Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
U.S. Economy Failure to Recover Triggers Economic Armageddon / Politics / Great Depression II
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
As the second decade of the 21st century began, the US economy had not recovered from the Great Recession that began in December 2007.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
After U.S. Debt Ceiling Agreement - What's Next? / Politics / US Debt
By: George_Maniere
Before I begin I want to say to my readers that I believe our founding fathers believed that serving in the government was a privilege not a profession. Sadly, when I look at our government I see people in elected office that by any measure have no practical experiences in life. I look and see people that have groomed themselves for a life in the political arena and for the most part their careers have been carefully orchestrated to lead them down that path. As with any generalizations there are exceptions. I am sure that there are members of Congress that had a life in business before they ran for political office. I will use a random example of Speaker of the House John Boehner.
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Sunday, July 31, 2011
He Once Told the Truth, Obama vs Obama / Politics / US Politics
By: Gary_North
As a lawyer, Obama was trained to argue rival positions, depending on who hired him. So, what I am about to present should not be regarded as hypocrisy on his part. Yes, it is hypocrisy by the standards of any normal human being, but not for a lawyer. He is a lawyer. He does what lawyers do. He looks to see who is buttering his bread, and then he presents his case.
When we elect lawyers to political office, this sort of thing happens.
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Sunday, July 31, 2011
U.S. Debt Ceiling Politics of Default Hype, Fear Mongering and Idle Threats / Politics / US Debt
By: Mike_Shedlock
In a nearly useless face-saving maneuver, House Speaker John Boehner managed to twist enough arms to narrowly pass his bill that was instantly rejected in the Senate.
Questions abound.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
The Kabuki Play On Capitol Hill Comes Right Before The Debt Ceiling Deal / Politics / US Politics
By: Danny_Schechter
Oh, the gnashing of the teeth, Oh, the flamboyant tactics. Oh, all the breaking news excitement on cable news as the debt ceiling countdown saga went down to the wire with an intense political confrontation of a kind we haven’t seen before …
Or maybe we had---in the TARP debate and so-called Obamacare vote, to cite but two moments of high political drama. Once again, all the key players knew the outcome but wanted to keep us guessing because it served everyone’s interests.
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Saturday, July 30, 2011
While Washington Fiddled The U.S. Economy Burned! / Politics / US Debt
By: Sy_Harding
While media focus has been almost entirely on the short-term debt ceiling foolishness in Washington, not much attention has been paid to the more serious worsening of the six-month recessionary trend in the economy.Yet that information and how you handle it will almost surely have more influence on your well-being going forward than Washington’s short-term political game-playing.
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Saturday, July 30, 2011
The Debt Ceiling Reality Show, Who Are The Extremists? / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
“Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.” – Ron Paul
Friday, July 29, 2011
USA AAA Credit Rating in Label Only / Politics / US Debt
By: Janet_Tavakoli
Sovereigns that bailed out banks are saddled with much greater government debt than before the crisis. In the spring of 2007, the Fed and the U.K.'s FSA reported that the degree of leverage in the global financial system was less than at the time of Long Term Capital Management, but in reality it was much greater. Global regulators are now repeating their mistakes. The risks in the interconnected global banking system have moved to currency trading and currency derivatives (remember the contribution of knock-in options to the 1995 currency crisis), leveraged loans, credit derivatives, market-linked derivatives, speculation in commodities, and both foreign and domestic government debt. Winston Churchill said we must alert somnolent authority to novel dangers; but our regulators are complacent, and the dangers are not novel.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Disastrous Outcomes From An Orchestrated U.S. Public Debt Crisis / Politics / US Debt
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
With the world concerned about US financial credibility and the poor outlook for the US economy, now is not the time for the Republicans to grandstand on the public debt. The debt ceiling needed to be quietly raised. Instead, the Republicans started a fire and then threw gasoline on it, creating an inferno that could burn up the US social safety net or the US Treasury’s credit rating and the US dollar’s role as reserve currency or what remains of the separation of powers.
