Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, March 09, 2012
How to Ruin Your Economy / Politics / US Debt
By: Bill_Bonner
We can learn a lot from the Argentines. When it comes to messing up an economy, they’re Numero Uno. They’re Olympians of financial legerdemain and masters of the old false shuffle.
In 2001, the country was deeply in debt. The government was out of money. And the currency was losing value fast. What did the Argentines do?
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Friday, March 09, 2012
The Real Situation in Iraq / Politics / Iraq War
By: OilPrice_Com
A delegation from the International Energy Agency spent two days in Baghdad speaking with high-ranking officials in preparation for an end-of-year report on the country's oil sector. By some estimates, Iraq could hold some of the largest oil reserves in the world and an international auction for oil and natural gas blocks is planned for May. Without a hydrocarbon law, and considering the fractured political system, the IEA's report may be more about political obstacles than oil potential, however.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Gold, Silver and the Crisis of the Fractional Banking System / Politics / Gold and Silver 2012
By: Bob_Chapman
The Pan Asia Gold Exchange (PAGE) – was to represent real price discovery and that is yet to happen. The first move to smother the exchange was by an increase of holdings in the endeavor. This move was to stop them from constructing their own platform rather than buying an existing platform. Due to that move shareholders rose from 10% to 25%. That brought in additional directors whose job it obviously was to stop the fully allocated spot contract. One of these directors was a US banker who has worked for the Federal Trade Commission, the Sloan Foundation at MIT and whose wife is a member of the CFR, the Council on Foreign Relations. Thus, nothing is going to happen to this venture until next year for a variety of reasons. Fortunately a new exchange is on the way to replace PAGE, which we will fill you in on in a few months.
Thursday, March 08, 2012
How the Government Lies About the Real Inflation Rate / Politics / Inflation
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes:
More experts are saying what most Americans have suspected for years - the real inflation rate is much higher than the government is willing to admit.
Officially, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says the inflation rate, or Consumer Price Index (CPI), for 2011 was 3%.
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Thursday, March 08, 2012
Facts on the Horrific U.S. Long-Term Economic Decline / Politics / US Economy
By: LewRockwell
End of the American Dream writes: Most Americans know that things used to be much better in the United States, but they don't have the facts and the figures to back that belief up. Well, after reading the shocking statistics in this article nobody should be left with any doubt that things have gotten worse in America. There are less jobs, incomes are down, home values have plummeted, poverty is up, consumer debt is way up, dependence of the government has skyrocketed and government debt is totally out of control. Sadly, it hasn't really mattered which political party has had control over the White House. Things have gotten worse under Obama, they got worse under Bush, and they got worse under Clinton. We are in the midst of a horrific long-term economic decline and the American people desperately need to wake up.
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Empty Fort Knox Gold and Loaded Guns / Politics / US Politics
By: Gary_North
All guns are loaded. Never forget this.
I never knew my great uncle Gerald. That's because he was killed in an accident. His son shot him.
Uncle Gerald was a hunter in Oregon. He had taught his son to regard every gun as loaded. He always was careful to unload his gun whenever he came in from hunting. But one day he forgot. His son, knowing that his father was meticulous about such things, for some reason pulled the trigger.
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Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Eurocrats and Their Vassals / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Fred_Sheehan
On February 29, 2012, the European Central Bank (ECB) lent €529 to European banks, most of it, in three-year loans. This was the second such operation, launched with another mind-numbing acronym: LTRO (long-term financing operation). In the first LTRO (December 2011), €489 was lent to European banks. In the February 29, 2012, operation, 800 banks borrowed. According to the Financial Times, "broader collateral rules drew in smaller banks."
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Wednesday, March 07, 2012
U.S. Fed Flying Blind / Politics / Central Banks
By: Axel_Merk
In assessing whether to make tough decisions, policy makers tend to weigh the cost of action versus inaction. As critical as we are of our dear policy makers, when push comes to shove, they may rise to the occasion. But what if they are not told when it's time to act, when it's time to stop printing and spending trillions? In our assessment, the voice of reason has been silenced, posing potential risks to economic stability, as well as the U.S. dollar. That voice of reason is no other than the market itself. Let us explain.
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
The Mainstream Media Still Doesn’t Get the ECB Greek Debt Swap / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Graham_Summers
First off, the details of the swap are as follows: the ECB simply exchanged 50€ billion worth of old Greek sovereign bonds (which were soon to be worth much less if not be outright worthless) for 50€ billion worth of new Greek sovereign bonds which would not be exposed to default risk or any kind of debt restructuring (unlike those bonds held by private Greek bond holders).
