Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Ukraine Crisis - Protesters in Lviv Raise the Stakes / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: STRATFOR
As the standoff in Independence Square continues in Kiev, the western part of Ukraine has added a more serious element to the country's internal struggle. On Wednesday, several administration buildings were taken over by protesters in the west, including in Khmelnytskyi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Uzhhorod and Ternopil. Meanwhile, demonstrators from an opposition group called People's Rada in Lviv, the largest and most important city in the west, said on Wednesday that they want to declare independence from Ukraine.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Democracy and Government Spending: Extend and Pretend / Politics / Government Spending
By: MISES
Gregory Bresiger writes: Over the past 80 years or so governments have been expected to provide more and more social services. That means bigger and bigger bills for the taxpayers of this generation and generations unborn. Since governments almost constantly run in the red, they often resemble cocaine addicts desperately looking for the next fix. The fix, in the case of governments, is the perpetual need for more money, no matter how much wealth the engine of a strong economy may be generating.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Putin And The Flash Mob Empire / Politics / Russia
By: Andrew_McKillop
Going For Gold
Writing in 'Wall Street Journal' 14 February, Walter Russel Mead, a former senior adviser on US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, claimed that Vladimir Putin is engaged in a “death-defying geopolitical gamble (that) is the hottest game in town”. Mead said Putin's gamble “has more twists and turns than a bobsled race, more fancy footwork than a figure-skating final, and more dips and flips than a mogul run”.
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Tuesday, February 18, 2014
The American Public's Indifference to Foreign Affairs / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
Last week, several events took place that were important to their respective regions and potentially to the world. Russian government officials suggested turning Ukraine into a federation, following weeks of renewed demonstrations in Kiev. The Venezuelan government was confronted with violent and deadly protests. Kazakhstan experienced a financial crisis that could have destabilized the economies of Central Asia. Russia and Egypt inked a significant arms deal. Right-wing groups in Europe continued their political gains.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Usurious Returns on Phantom Money: The Credit Card Gravy Train / Politics / Credit Cards & Scoring
By: Ellen_Brown
The credit card business is now the banking industry’s biggest cash cow, and it’s largely due to lucrative hidden fees.
You pay off your credit card balance every month, thinking you are taking advantage of the “interest-free grace period” and getting free credit. You may even use your credit card when you could have used cash, just to get the free frequent flier or cash-back rewards. But those popular features are misleading. Even when the balance is paid on time every month, credit card use imposes a huge hidden cost on users—hidden because the cost is deducted from what the merchant receives, then passed on to you in the form of higher prices.
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Monday, February 17, 2014
At The Fed, The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen testified before Congress for the first time since replacing Ben Bernanke at the beginning of the month. Her testimony confirmed what many of us suspected, that interventionist Keynesian policies at the Federal Reserve are well-entrenched and far from over. Mrs. Yellen practically bent over backwards to reassure Wall Street that the Fed would continue its accommodative monetary policy well into any new economic recovery. The same monetary policy that got us into this mess will remain in place until the next crisis hits.
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Sunday, February 16, 2014
Obama, Hollande and Other Climate Change Liars / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
Flat Earthers Agree
In a June 2013 address at Georgetown University, Barack Obama derogatorily referred to deniers of global warming, climate change and bad weather as “members of a Flat Earth Society." The same month, the UK-based Flat Earth Society's president Daniel Shenton told 'Business Insider' that he personally believes “the evidence available does support the position that climate change is at least partly influenced by human industrialisation.". He also said he wasn't amused by Obama using his Flat Earth Society as an example of backward thinking, and suggested Obama should criticize organizations like the American Enterprise Institute, which violently disputes that either global warming or climate change are real, but does not take a firm position on bad weather.
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Sunday, February 16, 2014
The Merger of State and Commerce / Politics / US Politics
By: Stephen_Merrill
The Leviathan’s Thumb
Many observers of the US economy have come to the realization there are now few truly free markets left within 21st Century Western capitalism.
It seems all investments today are controlled to unfair advantage in some large way by the governments and financial firms operating the markets, especially the market in money itself. The newly-invented powers of the central banks to buy anything, to fund any bailout, can reach into any area of the economy, either to grant large favors or to inflict great pain, typically with the cooperation of the too-big-to-jail banks that own the Federal Reserve and its policies.
