Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Monday, January 27, 2014
Labour 50p Tax Rate Shows Labour Wants Every Street to Become Benefits Street / Politics / Taxes
The Labour party appears hell bent on putting the UK economy back into reverse gear, back to where it was during the worst economic collapse since the great depression, back to a state that had the annual budget deficit soaring towards £200 billion per year that manifested itself in an over 5% official inflation rate (Real 8%) as its primary strategy for winning elections is to bribe 80% of voters through means of benefits payments such as housing benefits and tax credits and thus have a vested interest in the expansion of Labours welfare state all the way towards an inevitable hyperinflationary collapse.
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Monday, January 27, 2014
America Is a Vast Slave and Prison Nation / Politics / US Politics
The US has a vastly greater proportion of people than any other nation in various stages and degrees of police and military confinement and state control. These vast government gulags–”prisons” and “labor camps” and confinement camps in Russian–in the U.S. range from death row absolute control, maximum security prisons, all the way down to juvenile detention camps, probation, parole, minimum security prison camps, indictments, trials, jails and so on.
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Monday, January 27, 2014
Every Week Should Be School Choice Week / Politics / Educating Children
National School Choice week takes place from January 26 to February 1, and during this week education freedom activists around the country will be participating in events highlighting the need for parental control of education. I wholeheartedly endorse National School Choice Week, as parental control of education is a prerequisite for a free and prosperous society.
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Sunday, January 26, 2014
Russia's Growing Military Power / Politics / Russia
Today, there is practically nothing left from the military-industrial complex of the USSR, which still strikes imagination of many historians around the world. The collapse of the Soviet military complex occurred after conversion and separation of the republics, where Soviet defense industry companies were located. Will Russia be able to bring back its erstwhile defense power?
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Sunday, January 26, 2014
Forget Goodfella's the NSA and CIA are the Real Crime Syndicate / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
David R. Hoffman writes: When I first started writing for Pravda.Ru over ten years ago, I thought I could help change the world. However, at some point, I cannot exactly say when, I lost this faith and writing simply became more of a catharsis and less about believing that my words would make a difference.
As this transformation occurred, I could not help but wonder how many other writers, musicians, artists, and activists endured the same experience.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Partition Ukraine to Prevent Civil War! / Politics / Eastern Europe
As violence and mayhem surge in Ukraine’s capitol, Kiev, fear is growing that Europe, the United States and Russia may be on a collision course.
Ukraine’s latest crisis began last November after Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign an economic cooperation/integration pact with the European Union. Instead, near bankrupt Kiev accepted a Russian offer to supply heavily discounted natural gas and a pledge to buy billions worth of its shaky bonds.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
The Infinite Elasticity of Credit – Redux / Politics / Credit Crisis 2014
I’ve told you that I intend to re-run pieces from the TAE archive from time to time. Today’s is from Nicole Foss, dated September 7, 2010. If possible, it’s only gained in relevance. Credit and debt are not just issues in the US, and not just at the present time either. History is full of credit/debt crises (1294 comes to mind), and so is the world today, as we can see with our w(e)ary eyes watching China and Argentina. The enormous debt bubble that has been blown on top of the one that already existed in 2008, and is being promoted as a cure against the latter, should only serve to remind us of the lessons of history, all the more. Here’s Nicole:
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Sunday, January 26, 2014
Healthcare has to be Earned / Politics / Health and Fitness
Healthcare. Should it be a right or should it be earned? Ask 99% of people and they will probably state it is a right for everyone within a developed nation. I'm the one percent. I believe healthcare needs to be earned. The crisis in healthcare within developed countries has not come about from the free market or a defunct laissez faire capitalist system. It has come about from years of Big Government. There is no crisis in the software and computer industry where costs are spiralling out of control with service quality in decline. The freedom of the human spirit and mind is the most powerful weapon to combat poverty. Abundant healthcare needs to be earned.
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Saturday, January 25, 2014
New Geopolitics of the Coming Global Asymmetric War / Politics / GeoPolitics
New and Old
Even the definition of “asymmetric war” is controversial, because it can concern at least three drivers and methods of conflict, usually between large organized fighting forces and the opposite. Firstly there is the political-economic or other motivation, second the tactics, and thirdly the weapons utilised in asymmetric war - which itself is usually defined by the negative. Some writers say the term was first used by Andrew J. Mack in a 1975 book titled “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars”. Some military historians conversely say asymmetric war dates from Antiquity, and included the surprise outcome of larger fighting forces losing an asymmetric war with smaller insurgent, militia, terrorist or tight knit politically motivated forces and entities in specific theaters of conflict.
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Friday, January 24, 2014
Geopolitics And World Power / Politics / GeoPolitics
Air power, Sea power, Land power
In a Dec 4, 2013 editorial, Bloomberg reported US military analysts saying that China's action to control the airspace around several small uninhabited islands and subsea rocks it claims “are only a prelude to more action”. They say China wants to enable wide-area cover for warships to operate along what China calls the First Island Chain. These lie across one of the two direct channels between China’s coast and the blue-water Pacific. Recent air-zone declarations by President Xi Jinping’s government show its determination to firstly obtain air supremacy, then move on to exerting maritime power, with a blue-water navy capable of operating across all deep oceans.
