Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Thursday, October 25, 2012
Hospitals Unsafe at Any Blood Pressure, Socialism By Installments / Politics / Healthcare Sector
Christopher Westley writes: What if the unintended consequences are actually intentional?
That's the thought I had recently upon learning about upcoming Medicare fines on hospitals that readmit patients due to complications within 30 days of an initial discharge. The logic is straightforward: If hospitals do not make a patient well the first time, then they suffer the additional cost of a fine.
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Thursday, October 25, 2012
Secession Fever Sweeping Europe Meaningless Without Debt Repudiation / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
While regional independence is superior to both the failing European Union and the façade of special interest controlled democracy, one further action should taken by any jurisdictions that choose secession: Newly restored sovereign nations should repudiate their share of the illegitimate sovereign debt when they exit existing unions and nation-states. Created by distant banking elites buying national politicians and parliaments to load up on sovereign debts that can never be paid off, this massive national debt load is illegitimate and destructive to existing and new national economies.
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Thursday, October 25, 2012
So, How Can I Make A Living In Mexico? / Politics / Social Issues
Jim Karger writes: So, why don't they pick up and leave?
Money.
They don't have enough to live on the income generated by their savings for the rest of their lives. (Many actually do and believe they don't, but I will save that topic for another article.)
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Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Central Banks Game Plan: One World Currency / Politics / Fiat Currency
Only those in total denial would claim that the world economies could grow their way out of the debt bubble. Mathematically, the rules of compound interest always destroy the purchasing value of fiat currencies. The era of zero interest rates will end. When the cost to finance debts reverts to normal levels, the bleeding will become a gusher. The world reserve currency status of Federal Reserve Notes will come under enormous pressure. As the central banks consolidate their control over international commerce and the economies of individual countries, the coin of the new realm will shift to a replacement for the U.S. Dollar.
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Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Do Not Tolerate Domestic Violence / Politics / US Politics
Wendy McElroy wrotes: I am not talking about spousal abuse. I mean the abuse heaped upon you by the United States government. The parallels are striking.
America claims to own you, and so you pay a heavy price for leaving as an expat. It cruelly invades your breasts and genitals through pat-downs at the airport. Then it does the same to your children. America swears it is protecting you while violating your rights at every turn; and you have become so brainwashed that you now mistake a fist in your face for safety. There is no respect and no honesty in the relationship the government offers you – only a self-serving contempt that erupts into violence. Your response is to return a love of country along with the money you earn, all the while making excuses for America's bad behavior. Or, perhaps, you even defend America to critics.
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Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Unions - Another Form of Collectivism Gone Awry / Politics / Social Issues
As the snow already has begun to fall across much of the expanse of Canada, the weather has settled into a deep freeze (-20C, -4F overnight in Calgary this week) and the sun shrinks into the distance, a faint light mocking you for living so far away from it, there is usually one thing that makes living in North America's version of Siberia possible. Hockey.
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Tuesday, October 23, 2012
The Internet Liberty Revolution / Politics / US Politics
Until the late 1990s, individuals interested in Austrian economics, U.S. constitutional history, and libertarian philosophy had few sources of information. They had to spend hours scouring used book stores or the back pages of obscure libertarian periodicals to find the great works of Mises, Rothbard, Hayek, and other giants of liberty. Local library and university collections ignored libertarian politics and economics.
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Monday, October 22, 2012
Government Spending, State Education, Dysfunctional, Dishonest, Insane and Intolerable / Politics / Government Spending
“I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well-administered; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a Course of Years and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other.” – Ben Franklin
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Saturday, October 20, 2012
Phony Terrorism Scam From the State's Secret Police / Politics / US Politics
How misleading can a "news" article get? Try this headline: "Federal Reserve bombing plot foiled in NYC". There never was a plot to foil. There never was a plot independent of the FBI to foil. The plot was of the FBI's own devising and instigation. There never was an ongoing crime for the FBI to detect and stop.
Foil means counteract. To say something is foiled means there has been an action to counter-act. What? Did the FBI counter-act its own action? We should give the FBI credit for devising a plot and then stopping its own plot? We should credit some inept terrorist for threatening to make a touchdown when he couldn’t get beyond the five-yard line without FBI counseling and guidance and without the FBI pointing out the goal line and supplying the football?
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Friday, October 19, 2012
Another Numerologist Gets Nobel Economics Prize / Politics / Economic Theory
Witness the latest economist to win the Nobel Prize from the Swedes, who I’m certain lead the world in economic nonsense, for allegedly solving the unsolvable knowledge and calculation problems of central planners.
Huh?
Rather than explaining all that is wrong in their problem solving, in the interest of brevity let me just ask: did you mean you didn’t know Ludwig von Mises showed that this kind of thing was impossible almost 100 years ago?
