 2012
Republicans Take Aim at Bernanke, Fed’s QE Policy is on the Chopping Block / Politics / Quantitative Easing
Politicians running for the US Presidency, and their surrogates, are fond of saying “that this election is the most important of our lifetime.” They invoke this cliché so reflexively and so often that it no longer has any meaning. The reason they say this election is so important is because they want listeners to believe, for whatever reason, that it pits two deeply contrasting visions for America against one another, with only one vision capable of winning.
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Friday, August 31, 2012
Enlightenment: Hawking, Einstein and Newton / Politics / Social Issues
As a giant flaming orb descended from the heavens, Prof Stephen Hawking's instantly recognisable computerised voice boomed through the London Paralympics arena and offered some choice words of wisdom. The renowned astrophysicist – a man who has never let his immobility hold him back – wheeled on to centre stage during the extravaganza dubbed 'Enlightenment' as he guided his audience through a 'journey of discovery of the wonder of science' and implored the world:
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Thursday, August 30, 2012
Three Questions for Super Mario Draghi / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Mr Draghi… a few questions for you…
You say that whatever measure you take… it will be “enough” to support the Euro. Seeing as you’ve already spent over €1 trillion via your LTRO 1 and LTRO 2 schemes only to find that:
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Thursday, August 30, 2012
Fed Needs to Get Out of Business of Central Planning / Politics / Central Banks
James Grant, publisher of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, appeared on "Bloomberg Surveillance" with Tom Keene and Sara Eisen this morning and said that the Federal Reserve needs to "get out of the business of central planning."
Of the stock market, Grant said, "I think we live in a hall of mirrors in finance thanks to the zero interest rate regime and the chronic nonstop interventions. We do not know exactly where we are." Grant also said that he "would like to see the Fed admit it can't do what it promises to do" at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium this week.
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Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Mario Draghi Transparent Poker Face / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
The European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve have both telegraphed that another round of currency depreciation is in the offing. The ECB’s Mario Draghi has pledged to do “whatever it takes” to save the Euro currency by setting specific targets for Italian and Spanish bond yields. And the Bernanke Fed has stated that addition monetary stimulation is warranted soon unless there is a “substantial and sustainable strengthening in the pace of the economic recovery.” Fed Presidents Charles Evans and Eric Rosengren have both recently indicated what action would be taken by saying that the U.S. central bank needs to expand its balance sheet until more favorable targets are reached on the unemployment rate and nominal GDP.
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Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Prince Harry, Goldman Sachs Pays Better than Porn / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
Dear Sir,
It has come to our attention that you have been offered a role in a porn film for $10 million. We urge you to reject it.
Princely Pay and Elite Status
Goldman Sachs is prepared to pay you much better than porn, and as a partner, your position will be much more prestigious than the Duke of York's role as a representative for international trade and investment. We twist country treasurers and central bankers around our little fingers. Politicians are at our beck and call. We even pay a lower tax rate than your grandmother.
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Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Destroying Internet Freedom by Taxation / Politics / Taxes
Government taxation is as old as the first brute using force to steal from those intimated by threats. So why should it be any different for the internet? In today’s political environment of choosing winners and losers, the rush to tax online sales is gathering steam. Everyone feels the presence of the Amazon behemoth. Retail outlets like Best Buys are rethinking their business model in order to compete. States are eager to tap the flow of transactions with a sales tax that would cost consumers dearly. The issue of "so called" fairness is the argument that bureaucrats love to hang their hat on. So who makes the valid case for exemption or inclusion?
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Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Why Everybody's Going To War in the Middle East / Politics / Middle East
"Everybody's going to war but we don't know what we are fighting for." – Nerina Pallot, from "Everybody's Gone to War"
Iran Wants War
Although a peaceful nation for hundreds of years, Iran was invaded and occupied by the Allies in both World War One and Two. Then in 1980, at the urging of the United States, Saddam Hussein invaded them and used poison gas against both Kurds and Iran. Over 500,000 civilians, Iranian and Iraqi soldiers died in the longest war of the 20th century, which lasted until 1988.
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Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Sandeep Jaitly, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand and the Gold Standard Institute / Politics / Economic Theory
The Gold Standard Institute intends to bring truth into the open… and allow..people to make up their own minds…Far from us to try to impose our ideas on anyone!
Rudy Fritsch, Gold Standard Institute
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Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Saudi Arabia Goes on the Offensive Against Iran / Politics / Middle East
Saudi Arabia has gone on the offensive against Iran to protect its interests. Their involvement in Syria is the first battle in what is going to be a long bloody conflict that will know no frontiers or limits.
