Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, November 25, 2013
The Latest from RBS, the Royal Bank of Crooks / Politics / Banksters
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: The Royal Bank of Scotland, a huge lender to small- and medium-sized businesses in the U.K. and Europe, is being accused of undermining the businesses it lends to.
Not that this would ever happen in the United States…
Apparently, the too-big-to-fail British bank further stresses borrowers by layering on fees when businesses can least afford them. This can trigger covenants that allow the bank to actually dismantle the borrower, to the benefit of advisors who have less than an arm’s length relationship with the bank.
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Monday, November 25, 2013
Quantitative Easing is Ben's Rocket to Nowhere / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Peter_Schiff
Herd mentality can be as frustrating as it is inexplicable. Once a crowd starts moving, momentum can be all that matters and clear signs and warnings are often totally ignored. Financial markets are currently following this pattern with respect to the unshakable belief that the Federal Reserve is ready, willing, and most importantly, able, to immediately execute a wind down of its quantitative easing program. How this notion became so deeply entrenched is a mystery, but the stampede it has sparked is getting more violent, and irrational, by the day.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Iran Nuclear Disaster – For Overpriced Crude Oil / Politics / Nuclear Weapons
By: Andrew_McKillop
IRAN NUCLEAR – ISRAEL NUCLEAR
Alongside Gulf state leaderships and their official news outlets, Israel's Benyamin Netanyahu reacted with fury to the Iran nuclear sanctions-unwinding deal made in Geneva, 24 November. He fulminated: "What was concluded in Geneva last night is not a historic agreement, it's a historic mistake," adding "It's not made the world a safer place. Like the agreement with North Korea in 2005, this agreement has made the world a much more dangerous place".
Monday, November 25, 2013
Can Karzai Save America from Afghanistan? / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
After a year of talks over the post-2014 US military presence in Afghanistan, the US administration announced last week that a new agreement had finally been reached. Under the deal worked out with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the US would keep thousands of troops on nine military bases for at least the next ten years.
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Monday, November 25, 2013
Pay Day Loans Judgement Day - Could Interest Rate Cap Trigger Ponzi Debt Industry Collapse? / Politics / Debt & Loans
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The government and FCA regulator are finally starting to get their act together concerning the legalised loan sharks that comes perhaps as long as a decade too late for many victims of the Pay Day Loans industry that entices usually inexperienced and desperate borrowers to get into debt at rates of interest that ensure that rolled over debts will soon multiply to many times the original sum borrowed.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Euro-zone Bashing Germany For Successful Economy, Game of Thrones – European Style / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: John_Mauldin
In 2009-10 it seemed like this letter was all Europe all the time. There was a never-ending crisis from one corner of the Continent to the other. That time seems to have slowly faded from our collective consciousness, but the Eurozone crisis is not over, and it will not end quickly or soon. Even if it seems to unfold in slow motion – like the slow build-up in a Game of Thrones storyline to violent internecine clashes followed by more slow plot developments but never any real resolution, the Eurozone debacle has never really gone away. The structural imbalances have still not been fixed; politicians and central bankers have still not agreed to solve major fiscal problems; the overall economy still disintegrates; unemployment is staggeringly high in some countries and still rising; and the people are growing restless.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Social Security - The Most Successful Ponzi Scheme in History / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
Gary Galles writes: “We paid our Social Security and Medicare taxes; we earned our benefits.” It is that belief among senior citizens that President Obama was pandering to when, in his second inaugural address, he claimed that those programs “strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers.”
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Iran Nuclear Deal in Geneva: Uranium Enrichment Halted or Continuing? / Politics / Nuclear Weapons
By: Stephen_Lendman
A previous article asked if it matters? Longstanding hardline US/Israeli policy won't change.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
The JFK Conspiracy Theory Paradox / Politics / Conspiracy Theory
By: Robert_Singer
The assassination of the President of the United States on national television by the “lone” assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald—who according to authorities used an obsolete bolt-action WWI rifle that was not capable of firing bullets fast enough to wound John F. Kennedy—who is then assassinated the next day by another “lone” assassin, is so stupid that whoever is behind the assassination didn’t expect you to believe it.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Iran Nuclear Deal Details - Will NOT Stop Iranian Nuclear Weapons Programme / Politics / Nuclear Weapons
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Whilst many politicians can be seen busily congratulating themselves in the mainstream press over the interim Iran nuclear deal, which first seeks to freeze and then dismantle parts of Iran's nuclear weapons programme, which if true would amount to great news as it would ultimately imply one less nation with its finger on the trigger of armageddon.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
The Money Changers Serenade: Bankers New Plot to Steal Your Deposits / Politics / Banksters
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a protege of Treasury Secretaries Rubin and Summers, has received his reward for continuing the Rubin-Summers-Paulson policy of supporting the “banks too big to fail” at the expense of the economy and American people. For his service to the handful of gigantic banks, whose existence attests to the fact that the Anti-Trust Act is a dead-letter law, Geithner has been appointed president and managing director of the private equity firm, Warburg Pincus and is on his way to his fortune.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
The 1961 JFK Speech that Kicked the American Dream into High Gear / Politics / US Politics
By: Submissions
Katherine Smith writes: Our American dream of shopping for useless toxic stuff, an environmental nightmare, went into high gear after JFK was killed in 1963.
