Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Does a $100 Trillion Debt Total Matter? / Politics / US Debt
By: BATR
Debt is everywhere but it just does not seem to matter. Thanks to the folks at Zero Hedge, you get the account Global Debt Crosses $100 Trillion, Rises By $30 Trillion Since 2007; $27 Trillion Is "Foreign-Held" – "Total global debt has exploded by 40% in just 6 short years from 2007 to 2013, from "only" $70 trillion to over $100 trillion as of mid-2013, according to the BIS' just-released quarterly review". They make this assessment:
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
We Are All Inflation Lab Rats Now / Politics / Inflation
By: Fred_Sheehan
"They sit there across the Pond, and sometimes I think they feel like they're in a lab and they're running experiments on rats and not understanding the consequences of what they are doing," the Russian president said at a press conference." ~ Russian President Vladimir Putin, March 4, 2014
Adam Posen, co-author with Ben S. Bernanke of Inflation Targeting: Lessons from the International Experience gave a thumbs up to the Japan's inflation-targeting experiment in the February 25, 2014, Financial Times: "Abe Has Good Medicine but Japan Needs a Stronger Dose." The heavyweight (literally) economist opens: "Japan's recovery program is showing promising early results." Results include the falling currency that has led a creditor country (Japan has been a net lender since 1981) to post whopping trade deficits in recent months, of increasing size.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Google, China, The Nsa And The Fourth Turning / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: James_Quinn
“Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded. …it’s getting to the point where you don’t have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life.” – Edward Snowden
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Natural Gas Does Not Explain Ukraine, EU / Russia Sabre Rattling / Politics / Natural Gas
By: Andrew_McKillop
The Fragile Argument
The prospects of the EU, backed or incited by the USA declaring a “gas war” with Russia over the Ukraine crisis are now very high. EU and US action inside Ukraine includes actively fomenting civil strife, even civil war between west and east Ukraine through giving full and total Western support to the “Euro-maidan” flash mob protest revolt of Kiev and its totally unelected political leaders, who will certainly reject the certain yes result of a referendum vote in Crimea on re-attaching Crimea to Russia. This opens up the real prospect of retaliation by Russia, firstly economic, then military.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Rogue Reactors And Putin's No-Bama Zone In Crimea / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Organized Crim-ea and the No-Bama Zone
The Obama White House and its allies in west Europe are fumbling the Ukraine crisis with even more intensity than they fumbled the Syrian crisis. Although the urge might be there to proclaim a “No-Fly Zone” around Crimea, stepping up to and over that red line will be madness. India has taken an openly pro-Putin line on Crimea, and China shows a distinct lack of interest in McCain-type war hungry proposals for making the Crimea a “test of power”. China has other problems like its exports, for 2014 to date, showing a 20-percent-plus fall to other BRICs countries and a “highly unusual” trade deficit of more than $22 billion ($22.98 bn) for February.
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Wednesday, March 12, 2014
How Social Security Trust Funds Will Change Private Retirement Income / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: Dan_Amerman
It can be difficult to completely avoid a $5 trillion elephant in the middle of one's own living room.
In an ironic twist, millions of people who are investing for retirement specifically to escape from dependence on Social Security may find that no matter where in the room they go - that elephant is still there. And over the years ahead, the spending down of the $5 trillion in Treasury bonds held in Social Security and other government trust funds may be transforming the returns on their private savings in ways they never anticipated.
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Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Putin Plays for Keeps in Crimea / Politics / Russia
By: Peter_Schiff
For those investors who have grown used to the relatively minor geo-political crises of the past few years, the developing situation in the Ukraine and the Crimea must come as an unexpected communiqué from the early 20th Century.There can be little doubt that the drama will impact financial markets.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
State Debt Conversion In An Equity Bubble - The Tried And Tested Trick / Politics / US Debt
By: Andrew_McKillop
John Law's Trick Which Failed
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's economist Francois R. Velde in a 64-page memorandum published by the Reserve Bank in November 2003, written with seven other US Federal Reserve Bank economists, John Law succeeded in the period 1716-1720 to convert the government or state debt – at the time Royal debt - of France, into state-backed equity holdings. At the same time, in a coordinated move, Law also replaced silver- and gold-backed money with paper “fiat” money.
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Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Ukraine's Increasing Polarization and the Western Challenge / Politics / Eastern Europe
By: STRATFOR
Eugene Chausovsky writes: Just days before the Ukrainian crisis broke out, I took an overnight train to Kiev from Sevastopol in Crimea. Three mechanics in their 30s on their way to jobs in Estonia shared my compartment. All ethnic Russians born and raised in Sevastopol, they have made the trip to the Baltic states for the past eight years for seasonal work at Baltic Sea shipyards. Our ride together, accompanied by obligatory rounds of vodka, presented the opportunity for an in-depth discussion of Ukraine's political crisis. The ensuing conversation was perhaps more enlightening than talks of similar length with Ukrainian political, economic or security officials.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Fatherland Meet Homeland. Yatsenyuk Meet Obama. Has America Endorsed Europe's New-Old Fascists? / Politics / Propaganda
By: Michael_T_Bucci
Hardly astounding it is that President Obama continues his journey beginning as the "Hope and Change" savior of 2008 to being America's neo-con right-wing obsequious host to Ukraine's new Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of the Fatherland Party at the White House on March 12.
