Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Bank Lobby's Onslaught Shifts Debate on Volcker Rule / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Bloomberg
BLOOMBERG TV EXCLUSIVE: Bloomberg Television's economics editor Michael McKee spoke to Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser from the Banque de France in Paris. Plosser said that he sees no need for more stimulus as the U.S. economy recovers, and he has "cautious optimism" for economic improvement.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Why Printing Money is Immoral, Value Subjectivism and Monetary Instability / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: Ron_Hera
Subjectivism is the philosophy that reality is what we perceive to be real and that no underlying, true reality exists independent of human perception. In other words, the nature of reality for an individual person is dependent on that individual's own consciousness. It follows that each person experiences their own reality that is not shared with others. What is true and what seems moral to one person may not be true or moral for another person, i.e., truth and morality are relative. In contrast, objectivism is the philosophy that reality exists independent of human consciousness; that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception; and that objective knowledge of reality can be obtained through perception, evidence and logic, e.g., through scientific methods.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Bernanke, Mister In-Between is 100% Sure / Politics / Inflation
By: Fred_Sheehan
This isn't right. This isn't even wrong" ~ Wolfgang Pauli, Cambridge University physicist, attempting to read a colleague's paper.
60 MINUTES: "Can you act quickly enough to prevent inflation from getting out of control?"
BERNANKE: "We could raise interest rates in 15 minutes if we have to. So, there really is no problem with raising rates, tightening monetary policy, slowing the economy, reducing inflation, at the appropriate time. Now, that time is not now."
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Monday, March 26, 2012
Will Helicopter Bernanke Become 'Hurricane Ben'? / Politics / Quantitative Easing
By: Gary_North
This report will deal with quantitative easing (QE). To prepare you for this report, I ask you to watch a short video. It is under 3 minutes. This video is the best thing I have seen on quantitative easing. I wish Bernanke would be this forthright, but I suppose this will never happen.
I will assume from this point on that you have seen the video. If you deal with colleagues who have been confused about what QE really means, forward it to them.
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Monday, March 26, 2012
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS: The Very Real Possibility of A Global Nuclear Catastrophe / Politics / Nuclear Power
By: Washingtons_Blog
The Government Spends Trillions On Unlikely Threats … But Won’t Spend a Billion Dollars to Prevent the Very Real Possibility of Global Nuclear Catastrophe
We’re Spending Money Combating the Wrong Dangers
Studies show that people are worry about the wrong things.
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Sunday, March 25, 2012
U.S. Government War on Cash / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: Joseph_T_Salerno
Under cover of its multiplicity of fabricated wars on drugs, terror, tax evasion, and organized crime, the US government has long been waging a hidden war on cash. One symptom of the war is that the largest denomination of US currency is the $100 note, whose ever-eroding purchasing power is far below the purchasing power of the €500 note. US currency used to be issued in denominations running up to $10,000 (including also $500; $1,000; $5,000 notes). There was even a $100,000 note issued for transactions among Federal Reserve banks.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Saudi Arabia: House of Saud, Falling House of Cards / Politics / Middle East
By: Washingtons_Blog
Saudi rulers are struggling to contain a new wave of public protests that has erupted across the Arabian kingdom as security forces open fire on unarmed civilians.
The big question: is the House of Saud finally beginning to collapse like the fragile house of cards that this creaking, ruling monarchy represents?
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Sunday, March 25, 2012
Big Banks Continue to "Suck at the Government" With Never-Ending Stealth Bailouts / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Washingtons_Blog
Open-Ended Bailouts Are Continuing
We’ve previously documented the fact that bailouts of the big banks are continued in stealth mode up to the present day.
True, the banks claim they’ve repaid the Tarp bailout funds … but nearly half of the banks “repaid” such bailout funds by borrowing from other government bailout funds (and the rest could only repay money by fudging their accounting and using stealth bailouts which are are a little harder to detect).
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Sunday, March 25, 2012
MF Global Financial Collapse is Obama's Hurricane Katrina / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Jesse
Bill Black is interviewed on the Capital Accounts Show on RT.
I would be glad to show a video of Bill Black discussing important financial matters such as this on a mainstream US video program but there don't seem to be any.
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Sunday, March 25, 2012
Becoming the Bank / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Ashvin_Pandurangi
Both the mainstream and alternative media spend a good amount of time reporting on the excesses of Wall Street, which range from extremely disproportionate levels of compensation to blatantly criminal practices. Whether we are talking about Goldman Sachs defrauding and front-running clients or former New Jersey governor and MF Global CEO Jon Corzine illegally transferring client funds to JP Morgan, there is a certain air of "so whatness" to the entire discussion. How extensive are these occurrences and why should we care?