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Thursday, October 18, 2012
Obama and Romney Stop Arguing, Will Both Need to Deliver Jobs / Politics / Employment
George Leong writes: Watching the presidential debate on Tuesday, one thing was clear: both President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney were focusing on the jobs market. This was not a surprise.
Wall Street is not hiring, technology companies are firing, and the manufacturing sector is losing jobs to cheap overseas plants in China and Mexico, where wages are dirt cheap.
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Thursday, October 18, 2012
Homeschooling, The Most Radical Social Movement in America, Terrifies the Establishment / Politics / Educating Children
I have just read the best article in National Review that I can remember in the last 40 years. Of course, this is not saying a great deal, because I stopped reading National Review about 40 years ago. I used to write for it occasionally. My introduction to the magazine was in the fall of 1959, when I was a freshman at Pomona College. I read it faithfully for about five years, and intermittently until the early 1970s. After that, my interests shifted.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Venezuela vs. Argentina, Which Will Run Out of Money First? / Politics / Emerging Markets
Martin Hutchinson writes: After a surprisingly comfortable re-election, Venezuela has decided to stick with Hugo Chavez and all that comes with him.
That has prompted The Wall Street Journal and other pundits to forecast nothing less than economic doom for Venezuela in 2013.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Why You Should Never Call the Police / Politics / US Politics
Would you dial up a known criminal, like a murderer or rapist, to come help you after you've been the victim of a crime? No? Then why in the world would you call the police after you've been assaulted, robbed or otherwise violated?
The police do not consider their job to protect you. They used to at least pay lip service to "keeping the peace", but nowadays in the USSA it is clear their job is to enforce the law. In fasco-communist America, the law stopped being about your protection decades ago. The law is about the expansion of state power and control. That's why there are so many of them, with more coming all the time.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Why The Nobel Peace Prize For The EU Is Flawed / Politics / Euro-Zone
While everybody was asleep in a grandiose globalization and unification dream, a dream whose benefits and desirability were - and still are - hardly ever questioned if at all, separate languages and cultures simply remained what they were: separate. Now that globalization starts to show its dark and ugly flipside of economic depression, a repeal of many unifications and a split-up of larger entities, created for economic and political reasons only, into their smaller components, is inevitable.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Banks Punished For Central Bank and Political Errors / Politics / Banksters
In recent decades politicians have increasingly followed the Keynesian prescription of economic growth through continued government borrowing and the creation of undreamt of amounts of fiat money by central banks. To facilitate this process, the larger commercial banks have acted as the central banks' de facto distribution system, and as a result have grown ever larger while accepting progressively greater risks.
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Is the Cold War Heating Up ? / Politics / New Cold War
Sasha Cekerevac writes: Having been relegated to the history books, the Cold War between the West and the East appears to be heating up again. On one side, we have increasing tensions with China; U.S. politicians claim that China is a currency-manipulator and China has massively increased its spending in defense, which is threatening the security in that part of the world. If we look to the Middle East, tensions are now rising with Russia.
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Voting is A Fool’s Game! / Politics / US Politics
Gary D. Barnett writes: The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting. ~ Charles Bukowski
Voting is a fool’s game. Many might find that statement offensive, but considering our plight, I can’t imagine why. There are so many who have been fooled into thinking that voting is a sacred right, and one that guarantees freedom. The opposite of course is the case. The fooled among us seem completely willing to embrace this ruse; thus allowing the many to continue to be ruled by the few. The result then of voting in this country is oligarchy, making it one of the most worthless endeavors of mankind.
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012
European Satellites Ordered To Drop Iranian Broacast Channels In Disregard of Free Speech / Politics / Mainstream Media
New York, New York: Back in the 1960’s, A British poet, Adrian Mitchell, one of the great bards of that era, wrote a poem that went on to become a stage show in the West End of London. It was called Tell Me Lies about Vietnam and represented one voice among millions in the world then opposing that War
It was addressed, “To Whom It May Concern” and began with words that became its refrain:
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012
China’s Pyramid of Power, The Communist Party Elite / Politics / China
China celebrated another achievement last week, as Mo Yan became the first Chinese citizen to win a Nobel Prize for literature. The selection of Mo was praised by a Chinese nationalist tabloid as a sign that mainstream China could "no longer be refused by the West for long."
Mo grew up in Shandong province in northeastern China, and during the Cultural Revolution, he left school to work in the fields, finishing his education in the army, according to The Guardian. The author draws upon his rural upbringing in his novels, mixing historical perspective with mythical elements. His real name is Guan Moye, but he chose "Mo Yan" as a pen name meaning "don't speak," to reflect the culture in which he grew up.
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