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Friday, February 14, 2014
SNP Independent Scotland Sterling Sharing Trojan Horse to Plunder British Pound / Politics / UK Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
UK politicians of all three major parties surprised everyone by unequivocally rejecting the SNP's cunning plan to effectively permanently park a Trojan Horse outside the Bank of England on Scottish Independence day that would effectively allow Scotland to go on an spending binge on a sterling credit card by printing debt without the consequences of currency panic that normally would result in very high if not hyperinflation, but instead like a cancer seek to consume its English host over a number of years as the policy of sterling sharing sucks the financial life blood out of the British Pound.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
U.S. Caught Red Handed Attempting to Topple Ukraine's Democratically-Elected President / Politics / US Politics
By: Mike_Whitney
“In the latest debacle for the US State Department and the Obama Administration, US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was caught on tape micro-managing Ukraine opposition party strategies with US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. That the Ukraine regime-change operation is to some degree being directed from Washington can no longer be denied….The taped conversation demonstrates in clear detail that while Secretary of State John Kerry decries any foreign meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs, his State Department is virtually managing the entire process.”– Daniel McAdams, “‘F**k the EU’: Tape Reveals US Runs Ukraine Opposition“, Ron Paul Institute
Thursday, February 13, 2014
The Iranian Navy's Symbolic Show of Force in the Atlantic / Politics / Iran
By: STRATFOR
Tehran announced Feb. 8 that it had dispatched a frigate and a supply ship to the North Atlantic Ocean, where they will approach U.S. maritime borders. This is not the first time the Iranians have announced their intent to deploy naval vessels close to the United States. Iran made two such declarations in 2011 but never followed through.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Women on Wall Street Have Gone Backwards / Politics / Social Issues
By: Bloomberg
Sallie Krawcheck, owner of 85 Broads and former Bank of America and Citigroup executive, spoke with Bloomberg Television's Stephanie Ruhle and Matt Miller today about women in executive roles and Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen's congressional testimony yesterday.
On women in banking, Krawcheck said: "it's not that we have even gone sideways as we have in corporate America, we've gone backwards."
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Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Courts / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: MISES
Ben O'Neill writes: Many commentators following the NSA scandals have been eagerly awaiting the recommendations of the US government task force on the matter, and the proposed reforms to be implemented by President Obama to bring the spy agency under control. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, you can watch the president’s recent speech and nod your head approvingly when he talks about the“tradition of limited government” in the United States, and the constitutional limits his government is at pains to respect. Oh, and just for good measure, while you’re listening to this magnificent oration being replayed to you on YouTube, the NSA will be recording your internet browser history, or possibly even hacking your computer.[1] If you decide to click on the “like” or “dislike” buttons at the bottom of the video, that little nugget of political information can be added to their “metadata” archives, along with the rest of your internet activities. In fact, in the 42 minutes it will take you to watch the president’s speech, the NSA will have hoovered up around 40 million records of internet browsing from around the world.[2] Perhaps yours will be among them.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Obamacare as a Jobs Killer / Politics / US Politics
By: BATR
Economic illiteracy is a hallmark of most political policies. The prime example of this principle is the idiocy out of the Obama administration that maintains that the Affordable Care Act is favorable to job seekers. The ranks of progressive euphoria reporting on the joys of Obamacare want to spin the latest Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) analysis as favorable. As these imbeciles push out their demented dreams for a neo Great Society, the facts of trade and industry need to be buried in order to institute the total welfare state.
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Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Obama Spins Subsidies Both Ways / Politics / Government Intervention
By: Peter_Schiff
In our current age of spin and counter-spin, there is no contortion too great for a politician to attempt. On occasion, however, the threads of one story become entangled with another in a manner that should deeply embarrass, if the media were sharp enough to catch it.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
The Putin Interlude Draws To A Close, Russia's Terror War Psychosis / Politics / Russia
By: Andrew_McKillop
The Would-Be Empire
Vladimir Putin's presidency is likely soon to end. Putin himself has several times given hints that he is not interested in another term. Other signs and signals point the same way – even the Sochi Games and their financial fallout. Planned as a festival of profit for handpicked, Kremlin vetted-vested interests its circus of waste, fraud, abuse and double dealing has dismayed several powerful Oligarchs close to power, who are now increasingly far from Putin.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Lowlife Keynesian Morons in Power / Politics / Economic Theory
By: Richard_Daughty
As the scene opens, lights swirl in the eerie black background, crazily careening in a whirling kaleidoscope of disjointed light and dark. In the distance, sirens dimly wail. My face half-hidden in the gloom, I am mindlessly wiping the gleaming barrel of what appears to be a machinegun when I dully look up into the camera lens.
Staring directly into the camera, my narrowed, bloodshot eyes darting from side to side like the frightened little rat that I am, I feverishly say in a hoarse whisper “The Federal Reserve is monetizing the debt! We’re Freaking Doomed (WFD)!”
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
New Dimensions of U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Russia / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: STRATFOR
The struggle for some of the most strategic territory in the world took an interesting twist this week. Last week we discussed what appeared to be a significant shift in German national strategy in which Berlin seemed to declare a new doctrine of increased assertiveness in the world -- a shift that followed intense German interest in Ukraine. This week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, in a now-famous cell phone conversation, declared her strong contempt for the European Union and its weakness and counseled the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine to proceed quickly and without the Europeans to piece together a specific opposition coalition before the Russians saw what was happening and took action.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
TV Propaganda and the Mind Control Culture / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: BATR
Few subjects present an undisputable window into modern society than the electronic version of reality that is dispensed through television broadcasts. This technology does not require interactive skills or critical thinking acumen. Just watch and fall into a daydream trance. TV is the stealth killer that penetrates 114.7 million American households. According to Nielsen, the 2012 Universe Estimate (UE), reflects a reduction in the estimated percent of U.S. homes with a television set (TV penetration), which declined to 96.7 percent from 98.9 percent. Should this turn down suggest promise or is it merely a result of internet substitution?
Monday, February 10, 2014
The Stench of Political and Financial Corruption / Politics / Banksters
By: Jesse
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