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Sunday, March 25, 2012
Missing Presumed Dangerous - The World's Missing Nuclear Materials / Politics / Nuclear Power
By: Andrew_McKillop
About 50 heads of state will attend the Nuclear Security Summit on Monday and Tuesday 26 and 27
March in Seoul, South Korea, drawing US president Barack Obama and Russian president Dmitry
Medvedev as well as leaders from potential transit countries such as Moldova, Lebanon and some
African states that smugglers may use to move illicit nuclear materials. Iran and North Korea, which are
in violation of United Nations resolutions demanding a halt to their nuclear work, are among countries
excluded from the summit because the conference organizers’ are seeking consensus.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Breaking News: MF Global’s Corzine Ordered Funds Moved to JPMorgan / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Bloomberg
Bloomberg TV reports on the news that Jon Corzine, MF Global Holding Ltd.'s chief executive officer, allegedly gave "direct instructions" to transfer $200 million from a customer fund account to meet an overdraft in one of the brokerage's JPMorgan Chase & Co. accounts in London, according to an e-mail sent by a firm executive.
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Friday, March 23, 2012
The Natural Gas Act: Another Washington Boondoggle / Politics / Natural Gas
By: Money_Morning
James Baldwin writes:
With gasoline fast approaching $4 a gallon and heading toward $5 this summer, it's no surprise that politicians are panicking.
In Washington D.C., everything is an emergency. Legislation is always the antidote.
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Friday, March 23, 2012
To Where Our Oppositonal Culture Takes Us / Politics / US Politics
By: Ashvin_Pandurangi
"On approaching the other it has lost its own self, since it finds itself as another being; secondly, it has thereby sublated that other, for this primitive consciousness does not regard the other as essentially real but sees its own self in the other." –Hegel
Thursday, March 22, 2012
WALL STREET CONFIDENCE TRICK: How "Interest Rate Swaps" Are Bankrupting Local Governments / Politics / Credit Crisis 2012
By: Ellen_Brown
Far from reducing risk, derivatives increase risk, often with catastrophic results. — Derivatives expert Satyajit Das, Extreme Money (2011)
The “toxic culture of greed” on Wall Street was highlighted again last week, when Greg Smith went public with his resignation from Goldman Sachs in a scathing oped published in the New York Times. In other recent eyebrow-raisers, LIBOR rates—the benchmark interest rates involved in interest rate swaps—were shown to be manipulated by the banks that would have to pay up; and the objectivity of the ISDA (International Swaps and Derivatives Association) was called into question, when a 50% haircut for creditors was not declared a “default” requiring counterparties to pay on credit default swaps on Greek sovereign debt.
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Thursday, March 22, 2012
Government Lobster Trap: 'Why Congress Invented Tax-Deferred IRA Accounts' / Politics / US Politics
By: Gary_North
I hope you're tucked in. Get used to the feeling of being tucked in. Don't you feel safer now? Settle down. I'll tell you a story.
Once upon a time, there were two United States Senators. One was a Democrat. The other was a Republican.
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Thursday, March 22, 2012
Apple Stock and U.S. Income Inequality / Politics / US Politics
By: EconMatters
Apple stock price rallied to $602.50 on March 21 partly due to the the company's decision to spread some of its huge pile of cash ($97.6 billion in cash equivalent with no outstanding debt at the end of 2011) in the form of dividend and a share buyback program.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
The Crazy World Of Smart Grids And Carbon Capture / Politics / Electricity
By: Andrew_McKillop
While the oil-intensive but deindustrialized countries of the West show mounting signs of stress at the prospect of more and further oil price rises, and China moves ever onward on its oil-intensive industrial path racking up huge trade surpluses while paying for all the oil it wants, the twin sideshow of smart grids and carbon capture still has some headroom, in some countries. The main problem, however, is that CCS is almost certainly impossible, and smart grids will be fantastically expensive.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
The Ascendence of Sociopaths in US Governance, How to Surive What's to Come / Politics / US Politics
By: Casey_Research
Doug Casey, Casey Research An International Man lives and does business wherever he finds conditions most advantageous, regardless of arbitrary borders. He's diversified globally, with passports from multiple countries, assets in several jurisdictions and his residence in yet another. He doesn't depend absolutely on any country and regards all of them as competitors for his capital and expertise.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Republicans and Democrats Both Want to Kill You! / Politics / US Politics
By: PhilStockWorld
What is happening to this country?
Robert Reich points out that, in announcing the Republicans’ new budget and tax plan Tuesday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said “We are sharpening the contrast between the path that we’re proposing and the path of debt and decline the president has placed us upon.” But the plan doesn’t do much to reduce the debt. Even by its own estimate the deficit would drop to $166 billion in 2018 and then begin growing again.
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