Friday, January 24, 2014
U.S.Congress working on 2014 Immigration Infrastructure / Politics / US Politics
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew spoke with Bloomberg Television's Tom Keene at the World Economic Forum in Davos today and said he's growing confident Congress will overhaul the nation's immigration system and invest in infrastructure this year, "We have policy differences and those policy differences are legitimate and you have to work your way through them. I'm modestly optimistic that Congress will now want to get things done, whether it's infrastructure or immigration reform, on the model of what they did on the budget."
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Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Are We Witnessing the End of Communist Party Rule in China? / Politics / China
The more I read about China, the more chaotic it seems to become, and the more I start to doubt the generally accepted notion that the Communist Party (+PBOC) is in control. If we accept that the politburo has little or no control of the shadow banking system, and that the latter is worth $5.86 trillion, or 69% of Chinese GDP, why would we still assume the politburo controls China’s economy and banking system?
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Wednesday, January 22, 2014
US Throws Imperial Temper Tantrum at UN Over Iran / Politics / Iran
Daniel McAdams writes: UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon had the temerity Monday to invite Iran to participate in the “Geneva II” conference on the ongoing crisis in Syria. Though one might believe Iran has a legitimate interest in a conflict right in its neighborhood, the US refused to allow Iran to participate unless its leadership agreed to the pre-condition that Assad must be driven from power. For the US, the result of the conference must be decided before the conference commences. It is Queen of Hearts diplomacy: sentence first, verdict afterward!
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Wednesday, January 22, 2014
How the Banksters Took Control / Politics / Banksters
The case was McCulloch v. Maryland (1819).
The legal issue: Could the state of Maryland tax the Second Bank of the United States? It was a private bank.
The issue, as stated by Chief Justice Marshall in a long, detailed decision, was this: Does the Constitution allow Congress to charter a bank? That was what Congress did in 1791: the [First] Bank of the United States. It was a central bank. Its charter lapsed in 1811.
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Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Ben Bernanke's Banksters Legacy / Politics / Banksters
With Ben Shalom Bernanke set to depart on the last day of January 2014, the critique and speculation of his tenure as Chairman of the Federal Reserve begins. The mainstream financial press is giving mostly favorable accounts. Heretofore, such praiseworthy acclamations strike a shape contrast with the actual record of the state of the economy. However, the admirers of the Fed and his specific enactments live in a time warp that only masters of the universe encounter. For the remaining population, an intense struggle for survival is the actual experience, remembered from the Bernanke years.
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Tuesday, January 21, 2014
The Global Plutocracy / Politics / Social Issues
Andre Damon writes: On the eve of the annual spectacle of parasitic wealth and power that is the World Economic Forum in the Alpine resort town of Davos, Switzerland, the Oxfam charity has issued a report warning of the unprecedented growth of social inequality throughout the world.
Describing a planet in the malevolent grip of handful of plutocrats, the report states that the richest 85 people in the world control as much wealth as the bottom fifty percent of the world’s population—3.5 billion people! It notes that the richest one percent today controls 46 percent of the world’s wealth. Oxfam writes: “The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion… 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.”
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Syrian Geopolitics Aka The Country That Never Existed / Politics / Syria
Stratfor's Deliberate Mix and Mingle
Writing for Stratfor, one of its leading analysts Reva Bhalla probably feels obliged to mix fact and fiction, news and opinions, to offer us a “deeper understanding” of the Syrian civil war. He for example kicked off his recent-published Stratfor Geopolitical Weekly article on Syria with the question of why, after the UN invited Iran to participate in the coming Jan 22 meeting in Switzerland, aimed at a possible settlement within rebel factions and between them and the Syrian regime of al-Assad, the Syrian rebel representatives could so quickly and successfully push for the Iran offer to be rescinded.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
What Does It Take to Be in the Top 1 Percent? Not As Much As You Think / Politics / Taxes
When you think of the top 1 percent of all income earners in American households, how much do you think this group rakes in? Millions? Tens of millions? What about the top 10 percent or even top 20 percent?You might be surprised to learn that the top 20 percent of income earners bring in a household income of just over $100,000. The top 10 percent of earners have a household income of more than $148,687. To be considered in the top 1 percent, household income is at least $521,411.
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Tuesday, January 21, 2014
The Deflation Menace Government Propaganda / Politics / Deflation
Dedicated readers of The Wall Street Journal have recently been offered many dire warnings about a clear and present danger that is stalking the global economy. They are not referring to a possible looming stock or real estate bubble (which you can find more on in my latest newsletter). Nor are they talking about other usual suspects such as global warming, peak oil, the Arab Spring, sovereign defaults, the breakup of the euro, Miley Cyrus, a nuclear Iran, or Obamacare. Instead they are warning about the horror that could result from falling prices, otherwise known as deflation. Get the kids into the basement Mom....they just marked down Cheerios!
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Tuesday, January 21, 2014
The Geopolitics of the Syrian Civil War / Politics / Syria
Reva Bhalla writes: International diplomats will gather Jan. 22 in the Swiss town of Montreux to hammer out a settlement designed to end Syria's three-year civil war. The conference, however, will be far removed from the reality on the Syrian battleground. Only days before the conference was scheduled to begin, a controversy threatened to engulf the proceedings after the United Nations invited Iran to participate, and Syrian rebel representatives successfully pushed for the offer to be rescinded. The inability to agree upon even who would be attending the negotiations is an inauspicious sign for a diplomatic effort that was never likely to prove very fruitful.
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