Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Wall Street’s Power Grab, The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Hearings / Politics / Market Manipulation
By: Michael_Hudson
You almost could hear the bankers heave a sigh of relief when Haiti’s earthquake knocked the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearings off the front pages and evening news broadcasts last week. At stake, after all, is Wall Street’s power grab seeking to centralize policy control firmly in its own hands by neutralizing the government’s regulatory agencies. The first day – Wednesday, January 15 – went innocuously enough. Four emperors of finance were called on to voice ceremonial platitudes and pro forma apologies without explaining what they might be apologizing for. Typical was the statement by Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd C. Blankfein: “Whatever we did, it didn’t work out well. We regret the consequence that people have lost money.”
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Free Market, Public Education System and Profit Incentives / Politics / US Politics
By: Viresh_Amin
Historically, it has long been a self-evident truth that the most efficient, productive, and fastest, way to produce goods and services to best serve the consumer desires is to allow a entity to have a profit incentive i.e., unhampered markets. Without such an incentive all three (efficiency, productivity, and speed) will deteriorate and will become submarginal i.e., public education, Amtrak, and the U.S. Postal Service to name just a few. In many cases without a profit incentive, the only incentive today is the bailout incentive i.e., Fannie and Freddie, etc.
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Monday, January 18, 2010
Raining on the Governments Parade / Politics / US Politics
By: Viresh_Amin
The Lew Rockwell dot com and the Ludwig Von Mises institute have and continue to do a fabulous job at raining on the government’s parade and all the fallacies that are floating around in today’s world. They have time and time again become a place for minds to create great ideas, theories, articles, and books to show us just what this world has come to. Government has for far too long suppressed the best efforts of productive men and steals tax payer money to produce nothing productive for our end; all the while they tell us that they are working diligently for our best interest. One of these days that rain will turn into hail and a wrath the likes of hurricane Katrina will send a destructive backlash to all those “legalized” crooks and criminals living off the successful efforts of the productive minds.
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Monday, January 18, 2010
Trivial or Fundamental? / Politics / US Politics
By: Viresh_Amin
One of America’s great men on Capitol Hill has repeatedly stated that the issues at hand are dealing with the trivial and not the fundamental. Ron Paul, has many times raised the question why do the terrorists in the Middle East hate us? He always gets the typical answer. The Administration, being the caring politicians they are, tell us that these terrorists hate our freedom, prosperity, and our democratic way of life, thus government concludes that they hate everything America stands for.
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Monday, January 18, 2010
U.S. Heading for Hyperinflationary Collapse, Ruling Elite Preparing for Civil War / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
What we've got here is failure to communicate.
Some men you just can't reach...
So, you get what we had here last week,
Which is the way he wants it !
Well, he gets it !
N' I don't like it any more than you men.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Google Cyberattacks China's War on the U.S. Economy / Politics / US Economy
By: Peter_Navarro
China's recent cyberattacks against Google and as many as 33 other U.S. corporations open up a dangerous new industrial espionage front in Beijing's war on American business.
