Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Thursday, April 01, 2010
Timothy Geithner is a Sniveling Scamster / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Whew. That was fast. It didn't take long for Wall Street to figure out how to game Obama's new mortgage modification program, did it? The plan was hyped as help for "struggling homeowners", but it turns out, it's just another stealth bailout for pudgy bank-execs. It's funny, the program hasn't even kicked in yet and, already, bigtime speculators are riffling through their filing cabinets looking any garbage paper they can find to dump on Uncle Sam. Take a look at this on today's Bloomberg report:
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Thursday, April 01, 2010
Student Loans, The Government is Now Officially in the Banking Business / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
“We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government. . . . Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson . . . and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of the government and that the banks should go out of the governing business.” William Jennings Bryan, Democratic Convention, 1896
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Thursday, April 01, 2010
The Fed's Last Hurrah / Politics / Central Banks
During the 1990s, inflationary Federal Reserve policy fueled a tech stock bubble. When that bubble burst, the Fed inflated a larger one in real estate. Now that the real estate bubble has burst, the Fed is inflating the biggest bubble of them all - a bubble in government. While the earlier booms at least provided the illusion of prosperity and some fun while they lasted, the government bubble will cripple the economy and deliver widespread misery to the vast majority of Americans.
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Thursday, April 01, 2010
The Hydropower Solution in Central Asia: Yes But... / Politics / Renewable Energy
Surfing the wave of the hype for renewable energy such as hydropower and the invitation by the United States to many regional countries to get involved in the efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, Tajikistan is bringing back to the table the Rogun hydropower dam project. Rogun, conceived in Soviet days, was planned to generate 3,600 megawatts but the collapse of the Soviet Union halted the completion of this project. Now an independent country, Tajikistan, one of the poorest in the world, sees Rogun as a central element for its energy independence and a source of severely needed foreign currencies that could be earned through the export of electricity.
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Thursday, April 01, 2010
E.U. Greece Rescue Plan Fails, Back to Square One / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
Europe's rescue plan for Greece is now back at square one. The reason the plan failed is there never really was a plan to begin with, just bazooka talk.
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Thursday, April 01, 2010
Google and China Internet Censorship, Mr. Hu, Tear Down This Wall! / Politics / Google
Over two thousand years ago, China began to build its Great Wall in order to keep nomadic tribes and marauding armies from crossing its borders. In the last few decades, China has built another protective barrier, a 'Great Firewall,' to keep socially disruptive web content from reaching its citizens. American companies have long acquiesced to this censorship charade in order to have access to China's booming online market.
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Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Iran Attack, Rumours of a Hard-Rain and the Price of Oil: My Trip to Tehran / Politics / Iran
Oil-Blogger Alan Von Alterdof (http://seekingalpha.com/..) is convinced that pretty soon Iran is going to “get what’s coming to it”, he tells us:
Hundreds of powerful US "bunker-buster" bombs are being shipped from California to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Chechnya Oil Pipeline Politics True Underlying Cause for Moscow Metro Bombings / Politics / Russia
The tragic news of the 29 March twin suicide bombings of two Moscow Metro stations during the morning rush hour has produced outrage worldwide, with the Kremlin quickly adding that the attacks were carried out by the Caucasus Mujaheddin, a northern Caucasus-based militant Islamist guerrilla group that claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Moscow to St. Petersburg express train last November.
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010
China Inherently Unstable Economic System Crunch Time / Politics / China
The global system is undergoing profound change. Three powers — Germany, China and Iran — face challenges forcing them to refashion the way they interact with their regions and the world. We are exploring each of these three states in detail in three geopolitical weeklies, highlighting how STRATFOR’s assessments of these states are evolving. First we examined Germany. We now examine China.
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Western Civilization and the Economic Crisis, The Impoverishment of the Middle Class / Politics / Social Issues
The western nations of the world have built their great wealth and societies on the exploitation and plundering of the people and resources of the rest of the world. The wealth, freedom, and structures of our societies have been built on the starvation, robbery, deprivation and murder of millions upon millions of the world’s people, both historically and presently.
