Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Saturday, April 11, 2009
Washington Subsiding Failure, Handing out Taxpayer Money to Bankrupt Banks / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Mike Larson writes: Imagine you went to get your driver's license. You studied up on your state's requirements. You learned the rules of the road. You practiced driving in your neighborhood under the watchful eyes of your mom or dad. And then when you went to the DMV, you passed the written and driving tests with flying colors.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Liquidate the Bankrupt Banks, Fire the Executives! / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
On Tuesday, a congressional panel headed by ex-Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren released a report on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's handling of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Warren was appointed to lead the five-member Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) in November by Senate majority leader Harry Reid. From the opening paragraph on, the Warren report makes clear that Congress is frustrated with Geithner's so-called "Financial Rescue Plan" and doesn't have the foggiest idea of what he is trying to do. Here are the first few lines of "Assessing Treasury's Strategy: Six Months of TARP":Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 10, 2009
PPIP Financial Crisis Solution Exposed by Game Theory as Fraudulent / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
James Keller writes: Game theory tells us that a risk neutral gambler would pay $50 dollars for a coin flip that paid $0 for Heads and $100 for Tails. Game theorists would call $50 the value of the bet.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 10, 2009
Five Hundred Russian Banks to Go Bust in 2009 / Politics / Russia
Professional bankers expect a quick liquidation of hundreds of banks at the end of forthcoming summer. Most of the banks will be closed due to their small capitals and because of the clients that will not be able to pay off their debts.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 10, 2009
The Economy / Politics / Recession 2008 - 2010
John Liechty writes: To date I have twice been robbed of lots of money (or what seemed like lots of money). The first theft occurred overseas when I was at a dinner party. Someone must have seen me at the bank withdrawing cash, and followed me home. Later that night the same someone crawled through an unlocked window and headed straight for the bank envelope. The moral was plain (not that I mastered it) – lock your house and don't be an ass. The latest theft occurred in my native country. I learned about it when a piece of paper arrived suggesting that my "investments" were melting like cotton candy in a squall.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, April 10, 2009
U.S. States Start to Print Their Own Currencies / Politics / Fiat Currency
Many U.S. communities are creating their own currencies now. They try to help consumers and companies to fight the global financial crisis and the recession .Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Free Markets, It’s Time to Wake up America / Politics / US Politics
Free markets don't work, says Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke. Indeed nearly all our government leaders say so; the G-20 too. The economy is a mess, but no worries because we got your back. We'll spend and print our way out of this economic crisis, then slap a whole heap of regulation on the bad guys to make sure they never hurt us again.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
G20 Summit, What Really Happened in London / Politics / Economic Stimulus
Last week's gathering in London of the leaders of the 20 foremost economic countries in the world had been billed as the most important global financial meeting in more than 60 years. The stage had been set for hotly contested economic policies to be hashed out with the intensity of a Cold War arms negotiation. However, for most observers, the results of the G-20 failed to live up to the billing. Other than a masterful display of haute couture by the new American first lady, there are few results that anyone can really call significant.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
First Panic on Wall Street, Then on Main Street / Politics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Gary North writes: We have not yet seen panic on Main Street. The malls' parking lots are full. Most yuppie restaurant chains are still in business. Their local restaurants may not be as full as they were a year ago, but they are open for business. There are still shoppers at Wal-Mart.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Socialism and Wall Streets Quest to Seperate People from their Money / Politics / Market Manipulation
"History is littered with post-crisis regulations. If there are undue restrictions on the operations of businesses, they may view it to be their job to get around them, and you sow the seeds of the next crisis." – Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment analyst, CharlesSchwab & Co., a leading US provider of investment services. 1Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Global Financial Collapse - Video / Politics / Financial Crash
An Argentine opinion on the Global Financial Crisis, describing the whole Global Financial System as one vast Ponzi Scheme. Like a pyramid, it has four sides and is a predictable model. The four sides are: (1) Artificially control the supply of public State-issued Currency, (2) Artificially impose Banking Money as the primary source of funding in the economy, (3) Promote doing everything by Debt and (4) Erect complex channels that allow privatizing profits when the Model is in expansion mode and socialize losses when the model goes into contraction mode.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Towards New Global Currency, New Financial World Order - Part2 / Politics / Global Financial System
... Continued from Part 1 Here.