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Sunday, January 17, 2010
Why Is The Haiti Disaster Response So Screwed Up: Is The Another Katrina Relief Effort In The Making? / Politics / Social Issues
By: Danny_Schechter
Every disaster plan is built to some degree around the idea of triage—deciding who can and cannot be saved. The worst cases are often separated and allowed to perish so that others who are considered more survivable can be treated.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Huffington Posts Flawed Move Your Money Campaign From Big Banks to Small Banks / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The Huffington posts campaign to get depositors to withdraw their cash from the too big to fail wall street banks and deposit the cash into small local community banks has become highly popular. as the vast majority of people clearly want the bankster's of Wall street to pay for their financial crimes instead of continuing to receive bonuses which are in effect tax payer cash paid out.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Pakistan Collapse Could Trigger Global Great Depression and World War III / Politics / Pakistan
By: Nadeem_Walayat
During 2009 the 2600 terrorist attacks resulted in the number of deaths soaring to more than 12,000 casualties in Pakistan, compared to the number killed in Iraq falling to 2,800 from the 2008 total of 5,900. The U.S. War in Afghanistan pushed the Taliban and Al-Qeeda over the border into Pakistan that has sparked an escalating insurgency and Pakistan's own U.S. backed un-popular "War on Terror" which is going just as badly as that in Afghanistan, only without the deep financial pockets to embark up on an never ending war that is increasingly sapping what little strength the Pakistan Economy had out of it and now seriously risks the collapse of the state due to the stress of the conflict on the economy and society.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Haiti Earthquake Survivors Dying as Aid Struggles to Reach Them / Politics / Social Issues
By: Submissions
The distribution of humanitarian supplies to Haiti is being hampered by infrastructure damage, blocked roads and severed communication lines. Reports are that those who survived Tuesday’s massive earthquake are now dying in huge numbers, and clean water, food and medical supplies are desperately needed. Dead bodies lie everywhere on the streets, and the Red Cross says it has run out of body bags. Three million more—one third of Haiti’s population—had been hurt or left homeless.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
The Federal Reserve / Politics / Central Banks
By: Douglas_V._Gnazzo
Honest Money – Chapter 10
"Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money and control credit, and with a flick of
a pen they will create enough to buy it back." [1]
Friday, January 15, 2010
Fannie and Freddie, Another American Taxpayer Nightmare / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Michael_Pollaro
It’s official.
Fannie and Freddie are now full wards of the state, departments of the U.S. government. And their obligations are now the obligations of the American taxpayer.
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Friday, January 15, 2010
While Fed Dilly Dallies, China and Other Central Bankers Taking the Lead / Politics / Central Banks
By: Mike_Larson
I talked in last week’s column about how our Federal Reserve won’t raise interest rates until the cows come home. But you can’t say the same thing about many central banks overseas …
The men and women in charge there aren’t sitting idly by while new bubbles inflate. They’re not whistling past the graveyard while asset prices balloon ever higher. They’re actually starting to normalize policy — and since those moves have investment implications for you, you need to be aware of them.
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Friday, January 15, 2010
Greenspan and Bernanke Groveling at the Fed / Politics / Central Banks
By: Submissions
Frederick Sheehan writes: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke gave a speech on January 3, 2010 that was incomprehensible. The address itself will be discussed later. It is important first to consider the precedent of Federal Reserve chairmen making absurd claims - and getting away with it.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Bilderbergs of the World Unite! / Politics / Global Financial System
By: William_Bowles
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And just in case you still haven’t got the point, the same Heritage Foundation document, dated 25 September, 2002 went on to tell us,
Thursday, January 14, 2010
H1N1, the False Pandemic, Pharma Companies Made Billions From Mass Hysteria / Politics / Global Pandemic
By: Pravda
Wolfgang Wodarg, Head of Health at the Council of Europe, considers that the A H1N1 scare was a “campaign of panic”, a “false pandemic”, “one of the great medicine scandals of the century” and claims that the vaccines, based on cancerous cells, spell the chilling message “there is worse to come”.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Google's China Hypocrisy Ignores Deep CIA Connections / Politics / Google
By: Pravda
The western media is currently full of articles on Google's 'threat to quit China' over internet censorship issues, and the company's 'suspicion' that the Chinese government was behind attempts to 'break-in' to several Google email accounts used by 'Chinese dissidents'.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age / Politics / Climate Change
By: Pravda
The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Blunder and Plunder, The History of War / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: John_Kozy
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) claimed that "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." Perhaps. But more serious are those who know history but learn nothing from it.
Victor Davis Hanson is a Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a columnist for National Review Online—all institutions with admittedly right wing views. He writes about war but has never fought in one. He is a historian whose views of history are based on his biases, not the evidence.
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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Fed Publishing Mathematical Gibberish to Hide Balance Sheet Secrets / Politics / Central Banks
By: Mike_Shedlock
The Fed is pulling out all stops to defend its secrets, including publishing self-serving mathematical gibberish. Please consider the St. Louis Fed article on the Social Cost of Transparency.
Unless you are an academic wonk, you will be stymied by pages that look like this ...