Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Are Democrats Plotting Surprise Election Economic Stimulus? / Politics / Economic Stimulus
By: Money_Morning
Jon D. Markman writes: Data last week showed a job market that’s careening down a steep street with no breaks. Yet investors were able to shrug off employment concerns, as the stock market actually ended the week up 1.5% due to that rockin’ Monday on the first day of the month.
That’s because there is growing speculation that the Democrats are plotting a surprise stimulus in the run up to November’s mid-term elections.
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Monday, August 09, 2010
Targeting Iran, US Administration Planning a Nuclear Attack? / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Michel_Chossudovsky
The US and its allies are preparing to launch a nuclear war directed against Iran with devastating consequences. This military adventure in the real sense of the word threatens the future of humanity.
While one can conceptualize the loss of life and destruction resulting from present-day wars including Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastation which might result from a Third World War, using "new technologies" and advanced weapons, until it occurs and becomes a reality.
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Monday, August 09, 2010
War Against Iran as a Method of Promoting Globalisation / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Global_Research
Dmitry Sedov writes: There is little doubt that the US will hit Iran after pulling its troops out of Iraq. Military spending in the US has gained too much momentum to leave any hope that the current dynamics will change in the foreseeable future. The US military-industrial complex and its Pentagon partners have long been preparing the war-against-Iran project, readily resorting to the most unsavory methods in the process.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Who Will Investigate the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission? / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Janet_Tavakoli
Janet Tavakoli of Tavakoli Structured Finance tells what she thinks of recent fines the SEC has imposed on Wall Street giants and where she would like future investigations take place.
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Monday, August 09, 2010
Obama Economic Team Bails, As Stimulus System Fails To Generate Jobs / Politics / US Politics
By: Danny_Schechter
In Washington, the Obama economic team has sprung a leak. First, Budget Director Peter Orszag, the calculating numbers savant, bailed. And now, “distinguished” economist Christina Romer, the only woman in that inner circle boys club has quit too. (Would you want to be around Larry Summers all day long?)
Monday, August 09, 2010
America's Middle Class in Crisis / Politics / US Politics
By: PhilStockWorld
Very nice reading in the Financial Times this week.
One of my favorite topics since I themed the year with our 2010 Outlook "A Tale of Two Economies" and in the years before that I’ve been bitching about the topic of wealth disparity in America to the point where even arch-Conservatives Alan Greenspan and David Stockman are now forced to agree with me. So that’s two down, 99,999,998 to go! That’s right, just 1/3 of our fellow countrymen now identify themselves as Republicans or Republican’ts, as they are affectionately known on Capitol Hill - where they block every possible effort to change the status quo that’s been eating away at our nation and destroying the middle class for an entire decade now.
Monday, August 09, 2010
No Drama Obama Needs a Strong Second Act / Politics / US Politics
By: Walter_Brasch
The Obama administration is a welcome change from the Bush–Cheney years. Against severe Republican opposition, President Obama has kept campaign promises to reform health care, curb Wall Street excesses, create a federally-funded stimulus program to help bring the nation out of the recession, and to remove American troops from the needless Iraq war, which has already cost Americans more than $740 billion and 4,400 lives. He has also pledged to eliminate the Bush–Cheney tax cuts for the rich, while not raising taxes on the middle- and lower-classes.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, August 07, 2010
The Maxine Waters Investigation: What is Iran Doing in this Picture? / Politics / US Politics
By: Submissions
Katherine Smith writes: The timing of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee, which on August 2, 2010 formally brought a case against Congresswoman Maxine Waters, one of America’s most enduring liberal and fierce Anti War politicians, and the WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of Army documents related to the war in Afghanistan may be connected.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
ALERT: Environmental and Health Impacts of the BP Gulf Oil Spill / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Dr_Tom_Termotto
THE COMING OF THE BLACK WAVE
Nothing in our shared cultural experience will prepare us better for the oncomingBlack Wave throughout the Gulf of Mexico than the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. And yet even this environmental catastrophe falls far short of what is coming around the corner in the Gulf. Alaska is not Florida, or Louisiana, or Texas. The Deep South summer here in Tallahassee, FL has been as hot and humid as any we’ve seen. This weather pattern is what will distinguish the BP Gulf Oil Spill from the Exxon Valdez just as the total volume of the spill and use of dispersants have.
