Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, February 04, 2014
Pension Promises Go Unfulfilled / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: Don_Miller
I don't know which is worse: realizing you cannot keep a promise you made to someone important to you, or being the person who relied on the promise when you grasp that it is not going to be kept.
In 1973, I was 33 years old and just starting a public-speaking career. The National Speakers Association asked me to join, and I became a charter member. Our first president, the late Bill Gove, was a terrific speaker and also a great salesman—one of the top life insurance salesmen in the country for many years.
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Tuesday, February 04, 2014
A More Assertive German Foreign Policy / Politics / Germany
By: STRATFOR
By George Friedman and Marc Lanthemann: The Ukrainian crisis is important in itself, but the behavior it has elicited from Germany is perhaps more important. Berlin directly challenged Ukraine's elected president for refusing to tighten relations with the European Union and for mistreating Ukrainians who protested his decision. In challenging President Viktor Yanukovich, Berlin also challenged Russia, a reflection of Germany's recent brazen foreign policy.
Tuesday, February 04, 2014
Government Schools Common Core Indoctrination / Politics / Education
By: BATR
Over the last half century, the public school establishment in America has achieved enormous results, if the intention was to dumb down the population. The term public is archaic, since the current age promotes an internationalist interdependency culture, where the state defines institutional roles and sanctions accepted standards. The public plays virtually no effective role in this process. For this reason the proper term to use is government indoctrination centers. Bringing back the McGuffey Readers as the alternative to the state syllabus of common core is a step in the right direction.Our Dysfunctional Public Education Is No Accident essay lays out the correct standard.
Tuesday, February 04, 2014
Harvard Economist Pulling His Money From Bank Of America / Politics / Credit Crisis 2014
By: EWI
An excerpt from a new article by Terry Burnham, a former Harvard economics professor.
EWI's president Bob Prechter has been warning about the safety of the U.S. banking system for a while.
Enjoy this excerpt from a new article by Terry Burnham, a former Harvard economics professor, author of "Mean Genes" and "Mean Markets and Lizard Brains", who spoke at last year's Socionomics Summit in Atlanta.
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Monday, February 03, 2014
Behavioral Economics and Irrational Voters / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
Julian Adorney writes: The rise of behavioral economics has long been seen by statists as a body blow to libertarianism. By arguing that people are irrational consumers who are easily manipulated, behavioral economics seems to argue for state intervention to save us from ourselves. In his best-seller Predictably Irrational, behavioral economist Dan Ariely claims that irrational consumers invalidate arguments in favor of the free market, namely those that ague that free consumer choice leads to the most efficient and productive economy. Since consumers are irrational, Ariely claims, we need the government to step in and regulate the economy.
Monday, February 03, 2014
Inside the Bankster Settlements: Where All the Money Is Going / Politics / Banksters
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: Everyone wants to know where the billions of dollars big banks have forked over to bank regulators, the SEC, the CFTC, the FERC, and the Department of Justice ends up.
But, before I can tell you who's paid out what, the infractions they committed, and where that money ends up, I want to give you information that's critical in assessing your bank and your investments...
Just who is it that's looking out for your money?
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Monday, February 03, 2014
The Real State of the Union / Politics / US Economy
By: Andy_Sutton
Before anyone gets all bent out of shape, this is NOT going to be a political essay. To restate my position on the issue of politics, I couldn’t care less what group or party anyone belongs to, but rather, about how they do the job they were entrusted with doing. In my lifetime we’ve had but a few lawmakers who truly did their jobs with the trust and stewardship of their constituents in mind. That group grows fewer as we egress from the former America into this brave new world of offshoring, economic microcephalism, and blatant malfeasance.
Monday, February 03, 2014
Ron Paul on America's and the Continuing Al-Qaeda Threat / Politics / Al-Qeeda
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Appearing last week before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that he could not say the threat from al-Qaeda is any less today than it was ten years ago. It was a shocking admission. Does he mean that the trillions of dollars spent fighting the war on terrorism have resulted in no gains? That those who urged us to give up some of our liberties to gain security have, as Benjamin Franklin warned, lost both?
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Sunday, February 02, 2014
Who Wants Ukraine? / Politics / Eastern Europe
By: Andrew_McKillop
Stalin and Krushchev Wanted Ukraine
For most Europeans, Ukraine is a gas transport corridor for bringing overpriced Russian gas to Europe and Ukraine either overcharges Gazprom for gas transit fees, or does not pay Gazprom for the gas it takes for national consumption. This Russian-Ukrainian gas game occasionally tips into gas embargoes hitting consumers further down the line. As a geopolitical bargaining chip, conversely, Ukraine had considerable import and weight during the Cold War period which ended in 1989-91. Russia relatively quickly withdrew “nearly all” its nuclear-tipped missiles, atomic warheads and nuclear military equipment and component inventories from Ukraine, in the 1990s.
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Sunday, February 02, 2014
Israel’s Secret Nuclear Weapons Program / Politics / Israel
By: Stephen_Lendman
It’s an open secret. It’s been known for years. Mainstream media suppress it. They pretend none exists.
