Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, October 14, 2013
The Illusion of Freedom - Democracy, Religion, Science and Propaganda / Politics / Social Issues
By: Nadeem_Walayat
This is my latest article in the housing bull markets series which directly seeks to continue on from analysis of August 2013 (Peak Evolution - Benefits Culture, Shrinking Brains, Are Human's De-Evolving? ) which examined the change in humans from 10,000 years from hunter gathers to farmers, during which time humans have been on a de-evolving trend trajectory as evidenced by shrinking brain size, physical and genetic robustness as a consequence of the end of natural selection amongst many other indicators which in recent times has accelerated as a consequence of both technological advances and welfare state systems which favour survival of the weakest in every capacity over that of the strongest as today the least successful genes are encouraged to out reproduce the more successful / productive genes into a population of humans that is more subservient and less adapted to survival than that which proceeded it, which as I touched upon in my earlier article that just as the past 10,000 years seen the domestication of many animals such as cattle, sheep and chickens, so have human's effectively been domesticated by the various ruling elite's at the time into highly docile and compliant population's in the service of the ruling elite's of each society which enables a small ruling elite to relatively easily manage an every increasing mass of slaves to their advantage.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Israel’s Dangerous Path / Politics / Israel
By: Washingtons_Blog
There are two kinds of countries or societies or places to live. In the first kind, decent, fair, kind, and respectful treatment of every person takes precedent over anyone’s preferences for how a culture changes or how much effort is expended trying to slow the change of a culture, or which cultures mix with each other, or which groups intermarry. In this first type of society — admittedly a nonexistent ideal — people identify with humanity and welcome any member of humanity into their group of associates, their neighborhood, and their family. Desire to keep some corner of the globe inhabited by people with a particular skin color or language isn’t just slightly outweighed by diligent observance of individuals’ rights. Instead, such sectarian or tribal desire doesn’t exist. And its absence leaves room for concern over war, environmental destruction, hunger, poor healthcare, illiteracy, and all sorts of problems not involving the exclusion of some people from a group.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
U.S. Government Shutdown, Debt Default a Dress Rehearsal for Privatization of Federal State System? / Politics / US Politics
By: Michel_Chossudovsky
The “shutdown” of the US government and the financial climax associated with a deadline date, leading to a possible “debt default” of the federal government is a money making undertaking for Wall Street.
Several overlapping political and economic agendas are unfolding. Is the shutdown –implying the furloughing of tens of thousands of public employees– a dress rehearsal for the eventual privatization of important components of the federal State system?
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Saturday, October 12, 2013
IMF Proposing 10% Supertax Bail-in On All Eurozone Household Savings / Politics / Banksters
By: Raul_I_Meijer
This is a story that should raise an eyebrow or two on every single face in Europe, and beyond. I saw the first bits of it on a Belgian site named Express.be, whose writers in turn had stumbled upon an article in French newspaper Le Figaro, whose writer Jean-Pierre Robin had leafed through a brand new IMF report (yes, there are certain linguistic advantages in being Dutch, Canadian AND Québecois). In the report, the IMF talks about a proposal to tax everybody's savings, in the Eurozone. Looks like they just need to figure out by how much.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
There Is Life after Debt Default / Politics / Global Debt Crisis 2013
By: Peter_G_Klein
In following the debates over raising the US debt ceiling, I’m struck by the frequent claim that defaulting on public debt is unthinkable because of the “signal” that would send. If you can’t rely on the T-bill, what can you rely on? Debt instruments backed by the “full faith and credit” of the United States are supposed to be risk-free — almost magically so — somehow transcending the vagaries of ordinary debt markets. The Treasury bill, in other words, has become a myth and symbol, just like the US Constitution.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Nobel Peace Prize CIA, MI6, Mossad, Pentagon, BBC, NYT Propaganda Fog / Politics / Propaganda
By: LewRockwell
Finian Cunningham: writes:
The Nobel Peace Prize should be renamed the Nobel Propaganda Prize, after this year’s ever-so contrived award to the UN-approved chemical weapons team sent to disarm Syria.
Other dubious winners of the “illustrious” prize include the accused war criminal, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who oversaw the genocidal carpet-bombing of Indochina during the 1970s.
