Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
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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Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Great Healthcare Fraud - Defend Your Life / Politics / Healthcare Sector
By: Don_Miller
It's all too easy to get lost in the misinformation and politicking surrounding Obamacare. Dr. Vliet, an independent physician and the past director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (whom I had the good fortune to meet when she spoke at the last Casey Summit) graciously agreed to sit down and clear the fog shrouding the new healthcare law for us. A warm thank you to Dr. Vliet for carving out time in her busy schedule to chat with us today.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Ukraine Protests Perspectives / Politics / Eastern Europe
By: Michael_T_Bucci
A reply given me by an Obama loyalist - a neighbor - several weeks ago could have been a replay of a reply given me in 2008 and 2012 when I warned Progressives and Democrats that Mr. Obama was not the person he pretended to be, nor the president they projected him to be. "He's disappointing, but he's still better than the opposition," quipped the loyalist.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Democracy was Won by the Few for the Many / Politics / US Politics
By: Michael_T_Bucci
A reply given me by an Obama loyalist - a neighbor - several weeks ago could have been a replay of a reply given me in 2008 and 2012 when I warned Progressives and Democrats that Mr. Obama was not the person he pretended to be, nor the president they projected him to be. "He's disappointing, but he's still better than the opposition," quipped the loyalist.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
America's Empire of Drones and Robots / Politics / US Military
By: BATR
Is there any doubt that America’s foreign policy, based upon maintaining a global empire, actually makes us less safe? The misgiving is that such intercession has any actual benefits to the citizens of the country. What once was a respected leadership role of non-interventionism in international affairs, has become a dominating imperium for worldwide control and subjugation. Exporting the "land of the free" is a myth, especially when domestic freedom is a dying memory. Internationalists tell us that military and surveillance drone technology promises enhanced security, with little concern for collateral damage or loss of innocent life. However, the facts do not bear out such claims.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Labour 50p Tax Rate Shows Labour Wants Every Street to Become Benefits Street / Politics / Taxes
By: Nadeem_Walayat
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.
Monday, January 27, 2014
America Is a Vast Slave and Prison Nation / Politics / US Politics
By: Jack_D_Douglas
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
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
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
By: Pravda
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?
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Forget Goodfella's the NSA and CIA are the Real Crime Syndicate / Politics / Intelligence Agencies
By: Pravda
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
By: LewRockwell
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
By: Raul_I_Meijer
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:
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Healthcare has to be Earned / Politics / Health and Fitness
By: Phill_Tomlinson
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.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
New Geopolitics of the Coming Global Asymmetric War / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Andrew_McKillop
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
By: Andrew_McKillop
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
By: Bloomberg
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."
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Are We Witnessing the End of Communist Party Rule in China? / Politics / China
By: Raul_I_Meijer
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?
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
US Throws Imperial Temper Tantrum at UN Over Iran / Politics / Iran
By: LewRockwell
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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