Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Iran: Public Image Versus Historical Reality - Part 1: An Abridged History to the 20th Century / Politics / Iran
By: Raymond_Matison
Part I, traces historical events which have shaped Iran’s evolution and development from its great Persian empire of over two thousand years ago to those taking place in the 20th century.
Over the last several decades Iran has been labeled by the United States a terrorist state, a state that needs to be restricted or otherwise controlled. Consequently, Iran has been under frequent, broad and severe sanctions over the last several decades, whereby it was impeded from selling its oil to generate revenues, and foreclosed to use the SWIFT system of international money transfer. It is a state, according to the international community, which cannot be permitted to develop nuclear arms. President George W. Bush identified Iran as part of a global axis of evil. More recently President Trump has noted on his recent trip to the Middle East that Iran “is the biggest sponsor of terrorism, and that Iran must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon”. He called on “all nations of conscience to isolate Iran”.
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Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Trump’s “America First” Trade Frictions Are About to Begin / Politics / US Politics
By: Dan_Steinbock
After the US-Sino Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, trade issues are alienating not only China and America’s NATO allies – but its NAFTA partners, Canada and Mexico.As the Trump administration’s first US-Sino Comprehensive Economic Dialogue (CED) ended in Washington, it could only agree on three no’s: canceled news conferences, no joint statement and no new announcements on market access by the US to China, or by China to the US.
A simple scenario is that the CED has paved way to a major trade conflict between the US and China. Yet, despite tough political rhetoric, economic realities do not seem to support such a view, at least yet.
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Tuesday, July 25, 2017
GOP Leadership Betrays Trump Voters on Obamacare & Debt / Politics / US Politics
By: MoneyMetals
The single-digit approval rating of Congress means precious few people still expect much from the politicians running Washington DC.
Expectations should now ratchet even lower as representatives once again demonstrate just how far their words are from their deeds.
We’ll start with healthcare. The U.S. Senate failed in yet another effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. The prospects for reform any time soon are approaching zero.
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Monday, July 24, 2017
Saving Illinois: Getting More Bang for Its Bucks / Politics / Debt Crisis 2017
By: Ellen_Brown
Illinois is insolvent, unable to pay its bills. According to Moody’s, the state has $15 billion in unpaid bills and $251 billion in unfunded liabilities. Of these, $119 billion are tied to shortfalls in the state’s pension program. On July 6, 2017, for the first time in two years, the state finally passed a budget, after lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto on raising taxes. But they used massive tax hikes to do it – a 32% increase in state income taxes and 33% increase in state corporate taxes – and still Illinois’ new budget generates only $5 billion, not nearly enough to cover its $15 billion deficit.
Monday, July 24, 2017
Macbeth, King Lear and Trump / Politics / US Politics
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Mea culpa. Yesterday I wrote Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?, and not long after publishing it, I figured I missed the target I was going for. Not 100%, and it’s not all bad, as people’s reactions have confirmed, but…
The thing is, Trump’s nomination of Anthony Scaramucci as White House Communications Director was not the main point of my piece. Tempting, because everybody knows the Queen song, but not the main one, and it certainly shouldn’t have been the title of the piece.
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Sunday, July 23, 2017
Scaramucci Trump's Phase2 - Scaramouche, Scaramouche, Will You Do the Fandango? / Politics / US Politics
By: Raul_I_Meijer
So sorry to see Sean Spicer go, even if I never watch TV, so I only got snippets of his acting performances -and Melissa McCarthy’s. One of the very few SNL and other ‘comedy’ shows skids that was actually funny, in the same way that very few of the New York Times and Washington Post ‘articles’ on Trump have been actually news.
As I wrote to a friend earlier today, sure Spicer’s gone, but there’ll be other entertaining characters to replace him. Say what you will about the Trump administration, but never a dull moment. Having Mike Pence become president would kill all the fun.
