Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, June 05, 2013
Obama Warfare / Politics / US Politics
By: Jeff_Berwick
Redmond Weissenberger writes: Amid varying scandals in late May, President Obama gave a speech on foreign policy at the National Defense University (it's a dismaying sign when a university is dedicated to teaching the art of global war) highlighting his administration's goals when it comes to international conduct. Among flashing cameras and his handy teleprompter, Obama stressed the War on Terror will "come to an end at some point". He finally acknowledged his administration is responsible for the murder of four American citizens without due process - one of which was a sixteen year-old who committed no crime other than having a radicalized father. To top it off, the President assured the public he was going to enact strict measures so the vast killing authority he granted himself would not be abused by future Oval Office holders.
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Wednesday, June 05, 2013
Will Saudi Arabia Allow the U.S. Crude Oil Boom? / Politics / Crude Oil
By: OilPrice_Com
Technology, technology, and more technology--this is what has driven the American oil and gas boom starting in the Bakken and now being played out in the Gulf of Mexico revival, and new advances are coming online constantly. It's enough to rival the Saudis, if the Kingdom allows it to happen. Along with this boom come both promise and fear and a fast-paced regulatory environment that still needs to find the proper balance.
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
New Arab Spring Could Breed Chaos in the Energy Markets / Politics / Crude Oil
By: Money_Morning
Dr. Kent Moors writes: Investment opportunities in the energy markets always bounce between questions of available supply and prospects for demand.
These days many commentators in the U.S. are viewing excess domestic shale gas and tight oil as a factor in restraining energy prices. Meanwhile, their colleagues in Western Europe forecast continuing economic malaise, translating into a similar result.
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Tuesday, June 04, 2013
The Paradox of Imperialism / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: MISES
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
writes: The State
Conventionally, the state is defined as an agency with two unique characteristics. First, it is a compulsory territorial monopolist of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction). That is, it is the ultimate arbiter in every case of conflict, including conflicts involving itself. Second, the state is a territorial monopolist of taxation. That is, it is an agency that unilaterally fixes the price citizens must pay for its provision of law and order.
Predictably, if one can only appeal to the state for justice, justice will be perverted in favor of the state. Instead of resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision-making will provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. Worse, while the quality of justice will fall under monopolistic auspices, its price will rise. Motivated like everyone else by self-interest but equipped with the power to tax, the state agents' goal is always the same: to maximize income and minimize productive effort.
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Monday, June 03, 2013
Ron Paul - Iraq Collapse Shows Bankruptcy of American Interventionism / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
May was Iraq's deadliest month in nearly five years, with more than 1,000 dead - both civilians and security personnel -- in a rash of bombings, shootings and other violence. As we read each day of new horrors in Iraq, it becomes more obvious that the US invasion delivered none of the promised peace or stability that proponents of the attack promised.
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Monday, June 03, 2013
Bilderberg Authoritarianism Destroys Humanity / Politics / Conspiracy Theory
By: BATR
Knowing the accuracy of historical reality is difficult, but accepting the truth in that chronicle is almost impossible for most people to accept. This reluctance to deal with the stark and calculated obliteration of societal freedom is the ultimate curse of the human condition. The denial of the authoritarian plan by elites like the Bilderberg cabal is the equivalent of Satan's greatest lie, convincing us he does not exist. Well, the days of casting the smear of conspiracy over any reporting on the secret and hidden conclave of global manipulators, is officially over.
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Monday, June 03, 2013
Russia is The Greatest Threat to the Energy Markets / Politics / Energy Resources
By: Money_Morning
Dr. Kent Moors writes: As Yogi Berra aptly put it, It's deja vu all over again.
The Soviet gulag state is coming back and this time it could wreak havoc on the world's energy markets.
I began my energy career in Russia. Back then it was part of a sprawling Soviet Union. For the past 23 years there have been 15 independent countries in its place.
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Sunday, June 02, 2013
UK Soldier Killer Tipped Over the Edge by MI5, Collateral Murders in Iraq and Afghanistan / Politics / War on Terror
By: Global_Research
Margaret Kimberley writes: Two British-Nigerians frightened the great former colonial empire to death by nearly beheading a soldier, in London. Yet British and other western politicians have far more blood on their hands than the young Africans. “This killing was no more awful than those committed by the military from the U.S. or other NATO nations.”
Saturday, June 01, 2013
Welcome to the Electronic U.S. Concentration Camp / Politics / US Politics
By: Videos
In conjunction with the upcoming release of his new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, John W. Whitehead sits down to discuss several "pressure points" that are threatening the Bill of Rights and undermining our essential freedoms. In part four of this special series, Whitehead examines the collusion between corporations and government officials in erecting a system of mass surveillance aimed at all Americans.