It’s real. It’s menacing. Imagine ignoring what threatens humanity. Imagine pretending Iran’s peaceful nuclear program does so. Imagine risking regional or global war by doing it.
London’s Guardian is an establishment broadsheet. It’s usually conformist. Once in a while it’s not.
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Sunday, February 02, 2014
Kill the Minimum Wage and Give Teens a Future / Politics / Employment
By: LewRockwell
G. Joseph McLiney writes: Business owners know when a product is not selling, regardless of whether it’s apples or automobiles, they must lower the price.
Sometimes they’re forced to cut it severely and take a loss. Most reasonable people would contend that it’s a right of the owner to sell his product at whatever level the owner determines is in his best interest.
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Peter Schiff on How The Daily Show Trapped Me / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: Peter_Schiff
When I accepted “The Daily Show”’s invitation to be interviewed about my opposition to a minimum wage increase, I knew that I was walking into a trap. But given how counterproductive I know such an increase would be to those the law proposes to help, I took the risk anyway.
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Sunday, February 02, 2014
Education: Transforming The Most Unscientific And Mismanaged Industry Into A Scientific, Competitive And Learner-Friendly Industry / Politics / Education
By: Dr_R_M_Mathew
The Lost Generation
Education is the most unscientific and mismanaged industry. For the ‘lost generation’ of the Global Economic Crisis, Education has become a necessary evil. Without education, one’s life is doomed; life is also doomed, if one goes for education, it turns everybody a life-long debtor or at least a debtor during the prime time of the youth. The steady decline of the quality, the increasing irrelevance and the exponential rise of the social and personal cost of education have been fermenting into political upheavals and revolutions worldwide.
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Sunday, February 02, 2014
Enough is Enough: Fraud-Ridden Banks Are Not L.A.’s Only Option / Politics / Banksters
By: Ellen_Brown
“Epic in scale, unprecedented in world history.” That is how William K. Black, professor of law and economics and former bank fraud investigator, describes the frauds in which JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has now been implicated. They involve more than a dozen felonies, including bid-rigging on municipal bond debt; colluding to rig interest rates on hundreds of trillions of dollars in mortgages, derivatives and other contracts; exposing investors to excessive risk; failing to disclose known risks, including those in the Bernie Madoff scandal; and engaging in multiple forms of mortgage fraud.
Sunday, February 02, 2014
The State of the States: Post-Bernanke Bellum / Politics / US Politics
By: Fred_Sheehan
One can almost imagine ex-chairman Bernanke shaking his head in disbelief. (For the record, I cannot conceive of Simple Ben possessing the capacity for what follows, so this is an indulgence in creative writing.):
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Saturday, February 01, 2014
Laundromat Banks Too Big To Fail / Politics / Banksters
By: Richard_Mills
Money laundering is the process by which illegally obtained cash is made to appear as if it has been obtained by legal means.
The following snippet is fromRobert Mazur's 'How to Halt the Terrorist Money Train' article that appeared in The New York Times:
"The House Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management issued a shocking report documenting the collaboration between Mexican and Colombian drug cartels and Hezbollah in narcotics and human trafficking, smuggling and financial crimes in the United States and Latin America -- a partnership that, in just the border region between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, produces an estimated $12 billion in cash each year.
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Friday, January 31, 2014
IRA Accounts - Whose Money Is It, Really? / Politics / US Politics
By: Jeff_Berwick
I don't usually watch the State of the Union address, but when I do, I hear something different than most everyone else. As I recall, the State of the Union Address went something like:
"My fellow Americans, things do not look too good for our collective future.
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Thursday, January 30, 2014
Prosperity for Main Street, NOT Wall Street - Video / Politics / Social Issues
By: Rudy_Avizius
The key reason that communities are struggling is the huge burden of interest payments that are flowing to the big banks. Think about this, if you buy a home for say $100,000 dollars, typically you will have paid $250,000 once the loan is paid off. This means the typical loan will incur $150,000 in interest charges.
The same concept applies when a community builds an infrastructure project such as school, road, bridge, sewer or other project. That $1 million dollar school could end up costing taxpayers in the community $2.5 million after interest charges.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Iraqi Government Threatens Action Against Kurds as Oil Exports Set to Begin / Politics / Iraq War
By: OilPrice_Com
Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Affairs firmly stated the central government will take action, "including fiscal measures," if Kurdistan begins exporting oil without coming to an agreement with Baghdad. The remarks came as Minister Hussain al-Shahristani spoke at a conference in London on January 28. The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) announced in mid-January that oil had begun to flow through a pipeline towards Turkey and that exports would officially start by the end of the month.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Politics, Gibraltar and British Sovereignty / Politics / European Union
By: John_Mauldin
By Grant Williams
Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory.
It has an area of 2.6 square miles and juts from the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, overlooking the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. Roughly 30,000 people live in the territory, whose sole distinguishing feature is the very large rock which runs along the eastern edge of the territory and culminates in a dramatic promontory in the northeastern corner.
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