Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
The Day America Died / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
September 30, 2011 was the day America was assassinated.
Some of us have watched this day approach and have warned of its coming, only to be greeted with boos and hisses from “patriots” who have come to regard the US Constitution as a device that coddles criminals and terrorists and gets in the way of the President who needs to act to keep us safe.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Occupy Wall Street Has Been Battling The Cops, the Counterrevolution Builds / Politics / Credit Crisis 2011
By: Danny_Schechter
By it actions, Occupy Wall Street is puncturing myths like these:
l. The Myth that direct action against the center of financial power can’t be sustained’
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 03, 2011
Waiting for Bastiat: The Curse Mutates to Austerity / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Andrew_Butter
The smart-set Claude Frédéric Bastiat called the “sophisticates” are holding their breath, this time waiting for November when there is a glimmer of hope that the plan to make a plan to deal with the Euro-zone banking crisis will distil into a…Plan.
Which is a bit of a turnaround from what the elegant European monetary affairs commissioner Joaquin Almunia pronounced in February 2010…“There is no bailout and no "plan-B" for the Greek economy because there is no risk it will default on its debt”, oh dear, looks like the inevitable is just…inevitable, regardless of what King Canute said.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 03, 2011
Greek Cabinet to Fire 20% of Public Sector Workers To Meet Troika Austerity Targets / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Mike_Shedlock
Government workers make up 20% of the Greek labor force. Worse yet, most of them cannot be fired for virtually any reason. That is about to change, and it's a much needed change for the better.
However, the idea that it will reduce the budget deficit to required levels by 2012 or even 2014 is ludicrous. When that does not happen larger haircuts will be unavoidable.
Monday, October 03, 2011
Will The U.S. Ever Build A Strategic Metals Reserve? / Politics / Metals & Mining
By: Anthony_David
In late August, Michael N. Silver, president and chairman of the board of American Elements—a company that manufactures engineered and advanced materials—suggested that the United States should build a Strategic Metals Reserve (SMR) in an effort to protect its manufacturing and defense interests in case of an embargo by any nation, especially China. He pointed out that earlier this year China had already used its strategic position in the rare earths market against Japan.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Unions Promise Support As Occupy WallStreet Enters Third Week / Politics / US Politics
By: Danny_Schechter
There had been rumor on Friday that the band Radiohead would be dropping by the #Occupy Wall Street encampment.
They had just been on the Colbert Report, and their fan base is huge among the very demographic of younger people drawn to the protests now beginning their third week.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Rip-Off Conspiracy, the United States of Banks / Politics / Central Banks
By: Gary_North
You probably missed any media coverage of the September 26 speech by Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Sarah Raskin. The media ignored it. You would be wise not to ignore it.
There were a few brief news reports about it. There was no detailed analysis. The media usually ignore speeches by any FED Board member other than Bernanke.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, September 30, 2011
Is The War On Terror A Hoax? / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
In the past decade, Washington has killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans millions of Muslims in six countries, all in the name of the “war on terror.” Washington’s attacks on the countries constitute naked aggression and impact primarily civilian populations and infrastructure and, thereby, constitute war crimes under law. Nazis were executed precisely for what Washington is doing today.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Financial Warfare: How Short Sellers Fleece Investors / Politics / Financial Markets 2011
By: Ellen_Brown
Why did gold and silver stocks just get hammered, at a time when commodities are considered a safe haven against widespread global uncertainty? The answer, according to Bill Murphy’s newsletter LeMetropoleCafe.com, is that the sector has been the target of massive short selling. For some popular precious metal stocks, close to half the trades have been “phantom” sales by short sellers who did not actually own the stock.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, September 30, 2011
Fed Counterfeiter's Cry: Trust Me! / Politics / Central Banks
By: Gary_North
Sarah Bloom Raskin is a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. She is a lawyer. She is a banking lawyer and has earned her living for her entire career as a government banking regulator.
On September 26, she gave a Bernanke-imitating speech on the rotten job market: "Monetary Policy and Job Creation." Does it come as a surprise that she promotes monetary inflation as the solution to unemployment?