Ongoing Disorders in the island kingdom of Bahrain since February of 2011 have set off alarm bells in Riyadh. The Saudis are convinced that Iran is directing the protests and fear that the problems will spill over the twenty-five kilometer long COSWAY into oil rich Al-Qatif, where The bulk of the two million Shia in the kingdom are concentrated. So far, the Saudis have not had to deal with demonstrations a serious as those in Bahrain, but success in the island kingdom could encourage the protestors to become more violent.
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Tuesday, August 28, 2012
U.S. On the Highway To Hell / Politics / US Politics
Monty Perlerin / EconomicNoise.com
The Role of The Government in The Economic Crisis
Read full article... Read full article...At this point, everything the government is doing – and not just the US government but governments everywhere − is not only the wrong thing but exactly the opposite of the right thing. They’re passing more laws, raising taxes, creating more currency and incurring more debt. They should be doing the opposite. We’re currently still in the eye of the storm. Their actions guarantee that when we go back into the hurricane − the trailing edge of the hurricane − it’s going to be much worse and will last much longer than what we saw in 2007 to 2009. Doug Casey
Monday, August 27, 2012
Angela Merkel Just Revealed the Truth About Europe / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
For several months now, I’ve been stating that the world’s central banks are in a bind. That bind is that their monetary policies are becoming less and less effective at placating the markets while the consequences of said policies (higher costs of living, the targeting of troubled banks in the credit market, etc.) are increasing.
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Monday, August 27, 2012
Retirement Crisis, the Demise of Global Pension Plans / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
We have been saying for a long time that anyone in the western world who's 10-15 years away from collecting their first pension payments, shouldn't expect to get much, if anything, when the time comes. This is because, obviously, the economy has deteriorated as much as it has. It's also because, in essence, pensions plans are the ultimate Ponzi schemes.
What doesn't help are the central bank and government policies that are in fashion today that are based on pushing interest rates about as low as they can get.
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Monday, August 27, 2012
The Purpose of Market Intervention / Politics / Market Manipulation
Interventions in markets by governments and central banks are routine and we take them for granted. No one questions them, but they can create dangerous distortions. Their reason for intervening is to take price determination away from markets and consumers.
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Monday, August 27, 2012
What the FED Should Do Now / Politics / Central Banks
The last time I "advised" the FED on what to do was on Feb. 6, 2012. I "told" Ben not to do QE3, and he didn’t. Instead, he did Operation Twist. This was the second one of its type. The first Operation Twist occurred in 1961. The Twist is an attempt by the FED to alter the shape of the bond yield curve. It really doesn’t succeed. Considering the huge size of the debt market and the arbitrage that occurs along the spectrum of bonds of different maturities, it’s hardly to be expected that the FED is even capable of altering the yield curve in any economically significant manner. Most of the FOMC and its staff knew it would be futile (or should have known), because the research on the effect of the 1961 operation concluded that it did very little and accomplished nothing. This didn’t stop them in 2012. Why do something so futile? My guess is they wanted to throw some kind of a bone to those who were urging the FED to do more, including some on the FOMC itself. They had little to lose and something to gain, which was to buy time and give the appearance of acting.
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Monday, August 27, 2012
Dancing on the Grave of the Keynesian Economic System / Politics / Economic Theory
The collapse of the Soviet Union in December of 1991 was the best news of my lifetime. The monster died. It was not just that the USSR went down. The entire mythology of revolutionary violence as the method of social regeneration, promoted since the French Revolution, went down with it. As I wrote in my 1968 book, Marxism was a religion of revolution, and Marxism died institutionally in the last month of 1991.
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Monday, August 27, 2012
Can the War Israel Wants With Iran Be Averted? / Politics / Iran
For more than a year now, the drums of war emanating from Israel have become louder and louder with weekly news leaks, and threats including the disclosure of alleged attack plans. The whole exercise seems designed to create a sense of alarm and inevitability.
These warnings have been amplified by statements by American politicians that seem to be occurring with greater frequency.
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Sunday, August 26, 2012
The Olympics, Comparative Advantage, Competition and the Value of Winning / Politics / Social Issues
Gary M. Galles writes: We have just finished our quadrennial search for who is the very best in the world in a dizzying array of sports. We discovered who was absolutely the best at a given time, under the same circumstances, even if it was by a fraction of an inch or a hundredth of a second. But, especially in those photo finishes that provided audiences so many thrills, it seemed that the differences in rewards (gold versus silver medal, bronze medal versus off the medal stand, making the team or the finals versus just missing them, etc.) were far greater than the often small differences in performance.
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