Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Tuesday, February 26, 2013
The Italian Election Farce and Not So Super Mario / Politics / Euro-Zone
SUPER MARIO BOMBS
As of February 25, exit polls and analysts' reviews of voter trends showed a total collapse in support for Mario Monti, called "Super Mario" for a while by government-friendly media. The 'technocrat' parachuted in by Europe's elite to apply a classic austerity programme as Italy's Brussels-approved unelected Prime Minister from late 2011, scored around 7% to 9% of votes cast. He is finished.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Split Italian Elections Votes is "Worst-Case" Result for Eurozone / Politics / Euro-Zone
David Zeiler writes: If preliminary results prove accurate, the Italian elections will result in a "hung" parliament, meaning no party will have enough seats to form a government.The lack of a definitive result could temporarily paralyze the Eurozone's third-largest economy and revive fears that Italian voters will ultimately reject austerity and the euro itself.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
America's Middle Class Caught in a Vice / Politics / Social Issues
Shah Gilani writes: This is a chicken and egg kind of discussion about what caused the housing crash.
It's not that there's a right answer (but I am right) or a wrong answer, it's about looking at what happened to determine whether it's going to happen again. It is.
I'm always right.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
China Tests Japanese and U.S. Patience / Politics / GeoPolitics
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has warned Beijing that Tokyo is losing patience with China's assertive maritime behavior in the East and South China seas, suggesting China consider the economic and military consequences of its actions. His warning followed similar statements from Washington that its patience with China is wearing thin, in this case over continued Chinese cyberespionage and the likelihood that Beijing is developing and testing cybersabotage and cyberwarfare capabilities. Together, the warnings are meant to signal to China that the thus-far relatively passive response to China's military actions may be nearing an end.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, February 25, 2013
Machine Gun Economics / Politics / US Politics
Andrew Snyder writes: The soldier’s hands never moved from the butt of the machine gun as his patrol slowly passed by. And yet nobody in the camo-clad group would make eye contact with me. It was a sign their duty was symbolic – true killers wouldn’t mind the life behind a person’s eyes; they only see a target.
But the patrol did its job. As the soldiers drove off into the dusty Mexican countryside, I was intimidated. I knew the government controlled the streets. And somebody was willing to kill to keep it that way.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, February 25, 2013
Osborne Cornered as Sterling Slides / Politics / UK Economy
On 20 March George Osborne, the UK's Chancellor, will present his budget. So far he has made a valiant attempt to cap public sector spending, particularly when compared with other finance ministers who were slow to adopt austerity. He has reduced public sector spending from what it would otherwise be, but has not managed to cut the total figure. His strategy now for controlling the budget deficit increasingly depends on higher tax revenues from a combination of forecast economic growth and more aggressive tax collection.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, February 25, 2013
How the Fed Could Fix the Economy—and Why It Hasn’t / Politics / Central Banks
Quantitative easing (QE) is supposed to stimulate the economy by adding money to the money supply, increasing demand. But so far, it hasn’t been working. Why not? Because as practiced for the last two decades, QE does not actually increase the circulating money supply. It merely cleans up the toxic balance sheets of banks. A real “helicopter drop” that puts money into the pockets of consumers and businesses has not yet been tried. Why not? Another good question . . . .
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, February 25, 2013
Ron Paul on U.S. Tyranny for the Good of its Victims / Politics / US Politics
When They Came for the Raw Milk Drinkers...
While I oppose most gun control proposals, there is one group of Americans I do believe should be disarmed: federal agents. The use of force by federal agents to enforce unjust and unconstitutional laws is one of the major, albeit overlooked, threats to liberty. Too often Americans are victimized by government force simply for engaging in commercial transactions disproved of by Congress and the federal bureaucracy.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Zero Dark Thirty Wins Oscar For Best Propaganda Picture / Politics / Propaganda
One of the most pervasive trends in 21st century western culture has become somewhat of an obsession in America. It’s called “Hollywood history”, where the corporate studio machines in Los Angeles spend hundreds of millions of dollars in order to craft and precisely tailor historical events to suit the prevailing political paradigm.
‘Hollywood history’ is very much in fashion these days. From Linclon to Dubya, and from Blackhawk Down to The Iron Lady, they constitute a significant portion of today’s major releases. There’s only one problem, however, with tailoring a story to fit neatly into a prevailing political paradigm… and over the last 100 years, the Germans and the Soviets did this too – with devastating effect, but back then we just called it propaganda.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Leaders? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Leaders / Politics / Social Issues
Leaders – you're better off without them!
The problem with the Fed-fueled stock market rally is that you can't trust it. It's not based on anything solid. Investors are not really investing in solid companies that are expected to produce solid growth and profits in the years ahead. They're speculating that the Fed's EZ money will boost share prices.
