Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Killing Off Community Banks - Intended Consequence of Dodd-Frank? / Politics / Banking Stocks
By: Ellen_Brown
At over 2,300 pages, the Dodd Frank Act is the longest and most complicated bill ever passed by the US legislature. It was supposed to end "too big to fail" and "bailouts," and to "promote financial stability." But Dodd-Frank's "orderly liquidation authority" has replaced bailouts with bail-ins, meaning that in the event of insolvency, big banks are to recapitalize themselves with the savings of their creditors and depositors. The banks deemed too big are more than 30% bigger than before the Act was passed in 2010, and 80% bigger than before the banking crisis of 2008. The six largest US financial institutions now have assets of some $10 trillion, amounting to almost 60% of GDP; and they control nearly 50% of all bank deposits.
Friday, October 23, 2015
Another Government Ponzi Scheme Starts to Crack - Do You Depend on It? / Politics / Government Spending
By: Casey_Research
By Nick Giambruno
Government employees get to do a lot of things that would land an ordinary citizen in prison.
For example, it’s legal for them to threaten and commit offensive, rather than defensive, violence. They can take property from others without their consent. They spy on anyone’s email and bank accounts whenever they please. They go into trillions of dollars in debt and then stick the unborn with the bill. They counterfeit the currency. They lie with misleading statistics and use accounting wizardry no business could get away. And this just scratches the surface…
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Friday, October 23, 2015
Pictures for the Pope Francis and Progressives / Politics / Social Issues
By: Steve_H_Hanke
In September, Pope Francis visited the United States, where he addressed the U.S. Congress. His address, while nuanced, hit on social justice themes. The Pope’s remarks were well received by left-of-center politicians who embrace progressive policies.
When the Pope left the U.S., he traveled to Latin America, where he spoke in his native Spanish and was more direct. While in Bolivia, Pope Francis had this to say: "Let us not be afraid to say it: we want change, real change, structural change," the Pope said, decrying a system that "has imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature."
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Employment Is Nothing Like Slavery / Politics / Employment
By: MISES
Julian Adorney writes: What is necessary to take away a man’s freedom? For many progressives, nothing more then a bad workplace. Amazon takes ongoing heat for its work environment, with opponents like Business Insider calling it a “slave camp.”
But this comparison mistakes the fundamental nature of coercion.
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Thursday, October 22, 2015
Reshuffling the Deck in the Mideast / Politics / Middle East
By: John_Browne
The U.S. presence in the Middle East, which for years provided some control over one of the world's most volatile regions, appears to have dissolved into chaos. By removing Saddam Hussein from power, the U.S. removed his tyrannical but stabilizing hand from the powder keg that always existed in the poorly designed nation state of Iraq. Rather than attempting to repair the damage, President Obama appears intent on leaving what he terms "a quagmire." Predictably, chaos has emerged, not just in Iraq, but in Syria as well. The rapidly changing political landscape is pushing major regional players like Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to drastically reshuffle their assumptions and allegiances.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
David Cameron Grovels At the Feet of Xi Jinping Chinese Emperor Dictator / Politics / UK Politics
By: Nadeem_Walayat
David Cameron whilst on the one hand encouraging sanctions against the likes of Czar Putin, Russia's tin pot dictator for his rampage across eastern europe. Instead embarrassingly, when faced with China's Emperor Dictator Xi Jinping, David Cameron has bent over backwards to have not just himself but the whole of the British establishment literally groveling at the feet of the head of the emerging totalitarian global military power, that in many respects is worse than Czar Putin's Russia.
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Tuesday, October 20, 2015
American Households Confusion, Delusions & Illusions, Living on the Brink of Catastrophe / Politics / Social Issues
By: James_Quinn
Two recent surveys, along with numerous other studies and data, reveal most American households to be living on the brink of catastrophe, but continuing to act in a reckless and delusionary manner. There have certainly been economic factors beyond the control of average Americans that have resulted in real median household incomes remaining stagnant for the last 36 years. The unholy alliance of mega-corporations, Wall Street and bought off corrupt politicians have gutted the nation of millions of good paying jobs under the guise of globalization, while utilizing debt, derivatives and financial schemes to enrich themselves. The malfeasance of the sociopathic privileged class does not discharge the personal responsibility of citizens for living within their means. A lack of discipline, inability to delay gratification, failure to understand basic mathematical concepts, materialistic envy, absence of critical thinking skills, and a delusionary view of the world have left the majority of Americans broke and in debt.
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
What is U.S. Congress Proposing Now? / Politics / US Politics
By: Rodney_Johnson
It's no secret that America's highways and bridges are a sham and the overall transportation system is in desperate need of funding.What is troubling is Congress' latest solution.
We pay for our highways and bridges through a tax on gasoline, which puts the cost of the transportation system squarely on users. Currently, the federal tax on a gallon of gas is 18.4 cents. That tax hasn’t changed since 1993, when gas was $1.16 per gallon, making the tax rate 19%.
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Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Revolutionary Statists Means Lower Living Standards / Politics / US Politics
By: BATR
The latest crop of government supplicants lick up the promises of expanded social welfare from the charlatans that run for public office. The first Democratic Presidential debate was a deranged rally for the sickest sociopaths that a terminal society could find. The most radical proponents of insanity were not named Clinton, Sanders or O’Malley; no the mentally ill audience and the dullard clones that support the governance directives of the Democratic Party are most in need of professional mental help. Indeed, the ranks have fallen so far, from the standards under John F. Kennedy, that the party is no longer recognizable. With the paragon of their “Great Society”, the successors to FDR socialism have become the ultimate threat to what remains of the Republic.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Robert Shiller Is Shilling for Socialism / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
Peter St. Onge writes: The Nobel Prize just gets cheaper and cheaper. Recent laureate Bob Shiller graces the New York Times with his latest rant that free-markets stink, bolstering his argument by making stuff up.
