Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, April 08, 2013
US Government To Decide How Much Is Enough For Your Retirement / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: Jeff_Berwick
Welcome to the new US. Socialism always has the same predictable process. Once the government collectivizes a sector then the politicos and bureaucrats get to work on "improving the system". In a private enterprise, that'd mean offering more to your customers for a cheaper price. In government, it is always the opposite, finding ways to reduce benefits for their "customers".
Monday, April 08, 2013
Ron Paul - Homeschooling is The Future of Liberty / Politics / Educating Children
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
A common feature of authoritarian regimes is the criminalization of alternatives to government-controlled education. Dictators recognize the danger that free thought poses to their rule, and few things promote the thinking of "unapproved" thoughts like an education controlled by parents instead of the state. That is why the National Socialist (Nazi) government of Germany outlawed homeschooling in 1938.
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Sunday, April 07, 2013
Queen Merkel Still Loves Green Power / Politics / Renewable Energy
By: Andrew_McKillop
SHE MIGHT NOT LOOK ECOLOGICAL
Angela Merkel has stayed faithful to alternate, renewable and energy-saving green themes and dreams since 2011, which is a long time in politics. One major reason (we know its paradoxical) is that Germany has been radically increasing its coal-burn, this winter, which itself is delaying large increases of power prices to consumers. Other reasons are also to be found there, in the power sector.
Sunday, April 07, 2013
Stockman Takes Down Krugman / Politics / US Economy
By: William_Anderson
In 1981, David A. Stockman, a former Michigan congressman turned budget director for President Ronald Reagan, gave a series of interviews to socialist William Greider who subsequently published an article in Rolling Stone entitled, "The Education of David Stockman." The article portrayed someone who had come into the administration hopeful that the free-spending ways of the 1960s and 70s would be ended and that the U.S. Government would embrace fiscal sanity, but had become disillusioned by the whole process.
Sunday, April 07, 2013
North Korea Nuclear Threat Beyond the Cold War Theatrics / Politics / North Korea
By: Patrick_Henningsen
The recent show of force by the United States marks one of the lowest points in modern diplomacy, but beyond the geopolitical threatrics it turns out that very little is actually known about the North Korean threat.
North Korea’s recent series of weekly verbal provocations towards Seoul and their ally the US – should be taken seriously in diplomatic terms, but is Pyongyang’s bark worse than its bite?
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Friday, April 05, 2013
French Can-Can Use Fracking - Only For Geothermal Heat / Politics / Energy Resources
By: Andrew_McKillop
AND THEY CAN DO THE TWIST
In a major policy twist on the subject of hydraulic fracturing ('fracking'), France's Ecology minister Delphine Batho has announced that fracking is now politically-correct, clean, safe and approved by all right-thinking (we mean left-thinking) ecologists. Her party machine, the EELV, or Europe Ecologie Les Verts only exists, today, thanks to Francois Hollande's choice of including "greenies" in his vastly unpopular government. EELV is now all-but collapsed as a vote-winner. In 2012, it gained a minuscule 2.5% of votes in the presidential elections with its candidate the retired anti-corruption magistrate Eva Joly, who is Norwegian origin and despite working in France for decades still has problems talking French. Supposedly that made her even more 'chic et choc' when she led the battle against fracking, with high-rank EELV party faithfuls like Jose Bove, who among other things struggles against GM foods and the McDonald burger threat "a mortal attack on French culture".
Friday, April 05, 2013
Euro-crisis Grinds On - And On - But Not Forever / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Andrew_McKillop
CYPRUS - EURO - TECHNOCRAT TYRANNY
Week after week, month after month Europe's "Techno Tyrants" bulldoze forward, towards what they only know. Being elite deciders, the best brains that money can buy, their gameplan is obviously highly detailed and very well known - to them, but the Common People are not in the loop. They are only servile chaff, only good for another tax hike and idiot speech from the Me Too band of Euro-deciders pumped out round-the-clock on State owned media, and crony capitalist news outlets.
Thursday, April 04, 2013
Dallas Fed's Fisher: Cyprus shows danger of too big to fail / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: Bloomberg
Dallas Federal Reserve Bank president Richard Fisher spoke with Bloomberg TV's Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle on "Market Makers" today, saying that "there is no QE infinity."
Fisher said that big banks have a "substantial" cost-of-funding advantage and that "Cyprus is a great example, once again, as we saw in Iceland, of banks that jeopardize their entire country. We cannot let that happen."
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Thursday, April 04, 2013
Paulson on Fannie Mae Profit: I Had to Pinch Myself / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Bloomberg
Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson spoke with Judy Woodruff in an interview airing on Bloomberg Television at 9:30 pm/ET this Friday. Paulson said that he "had to pinch himself" in reaction to the news that Fannie Mae generated record profits last year. "I could hardly believe what I was reading."
Paulson also said that the U.S. needs to slow the growth of entitlement programs and raise more tax revenue by closing loopholes: "We may need more revenues...This should be part of doing something with entitlements, because I think to just keep postponing entitlement reform is a big mistake."