An Emerging Global Government
A recent article in the Financial Post stated that, “The danger in the present course is that if the world moves to a “super sovereign” reserve currency engineered by experts, such as the “UN Commission of Experts” led by Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, we would give up the possibility of a spontaneous money order and financial harmony for a centrally planned order and the politicization of money. Such a regime change would endanger not only the future value of money but, more importantly, our freedom and prosperity.”[57]
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Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Towards New Global Currency, New Financial World Order / Politics / Global Financial System
Following the 2009 G20 summit, plans were announced for implementing the creation of a new global currency to replace the US dollar's role as the world reserve currency. Point 19 of the communiqué released by the G20 at the end of the Summit stated, “We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity.” SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights, are “a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund.” As the Telegraph reported, “the G20 leaders have activated the IMF's power to create money and begin global "quantitative easing". In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it.”[1]Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Bernanke's Financial Rescue Plan: America's Glide-path to Destitution / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Fed chief Ben Bernanke has embarked on the most radical and ruinous financial rescue plan in history. According to Bloomberg News, the Fed has already lent or committed $12.8 trillion trying to stabilize the financial system after the the bursting of Wall Street's speculative mega-bubble. Now Bernanke wants to dig an even bigger hole, by creating programs that will provide up to $2 trillion of credit to financial institutions that purchase toxic assets from banks or securities backed by consumer loans. The Fed's generous terms are expected to generate a flurry of speculation which will help strengthen the banking system while leaving the taxpayer to bear the losses. It is impossible to know what the long-term effects of Bernanke's excessive spending will be, but his plan has the potential to trigger hyperinflation or spark a run on the dollar.
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Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Obama Evades Government's Role in the Financial Crisis / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
Alex Epstein writes: What must be done to recover from this financial crisis? Barack Obama rightly stresses that we first must understand how today’s problems emerged. It is “only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we’ll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament."Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Financial Crisis Blaming the Culture of Greed? / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
The Wall Street Journal recently suggested that a ‘culture of greed' may be to blame for today's crisis. Billionaire investor Stephen Jarislowsky has said that he thinks ‘extreme' greed was to blame. And nestled within the mob of protestors ahead of last week's G20 meeting was a little girl, no more than 5 or 6-years of age, holding a sign saying ‘You Greedy BosTards'. Let us simply say, while acknowledging the views of the Wall Street Journal and Mr. Jarislowsky, that the protesting little girl may have been misled.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Obama's Geopolitical Strategy and the Summits / Politics / GeoPolitics
The weeklong extravaganza of G-20, NATO, EU, U.S. and Turkey meetings has almost ended. The spin emerging from the meetings, echoed in most of the media, sought to portray the meetings as a success and as reflecting a re-emergence of trans-Atlantic unity.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Fighting Recklessness Bank Lending with Bailout Recklessness / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
This week we visit some very thoughtful analysis by an old friend of Outside the Box, Dr. John Hussman of the Hussman Funds ( http://www.hussmanfunds.com/index.html ). Is the new PPIP program and related activities likely to help or hurt the situation? Will this help keep banks for bankruptcy or will it push the FDIC into insolvency requiring massive tax payer cash. This week's Outside the Box is brief, but poignant.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
U.S. Budget Expands Size of Government as Economy Contracts / Politics / Recession 2008 - 2010
Last week the House passed another budget that increases federal power, raises taxes, and increases the national debt. I voted against it, and was pleased to see that not a single Republican representative voted for it. Legislators often see bipartisanship as constructive, but I disagree especially where the destruction of our economy or our liberty is concerned. There has been too much bipartisan consensus on expanding government far beyond the bounds of the Constitution which we all swore to defend and uphold. Because of this, I have never been able to vote for a budget. However, it was good to see Republicans come together on this important vote, even if their alternative budget was almost as bad.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 06, 2009
Obama's Auto Industry Bailout as an Implementation of Fascism / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
Vin Suprynowicz writes: The typical American automobile in the early 1920s was easy to describe. It was boxy and black, offered a manual transmission only, and sported a straight-up four-cylinder engine. Creature comforts were few. On the bright side, if your car tipped over on a sharp turn – as the top-heavy contraptions were wont to do – two strong men could usually set the thing upright, little the worse for wear.Read full article... Read full article...