For starters, Shiller writes that America’s wealth “can be attributed” to regulation. Well, sure, it “can be attributed” to Zeus. Or sunspots. In the real world, America became the richest country long before the regulation age, and that position has been eroding ever since. Maddison (2007) estimates that by 1913 — before the New Deal regulatory explosion — the US was at $5,300 per person PPP (purchasing power parity), against $3,500 in Western Europe, $1,500 in Latin America, and $700 in the rest of Asia and Africa.
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Monday, October 19, 2015
Tea Party is Drinking Too Much Decaf / Politics / US Politics
By: Michael_Pento
On December 16th, 1773 the Sons of Liberty in Boston, in protest of the Tea Act, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company, in a political protest referred to as the Boston Tea Party.
Following the Wall Street bail-outs in 2009, a political movement also protesting their lack of representation in government sought a reduction of the U.S. national debt and deficits by reducing government spending and lowering taxes. They were referred to as The Tea Party, named from the aforementioned Boston variety.
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Monday, October 19, 2015
U.S. Debt Ceiling Debate: Don't Mention Warfare/Welfare State! / Politics / US Debt
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
The US Treasury's recent announcement that the government will reach the debt ceiling on November 3 means Congress will soon be debating raising the government's borrowing limit again. Any delay in, or opposition to, raising the debt ceiling will inevitably be met with hand-wringing over Congress' alleged irresponsibility. But the real irresponsible act would be for Congress to raise the debt ceiling.
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Monday, October 19, 2015
Peter Schiff on Death of a Patriot / Politics / Social Issues
By: Peter_Schiff
My father Irwin A. Schiff was born Feb. 23rd 1928, the 8th child and only son of Jewish immigrants, who had crossed the Atlantic twenty years earlier in search of freedom. As a result of their hope and courage, my father was fortunate to have been born into the freest nation in the history of the world. But when he passed away on Oct. 16th, 2015 at the age of 87, a political prisoner of that same nation, legally blind and shackled to a hospital bed in a guarded room in intensive care, the free nation he was born into had itself died years earlier.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Homo Sapiens Rationalensis Diverging From Revelation to the Apocalypse / Politics / Evolution
By: Nadeem_Walayat
This article continues from Part 1 - The First Prophet - Homo Sapiens Shrinking Brains Diverging Species, that covered the period from the emergence of Homo Sapien Religious some 75,000 years ago, their journey out of Africa and the role religious myths have played in bonding tribes of humans together, eventually settling down and farming some 10,000 years ago. However, the consequences of which has unfortunately been for the shrinkage of average human brain size by about 10% as 99% of humans along with many animals and plants were domesticated, slaves where a religious elite made all of the major decisions for them, hence reduction in the requirement for a large energy hungry brain.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
The First Prophet - Homo Sapiens Shrinking Brains Diverging Species / Politics / Evolution
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Before I plunge into the main topic of this analysis, here's a quick update of where the stock market trend currently stands. We are now half way through October, which is THE month for stock market doom and gloom! The month when the stock market crash proponents are at their most vocal as its 1929, 1987 and 2008 all over again so a stock market crash is imminent. Though this time its worse than usual because even those who may have been 'mostly' bullish apparently have thrown in the towel several weeks ago to at least conclude that a stocks bear market had begun.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
The way you treat your elderly today is how you will be treated tomorrow / Politics / Social Issues
By: Michael_T_Bucci
The fact that there will be no COLA (Cost of Living) increase in 2016 for 65 million recipients of Social Security will be acutely painful in Maine, which hosts the oldest population in the nation; and in Lincoln County, Maine, the second oldest county in Maine where public transportation is non-existent, community outreach is at best minimal and in which 25% of the population is age 65 and over. (1) Furthermore, 30% of Medicare beneficiaries — an estimated 17 million Americans — could see their Part B premium and deductible rise 52% because of provisions in the Social Security law.
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Friday, October 16, 2015
Censoring Books is Suppressing Freedom of Expression / Politics / Social Issues
By: Walter_Brasch
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the world’s largest trade convention for publishers and vendors.
This year, the six-day convention, which ends Sunday, brought more than 7,400 exhibitors from 100 countries. Attendance was more than 300,000.
But, hundreds of Iranian publishers, editors, and printers didn’t attend.
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Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Israel Anti-Palestinian Viciousness Rages / Politics / Palestine
By: Stephen_Lendman
Israel bears full responsibility for premeditated violence and brutality, unleashed without mercy against defenseless Palestinians - reminiscent of how Nazis persecuted Jews.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Climate Change, Renewable Resources and Economics / Politics / Climate Change
By: Frank_Hollenbeck
Many socialists have conveniently repackaged themselves as environmentalists and latched onto climate change as a convenient means to preach the standard socialist agenda of planning and control.
These socialists will talk about glaciers retreating and the need to force farmers in Normandy, for example, to stop running their tractors on Tuesday. Anyone who questions the basic precepts of climate change are instantly viewed as ignoramuses who deny the overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change exists.
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Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Why Millennials Are So Different / Politics / Demographics
By: Harry_Dent
I have three step kids. Two are generation X. The youngest is generation Y.Just looking at them, you can tell a clear difference in their personalities and aspirations.
My older step kids are more individualistic. The younger one is more oriented to the group and collective interests.
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