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Thursday, April 04, 2013
Natural Gas Starts Flowing from Israel's Levant Basin, What Now? / Politics / Natural Gas
By: OilPrice_Com
The first gas has started flowing from Israel's supergiant Tamar gasfield in the Levant Basin. Where it will go will redraw the Mediterranean energy map and the geopolitics that goes along with it.
The Tamar field stakeholders announced on 30 March that the gas had started flowing, raising the value of Texas-based Noble Energy Inc. (NYSE: NBL), which holds a 36% stake, and Israel's two Delek Group subsidiaries, which each hold a 15.6% stake.
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Thursday, April 04, 2013
Left Leaning BBC Ignores Britain's Benefits Social Class in Calculator / Politics / UK Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The BBC with much fanfare has been publicising it's Great British Class Survey, which seeks to extend Britain's class structure from the three traditional classes of upper, middle and working class to now comprise 7 social classes of Elite, Established middle class, Technical middle class, New affluent workers, Traditional working class, Emergent service workers, and the Precariat.
Thursday, April 04, 2013
This is What Societal Collapse Looks Like / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Graham_Summers
Add the total and complete hypocrisy of France to the list of reasons to avoid putting a cent in the EU.
We already know about Spain where Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was “allegedly” receiving bribes from property developers throughout the housing bubble… while THREE different treasurers have been accused of everything from money laundering to fraud.
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Thursday, April 04, 2013
Are All G20 Bank Depositors Exposed to a Cyprus Style Seizure of Deposits for a 'Bail-in?' / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: Jesse
Dave from Golden Truth has let me know of an interesting quote from an article by Eric Sprott titled Caveat Depositor which *could* explain why countries like New Zealand and Canada are quietly tilting towards seizing bank deposits to recapitalize failed banks.
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
France Stumbles Towards Political Meltdown / Politics / France
By: Andrew_McKillop
THE CAHUZAC CRISIS
France woke up Wednesday 3 April to the image of the country’s former budget minister and tax czar Jerome Cahuzac looking haggard and shaken on the front pages of all the leading dailies, and all TV news stations following his final and forced admission that he had repeatedly lied about secret accounts in Switzerland and Singapore, and his medical sector business dealings also using tax havens, as well as potential grave charges such as imported beyond-date medical products that may have been re-labelled and sold in France.
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Bank Depositors Take Your Money and Run / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: Fred_Sheehan
It is a wonder of the times that, in matters of money, such trust endures when those in whom it is invested work so hard to demonstrate they will squander or confiscate it. Both money and trust. At the very least, the mandarins have made no attempt to hide their inability to think and act beyond today's headlines. Every day is writ anew, with complete ignorance of previous decrees and assurances.
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Wednesday, April 03, 2013
America's Long War on North Korea / Politics / US Politics
By: Stephen_Lendman
On July 27, 1953, the Korean War ended. An uneasy armistice persists. The heavily fortified 2.5 mile Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separates North and South. Occasional incidents occur.
Truman's war never ended. Its origin was misreported. IF Stone's Hidden History of the Korean War explained.
Monthly Review co-founders Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy wrote in the preface:
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Wednesday, April 03, 2013
The New “Argo: Evil North Koreans, White House In Latest Hollywood Fear Vehicle / Politics / Propaganda
By: Danny_Schechter
New York, New York: The trend towards movies ripped from the news, or perhaps ripping off the news continues.
Olympus Has Fallen is the latest in the popular “learn to fear thy enemy even more than you did before” category, as director Antoine Fuqua visualizes a story that can’t be more topical with the White House (Secret Service Code: "Olympus") occupied by a North Korean terrorist fanatic and his barbaric followers.
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Wednesday, April 03, 2013
UK Benefits Culture Extreme, Philpott's Risked Killing Their Children for Increased Benefit Payments / Politics / UK Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Tuesday, Mick and Mairead Philpott, along with Paul Mosley were found guilty of the manslaughter of their six children in May 2012 in what amounted to the culmination of a botched attempt to be in receipt of increased benefits payments and be given a larger council property by burning down their existing property.
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
When It Comes Time to Steal… They’re Coming After YOUR Money / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: Graham_Summers
Cyprus should scare the living daylights out of everyone.
Cyprus has shown us that when things get bad enough in Europe, bureaucrats will STEAL money from the people. That is bad enough as it completely goes against the central tenants of Capitalism and Democracy. Not to mention it also targets the wrong people (average citizens) instead of the banks that created this whole mess.
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Tuesday, April 02, 2013
The Technocracy Plague / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
CONFUSED ORIGINS
Theories about how Technocracy emerged - and became so powerful it is now a dominant theme in Europe's unraveling macrame player's nightmare mix of economic, financial and political crises - are as confused as its true origins. What we can be sure of is that defenders of what are basically unelected Old Boy administrators like to give their Technocrats a classic pedigree, claiming it can be traced back to Ancient Greece and Rome.