Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Puzzling Collapse Of Earth's Upper Atmosphere / Politics / Climate Change
By: Global_Research
Dr. Tony Phillips writes: NASA-funded researchers are monitoring a big event in our planet's atmosphere. High above Earth's surface where the atmosphere meets space, a rarefied layer of gas called "the thermosphere" recently collapsed and now is rebounding again.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
BP's Scheme to Swindle the "Small People" / Politics / US Politics
By: Global_Research
Dahr Jamail writes: Clint Guidry, the Louisiana shrimp harvester representative on the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force created by executive order of Gov. Bobby Jindal, has called BP "liars" and "killers."
Gulf Coast fishermen and others with lost income claims against BP are outraged by a recent announcement that the $20 billion government-administered claim fund will subtract money they earn by working on the cleanup effort from any future damage claims against BP. This move, according to lawyers in Louisiana working on behalf of Louisiana fishermen and others affected by the BP oil disaster, contradicts an earlier BP statement in which the company promised it would do no such thing.
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Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The Soviet NY Times Our Own Lying Pravda / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: William_Anderson
There are many myths about the current political scene, although one never would know it from reading the New York Times, and especially its editorial pages. For example, Paul Krugman continues to insist that Herbert Hoover followed the "liquidationist" advice of his treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon, and followed an "austerity" path. However, as Murray N. Rothbard noted in his classic America’s Great Depression, Hoover intervened in the economy at levels never seen before in U.S. History.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
2010 Mid-year forecast by David Urban / Politics / US Politics
By: David_Urban
Political and Economic Commentary - Six months into 2010 and everything is unfolding much as planned. That is not a lack of confidence but rather this unpredictable market is acting as it should act given the economic and political crosscurrents pulling the markets in a volatile and sideways pattern.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Large Scale Government Economic Stimulus, Why Not Another World War? / Politics / Economic Stimulus
By: Peter_Schiff
There is overwhelming agreement among economists that the Second World War was responsible for decisively ending the Great Depression. When asked why the wars in Iran and Afghanistan are failing to make the same impact today, they often claim that the current conflicts are simply too small to be economically significant.
Monday, July 19, 2010
When There is No Rule of Law / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last week ended with some promising news on finally stopping the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, the administration still seems to believe that shutting down working oil wells is a higher priority than effectively dealing with the broken one. They are again issuing a moratorium on off-shore drilling, while maintaining a de facto ban on new permits even for shallow water drilling, which they previously stated would be unaffected. The courts have twice declared this unconstitutional, over 70 percent of the people see this as unreasonable, yet the administration seems determined to simply end off-shore drilling, at least for those producers that cannot afford to sit idle for an unknown period of time until the ban is lifted.
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Monday, July 19, 2010
Welfare and Warfare, Paying the Price for the Baby Boomers Generation / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
Most people in America associate the Democratic Party with spending on welfare programs and the Republican Party with spending on warfare. Until reading Niall Ferguson’s brilliant The Ascent of Money, I never realized that welfare and warfare have gone hand in hand for over a century. The immortal German warmonger Otto von Bismarck was the first politician to introduce social insurance legislation in the 1880s. His reasoning was not strictly humanitarian. According to Bismarck, “A man who has a pension for his old age is much easier to deal with than a man without that prospect.” Bismarck was a shrewd politician who realized that when you provide people something for nothing, they will vote for you. Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, July 19, 2010
The Trouble With the Tea Parties / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
Brian Wilson writes: Doesn’t look as if I’ll be invited to be the Featured Speaker at any more Tea Parties.
Not that I ever had been – but there was a time I was high on the TP Invite List as someone who knew a thing or three about Media Stuff and was willing to share with the Newly Interested at their "learning meet-ups." Many of those "cut-out" sessions were – and continue to be – quite good. Fresh faces, yearning to learn free all the things they were never taught (or forgot) about the Constitution, the vision of the Founding Dads as well other stuff they never knew about broadcast and print media, promotion, advertising and assorted "mass com" things.
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Monday, July 19, 2010
Robustness and Fragility, A Lecture by Dr. Nassim Taleb / Politics / Resources & Reviews
By: Daniel_Bruno
He starts the sold-out presentation with a tale of two readers on a business trip. Settled in for a long flight, Dr. Taleb pulls a book out of his bag while the fellow next to him pulls out the fashionable,expensive, razor thin, 500 book capacity Kindle to pass the time. A conversation ensues and comparisons are made. Common sense and marketing tell us that the Kindle is far more efficient, But Dr. Taleb is not so sure. He has reams of work on 1990s era floppy discs that he can no longer access. But books, the product of technology essentially unchanged in 500 years, present no such problem and will outlast the Kindle when it too becomes obsolete.