Saturday, June 01, 2013
The Middle Eastern Perpetual War Syndrome / Politics / Middle East
By: Andrew_McKillop
THE DEAD HAND OF TRADITION
While the US fixation with Muslim Terror, or homegrown terror, in fact any kind of terror can be said to have been ratcheted up to its current extremes from about 2000, Shia-Sunnin terror war has a long pedigree. Inside Shia majority countries, or in Shia areas of Sunni countries, Shia Muslims are obsessed with Sunni aggression, exclusion, or "cultural racism". The exact opposite also works for Sunni majority countries and regions of Shia countries. The fixation with the past is total.
Saturday, June 01, 2013
Escaping from the United States Gulag / Politics / US Politics
By: David_Galland
Argentines have a phrase, "mi lugar," for when you find your special place in this world – the perfect combination of place and people that entirely suits your nature. The phrase translates simply as "my place."
I was very fortunate in my early thirties to be able to spend three years on a quest for paradise on earth, visiting pretty much every country I thought might be a suitable candidate. It turns out, in hindsight, what I was really looking for was not paradise, but mi lugar.
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Friday, May 31, 2013
Eurozone Debt Crisis Exposes What EU Leaders Fear Most / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes: European Union leaders have seemingly changed their tune lately on how best to deal with the long-running Eurozone debt crisis.
Increasingly, EU politicians have been sounding the theme that economic growth - not Eurozone austerity - is the answer, and that deadlines set for reductions in public spending needed to be loosened.
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Thursday, May 30, 2013
The Rise and Fall of the U.S. Dollar / Politics / US Dollar
By: Mark_Thornton
Over the last century America’s money—the dollar—has come to dominate the global monetary system. It is used not just by Americans, but in other countries, in the global black market, and by importers and exporters. And it is the primary reserve currency for central banks. This status is what Barry Eichengreen calls an “exorbitant privilege,” because it confers numerous benefits to individuals, companies, and governments. Collectively, it also confers the ability for Americans to consume beyond our ability to produce.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
How Big Corporations Are Destroying the "Free Market" / Politics / Corporate News
By: Money_Morning
Garrett Baldwin writes:
As an economist, I wince whenever I hear someone say that we live in a true free market.
The reality is we live in a semi-free market where regulation stifles business and corporate money influences and distorts what would normally be a highly competitive marketplace.
And over the last two decades, the situation has only gotten worse for consumers, producers, and defenders of the so-called "free market."
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Wednesday, May 29, 2013
The Real Reason Governments Are Killing Financial Privacy / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Casey_Research
By Nick Giambruno, Editor, International Man writes: At the latest G-20 meeting, central bankers, finance ministers, and an assortment of other central planners touted what they hoped would be a new "global standard" of the automatic sharing of financial information.
The US has taken the lead with the odious FATCA law, and the EU has followed suit with its own version. Through FATCA and other measures, both governments are aggressively seeking new ways to undermine financial privacy.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Why Higher Education Can Be the Worst Investment Ever / Politics / Student Finances
By: Money_Morning
Tara Clarke writes: Benjamin Franklin once said, "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."
But nowadays, you would have to be delusional to assume that an investment in higher education will definitely pay off.
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Monday, May 27, 2013
U.S. Government Of, By, and For The Banks / Politics / Banksters
By: Global_Research
Andre Damon writes: Five years since the 2008 financial meltdown, the speculation and fraud that caused the crash are back in full force in the United States. Flush with the $85 billion in cash printed up and handed to the banks every month by the Federal Reserve, business at the Wall Street casino is booming. Stock values are at record levels and so are bank profits, amidst declining wages and mass poverty.
Monday, May 27, 2013
America's Global Gulag, Congressional Resistance against Presidential Despotism / Politics / US Politics
By: BATR
The authoritarian arrogance of the executive branch is defined by their tyrannical decrees. As any reader of BREAKING ALL THE RULES commentary, knows all too well, the dictatorship of central planning and unlawful administration has hijacked our federalist form of a constitutional republic. The primacy of the legislature over the executive branch was always the intent of our founding fathers. Unfortunately, the exact reverse has taken hold in the den of inequity that holds court in Washington, DC.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Dumbing Down of U.S. Public School Curriculum / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
In addition to shredding civil liberties, launching a utopian global war for democracy, and going on a spending spree that would make LBJ blush, the so-called "conservative" Bush administration dramatically increased federal control over education via the "No Child Left Behind" act. During my time in Congress I heard nothing but complaints about this law from teachers, administrators, and, most importantly, students and parents. Most of the complaints concerned No Child Left Behind's testing requirements, which encouraged educators to "teach to the test."
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Sunday, May 26, 2013
An Even Deadlier Disaster than Bangladesh Garment Factory Collapse for the Third World / Politics / Unemployment
By: George_Reisman
The recent collapse of a garment factory building in Bangladesh, resulting in the death, at latest count, of more than 1,100 workers who were employed there, has led to international outrage not only against the building’s owner but also against the various retailers in the United States and Europe, many of them prominent, that have sold clothing produced in that building. It is demanded that they assume responsibility for working conditions in the factories that supply them and not deal with factories that do not provide safe and humane conditions and pay fair wages.
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