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Saturday, October 12, 2013
The Fed Could Simply CANCEL $2 Trillion of U.S. Government Debt / Politics / US Debt
By: Washingtons_Blog
Bipartisan Proposal Would Substantially Reduce Budget Crisis
Congressman Alan Grayson and former congressman Ron Paul are two of the fiercest warriors against an out-of-control Federal Reserve.
Paul has campaigned to dissolve the Fed for 35 years, and wrote an entire book called “End the Fed“. Grayson has repeatedly slammed the Fed, and absolutely demolished it … to its face. Paul and Grayson also co-sponsored a bill to audit the Federal Reserve. (Their desire to rein in the Fed is supported by numerous top economists.)
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Saturday, October 12, 2013
Fracking - An Unconventional Poisoning / Politics / Fracking
By: Richard_Mills
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as it's more commonly referred to, is used to stimulate the production of oil and gas from unconventional oil and gas deposits - shales, coalbeds, and tight sands. These types of deposits need to be stimulated because they have a lower permeability than conventional reservoirs and require the additional stimulation for production.
Friday, October 11, 2013
My Antidote to the Dirty Obamacare Pill / Politics / US Politics
By: Don_Miller
I wish I never had to write this article, but I cannot put it off any longer. There are life-threatening secrets you need to know today.
In the fall of 2009, my wife Jo and I went to a town hall meeting in Illinois. The guest speaker was a member of the House of Representatives who served on the committee putting together the law now known as Obamacare. The Congressman stood next to a draft of the bill and answered our questions by reading straight from the text. Most of us left terrified, hoping the bill would never pass.
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Friday, October 11, 2013
Janet Yellen as Loose as a Goose / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Fred_Sheehan
President Obama's nomination of Janet Yellen is not unexpected. Nevertheless, it is greeted here with unrequited abjection. Unless the world's financial hocus-pocus comes unglued between now and then, she will inflate electronic money accounts without compunction. By doing so, Yellen will make matters worse (a sampling: real incomes will fall further, the gap between the rich and the poor will increase). She will redefine an acceptable inflation rate at 4.0%. Currently, the Fed is gunning for 2.0% inflation. This will be part and parcel to Yellen's attempt to drive interest rates down at all maturities. The objective will grow harder so require larger electronic deposits. She will beget looser money and a more destructive policy than Ben Bernanke's: a -4.0% real rate of interest.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Republican Party Debt Ceiling Delusions / Politics / US Debt
By: Peter_Schiff
The popular take on the current debt ceiling stand-off is that the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party has a delusional belief that it can hit the brakes on new debt creation without bringing on an economic catastrophe. While Republicans are indeed kidding themselves if they believe that their actions will not unleash deep economic turmoil, there are much deeper and more significant delusions on the other side of the aisle. Democrats, and the President in particular, believe that continually taking on more debt to pay existing debt is a more responsible course of action. Even worse, they appear to believe that debt accumulation is the equivalent of economic growth.
Friday, October 11, 2013
U.S. Debt Ceiling Political Economic Blood Sport / Politics / US Debt
By: Ty_Andros
In what is BECOMING the deadliest game of CHICKEN since the August 2011 US debt ceiling Showdown, we are at the doorstep of part II. In a game of chicken, two cars rush headlong towards each other to see who veers off first. Occasionally, neither driver does and both parties perish in the collision. Usually, it is just the drivers who pass away from their imprudence; in this case it will be the spectators. Just like children playing with FIRE who BURN the HOUSE down. Blood sport of the worst sort.
I have commented a number of times that since 2008 elected veto-proof majorities, the implementation of socialism went into HYPERDRIVE during the 2008 to 2010 period. The affordable care act was, and has been, the dream of socialists since 1945.
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Thursday, October 10, 2013
Ron Paul - The End of U.S. Dollar Hegemony / Politics / US Politics
By: Casey_Research
By Nick Giambruno, Editor, International Man:
I spent the past weekend in Tucson for the Casey Research 2013 Summit, indeed a memorable and information-packed experience. It was truly a pleasure to meet with everyone who joined us.