Monday, March 10, 2014
How EU and Swiss Socialism Made Immigrants a Political Problem / Politics / Immigration
By: Frank_Hollenbeck
The Nationalistic Swiss people’s party recently succeeded in a referendum to limit Swiss immigration. The party blamed immigrants for a general lowering of incomes and for “stealing” jobs that otherwise would have gone to Swiss citizens. They also blame immigrants for a host of other minor problems such as unaffordable housing and traffic bottlenecks. The vote stipulates that Switzerland has to renegotiate its bilateral agreement with the EU on the free movement of people within three years, or revoke it altogether.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Recasting Europe's Energy Dependence On Russia / Politics / Energy Resources
By: Andrew_McKillop
Recast As High Priced Energy
Speaking to the press, 9 March, the UK's Foreign minister William Hague said that "If no solution to this (energy dependence) can be found," European countries will "Recast their approach to energy and economic links with Russia over time". He was careful not to give any time lines, and certainly no investment cost estimates, more especially because plans so far mooted by officials in Europe's capitals, and from Brussels to Washington include larger imports of U.S. natural gas, reversing gas flows through pipelines from Western Europe back into Ukraine, and accelerated buying of more energy from countries other than Russia.
Monday, March 10, 2014
U.S. Said to Have Grabbed Ukraines Gold Reserves / Politics / Gold and Silver 2014
By: Jesse
This is a story based on a report out of the Ukraine. Obviously I do not know yet if it is accurate. The information coming out of the Ukraine and Crimea should be sifted carefully, no matter what the source.
I find this one hard to believe. I am informed by high reliable people that no one cares about gold anymore. And very important analysts claim that transporting many tonnes of gold (Ukraine is said to have about 33 tonnes) is very difficult, and so unwieldy and fraught with peril that it must be a multiyear project.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Ron Paul - Can We Afford Ukraine? / Politics / Russia
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Officially, US debt stands at more than $17 trillion. In reality, it is many times more. The cost of the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq may be more than six trillion dollars. President Obama's illegal invasion of Libya cost at least a billion dollars and left that country devastated. The costs of US regime change efforts in Syria are likely thus far enormous, both in dollars and lives. That's still a secret.
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Sunday, March 09, 2014
US Dept Of Defense Review Focuses on Climate Terror / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
The Quadrennial Defense Review
The latest issue of the QDR is available on Defense.gov web sites, and says clearly on page 8 that climate change and global warming pose “significant challenge” for the United States and the world at large. The report states that as greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels will rise and average global temperatures will also increase – whether they are doing that in the real world, or not. Coupled with unlisted “other dynamics”, the report quickly moves to sketch a crisis scenario of growing and urbanizing more-affluent populations, especially in China, India and Brazil being devastated by global warming. The QDR says global warming will “devastate homes, land, and infrastructure”. In turn, this will “aggravate (the) stressors” of global security, which the QDR lists as poverty, political instability, environmental degradation and social tensions.
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Sunday, March 09, 2014
Grand Puppetmaster Brzezinski Directing War Strategies from the Shadows / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Mike_Whitney
“From the moment the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the United States has relentlessly pursued a strategy of encircling Russia, just as it has with other perceived enemies like China and Iran. It has brought 12 countries in central Europe, all of them formerly allied with Moscow, into the NATO alliance. US military power is now directly on Russia’s borders…This crisis is in part the result of a zero-sum calculation that has shaped US policy toward Moscow since the Cold War: Any loss for Russia is an American victory, and anything positive that happens to, for, or in Russia is bad for the United States. This is an approach that intensifies confrontation, rather than soothing it.”- Stephen Kinzer, “US a full partner in Ukraine debacle”, Boston Globe
Sunday, March 09, 2014
Russia and Crimea, Vlad the Bad Advances his Knight / Politics / Russia
By: LewRockwell
Eric Margolis writes: Soviet leader Josef Stalin used to shrug off critics by his favorite Central Asian saying: “The dogs bark; the caravan moves on.”
Russia’s hard-eyed president, Vladimir Putin, is following the same strategy over Ukraine and Crimea.
Sunday, March 09, 2014
Can Israel Save The Crimea? / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Stalin Said Yes, Stalin Said No
At the height of the German Nazi thrust into the Soviet Union during World War II, in 1941, Stalin sent two leading representatives of the newly established Soviet Jewish Antifascist Committee—Yiddish film and theatre actor Solomon Mikhoels and Yiddish author and poet Itsik Feifer—to the United States and other Allied countries to raise support among Western Jews for the Soviet war effort. For Stalin, the large Jewish community in the Crimea was a potential trump card.
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Saturday, March 08, 2014
EU And American War-Jaw Will Not Faze Putin / Politics / Russia
By: Andrew_McKillop
War-War or Jaw-Jaw?
The Ukrainian crisis, to date, throws up endless examples – and proof – of European and US political and economic, military and ideological weakness built on the shifting sands of longstanding fads, foibles and obsessions about “the world as we want it”. Each day brings more examples and proof that neither Europe nor the USA are capable of thinking and acting straight, while each part of the “Western camp” incites the other to greater idiocy.
Friday, March 07, 2014
If Bitcoin Were Regulated and Mt. Gox Were A Bank / Politics / Bitcoin
By: Jeff_Berwick
Justin O'Connell writes: "Thus, the libertarian-minded bitcoin investors are forcefully recognizing what happens in crisis when a currency regime has no central bank as a backstop....Think of how much carnage occurred in 2008, did you lose any of your deposits? I would think bitcoin holders on mtgox are wishing the FDIC would step in and guarantee their funds." - Ben Rand