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Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Argentina Running Out Of Options Over UK Falklands Oil Fight / Politics / Crude Oil
As Argentina's oil battle with the United Kingdom rages on, the only other obstacle the South American country can throw at oil companies planning to drill near the Falkland Islands is to interdict U.K. ships or equipment - but regional expert Riordan Roett doubts the Argentines are “stupid enough to do that.”
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Monday, March 29, 2010
The Fannie May and Freddie Mac Bailout Debacle / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities. Christian Nevell Bovee, 1820-1904, American Author, Lawyer
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Monday, March 29, 2010
Healthcare and Economic Realities / Politics / US Politics
With passage of last week's bill, the American people are now the unhappy recipients of Washington's disastrous prescription for healthcare "reform." Congressional leaders relied on highly dubious budget predictions, faulty market assumptions, and outright fantasy to convince a slim majority that this major expansion of government somehow will reduce federal spending. This legislation is just the next step towards universal, single payer healthcare, which many see as a human right. Of course, this "right" must be produced by the labor of other people, meaning theft and coercion by government is necessary to produce and distribute it.
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Monday, March 29, 2010
Socialized Medicine Impact on Gold Bugs / Politics / Gold and Silver 2010
The “passage” of the Obama “health care” proposal is a significant change in the political scene. Some of it directly affects our program as gold bugs. Some goes beyond this. But it all is one integrated whole, and it has to be understood if we are to make our way in this world.
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Sunday, March 28, 2010
California Could be Destroyed by Looming Water Disaster / Politics / Climate Change
Yasha Levine writes: There's an impending disaster in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and a handful of wealthy farmers seem to like it that way.
"That, in your own backyard there, is the scariest place after New Orleans.” —Geologist Nicholas Pinder's description of the precarious situation in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta after the hurricane Katrina disaster.
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Saturday, March 27, 2010
Financial Fraud on Wall Street / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
The re-nomination of Ben Bernanke, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has to be one of the ultimate political insults, particularly coming from Republicans, as did his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, both have taken America and the world down the sewer. Ben Bernanke saved Wall Street, the banks, insurance companies and a myriad of other financial firms.
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Saturday, March 27, 2010
More Greenspan Financial Crisis Excuses / Politics / US Economy
Greenspan is all over the place on here, just trying to cover his inneptitude. He claims this is a once in a century event while the US has to reel in it's debt. I got news for Greenspan, the bubble crashes will only get worse. We have the same system and it will only become more and more difficult for $1 trillion to magically appear to save these 'Bubbles'.
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Friday, March 26, 2010
U.S.A. Going Insane Over Healthcare Reform Bill Passage / Politics / US Politics
In the aftermath of passage of a comprehensive new health care reform bill, a wave of threats and violence has swept across the country. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer reports that some of his Democratic colleagues are being threatened with violence when they go back to their districts. He suggested that Republicans should stand up and condemn the threats.
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Friday, March 26, 2010
Greece Debt Crisis To Trigger Financial Tsunami across Europe / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
The summit of the European Union continued on March 26 in Brussels. The most important issue on the agenda of the summit is the crisis in Greece. The biggest intrigue of the meeting is about the stance of the EU’s largest country – Germany – which is supposed to carry most of the burden of help to the country that faces the danger of default. German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated earlier that Greece was not supposed to receive any international help. She reportedly did not even want to discuss this issue in Brussels.
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Friday, March 26, 2010
Let the Billionaires Pay for the Financial Crisis / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
Each year, Forbes magazine releases its famous list of billionaires. The just released 2010 classifications provide insightful information that in one year, the number of billionaires increased from 793 to 1011, and their accumulated wealth is 3,600 billion, up 50% compared to the previous year. For the super rich, the crisis is long gone.
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