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, September 30, 2011
U.S. States to Financiall​y Break Away from Federal Government / Politics / US Politics
By: Submissions
Ron Hera submits: arlier this week I attended the Utah Monetary Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah. As you may know, the state of Utah passed a Legal Tender Act earlier this year authorizing the use of federally minted gold and silver coins as money in the state of Utah. Now, legislators in other states, many of whom attended the Monetary Summit, are evaluating similar legislation.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Yearning for a Currency Debaser’s Prison / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: Aftab_Singh
Until the mid-19th century, the means of retribution for the stiffed creditor was debtor’s prison. If the creditor could not see the return of his capital, then at least he could temper the pain and humiliation by witnessing the incarceration of the defaulted debtor. In our age of monetary lunacy, it would seem that some of the world’s more dollar-dependent central bankers are quietly (or perhaps not-so-quietly), yearning for a similarly harsh ‘debaser’s prison’. Here I speculate about the peculiar world of the dollar-dependent central banker and consider the consequences of the dearth of entrepreneurial spirit in the money production business.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Enron-i-sation of Europe; Is the Euro "Beyond Rescue"? / Politics / Euro
By: Mike_Shedlock
Steen Steen Jakobsen, chief economist for Saxo bank in Denmark discusses the Enron-i-sation of Europe in an Email "Macro Brief"
Read full article... Read full article...The Enron-i-sation of Europe: Finding solutions through SPV’s speak for themselves. Apart from the inability to being implemented (if German constitutional court is heard) it’s also a slippery road towards permanent aid. Hiding debt in more and more obscure vehicles is similar to Enron having 1000s of SPV hiding the “real issue”. Debt is debt. It needs to be paid back or someone needs to take a loss!
Thursday, September 29, 2011
America, Land of the Poor, Home of the Sick / Politics / US Politics
By: Submissions
Michael Finger writes: Thanks to a series of destructive government policies and incentives, a health care crisis has been steadily building in America for a generation or two. But the release yesterday of the Kaiser Family Foundation's annual survey reveals that the problem of unaffordable healthcare is becoming epidemic. According to the report, health insurance premiums have jumped nearly 10% in 2011 for the typical family, compared to a 3% increase in 2010. The average annual cost for family health insurance now exceeds $15,000 per year, about 30% of median household income!
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Germany's Inner Struggle Stifles EU Debt Crisis Action / Politics / Credit Crisis 2011
By: John_Browne
The leaders of Europe have been criticized for their inability to deal expeditiously with the Eurozone debt crisis. Many view the paralysis through the prism of self interest: taxpayers of the EU's creditor nations are simply unwilling to finance spending of the bloc's debtors. But the hesitancy can also be ascribed to the growing voter dissatisfaction with the entire structure of the Eurozone, and in particular a chasm between German voters and German leaders.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 26, 2011
Ron Paul on the Palestinian State / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
The Palestinian Authority's recent announcement that it would seek UN recognition as an independent state dominated the news and the political debate in the United States last week, though in truth it should mean very little to us. Only a political class harboring the illusion it can run the world obsesses over the aspirations of a tiny population on a tiny piece of land thousands of miles away. Remember, the UN initiated this persistent conflict with its 1947 Partition Plan.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 26, 2011
Mexican Government Under Assault From Drug Cartels, Washington Yawns / Politics / Mexico
By: OilPrice_Com
Suspected Mexican drug traffickers from the Zetas drug cartel on 20 September drove two trucks to a main avenue in the Mexican Gulf coast city of Boca del Rio in Veracruz state and dumped 35 corpses during rush hour while gunmen stood guard, menacing frightened motorists with automatic weapons.
So, why is this being written about here?
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, September 26, 2011
America and Europe are Saving the Rich and Losing the Economy / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Economic policy in the United States and Europe has failed, and people are suffering.
Economic policy failed for three reasons: (1) policymakers focused on enabling offshoring corporations to move middle class jobs, and the consumer demand, tax base, GDP, and careers associated with the jobs, to foreign countries, such as China and India, where labor is inexpensive; (2) policymakers permitted financial deregulation that unleashed fraud and debt leverage on a scale previously unimaginable; (3) policymakers responded to the resulting financial crisis by imposing austerity on the population and running the printing press in order to bail out banks and prevent any losses to the banks regardless of the cost to national economies and innocent parties.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, September 24, 2011
The Fed's Ultimate Lie Exposed, Central Banks Are Not Banks / Politics / Central Banks
By: Michael_S_Rozeff
I am going to make a number of obvious statements that we all can agree are true, but what they add up to is a startling conclusion. What we call "central banks" are not banks at all.
What is a bank? I refer the reader to a straightforward but reasonably detailed answer here. A bank is a financial organization in which people deposit their money, we are told. This is true. A bank is a business, we are told. This is true. We are also told in this little essay that "each bank tries to make THEIR bank look better than all of the other banks by offering services that some other banks might not have". That is to say, banks compete in a market. This is true, conceptually at least, and also true to some extent in reality, although numerous banking laws seriously alter the market and the competition. But it is the pure idea we are after here, and in the pure idea a bank is a business that competes in a market.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Busted Europe, Euro and the European Union Are Going Down / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Gary_North
The European Monetary Union is going to break down. This will be followed by a break-up of the European Union.
This is denied by the New World Order's promoters of international unification. They have been planning for this since the end of World War I. They have been actively implementing this by stealth since the early 1950s. They used treaties to bring this political unification to pass. They used economic unification as the bait. The hook of political unification was always buried in the bait.
Read full article... Read full article...