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Thursday, July 20, 2017
Trump Has Found A Loophole To Rewrite Trade Agreements Without Anyone’s Permission / Politics / Protectionism
By: John_Mauldin
BY PATRICK WATSON : Last summer at the Camp Kotok economics retreat, I met a man who has done business with The Trump Organization and with Trump himself.
He said Trump scrupulously followed the law in all their deals. He also added Trump would often insert innocent-looking contract clauses that later harmed the other side.
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Wednesday, July 19, 2017
How Steel Became US Security Concern – and Global Trade War Threat / Politics / Protectionism
By: Dan_Steinbock
As the White House seeks to turn steel overcapacity into a national security matter, the issue is alienating not only China but America’s NATO allies.'They're dumping steel and destroying our steel industry, they've been doing it for decades, and I'm stopping it. It'll stop,' US President Donald Trump declared during a recent flight from the US to France. “There are two ways: quotas and tariffs. Maybe I'll do both,” he added at the eve of his administration’s first Sino-US Comprehensive Economic Dialogue (CED), also known as Diplomatic and Security Dialogue (D&SD).
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Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Discover Why A Major American Revolution Is Brewing / Politics / US Politics
By: Harry_Dent
I have written many articles on how extremely polarized our politics has become in the last decade. I’ve dedicated several Leading Edge newsletters to the topic. I talked about it at our 2016 Irrational Economic Summit. I even discuss it briefly in my new book, Trump, Brexit, and the Next Civil War, which will be available around mid-August.I talk about it so much because it’s related to the mega 250-Year Revolution Cycle sweeping over us right now. We’ll feel the effects of this cycle for decades to come… which I detail in my new book.
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Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Accepting a Society of Government Tyranny / Politics / US Politics
By: BATR
Rational thinking and moral conduct are rare in a society that has no respect for other individuals or succumb to the dictates of an all powerful government. Without free will, the dignity of the person is removed from the social relationship. Tyranny is not simply a state of mind, but is an imposition of compulsion designed to control the behavior of subjects of whatever form of government claiming legitimate rule.
Monday, July 17, 2017
Perfect Storm - This Fourth Turning has Over a Decade of Continuous Storms to Come / Politics / Social Issues
By: James_Quinn
Several weeks ago I had to drive west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to pick up my son after his sophomore year at Penn State. I’ve made this trip a dozen times over the last few years, since this is my second son attending Penn State, with a third starting in the Fall. It’s a tedious, boring, protracted, four hour trek through the rural countryside of the Keystone State. During these trips my mind wanders, making connections between the landscape and the pressing issues facing the world. I can’t help but get lost in my thoughts as the miles accumulate like dollars on the national debt clock.
More often than not I end up making the trip in the midst of bad weather. And this time was no different. The Pennsylvania Turnpike is a meandering, decades old, dangerous, mostly two lane highway for most of its 360 mile span. Large swaths of the decaying interstate are under construction, as the narrative about lack of infrastructure spending is proven false by visual proof along the highways and byways of America.
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Friday, July 14, 2017
Trump’s Trade Policies Are Provoking A Global Trade War— How to Hedge Your Portfolio / Politics / Global Economy
By: John_Mauldin
BY PATRICK WATSON :Removing barriers to international trade has both upside and downside. Donald Trump is now president in part because he focused on the downside: lost US jobs, closed factories, blighted communities.
Even more important, he's fundamentally changing the way government looks at trade policy.
Trade negotiations have long had the implicit goal of promoting peace. It’s a fact that nations with active business relationships rarely attack each other, though the security aspect used to stay mostly unspoken.
