Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
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.
Monday, April 30, 2012
The Québec Student Strike: From ‘Maple Spring’ to Summer Rebellion? / Politics / Canada
By: Andrew_G_Marshall
In Montréal, where I live, and across the Canadian province of Québec, there is a growing and expanding student movement which emerged as a strike in February against the provincial government’s plan to increase the cost of university tuition by $325 per year for the next five years, for a total of $1,625. The students have been seeking and demanding a halt to the tuition hike in order to keep higher education accessible, a concept that the province of Québec alone has held onto with greater strength than any other province in Canada. The government continues to dismiss and deride the students, meeting their protests with batons, teargas bombs, and mass arrests. The universities in Québec are complicit with the government in their repression of students and the struggle for basic democratic rights, bringing in private security firms to patrol and harass students in the schools. While the university administrations claim they are ‘neutral’ on the issue of tuition hikes, privately, the boards of governors are made up of bankers and business executives who lobby the government to increase tuition. After all, in April of 2007 – five years ago – Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank Group), one of Canada’s ‘big five’ banks which dominate the economy, released a “plan for prosperity” for the province of Quebec, which recommended, among other things, raising the cost of tuition: “by raising tuition fees but focusing on increased financial assistance for those in need, post secondary education (PSE) institutions will be better-positioned to prosper and provide world-class education and research.”[1]
Monday, April 30, 2012
Beyond Zero Emissions: What's Wrong with Big Green Tech / Politics / Renewable Energy
By: Ashvin_Pandurangi
Ilargi: The following is a guest post by friend of TAE (and our kind present host) John Isaacs-Young, who is active in Transition Sunshine Coast, a region located about halfway up the eastern coast of Australia. There's a lot more wrong with Big Green Tech - and the Beyond Zero Emissions movement - than the specific points John addresses here (and he knows that too), but that's a story for another day.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Obama’s Veil Of Tears / Politics / US Politics
By: Stephen_Merrill
Has a new leader of a great nation ever held such unlimited potential for his country and for the world?
The celebration in Chicago’s Grant Park on election night after the 2008 campaign was by far the highest milestone in the magical Barack Obama movement so far, full of hope and equality, across all boundaries of people, all aimed at ending the special interest blockades in Washington that have stopped effective solutions for far too long. It seemed the nation was united in a rolling tide this young family man had somehow created from pure passion and intellect. Barack Obama had crushed the Republicans and even the Clintons. He was the peace candidate for the world.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Bundesbank in Hot Water… Will It Take the Heat or Throw the ECB Under the Bus? / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Graham_Summers
Yesterday we discussed the political fall-out for German Chancellor Angela Merkel regarding revelations that the Bundesbank has in fact put Germany on the hook for over €2 trillion via various back-door deals.
Today we need to consider how those same revelations will impact the Bundesbank itself. Already we’re seeing its head Jens Weidmann (also a policymaker at the ECB) taking a hard-liner approach to dealing
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Sunday, April 29, 2012
EuroSpeak for "Starve the Beast" The Meaning of “Austerity Measures” / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Mike_Whitney
The eurozone is slipping into a recession that could have been avoided. Had policymakers provided fiscal support for stricken countries in the South and guarantees on their government bonds, (as the USG does for US Treasuries) then their economies could have continued to grow while the necessary reforms were put in place. But the Troika (The IMF, the ECB, and the European Commission) decided to make the bailouts conditional on member states’ acceptance of harsh austerity measures which forced leaders to slash government payrolls, services and programs. The result was entirely predictable; economic activity began to sputter as one country after another succumbed to a vicious slump.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
U.S. Military Drones Reported Operating Across the United States / Politics / US Politics
By: Danny_Schechter
New York, New York: It’s easy to understand why Presidents, politicians and the military love robots. They don’t talk back. They follow orders. You press a button and they do what they are told. They are considered so efficient, and so lethal.
These modern killing machines represent science fiction reborn as science ‘faction.’
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Saturday, April 28, 2012
China’s Land Bridge to Turkey Creates New Eurasian Geopolitical Potentials / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: F_William_Engdahl
The prospect of an unparalleled Eurasian economic boom lasting into the next Century and beyond is at hand. The first steps binding the vast economic space are being constructed with a number of little-publicized rail links connecting China, Russia, Kazakhstan and parts of Western Europe. It is becoming clear to more people in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia including China and Russia that their natural tendency to build these markets faces only one major obstacle: NATO and the US Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance obsession. Rail infrastructure is a major key to building vast new economic markets across Eurasia.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
A Return To Real Money / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: Richard_Mills
On the night of November 22, 1910 a delegation of the nation's leading financiers, led by Senator Nelson Aldrich, left New Jersey for a very secret ten day meeting on Jekyll Island, Georgia.
After the Jekyll Island visit the National Monetary Commission wrote the Aldrich Plan which formed the basis for the Federal Reserve system.
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Friday, April 27, 2012
Zero Population Growth No Longer A Shameful Doctrine / Politics / Demographics
By: Andrew_McKillop
The government-friendly environment and development aid NGOs avoid this one like the plague: saying the world is massively overpopulated is only for a few privileged speakers - like Obama's chief science adviser John P. Holdren. Within the Club of Madrid and WorldShift Network, however, there is almost total support for the Zero Population Growth (ZPG) stance of Holdren, Paul Ehlirch and a growing number of influential voices.
Friday, April 27, 2012
The New World Order’s Money Scam / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: Gary_North
It is not easy for the average person to make much sense out of the current international monetary system. It works something like a poker game. Everyone at the table has some chips. The green ones are supposed to be exchangeable at a ratio of 35 to one with the yellow chips. About half way into the game, the other players notice that the host has a machine at his feet that keeps popping out green chips every few minutes. Apparently the yellow chips can’t be cranked out this way, but the green ones can. So the host keeps on betting on every hand – deuces, fives, anything – and he keeps offering green chips to pay for staying in the game.