Would the planet be at serious risk, according to a massive United Nations Environmental Report, due to “the dangers of climate change, water scarcity, dwindling fish stocks and the pressures on the land and the extinction of species,” had John F. Kennedy not been assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963.
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Saturday, November 23, 2013
Drone Wars, Nuclear Weapons and the End Time Prophecy Triggering Armageddon - Video / Politics / Nuclear Weapons
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The middle east is soaked in blood, religious End Time prophecies and is fast gathering the means to bring about Armageddon as several more states are on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities.
The Drone war over Pakistan is encouraging stronger alliances with fellow Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia that is reported to have several Pakistani nuclear weapons on order and ready to be dispatched on request to counter both Israeli and Iranian threats, that itself despite much propaganda is engaged in a nuclear weapons programme to rival that of both Pakistan and Israel (120 nuclear weapons each). The region appears to be counting down towards Armageddon when the region and its prophecies will be vaporised for eternity.
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Friday, November 22, 2013
The Federal Reserve's Expanding Omniscience / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Fred_Sheehan
Following is an expanded version of a speech delivered for With Integrity Financial: "Securities and Advisory Services offered through Commonwealth Financial Network, a Member FINRA/SIPC, a Registered Investment Adviser."
The Federal Reserve System is approaching its one hundredth anniversary, a period often dubbed the American Century. The Fed played its part in making it so, which has been characterized by expansion and inflation. The inflation has not been solely in money. We might consider if monetary inflation followed the inflated tendencies of Americans.
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Friday, November 22, 2013
Rob Ford, Mayor of Toronto. Has anyone in the media looked at his policies? / Politics / Canada
By: Jonathan_Davis
Something has niggled me about the Rob Ford story, without coming to my consciousness until now.
I saw a media bod tweeting about him pejoratively. HAHA How funny. What a laughing stock Ford is etc
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Friday, November 22, 2013
Larry Summers - History Will Overwhelmingly Approve QE / Politics / Quantitative Easing
By: Bloomberg
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told Bloomberg Television's Stephanie Ruhle at the Robin Hood Investors Conference today that the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing program was the right call for the economy. Summers said, "On the question of whether the Fed stepping up and providing liquidity when no one else would was the right thing to do, I think historians are going to judge that about 98 to 2."
Summers also said that the economy lately hasn't shown an ability to grow without bubbles, saying, "It has been a long time since we have had rapid, healthy growth in the country...That is not an argument for bubbles. That is an argument for changing the framework."
Thursday, November 21, 2013
The Tragic Truth Behind JPMorgan’s $13 Billion “Fine” / Politics / Banksters
By: Money_Morning
Kdowdle writes: Let’s address two tragedies today.
The first is how Jamie Dimon & Co. and all the guilty big banks get away with murder.
The second is something I want to share with you because 50 years ago tomorrow, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated. It isn’t a conspiracy theory about who did it, but a likely theory about what happened and the conspiracy to cover that up.
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Thursday, November 21, 2013
Did An Obscure IMF Document Start Global Bail-In Revolution? / Politics / Credit Crisis 2013
By: Dan_Amerman
When revolutions start, it's not uncommon for almost nobody to notice. It may take years or even decades before historians can look back, point a finger and say "that's where it really began."
An obscure International Monetary Fund "Staff Discussion Note" may have already started a "Bail-In" financial revolution that could transform the global investment world.
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Thursday, November 21, 2013
No Alternative World And The Post-Crash Revolt / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
JP MORGAN AND THE STATISTS
The “monster fine” to be paid by JP Morgan for what Eric Holder, the US Attorney General said himself, in an interview with NBC News, was the bank's direct role in the biggest world financial crisis since the Great Depression had little or no impact on investor sentiment. News of the fine produced a small uptick in JP Morgan shares as investors shrugged off the news of the bank's headline $13 billion settlement with the raft of lawsuits by the Federal Justice Department, State justice departments, and other federal agencies. Barry Grey http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article43212.html cited a report from Reuters explaining the penalty is tax deductible. The news agency quoted Gregg Polsky, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, as saying what the bank will actually pay as fines would effectively be reduced by $4 billion.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Grand Theft Pentagon, Massive Waste and Fraud / Politics / US Military
By: Stephen_Lendman
Longstanding Pentagon operations reflect a black hole of unaccountability. Reuters published a two-part report. In July, it discussed the Defense Department’s “payroll quagmire.”
It’s bureaucracy is stifling. It’s “unyielding,” said Reuters. Active duty and retired military personnel are routinely cheated. Pay errors are widespread.