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Friday, July 14, 2017
Clarion House Social Housing for Grenfell Fire Residents / Politics / Social Issues
By: Submissions
BWTUC CALLS ON CLARION HOUSING (Formerly Affinity Sutton) TO BRING BACK INTO USE 159 SOCIAL HOUSING UNITS IN CHELSEA LYING EMPTY AND OFFER THEM AS HOMES FOR GRENFELL TOWER FIRE RESIDENTS
If Kensington and Chelsea Council won't use its powers to force action on this it should be ordered to bring back into commission these flats that the Sutton Trust/Affinity Sutton itself vandalised in 2015 after decanting the residents says BWTUC
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Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Iran and North Korea: Brothers in Nuclear Arms / Politics / Nuclear Weapons
By: John_Mauldin
Summary
Remember Iran? The prospect of war with North Korea has made it easy to overlook this other nearly nuclear power that was until recently the object of Washington’s nonproliferation efforts. Tehran was dead set on developing a nuclear weapon, but it agreed to halt its program in 2015 after extensive negotiations with the United States. Granted, the rise of the Islamic State, a common enemy of the United States and Iran, and years of economic attrition wrought by international sanctions forced its hand. Still, Iran has complied with the agreement by subjecting itself to inspections meant to ensure it doesn’t enrich its uranium.
A nuclear weapons program, however, requires more than just weapons-grade fissile material. It also requires a warhead that is small and sturdy enough to survive the flight on a ballistic missile. And then, of course, it requires the ballistic missile itself – hence the attention North Korean missiles have received lately. North Korea has lots of fissile material. And it most likely has a miniaturized warhead, according to U.S. intelligence officials. Pyongyang is, in other words, one ballistic missile away from being able to strike the United States.
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Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Kim Jong-un: Biography of a Young Despot / Politics / North Korea
By: John_Mauldin
Cult of personality: a situation in which a public figure (such as a political leader) is deliberately presented to the people of a country as a great person who should be admired and loved. —Merriam Webster
North Koreans have lived under a cult of personality for decades. It is assumed by analysts that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un himself believes in his own demigod myth. Let’s look at how Kim grew up.
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Tuesday, July 11, 2017
California Communists at War with America / Politics / US Politics
By: BATR
There has always been a distinct California disconnect from the heartland. Anyone who has travelled the lower 48 knows that the allure of El Dorado panned out when the gold mines ran out of bullion. That appeal transformed into a fantasy stargaze that has little to do with the values and traditions of our long history as a nation. In order to understand the query, California Dreaming or a Nightmare?; one needs to appreciate the reasons why the population migration has shifted over time.
Thursday, July 06, 2017
Here’s Why This G20 Meeting Doesn’t Really Matter / Politics / Global Economy
By: John_Mauldin
BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN : Anyone who has ever been to a meeting knows that meetings are often confounding, frustrating affairs. Most of them are designed simply to be held. The people who attend them are unlikely to agree on anything except maybe the date of the next one.
The G-20 summit is no exception.
But that’s only because the people who attend it, the leaders of the countries with the world’s 20 largest economies, think of themselves as decision-makers when really they are hostages to history.
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Thursday, July 06, 2017
This Graphic Shows the Reach of North Korea’s Most Successful Missile Test / Politics / North Korea
By: John_Mauldin
RiskEdge: Kim Jong-un is variously seen as a fantasy-sodden rattler of sabers or a mad and dangerous threat to global peace.
Whichever more closely approximates the truth, the world is watching North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile quest ever more uneasily.
And on May 14, the pariah state embarked on its most successful missile test yet:
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Thursday, July 06, 2017
North vs. South Korea: The Human Divide / Politics / North Korea
By: John_Mauldin
RiskEdge : The wildly differing trajectories of North and South Korea since they were divided at the end of World War II are well known.
Slightly murkier are the very human statistics illustrating the differences between the two. The paranoically secretive nature of North Korea means that a wealth of data is difficult to come by, but the most reliable data available is striking.
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Wednesday, July 05, 2017
A North Korean EMP Attack: The Dark Possibility / Politics / North Korea
By: HAA
Shannara Johnson : As the tension between North Korea and the US continues to grow, the possibility of war is rapidly evolving into a probability. Now some military experts worry that an attack via EMP (electromagnetic pulse) on the US mainland might be a feasible option for Pyongyang.
The signs are certainly there: Having recently completed the ninth missile test of 2017, Kim Jong-un promised to send the US an even bigger “gift package.”
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