Maybe it will. And maybe it won't.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Zen And The Decline Of Innovation / Politics / Social Issues
BOEING DREAMLINER
The Dreamliner is grounded but Boeing CEO Jim McNerney says that redesign of its faulty lithium-ion batteries is moving ahead in a bid to satisfy regulators’ safety concerns and the jet can get back into the air "within weeks". The Boeing battery crisis is however just a part of Boeing's corporate troubles, and critics of Boeing attack its record on innovation - from both sides, for and against innovation.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Lords of Finance: The Backroom World of Central Banking / Politics / Central Banks
Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World • Liaquat Ahamed • Penguin Books, 2009
The Pulitzer Prize-winning book Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World reveals the destructive, surreptitious, incestuous, and highly corrupt nature of central banking. Although the author, Liaquat Ahamed, exposes the current financial system for all of its evils, this book is by no means a critique of central banking. Ahamed’s views are very much representative of status-quo economists of the past 100 years. He references John Maynard Keynes frequently without mentioning Nobel Prize-winner F.A. Hayek once, even though Hayek was Keynes’s greatest intellectual opponent during this period. Despite its mainstream focus the book is interesting and well-written. One of the jewels here is the rare look into the lives of the powerful men, the “lords of finance,” who were behind the solidification of modern central banking in the US and Europe during the years 1910 to 1935.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, February 21, 2013
U.S. and Saudi Terror Network Seeks to Destroy Pakistan Nation State / Politics / Pakistan
Tony Cartalucci writes: Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province, bordering both US-occupied Afghanistan as well as Iran, was the site of a grisly market bombing that has killed over 80 people. According to reports, the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the attack. Billed as a “Sunni extremist group,” it instead fits the pattern of global terrorism sponsored by the US, Israel, and their Arab partners Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Murderers Decorated With Medals / Politics / US Politics
Laurence M. Vance writes: "Murder decorated with a ribbon is still murder." ~ Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
In my previous article ("Hero or Murderer?") I said that a soldier from a country thousands of miles away who travels to the United States and kills Americans is a murderer. But I also said that American soldiers who do the same thing are not heroes but murderers. I said that foreign soldiers should not be excused no matter who told them to go or why they went. But I also said that American soldiers should not be excused either.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Children Save Yourself From State Education, Get Expelled! / Politics / Educating Children
Justin O’Connell writes: Hi Kids,
Do you find yourself locked down at your local dangerous public school between the hours of 7am and 3pm five days a week (six if you have Saturday school) for nine months a year (ten if you have Summer school)? Do you find it a waste of time? Well, there’s no need to worry anymore, because The Dollar Vigilante is here to give you the lowdown on how to handle your plight. Be sure to share this information with a friend in the same situation!
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Will Obama Confiscate Guns and Gold? / Politics / Gold and Silver 2013
Wendy McElroy writes: Barack Obama often compares himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt. When he does, gold owners reach for a gun, of which they usually have several. Gold and guns are becoming politically entangled, and a connecting word is often “confiscation.”
The prospect of gun confiscation is fueling discussion of FDR's 1933 nationalization of gold ownership, which resembled Hugo Chavez's nationalization of Venezuelan gold mines in 2011. FDR did so by executive order; Chavez did so by decree. If guns in America are also 'nationalized', then the 1933 gold grab may have insights on how the state could proceed and how American public may react.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
If Europe Were a House… It’d Be Condemned…. / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
One of the primary focal points of our writing is the corruption that has become endemic to the political and financial elites of the world. When we refer to corruption we are referring to insider deals, cronyism, lies and fraud. Since the Great Crisis began in 2008, these have become the four pillars of the financial system replacing the pillars of trust, transparency, truth and reality that are the true foundation of capitalism and wealth generation.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Limitless Drone War, the Hellfire, Morality and Strategy / Politics / War on Terror
Airstrikes by unmanned aerial vehicles have become a matter of serious dispute lately. The controversy focuses on the United States, which has the biggest fleet of these weapons and which employs them more frequently than any other country. On one side of this dispute are those who regard them simply as another weapon of war whose virtue is the precision with which they strike targets. On the other side are those who argue that in general, unmanned aerial vehicles are used to kill specific individuals, frequently civilians, thus denying the targeted individuals their basic right to some form of legal due process.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Obama's Theory Of Institutional Climate Change / Politics / Climate Change
ACTION BEFORE ITS TOO LATE - WATTS UP WITH THAT?
Wattsupwiththat.com, the most viewed Web site on global warming, climate change and bad weather policy and management, leads this week with an article by Ken Haapala, a director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), founded by the longstanding "climate sceptic", S. Fred Singer. Before his now total and outspoken opposition to the core theses of "anthropogenic global warming due to CO2", and other human origin greenhouse gases, 89-year-old Austrian-born Singer was a scientist renowned for his works on space research, atmospheric chemistry, rocket and satellite technology.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
How Turkey Could Shift the Global Balance of Power / Politics / GeoPolitics
Jeff Uscher writes: Is Turkey about to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)?
After years of delay on its application to join the European Union (EU) as a full member, Turkey has made overtures to the SCO as an alternative to the EU.
Read full article... Read full article...