Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Retirement Crisis, the Demise of Global Pension Plans / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: Raul_I_Meijer
We have been saying for a long time that anyone in the western world who's 10-15 years away from collecting their first pension payments, shouldn't expect to get much, if anything, when the time comes. This is because, obviously, the economy has deteriorated as much as it has. It's also because, in essence, pensions plans are the ultimate Ponzi schemes.
What doesn't help are the central bank and government policies that are in fashion today that are based on pushing interest rates about as low as they can get.
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Monday, August 27, 2012
The Purpose of Market Intervention / Politics / Market Manipulation
By: Alasdair_Macleod
Interventions in markets by governments and central banks are routine and we take them for granted. No one questions them, but they can create dangerous distortions. Their reason for intervening is to take price determination away from markets and consumers.
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Monday, August 27, 2012
What the FED Should Do Now / Politics / Central Banks
By: Alasdair_Macleod
The last time I "advised" the FED on what to do was on Feb. 6, 2012. I "told" Ben not to do QE3, and he didn’t. Instead, he did Operation Twist. This was the second one of its type. The first Operation Twist occurred in 1961. The Twist is an attempt by the FED to alter the shape of the bond yield curve. It really doesn’t succeed. Considering the huge size of the debt market and the arbitrage that occurs along the spectrum of bonds of different maturities, it’s hardly to be expected that the FED is even capable of altering the yield curve in any economically significant manner. Most of the FOMC and its staff knew it would be futile (or should have known), because the research on the effect of the 1961 operation concluded that it did very little and accomplished nothing. This didn’t stop them in 2012. Why do something so futile? My guess is they wanted to throw some kind of a bone to those who were urging the FED to do more, including some on the FOMC itself. They had little to lose and something to gain, which was to buy time and give the appearance of acting.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Dancing on the Grave of the Keynesian Economic System / Politics / Economic Theory
By: Gary_North
The collapse of the Soviet Union in December of 1991 was the best news of my lifetime. The monster died. It was not just that the USSR went down. The entire mythology of revolutionary violence as the method of social regeneration, promoted since the French Revolution, went down with it. As I wrote in my 1968 book, Marxism was a religion of revolution, and Marxism died institutionally in the last month of 1991.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Can the War Israel Wants With Iran Be Averted? / Politics / Iran
By: Danny_Schechter
For more than a year now, the drums of war emanating from Israel have become louder and louder with weekly news leaks, and threats including the disclosure of alleged attack plans. The whole exercise seems designed to create a sense of alarm and inevitability.
These warnings have been amplified by statements by American politicians that seem to be occurring with greater frequency.
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Sunday, August 26, 2012
The Olympics, Comparative Advantage, Competition and the Value of Winning / Politics / Social Issues
By: MISES
Gary M. Galles writes: We have just finished our quadrennial search for who is the very best in the world in a dizzying array of sports. We discovered who was absolutely the best at a given time, under the same circumstances, even if it was by a fraction of an inch or a hundredth of a second. But, especially in those photo finishes that provided audiences so many thrills, it seemed that the differences in rewards (gold versus silver medal, bronze medal versus off the medal stand, making the team or the finals versus just missing them, etc.) were far greater than the often small differences in performance.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
America’s Descent Into Poverty / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
The United States has collapsed economically, socially, politically, legally, constitutionally, environmentally, and morally. The country that exists today is not even a shell of the country into which I was born. In this article I will deal with America’s economic collapse. In subsequent articles, i will deal with other aspects of American collapse.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
The US Dollar, the World's Controller / Politics / US Dollar
By: Pravda
The administration of Britain's Standard Chartered Bank has been accused of violating U.S. laws this week. The bank allegedly concealed illegal operations with Iranian financial institutions in circumvention of U.S. sanctions against Tehran. How can one accuse a non-US company of violating U.S. law? It can be possible due to the use of dollars in settlements.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Inventing an Iranian Threat / Politics / US Politics
By: Stephen_Lendman
Iran threatens no one. Western and Israeli leaders know it. So do over 100 Non-Aligned Movement countries coming to Tehran. They'll be there from August 26 - 31. They'll participate in NAM's 16th summit.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
America Goes Fundamentalist / Politics / US Politics
By: Andrew_McKillop
The unfunny thing is that it was fundamentalist, already. The Todd Akin's definition of "legal rape", the death of Neil Armstrong removing an ikonic symbol of American technological prowess, and a recurring spate of gory killings have all been given the usual mix-and-mingle media treatment to tweak out the most sensational fundamentalist themes, to a backdrop of news from Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan and elsewhere that runs along the same lines. Outside America, the world is run by scary, violent, bearded and begowned religious nutjobs who know nothing about technology. But inside the USA the fundamentalists are clean-shaven, wear a suit and tie and are techno geeks: the US media tells its witless viewers and listeners that America is so very different.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Baby Boomers Are Breaking the Deal, A College Degree is No longer Enough / Politics / Demographics
By: John_Mauldin
There is something missing from this thing we are calling a recovery. For most in the US it does not feel like a recovery, and for good reason: the jobs aren’t there. But for some groups it is a recovery, and more. And that reveals an even bigger problem. Today, in a summer-shortened Thoughts from the Frontline, we look at the trends in employment as well as take note of a signpost we passed on the way to finding out that we can’t pay for all the future entitlements we have been promised. It’s a short letter but hopefully thought-provoking. At the end, I note a webinar and a few speeches I’ll be giving in the near future.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Dear Angela Merkel , It's Time To Do The Right Thing / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Dear Angela,
You know, it's sort of funny that just as I started to write this letter, I read about a plan (yours?) for a possible temporary Greece exit from the eurozone.