Notably, it was extremely encouraging to meet so many intelligent people who had taken concrete steps to internationalize their savings and obtain a second passport—and thus reducing their exposure to whatever happens in their home countries.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Bail In's the New Meachnisms for Stealing Private Wealth / Politics / Banksters
By: Dan_Amerman
A new method of taking private sector wealth has been spreading around the world this year. This mechanism is called a "bail in", and it is based on the premise that there are certain entities which are too important for the well-being of the general public to allow them to go into bankruptcy or to be liquidated.
The new "twist" is that the entity – which could be a major bank, or it could be the public retirement system for an entire country – is not bailed out through using outside funds from the general public, even though the protection of the general public is the reason for the intervention. Instead, funds are taken from the inside, on an involuntary basis, from selected classes of private sector investors who are judged as having the ability to pay, and the costs of maintaining the viability of this entity for the "greater good" are thereby concentrated in a small part of the private sector.
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Thursday, October 10, 2013
U.S. Debt Default? The Perversion of the Constitution / Politics / US Debt
By: John_Mauldin
David Kotok, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Cumberland Advisors (and our host at "Camp Kotok" for the annual "Shadow Fed" fishing expedition), leads off today's Outside the Box by meticulously dissecting the roadkill that is our federal government's process for deciding whether they will continue to pay their bills and federal employees' wages.
Will the US default? David doesn't think so, and neither do I; but oh, the foolishness, even to tempt the economic fates (read: the markets) this way. David notes that global investors think differently about US default risk than we US-centric types do. Well, David Zervos is with me here at Barefoot, and we just heard that one foreign prime broker (and now maybe two?) is calling hedge funds to say they will not take short-term T-bills as collateral and will mark T-bills down to zero in the event of an actual default. The ultimate risk-free asset is now full of risk? REALLY? This is an unthinkable event. This broker is a Primary Dealer, and I assume they will very shortly get some irate phone calls; but these things start with one bank and then it turns into a herd.
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Wednesday, October 09, 2013
U.S. Global Torture Black Sites / Politics / War on Terror
By: Stephen_Lendman
On October 5, US Delta Force commandos, CIA operatives, and FBI agents abducted Abu Anas al-Liby. Doing so highlights what’s been out-of-control since 9/11.
In the 1980s, al-Liby was one of many CIA-recruited mujahideen fighters. They were used against Afghanistan’s Soviet occupiers.
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Wednesday, October 09, 2013
Janet Yellen the Right choice for the Fed / Politics / US Federal Reserve Bank
By: Bloomberg
Former President Bush top economist and current Chairman of the Economics department at Harvard University, Greg Mankiw joined Bloomberg Television’s Erik Schatzker and Scarlet Fu on “Market Makers” today and said he agreed with Republicans who say that as long as we pay off interest, we won’t be in a default.
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Gordon Gecko Moved To London To Finish Where He Left Off / Politics / UK Politics
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Last week I saw a headline in the Daily Telegraph that got me thinking. It encapsulates a lot of what poses as philosophy in our world today, as a valid way of thinking and a relevant approach to all the crises we live through simultaneously at the moment. One which, when you look longer and closer, appears at least at first glance to lack all philosophical value - since it doesn't actually weigh any pros and cons -, and turns out to be a rehash of a hodge-podge of the very failed old theories that have led us into our crises.
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
The Roots of the U.S. Government Shutdown / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
In general, Stratfor deals with U.S. domestic politics only to the extent that it affects international affairs. Certainly, this topic has been argued and analyzed extensively. Nevertheless, the shutdown of the American government is a topic that must be understood from our point of view, because it raises the issue of whether the leading global power is involved in a political crisis so profound that it is both losing its internal cohesion and the capacity to govern. If that were so, it would mean the United States would not be able to act in global affairs, and that in turn would mean that the international system would undergo a profound change. I am not interested in the debate over who is right. I am, however, interested in the question of what caused this shutdown, and ultimately what it tells us about the U.S. capacity to act.
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Will Russia Survive U.S. Debt Default? / Politics / Global Debt Crisis 2013
By: Pravda
U.S. President Barack Obama said that the conservative wing of the Republican Party could lead the U.S. to a default on public debt. Experts agree that this is an internal political crisis, but it will affect the countries that have invested in U.S. Treasuries. Since 2009 Russia has been consistently reducing the share of this investment in its state currency reserves.
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