Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Europe: Building a Banking Union / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: STRATFOR
The recent stress tests by the European Central Bank offered few surprises and did not cause any significant political or financial reactions in the Continent. However, these tests were only the beginning of a complex process to build a banking union in the European Union. Unlike the stress tests, the next steps in this project could create more divisions in Europe because national parliaments will be involved at a time when Euroskepticism is on the rise. More important, the stress tests will not have a particular impact on Europe's main problem: tight credit conditions for households and businesses. Without a substantial improvement in credit conditions, there cannot be a substantial economic recovery, particularly in the eurozone periphery.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
The Ebola Story Doesn’t Smell Right / Politics / Ebola
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
The federal government has announced that thousands of additional US soldiers are being sent to Liberia. General Gary Volesky said the troops would “stamp out” ebola.The official story is that combat troops are being sent to build treatment structures for those infected with ebola.
Why combat troops? Why not send a construction outfit such as an engineer battalion if it has to be military? Why not do what the government usually does and contract with a construction company to build the treatment units? “Additional thousands of troops” results in a very large inexperienced construction crew for 17 treatment units. It doesn’t make sense.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Mysterious Death od CEO Who Went Against the Petrodollar / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Marin_Katusa
Last month in these pages, I wrote:
Patrick de la Chevardière, CFO of Total SA (which is France’s largest energy company), has publicly announced that Total is looking to finance its share in the $27-billion Yamal LNG project using euros, yuan, Russian rubles, and any other currency but US dollars.
“The effect of US sanctions was that Yamal LNG will be prevented from raising any dollar financings,” Patrick de la Chevardière stated in London at a news briefing.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Hillary Clinton Could Be One of the Best U.S. Presidents Ever / Politics / US Politics
By: Metals_Report
Cheap oil prices and the economic prosperity they bring can make politicians and investors look smarter than they are. In this interview with The Mining Report, Stansberry Research Editor Matt Badiali shares the secrets for finding underappreciated commodities and companies before they become overpriced, and names his favorites.
The Mining Report: You have said that Hillary Clinton could go down in history as one of the best presidents ever. Why?
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Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Principle, Rigor and Execution Matter in U.S. Foreign Policy / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
U.S. President Barack Obama has come under intense criticism for his foreign policy, along with many other things. This is not unprecedented. Former President George W. Bush was similarly attacked. Stratfor has always maintained that the behavior of nations has much to do with the impersonal forces driving it, and little to do with the leaders who are currently passing through office. To what extent should American presidents be held accountable for events in the world, and what should they be held accountable for?
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
This Little Piggy Bent The Market / Politics / Gold and Silver 2014
By: John_Mauldin
About 18 months ago, I had a very pleasant chat with a gentleman by the name of Luzi Stamm.
You may detect some measure of surprise in my words, and the reason for that is quite simple: Luzi Stamm is a politician; and, as regular readers will know, I am no fan of that particular class.
But Herr Stamm was different.
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Tuesday, October 28, 2014
All Crazy Now – Mental Healthcare In The UK / Politics / Healthcare Sector
By: Andrew_McKillop
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Returning to the UK, more exactly Scotland after many years in France I could call this a move from TSD Land to PTSD Land and the facts and figures back that claim. France like all other aging or mature democracies such as the UK is struggling with the unstoppable growth of Altzheimer's disease victims, with the curve suggesting the incidence of this disease will be claiming 750 000 new victims per year by the 2020s. Also having a fast-growing (by EU standards) population and a growing number of childhood cancer victims, as well as adult victims, the French national health spending implications are somber, but what happens to surviving victims of Altzheimer's disease, the treatement of which is improving and extending life expectancy of victims? In Britain, a UK Medical Research Council report of late October provides some of the answers.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Humanity Accelerating to What Exactly? / Politics / Social Issues
By: Richard_Mills
We humans have been changing the world around us for tens of thousands of years. It's pretty much what we do, we shape and we change the existing environment through design and then indifference to the results of our actions.
The sheer scale and lightning fast speed of change since the 1950s has been almost unbelievable. So incredible and so sweeping are the changes scientists call the last 65 or so years the 'Great Acceleration'.
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Monday, October 27, 2014
Lunatics Running US Foreign Policy / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
Eric Margolis writes: NEW YORK – Things seemed crazy in the US and Canada last week, with a shooting on normally tranquil Parliament Hill in Ottawa and a grisly hatchet attack on two New York City policemen.
Add in an American doctor who returned to the big city from Ebola-stricken West Africa and proceeded to run around all over town – from the Bronx to the west Village to a bowling alley in Brooklyn – just as he was coming down with the dreaded sickness. New Yorkers are a pretty tough bunch, so panic was mild, but in this crowded city, it was still a big scare.
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Monday, October 27, 2014
A Once Peaceful Canada Turns Militaristic; Blowback Follows / Politics / Canada
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
In 1968 the government of Canada decided to openly admit Americans seeking to avoid being drafted into the US war on Vietnam. Before, would-be immigrants were technically required to prove that they had been discharged from US military service. This move made it easier for Americans to escape President Johnson's war machine by heading north.
Although a founding member of NATO, Canada did not join the United States in its war against Vietnam. The Canadian government did not see a conflict 7,000 miles away as vital to Canada's national interest so Canada pursued its own foreign policy course, independent of the United States.
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Sunday, October 26, 2014
Why Do Banks Want Our Deposits? Hint: It’s Not to Make Loans / Politics / Banksters
By: Ellen_Brown
Many authorities have said it: banks do not lend their deposits. They create the money they lend on their books.