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Sunday, August 26, 2012
Propaganda, Politics, and the Gold Standard / Politics / Gold and Silver 2012
By: Andy_Sutton
It wouldn’t be a normal day in the life of the 24-hour news cycle if there weren’t some type of campaign against gold and its proper role as money. True to form, The Financial Times stepped to the plate to launch a rather hilarious attack on gold in the context of an article which discusses the idea that one half of our Diet Coke/Diet Pepsi political system is contemplating adding what is the equivalent of a feasibility study on returning to the gold standard to its political platform.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
If you Like NAFTA, You’ll Love the Trans Pacific Partnership / Politics / US Politics
By: Rudy_Avizius
We, the transnational corporations and the ruling elites are on the verge of a wonderful new dawn that will bring us immense power and untold wealth.
We have been secretly negotiating a new agreement called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) with the United States Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam and are nearing completing the final details of this agreement. We have had 600 of our corporate lobbyists providing input and have successfully excluded Congress, our own corporate media, and the general public from the negotiations. Once implemented, this agreement will hard code corporate dominance over sovereign governments into international law that will supercede any federal, state, or local laws of any member country. This agreement will grant new corporate privileges and rights, while limiting governments and protective regulations. This agreement will far exceed anything we have been able to achieve with NAFTA, CAFTA, or any other free trade agreement.
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Friday, August 24, 2012
Welcome to Soviet America, Naomi Wolf on the Crackdown of Dissent / Politics / US Politics
By: Videos
Naomi Wolf: With the world watching the case of Wikileaks Julian Assange, Russia Today sat down with American author Naomi Wolf to discuss why journalists are finding it increasingly difficult to publish information the US government doesn’t want them to. Indeed, the Pentagon has been ordered to begin monitoring major news stations in the US to see if any media outlets are disclosing classified information. With the entire government now over-classifying everything, it's a heavy-handed attempt to silence truth tellers and whistle blowers with threats of imprisonment, or worse. Wolf's reaction is: "My immediate take is a profound feeling of nausea and a sense that somehow, the United States has collapsed into the Soviet Union circa the mid-1930s. This was horribly foreseeable, but I can’t believe it’s come to this."Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Unsettling Development for Washington, Venezuela Ramps Up China Oil Exports / Politics / Crude Oil
By: OilPrice_Com
The biggest geostrategic change of the past decade overlooked by Washington policy wonks in their fixation on their self-proclaimed "war on terror" is that Latin America has been throwing off the shackles of the Monroe Doctrine.
These ignored developments may well soon refocus Washington's attention on the Southern Hemisphere, as Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez reorients his country's to China.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
What Do the Rise and Fall of Empires Suggest? / Politics / Social Issues
By: DK_Matai
The summer respite is an interesting time to read history and to reflect on the lessons to be learned from empires long gone in preparation for empires yet to come. As the British Prime Minister William Pitt, the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine, and the Baron Acton said in different ways: "All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely!" The greatest mistake, oft repeated by those in power throughout history, has been the sin of "Hubris."
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Who Rules America? Class Warfare in 2012 / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
The media are filled with stories claiming that the Obama vs. Romney race is all about class warfare. I have my doubts. Here is why.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, in their then-anonymous tract, The Manifesto of the Communist Party(1848), began chapter 1 with these words: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
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Wednesday, August 22, 2012
America – Governed by Organized Crime! / Politics / Conspiracy Theory
By: Submissions
John Rolls Submits, David J. Meyer Writes: “For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich. They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy they do not judge. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?”
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Power Politics vs. American Prosperity / Politics / US Politics
By: Ian_Fletcher
I had one of those “Aha!” moments recently.
I was engaged in an e-mail dialogue with a moderately prominent individual active in America’s international trade relations. He’s a former high-ranking public official, important enough to matter but not a household name. You might recognize him if you follow trade politics closely. Democrat, left-of-center, but nothing radical.
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