Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Nature Rebounds - Trends in America Portend a Global Restoration of Nature / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: John_Mauldin
The common meme in today’s world is that we are slowly (or perhaps even rapidly in some instances) destroying our global environment. Not just by way of global warming, but pollution, over-farming, water usage, and increasing use of all sorts of resources taken from the ground. Post-apocalyptic movies and books are the rage, showing us living in a world where man has ravaged his environment and our lives have been degraded if not destroyed. Our failure to deal with global warming and the destruction of the environment are key components of the mantra repeated by the mainstream media, pundits, and politicians.
Technology is supposed to somehow save us from our dystopian future by creating new ways to clean the environment, feed us, and help us become more thrifty and less wasteful. But when? When will we see those breakthroughs, that light at the end of the tunnel?
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Wednesday, June 24, 2015
China Syndrome / Politics / China
By: Mike_Whitney
China’s meteoric rise has Washington worried, not because China is a threat to its neighbors or to US national security, but because China’s influence is expanding across the region. It’s creating the institutions it needs to finance its own development (AIIB and New BRICS Bank), it’s building the infrastructure needed to connect the continents with state-of-the-art high-speed rail (New Silk Road), and its attracting allies and trading partners who want to participate in its plan for growth and prosperity. This is why Washington is worried; it’s because China has transformed itself into an economic powerhouse that doesn’t conform to the neoliberal model of punitive austerity, pernicious privatization, and madcap asset inflation. China has slipped out of the empire’s orbit and charted its own course, which is why Washington wants to provoke Beijing over its negligible land reclamation activities in the South China Sea. Washington thinks it can succeed militarily where it has failed economically and politically. Case in point; check this out from Bloomberg News:
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Greece - The Only Good Deal For Greece Is NO Deal / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
The only thing that would really go towards beginning to solve the problems with Greece is for Athens to NOT sign a deal. The short version of why that is so: it would leave the EU intact for longer. And the ECB.
Neither have any viable future, but as they go down, they can cause a lot of damage and pain. It’s mitigating that pain which should now be our priority no. 1, the pain that will result from the demise of Europe’s institutions. But we see precisely zero acknowledgment of this. Anywhere.
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Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Corporations vs. Entrepreneurship / Politics / Social Issues
By: BATR
The corporate culture would have you believe that it is the foremost structure of the economy. That the entrepreneur is a nuisance and is tilting at windmills. Since competition is a dirty word, the innovative venture poses no threat, but might qualify as an acquisition. Only if the business model is such that duplicating the endeavor is too time consuming or difficult will the corporatist take interest. Yet, in the end, the design of the corporate organization is more about brute force than creative invention. So why is it so difficult for the enterpriser to get their project off the ground? And what is the compelling motivation to start your own business?
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
What Borders Mean to Europe / Politics / Immigration
By: STRATFOR
George Friedman writes: Europe today is a continent of borders. The second-smallest continent in the world has more than 50 distinct, sovereign nation-states. Many of these are part of the European Union. At the core of the EU project is an effort to reduce the power and significance of these borders without actually abolishing them — in theory, an achievable goal. But history is not kind to theoretical solutions.
Today, Europe faces three converging crises that are ultimately about national borders, what they mean and who controls them. These crises appear distinct: Immigration from the Islamic world, the Greek economic predicament, and the conflict in Ukraine would seem to have little to do with each other. But in fact they all derive, in different ways, from the question of what borders mean.
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Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Banksters Responsible for Irish Crash / Politics / Banksters
By: Antonius_Aquinas
In testimony before the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry, Thomas O’Connell, the ex-head economist of Ireland’s central bank, attempted to deflect blame for the part he played in the financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent bust that occurred.
O’Connell had the nerve to say that “[It] should never have been allowed to happen with all the consequences of huge increases in unemployment, rising emigration, enormous debt, suicides . . . that we have seen.”* No kidding, Sherlock!
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Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Why the TPP Agenda Is Straight out of Alice in Wonderland / Politics / US Politics
By: Ellen_Brown
"Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
`No, no!’ said the Queen. `Sentence first–verdict afterwards.’
`Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. `The idea of having the sentence first!’
`Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.
`I won’t!’ said Alice.
`Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.
— Lewis Carroll, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”
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Monday, June 22, 2015
Why British Muslims Are Leaving Elysium Paradise for Syrian Hell / Politics / Religion
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The 2014 movie Elysium depicts what in many respects has been taking place in Britain for over a decade as literally millions of economic migrants from across the world have descended upon Elysium (Britain) that erodes the social and economic fabric of the nation and ultimately risks an economic, social and cultural destruction of Britain.
This year (2015) continues the exponential mega-trend of an ever increasing flow of migrants as this year could see as many as 800,000 people attempt to make it to the promised land, to what many across the world as imagined to be the closest thing to paradise on earth, and to to get to paradise many hundreds of thousands of people are literally risking death as illustrated by the DAILY stories of the migrant ships drifting across the Mediterranean, that have cost several thousand lives this year.
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Monday, June 22, 2015
Will Seizure of Russian Assets Hasten U.S. Dollar Decline? / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
While much of the world focused last week on whether or not the Federal Reserve was going to raise interest rates, or whether the Greek debt crisis would bring Europe to a crisis, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague awarded a $50 billion judgment to shareholders of the former oil company Yukos in their case against the Russian government. The governments of Belgium and France moved immediately to freeze Russian state assets in their countries, naturally provoking the anger of the Russian government.