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Friday, July 29, 2011
Why Capitalism Is Worth Defending / Politics / Economic Theory
By: LewRockwell
Anthony Gregory writes: As Obama demonizes the wealthy and pitches a dozen plans to restructure the economy, opponents of this program need a reminder of what exactly we’re fighting for. We are resisting bureaucracy, central planning, and encroachments on our freedom and communities. Yet this does not get to the heart of the matter. We are not only an opposition movement, countering the president and his partisans’ agenda. More fundamentally, we stand in defense of the greatest engine of material prosperity in human history, the fount of civilization, peace, and modernity: Capitalism.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Boehner Loses Credibility in Revised Budget Deficit Cuts Proposal, Tells Congress to "Get Your Ass in Line" / Politics / US Debt
By: Mike_Shedlock
It was bad enough when Boehner proposed a $3 Trillion deficit cutting proposal that the CBO said would only cut the deficit by a mere $850 billion.
Please see Rating the Obama, Reid, and Boehner Deficit Reduction Plans on Mish's 10-Point Credibility Scale for details.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
The End Of The False Flag Wars / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
It is easy and comforting, for some, to see the recent and current western "military adventures" in lower income, smaller, poorly armed countries as simply a neo-colonial rampage, perhaps with the initial aim of pillaging natural resources, but later on for the simple pleasure of trashing already weak and poor countries to thrill middle class graveside voyeurs with gore and suffering TV clips and newsbytes.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Your Guide Through the Washington Debt Speak / Politics / US Debt
By: LewRockwell
Brian Wilson writes: Another "Al" once wrote: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Washington's Math Adds Up to the Debt Ceiling Deadlock / Politics / US Debt
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes:
If you've been wondering why your elected officials in Washington can't reach a basic compromise to break the debt-ceiling deadlock, consider this: They can't even get their numbers straight.
Not only do the competing Democratic and Republican plans differ on what counts as a spending cut, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has disputed numbers in both plans.
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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
$8.4 Trillion Hidden Profit For The Federal Reserve / Politics / Central Banks
By: Submissions
Liberty writes: The public is aware that deficit spending is the government's ability to spend money that it does not have. The image projected is the government borrows from the public, or the Federal Reserve, and the money that can be spent is above and beyond the funds collected in the form of taxes and fees.
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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Iran's Dream for a Middle East Gas Pipeline / Politics / Natural Gas
By: OilPrice_Com
Nothing gets oilmen more excited than the idea of building pipelines from exotic, hard to reach places to seaports where the product of their endeavors can be shipped to lucrative foreign markets.
These reveries have been most pronounced with the opening since 1991 the riches of the Caspian Sea basin.
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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Bailouts, Austerity and Rage: Calm Like A Bomb, Part I - The Greek & The Irish / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Ashvin_Pandurangi
"Stroll through the shanties, and the cities remain. Same bodies buried hungry, but with different last names. These vultures rob everything, leave nothing but chains. Pick a point on the globe; yes the picture's the same. There's a bank, a church, a myth and a hearse; a mall and a loan, a child dead at birth. There's a widow pig parrot, a rebel to tame, a whitehooded judge and a syringe and a vein. And the riot be the rhyme of the unheard..." Rage Against the Machine: Calm Like a Bomb
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
The Hidden Debt Risk That Could End the U.S. Empire / Politics / US Debt
By: Michael_S_Rozeff
The debt limit will be raised. Neither side will get its way.
The U.S. government always raises the debt limit. How else would the debt and the government have gotten so large?
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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
The U.S. Debt Ceiling Charade, $114.5 Trillion of Debt and Liabilities / Politics / US Debt
By: Jeff_Berwick
What a circus the debate over the raising of the US Government debt ceiling has become. It's fun to watch everyone involved wriggling around trying to ignore the blue whale in the room.
It used to be an elephant... perhaps around 1986. But now, after a decade of wars and trillion dollar deficits, the US Government debt has become like the largest mammal in the history of the world - the blue whale - and is perhaps so large now that it might be in everyone's best interest just to ignore it or their heads may explode from realizing the enormity of the problem.
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Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Bernanke Secretly Gives away Sixteen Trillion Dollars / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Richard_Mills
The first ever GAO (Government Accountability Office) audit of the US Federal Reserve was recently carried out due to the Ron Paul/Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill passed in 2010. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, while leading the charge for an audit in the Senate, watered down the original language of house bill (HR1207) so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and others, opposed the audit.