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Saturday, August 07, 2010
The Mainstream Media and the State Are Joined at the Hip, Sometimes Literally / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: LewRockwell
S.M. Oliva writes: Jon Leibowitz and Ruth Marcus married in 1994. They were the perfect Washington power couple: He was chief counsel to Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) and she was a White House correspondent for the Washington Post. Sure, they were just cogs in the establishment, but they were still part of America's ruling class. And over the next decade-and-a-half, they solidified that standing. Marcus – who has worked at the Post for twenty-six years – rose through the ranks to become a member of the paper's editorial board and a regular op-ed columnist. Leibowitz remained with Sen. Kohl until 2000, when he joined the "private sector" as a lobbyist for the copyright industry (aka the Motion Picture Association of America). But in 2004 he returned to his natural habitat, the government, when he received one of five seats on the Federal Trade Commission.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Gerald Celente American People Have Been Cheated and Betrayed / Politics / US Politics
By: Videos
Gerald Celente – president of the Trends Research Institute and editor of Trends Research Journal – and LRC podcast guest – is interviewed on Russian TV, which tends to be freer than US TV. He discusses the economic collapse and social unrest ahead, and why we can not trust the ruling class or their universities. Americans are rightly angry at the oligarchs of Wall Street and the big banks. They feel cheated, and they have been cheated. They feel betrayed, and they have been betrayed.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Bring Down the Ruling Elite / Politics / US Politics
By: Gary_North
Ruling elites as recently as 1600 appealed to God to justify their continuing rule. This was called the divine right of kings: rulership beyond any earthly court of appeal. That began to be undermined in the second half of the seventeenth century. A century later, Enlightenment democratic theory had replaced the divine right of kings. The divine right of Parliament or the divine right of the People replaced it.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Pakistan Floods, Corrupt President Zadari Could Not Careless for Pakistanis / Politics / Pakistan
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Whilst Pakistan drowns with over 2,000 dead and 14 million displaced by the worst floods in its history, the so called President of Pakistan remains sat in England as part of his political tour of Europe so as to bolster his political support and funds.
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Saturday, August 07, 2010
A Stinging Critique Of a Worker Bee / Politics / Social Issues
By: Graham_Summers
A little while back, a Fed Economist by the name of Kartik Athreya, wrote a piece urging the public to only listen to economists who have PhDs from top level universities when searching for economic insights. Regarding other sources of macro-economic analysis, specifically bloggers, Mr. Athreya writes, “it is exceedingly unlikely that these authors have anything interesting to say about economic policy.”
Friday, August 06, 2010
First Nuclear World War Just Around the Corner? / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Pravda
Seoul and Pyongyang have started another stage of the verbal war following the start of military drills in the Yellow Sea. The drills are being held to intensify South Korea's response to asymmetrical provocations on the part of the potential enemy. S. Korean officials repeatedly stated that the nation would not tolerate any provocations from the North.
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Friday, August 06, 2010
A Wealthy Economic Stimulus Needed / Politics / Economic Stimulus
By: James_Quinn
Just when things seem like they can't get any worse, we receive the distressing news that the wealthy are starting to cut back. An Associated Press article earlier this week As Spending by Wealthy Weakens, so does Economy detailed the sad plight of the wealthy. Economists say the economy is slowing because the richest 5% of Americans — those earning at least $207,000 — are buying less. They account for about 14% of total consumer spending. According to the article:
Friday, August 06, 2010
Why America Will Be the Next Banana Republic / Politics / US Economy
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes:
The great American tradition of individualism, entrepreneurship and revolution is being systematically undermined by a cadre of financial strongmen bent on turning us into just another "banana republic" - where a subdued and apathetic population is subjugated by a ruling class of wealthy oligarchs.
Friday, August 06, 2010
U.S. China Inevitable Strategic Conflict / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Global_Research
Prof Wang Jisi writes: In early 2010, conflicts between China and the US came thick and fast, leading to the most serious political disturbance between the two countries since the plane collision in 2001. At the beginning of April, as the heads of both countries talked over the telephone and Chinese President Hu Jintao attended a nuclear security summit in Washington, Sino-US relations became less tense. Tensions were further eased by the Second China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue held in Beijing in May.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Isolating Iran is Part of the Great Energy Game / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Global_Research
Kourosh Ziabari writes: The Middle East is witness to continuous developments these days, such as Iran’s active diplomacy to attract the indispensable 118-member bloc of non-aligned countries to support its nuclear program, the growing isolation of Israel in European countries and within academic circles in the U.S., Arabs’ fears of losing the power game in the Persian Gulf region, and the expansion of illegal settlements of Israel in the West Bank and its unremitting disobedience to United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Tony Blair Must Be Prosecuted For War Crimes / Politics / UK Politics
By: Submissions
John Pilger writes: Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like his mentor Peter Mandelson. Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid fortunes. Blair’s will appear next month and earn him £4.6 million. Now consider Britain’s Proceeds of Crime Act. Blair conspired in and executed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenseless country, which the Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the "paramount war crime." This has caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million people, a figure that exceeds the Fordham University estimate of deaths in the Rwandan genocide.