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Monday, June 22, 2015
Public Pensions: Live and Let Die / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: John_Mauldin
When you were young and your heart was an open book
You used to say live and let live…
But if this ever-changing world in which we're living
Makes you give in and cry… Say live and let die.
– Paul McCartney, the Bond movie theme, performed by Wings
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Saturday, June 20, 2015
David Cameron Warns British Muslims Not to Condone Islamic Extremist Ideology / Politics / Religion
By: Nadeem_Walayat
David Cameron finally responds to the continuous stream of stories of young men, school girls and even whole families with young children leaving Britain for the promise of fulfilling prophecy in the 'promised land' of ' Syria and Iraq / Islamic State / Bilad al Sham'. The latest DAILY obsession is focused on 2 stories, that of a 17 year British suicide bomber from Dewsbury, and the other being 3 sisters taking their 9 children to Syria.
Friday, June 19, 2015
Troika Inciting Greece Bank Runs as a Negotiating Tactic / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
The troika of Greek creditors has gone into full-frontal morals-be-damned attack mode, handpicking arms from a weapons arsenal we haven’t seen used before, and that we never should have seen in an environment that insists – and prides – on presenting itself as a union, both in name and in spirit. Now that they are being used, there no longer is such a union other than in name, in empty words.
This has turned into the kind of economic warfare one would expect to see between sworn and lethal enemies, that the US would gladly use against Russia for instance, but not between partners in a union founded on principles based entirely and exclusively on being mutually beneficial to everyone involved.
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Friday, June 19, 2015
Will It Be Armageddon Or Laudao Si'? The Next Paradigm Waits On Thee / Politics / Religion
By: Michael_T_Bucci
As the world moves closer to a biblical Armageddon with US-EU-NATO forces inching toward the last war on planet earth staged amongst enemies from the Old World Order, I hear "the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor". I hear the channeled spirit of Francis of Assisi: Laudato Si'!!!
It is no surprise that some in Congress and many reactionary conservatives in America are unnerved by Pope Francis' eco-encyclical issued June18, especially those who promote and promulgate the very policies that Francis has blamed in his landmark encyclical. Without reference to persons, and while not singling out the capitalist system, he has indicted unbridled market forces that have overtaken common sense, ethics, morality and the common good of all humankind. [1]
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Wednesday, June 17, 2015
The Police State and Property Taxes… What You Can Do About It / Politics / Taxes
By: Casey_Research
By Nick Giambruno
A police officer pulled over Floyd Dent for a routine traffic stop.
A violent altercation followed.
The officer dragged Dent out of his car, appeared to put him in a chokehold, and punched him in the head. He then used his stun gun.
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Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Greek Parliamentary Debt Committee Declares All Debt Illegal / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
For a while now, I’ve had a German saying floating around my files, that I didn’t really know what to do with. I know now. The saying is:
In der Not ist der Mittelweg der Tod.
Which loosely translates as:
Read full article... Read full article...In emergencies, the middle ground is lethal.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
A Net Assessment of East Asia / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: STRATFOR
George Friedman writes: When I began this series a month ago, I pointed out that the most significant feature of the global system currently is the ongoing destabilization of the Eurasian land mass, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Arctic to the Arabian Sea. One important aspect of this is that the destabilization isn't, at this point, a single systemic crisis, but a series of relatively self-contained disorders. Thus the European, Russian and Middle Eastern systems have different dynamics, and while they touch on each other, they have not yet reached the point of having merged into a single crisis.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Cyber 9/11 - Your Digital Data is a Mortal Risk / Politics / Cyber War
By: BATR
The tech culture would have you believe that the digital format has produced untold innovations and advancements for personal development, societal advancement and business innovations. Well, the glass is half full for the kool aide drinkers, but for the mere mortals, who seek out a meaningful life as opposed to a regimented existence, the curse of placing the most intimate data on untold hard drives and shuffled among unknown servers, a loss of simple privacy is the least of the problems.
Friday, June 12, 2015
Spratly Islands - China Beating Uncle Sam at His Own Game / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Mike_Whitney
The vast build up of military assets in the Asia-Pacific signals a fundamental change in U.S. policy towards China. Washington no longer believes that China can be integrated into the existing US-led system. Recent actions taken by China– particularly the announcement that it planned to launch an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) that would compete head-to-head with the World Bank and IMF— have set off alarms in the Capital where behind-the-scenes powerbrokers and think tank pundits agree that a more “robust” policy is needed to slow China’s ascendency. The current confrontation in the South China Sea–where the US has demanded that China immediately cease all land reclamation activities–indicates that the new policy has already been activated increasing the prospects of a conflagration between the two nuclear-armed adversaries.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Commencement Graduation and Employment Prospects / Politics / Educating Children
By: BATR
Is it worth going to college to secure viable employment? Once, the future looked bright, for students earning a university degree and selecting from various offers from employers. Today the mere notion that such a question can and should be asked illustrates that the American economy has greatly transitioned into a very insecure and tenuous career opportunity society. When the lack of employment realities drives job seekers to leave the search for rewarding positions that offer a chance for a path to attaining middle class aspirations, the entire labor equation needs to be rethought.
Tuesday, June 09, 2015
Why Greece Must Leave Eurozone / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron and German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel published a piece in the Guardian last week that instantly revived our long nourished hope for the European Unholy Union to implode and be dissolved, sooner rather than later. The two gentlemen propose a ‘radical’ reform for the EU. Going a full-tard 180º against the tide of rising euroskeptism, the blindest bureaucrats in European capitals are talking about more centralization in the EU.