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Monday, July 19, 2010
Is the War on Wall Street Over? / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Danny_Schechter
An unusual word crept into the lexicon of the New York Times op-ed page, the arbiter of approved thought in the age of economic collapse. The new conservative columnist Ross Douthat dusted off a key phrase associated with Marxism, “class war.”
Sunday, July 18, 2010
BP Gulf Oil Well Cap, Pressure At The Wellhead And What It Really Means / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Dr_Tom_Termotto
BP and the Coast Guard are watching the pressure at the wellhead very, very closely because of what it will mean for the future prospects of this well. Pressure readings under a critical threshold usually mean that there may be leaking elsewhere in the system. If there is a single leak, it will be more easily diagnosed and remedied depending on where it is. If there is more than one leak present, a whole set of different challenges emerges. Most importantly, keeping the system under pressure, when leaks exist anywhere, will inevitably increase the potential for those leaks to worsen.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Time for UK to Quit U.S. Afghan War? / Politics / Afghanistan
By: Andrew_Butter
This Killing Season 100 Brits Will Die In USA’s Afghan War. It’s Time UK Walks Away.
Hamish from the farm up the road where my mum lives in Scotland did three tours in Helmand. Now he’s out of it for good and he won’t be going back. He talked about it once (when he had legs), that’s when he told me about the Killing Season.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
The Theft of the American Dream / Politics / US Politics
By: Jesse
America must decide what type of country it wishes to be, and then conform public and foreign policy to those ends, and not the other way around. Politicians have no right to subjugate the constitutional process of government to any foreign organization.
Secrecy, except in very select military matters, is repugnant to the health of a democratic government, and is almost always a means to conceal a fraud. Corporations are not people, and do not have the rights of individuals as such.
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Saturday, July 17, 2010
The Food Bubble, How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It / Politics / Food Crisis
By: Submissions
While Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $550 million to resolve a civil fraud lawsuit filed by the SEC, Goldman has not been held accountable for many of its other questionable investment practices. A new article in Harper’s Magazine examines the role Goldman played in the food crisis of 2008 when the ranks of the world’s hungry increased by 250 million. We speak to Harper’s contributing editor Frederick Kaufman.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Federal Reserve Printing Masses of Worthless Paper / Politics / US Politics
By: Fred_Sheehan
We wince at congressional ineptitude but in one category legislative aptitude is improving: propaganda. The on-again, off-again finance bill (it's on-again) was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most extensive remapping of financial regulation since the 1930s." It is nothing of the kind.
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Saturday, July 17, 2010
Don't Listen to Glenn Beck's NeoConservative Propaganda / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
Thomas J. DiLorenzo writes: I’ve been occasionally watching Glenn Beck on the Fox News Channel and think he has done an admirable job of smoking out and identifying the shockingly hardcore, radical socialists who dominate the Obama administration. He has also done a generally good job talking about the libertarian founding principles of America, how they have been lost, and our duty to regain them. But he has been absolutely abysmal when discussing the subject of Lincoln, the War to Prevent Southern Independence, and its legacy.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Guilty of Market Manipulation CEO of IKB Bank, Did Goldman Sachs Commit Fraud? / Politics / Market Manipulation
By: Janet_Tavakoli
Financial news media is abuzz with analyses of Goldman Sachs's settlement with the SEC for $550 million in a case of alleged fraud regarding the packaging and selling of a CDO called Abacus. Goldman Sachs admitted to no wrong-doing. The settlement is less than Tiger Wood's potential $700 million divorce settlement--and Tiger didn't help bring the economy to its knees (he also publicly admitted his transgressions and expressed regret)--but it's a start.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Governments Squandering the Wealth of Generations / Politics / Government Spending
By: David_Galland
David Galland, Managing Director, Casey Research writes:
Watching my children grow older, now heading into the treacherous shoals of the teenage years, has been a visceral reminder of how the human mind develops. As young children, we see the world with fresh eyes and wonderment, and then quickly begin testing the physical and societal bounds as part of morphing into our more mature selves.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Banking Industry Crisis, INSIDE JOB The Movie / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Bob_Kirtley
Having a day out in the big city of Auckland with an old Buddie who is an accountant, we decided to paint the town red and so we went to the Auckland Film Festival to catch a couple of movies one of which is entitled ‘Inside Job‘
Its an all star cast which includes, Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama along with the usual suspects Bernanke and Geithner, some eminent Professors of Colombia and Harvard University who did not cover themselves in glory and the rating agencies who failed miserably in their assessments of the banking industry.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Welcome to Oakland-The Model City, Part 4: Layoffs Won’t Cure the Budget / Politics / US Politics
By: JD_Rosendahl
If you haven't noticed, I've started a series of what might be many blogs in regards to The Model City (Oakland, CA) and their budgetary issues. There are few cities in America that so completely demonstrates the municipal budgetary deficit completely.
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