Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Lords of Finance: The Backroom World of Central Banking / Politics / Central Banks
By: Dan_OConnor
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.
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Thursday, February 21, 2013
U.S. and Saudi Terror Network Seeks to Destroy Pakistan Nation State / Politics / Pakistan
By: Global_Research
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.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Murderers Decorated With Medals / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
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.
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Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Children Save Yourself From State Education, Get Expelled! / Politics / Educating Children
By: Jeff_Berwick
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!
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Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Will Obama Confiscate Guns and Gold? / Politics / Gold and Silver 2013
By: Jeff_Berwick
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.
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Tuesday, February 19, 2013
If Europe Were a House… It’d Be Condemned…. / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Graham_Summers
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.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Limitless Drone War, the Hellfire, Morality and Strategy / Politics / War on Terror
By: STRATFOR
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.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Obama's Theory Of Institutional Climate Change / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
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
By: Money_Morning
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.
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Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Why the Power Elite Will Lose Power / Politics / US Politics
By: Gary_North
The best description of the reversal of fortune is Mary's Magnificat, recorded in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, verses 46-55. "He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree" (v. 52).
This was a fundamental theme in the Old Testament. We are told that those who hold their position by means of political power and corruption always lose their position. They are always overthrown. They look unbeatable. They are always defeated. The prophets of Israel came before kings and commoners with this message. Isaiah 1 is a good example. Isaiah even identified a major technique of the power elite: inflation. "Thy silver has become dross, thy wine mixed with water" (Isa 1:22).
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Monday, February 18, 2013
Obama's State of the Delusion Speech, US Adrift At Sea / Politics / US Politics
By: James_Quinn
“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”– Friedrich Nietzsche
The big story this past week, besides the annual State of the Delusion speech by Barack “It won’t add a cent to the deficit” Obama, was the fate of the passengers on the Carnival Triumph as their skyscraper sized ship was left adrift at sea for days without power. This 900 foot long, 100,000 ton goliath is one of the largest passenger cruise liners in the world, carrying 3,400 passengers and 1,100 crew members in luxurious splendor through warm Gulf of Mexico seas to sun drenched exotic isles.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Ron Paul on the U.S. Drone Threat / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last week, Senators threatened to put a "hold" on the nomination of John Brennan to be CIA director over his refusal to answer questions about the use of drones to kill Americans on US soil. That the president's nominee to head the agency that has used drones to kill perhaps thousands overseas could not deny their possible use at home should be shocking. How did we get to this point?
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Monday, February 18, 2013
The Final Economic Countdown / Politics / Global Economy
By: Alasdair_Macleod
Governments have refused to accept the necessity of a period of economic re-adjustment following the credit-bubble. The bubble burst about five years ago and economic progress has been effectively suspended ever since. The consequences of this refusal to accept reality are at a minimum to make this adjustment unnecessarily drawn out and needlessly painful, without offering a better eventual outcome.
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Sunday, February 17, 2013
Behind the SEC’s Revolving Door Between Jobs in Washington and Wall Street / Politics / Market Regulation
By: PhilStockWorld
John Light writes: The Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a government accountability watchdog group, published a report this week on the so-called “revolving door” at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Authored by POGO Investigator Michael Smallberg, the report highlights numerous examples of how the back and forth of SEC regulators between jobs in Washington and on Wall Street blunts the agency’s effectiveness.
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Sunday, February 17, 2013
Obama's Next Big Housing Market Giveaway to the Bankster Mafia / Politics / Banksters
By: Mike_Whitney
For those who missed President Obama’s latest giveaway to the Bank Mafia, we’ll repeat what he said here. This is an excerpt from Tuesday’s State of the Union Speech:
“Part of our rebuilding effort must also involve our housing sector. Today, our housing market is finally healing from the collapse of 2007. Home prices are rising at the fastest pace in six years, home purchases are up nearly 50 percent, and construction is expanding again.
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Sunday, February 17, 2013
Pentagon Creates Medal to Honor Drone Killers / Politics / US Politics
By: Global_Research
John Glaser writes: The Defense Department has decided to create a medal to honor US soldiers who sit at a computer and operate armed, unmanned vehicles bombing people thousands of miles away.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday announced that the Pentagon can award the Distinguished Warfare Medal to drone operators, because although they are far from any battlefield, they have a direct impact on combat operations.
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Sunday, February 17, 2013
Why Bankers Rule the World - It’s the Interest, Stupid! / Politics / Banksters
By: Ellen_Brown
In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released last week, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35% to 40% of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and bondholders, who take a 35% to 40% cut of our GDP. That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street. The rich get progressively richer at the expense of the poor, not just because of “Wall Street greed” but because of the inexorable mathematics of our private banking system.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
The Real New World Order is Bankers Taking over the World / Politics / Banksters
By: John_Kozy
How quickly best laid plans become passé. New world orders come, it seems, as frequently as eclipses.
The old world order (ancien régime), along with 16 million people, died during the Great European War which began on June 28, 1914 when the Austrian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated by a Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, in Sarajevo. (Today he would be called a terrorist.) This assassination sent nations that had no desire to go to war into the most destructive war the world had yet experienced.
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Saturday, February 16, 2013
The Educated Socialism of Obama / Politics / US Politics
By: DailyWealth
Porter Stansberry writes: In Wednesday's essay, I laid out the "great lie" that is bankrupting America.
At the heart of this lie – told by so many of our political leaders and believed by so many of my fellow citizens – is a horrifying turn of events. As I mentioned, the drive for freedom and a better life through hard work, saving, and independence has been replaced by a craven need for the illusion of security.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
The Power Elite Bought the U.S. Presidential Election With Central Bank Printed Money / Politics / US Presidential Election 2012
By: Bill_Bonner
Today, on the Ides of February, we hold our hat in our hand... we bow our head... and let our mouth fall open in amazement. Our Lenten program of fasting, prayer and meditation is producing results. We are lightheaded from near-starvation and alcohol deprivation. But our thoughts are clear. Or else, we are hallucinating.
In the last two days, we've taken a look at what promises to be the biggest bust-up of all time.
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