Robert B. Anderson, Treasury Secretary under Eisenhower, said it in 1959:
Read full article... Read full article...When a bank makes a loan, it simply adds to the borrower’s deposit account in the bank by the amount of the loan. The money is not taken from anyone else’s deposits; it was not previously paid in to the bank by anyone. It’s new money, created by the bank for the use of the borrower.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Obamacare Is Not a Revolution, It Is Mere Evolution / Politics / Healthcare Sector
By: MISES
Roger McKinney writes: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act focused the attention of Americans on government regulation as few issues have. However, they should have paid attention decades earlier because states have been eating away like termites at freedom in the healthcare insurance market for decades. The PPACA adds little to existing state regulations. States began dictating to insurance companies what to cover, whom to cover, when to cover them and how much they could charge in the 1950s. Massachusetts, home of Romneycare, the template for Obamacare, enacted the first state mandate in 1956 requiring insurers to cover mentally and physically handicapped children.[1]
Sunday, October 26, 2014
The Secret Charm Of Plot Theory - Myths for a Stressful World / Politics / Conspiracy Theory
By: Andrew_McKillop
Writing in his Economics Blog, Martin Armstrong asks a loaded question. How do you hide something that is already in plain view, whether its the fact oil prices have to fall, the US doesn't run or own a “unipolar” world, or climate changes isn't anything to do with global warming? You hide it by exaggerating it and anything related to it to the point that all or certain critical parts of the story or “narrative” becomes so extreme that you or anybody can convert it to a conspiracy theory. Whatever happened, it was all designed and planned and executed by very clever and probably evil persons long in advance. So you can go back to sleep, now.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
The American Dream Is Still Possible, Just Not in the US / Politics / Social Issues
By: Ron_Holland
Although there are no firm statistics on the number of Americans living outside the US, the US State Department estimates that somewhere between 3 and 6 million Americans now live offshore. I think this is a low estimate and the number is clearly growing.
I now live in Canada but often travel back to the United States. Driving through Customs near Buffalo is usually not a big ordeal but it does involve a time-wasting delay much like visiting the post office or any other US government bureaucracy. But governments should police their borders, as this is one of the few legitimate functions of a central government.
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Sunday, October 26, 2014
Are We Ready for the Fall of Baghdad? / Politics / Iraq War
By: Ron_Holland
I recently was in Vietnam and spent some time in prosperous, capitalist Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City, and toured the American War Museum. I believe there are a number of parallels between the Vietnam and Iraq War and that history could repeat itself now in Baghdad. Who can forget the former Vietnamese supporters of America being left behind as the last helicopter left the roof of the US embassy?
Today, America still has the strongest military in the world but our manufacturing capacity and financial situation shows the US is on a downhill slide like earlier over-extended and bankrupt empires throughout world history.
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Saturday, October 25, 2014
Europe Union, or The 28 Stooges / Politics / European Union
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Europe is fast turning into a freak comedy show. Very fast. Or maybe we should say it’s always been one, and it’s just that the Larry, Curly and Moe moves are only now coming out in droves. Or maybe, what do I know, we’re just starting to understand how much talent for farce and slapstick the boys from Brussels have always had.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
European Commission Mafia Demands £1.7 Billion from Britain, Test for Cameron Man or Mouse? / Politics / UK Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
David Cameron has been huffing and puffing, and stamping his feet all day that Britain would not be held to ransom to the tune of a £1.7 billion 'adjustment' that the European Commission Mafia has conjured out of thin air as the Vig that Britain must pay by 1st of December for apparently economic activity attributed to the black economy such as prostitution. Conversely the EC Mafia's God Fathers, France and Germany rewarded themselves a comparable sum of near £1.7billion as a reward for being at the centre of the European Crime Syndicate.
Friday, October 24, 2014
War And The Law Of Unintended Consequences / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Upping the Ante
Vladimir Putin and several of his senior advisors in published statements have recently said the only logical conclusion of the US and EU goading Russia and upping the ante in the Ukrainian imbroglio is nuclear war. Strident calls for “The Pariah” or “Vlad the Vampire” to back down and back off would theoretically have to end in all-out nuclear war. Insane comments by (of course) unidentified “senior US military strategists” quoted in 'Wall St Journal' in August claimed that first strike nuclear attack by the West could prevent nuclear retaliation by Russia.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Evaluating Ebola as a Biological Weapon / Politics / Ebola
By: STRATFOR
Scott Stewart writes: Over the past few weeks, I've had people at speaking engagements ask me if I thought the Islamic State or some other militant group is using Ebola as a biological weapon, or if such a group could do so in the future. Such questions and concerns are not surprising given the intense media hype that surrounds the disease, even though only one person has died from Ebola out of the three confirmed cases in the United States. The media hype about the threat posed by the Islamic State to the United States and the West is almost as bad. Both subjects of all this hype were combined into a tidy package on Oct. 20, when the Washington Post published an editorial by columnist Mark Thiessen in which he claimed it would be easy for a group such as the Islamic State to use Ebola in a terrorist attack. Despite Thiessen's claims, using Ebola as a biological warfare agent is much more difficult than it might appear at first blush.
Monday, October 20, 2014
Turkey's Position on ISIL Misunderstood / Politics / Turkey
By: John_Browne
As territory in the Middle East falls under control of the brutal fanatics of ISIL, many Americans may be wondering how this could happen in the backyard of major U.S. allies. In particular, frustration with Turkey's reluctance to move against ISIL, even as it massacres civilians and creates instability on the Turkish border, is growing rapidly. Turkey's political calculation with respect to the crisis reveals just how complex and intractable the crisis may become.
Located between Europe and Asia, Turkey was once the epicenter of the vast Ottoman Empire that controlled much of the Middle East and even portions of the Balkans. After the First World War, with Turkey stripped of her empire, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk attempted to realign the non-Arab nation away from the rest of the Muslim world in favor of the West. This was a gigantic task, probably never attempted previously by any nation in history.
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