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
The Debt Deleveraging Big Lie / Politics / US Debt
By: James_Quinn
Cause, Effect & The Fallacy Of Return To Normalcy
“Thousands upon thousands are yearly brought into a state of real poverty by their great anxiety not to be thought of as poor.” - Robert Mallett
I hear the term de-leveraging relentlessly from the mainstream media. The storyline that the American consumer has been denying themselves and paying down debt is completely 100% false. The proliferation of this Big Lie has been spread by Wall Street and their mouthpieces in the corporate media. The purpose is to convince the ignorant masses they have deprived themselves long enough and deserve to start spending again. The propaganda being spouted by those who depend on Americans to go further into debt is relentless. The “fantastic” automaker recovery is being driven by 0% financing for seven years peddled to subprime (aka deadbeats) borrowers for mammoth SUVs and pickup trucks that get 15 mpg as gas prices surge past $4.00 a gallon. What could possibly go wrong in that scenario? Furniture merchants are offering no interest, no payment deals for four years on their product lines. Of course, the interest rate from your friends at GE Capital reverts retroactively to 29.99% at the end of four years after the average dolt forgot to save enough to pay off the balance. I’m again receiving two to three credit card offers per day in the mail. According to the Wall Street vampire squids that continue to suck the life blood from what’s left of the American economy, this is a return to normalcy.
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Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Assessing China's Strategy / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: STRATFOR
Simply put, China has three core strategic interests.
Paramount among them is the maintenance of domestic security. Historically, when China involves itself in global trade, as it did in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the coastal region prospers, while the interior of China -- which begins about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the coast and runs about 1,600 kilometers to the west -- languishes. Roughly 80 percent of all Chinese citizens currently have household incomes lower than the average household income in Bolivia. Most of China's poor are located west of the richer coastal region. This disparity of wealth time and again has exposed tensions between the interests of the coast and those of the interior. After a failed rising in Shanghai in 1927, Mao Zedong exploited these tensions by undertaking the Long March into the interior, raising a peasant army and ultimately conquering the coastal region. He shut China off from the international trading system, leaving China more united and equal, but extremely poor.
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Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Catch 22 for Western Democracies / Politics / Global Economy
By: Mario_Innecco
The Catch-22 , not only for the P.I.I.G.S., but for the whole of the Western democracies is the size of government and the need to cut the size of government. The equation for calculating G.D.P. is G.D.P. = C + I + G + (X-M) which stands for Private Consumption + Gross Investment + Government Spending + (Exports - Imports).
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Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Western Civilisation Slow Decline or Fast Fall? / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: John_Mauldin
I had my nose in Niall Ferguson's newest book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, at every possible moment during my recent trip to Hong Kong and Singapore. It's powerful and very, very timely, and I strongly recommend it. To help get the word out, I asked Niall for a short, somewhat personal piece on the thinking behind the book – in other words, what moved him to write it?
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Sweet Home Chicago: G8 Meeting Moved But Protests Will Continue / Politics / US Politics
By: Danny_Schechter
Who called whom first?
Did the Obama alumni Association in Chicago---David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, and Bill Daley---get nervous and call the White House, or was it Barack himself, having disposed/co-opted one threat by the name of Netanyahu, who recognized he had a more serious problem the horizon.
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Monday, March 05, 2012
Ron Paul, Fed Up with the Fed / Politics / Central Banks
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
While the Fed has recently released an unprecedented amount of information on its activities, there is still much that remains unknown. Predictably, every push towards transparency has been fought tooth and nail. It took disclosure requirements enacted within the Dodd-Frank Act to get the Fed to provide data on its emergency lending facilities. It took lawsuits filed by Bloomberg and Fox News to provide data on discount window lending during the worst parts of the financial crisis. And it will take further concerted action on the part of Congress, the media, and the public to keep up pressure on the Fed to become and remain transparent.
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Monday, March 05, 2012
Germany Marches East - Russia Moves West, Putins Energy Diplomacy / Politics / Natural Gas
By: Andrew_McKillop
ITS THE GAS, STUPID
LUBMIN, Germany, Nov 8, 2011 — Chancellor Angela Merkel and outgoing president Dmitry Medvedev met in the village of Lubmin on Germany's Baltic coast to inaugurate the 7.4 billion euro natural gas pipeline that links Germany directly with Siberia's vast gas reserves. The 1220-kilometre Nord Stream pipeline, claimed as the world's longest continuous underwater pipeline, will in its first year bring about 27.5 billion cubic metres of gas, but by end-2013 will double in capacity. French prime minister Francois Fillon and his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte also attended the Lubmin ceremony in a sign of the political importance of Europe's newest energy link: the keywords used by all these European political leaders were "strengthening the security of European energy supplies".
Monday, March 05, 2012
What's Ahead for the Middle Class, Dim Light, Long Tunnel / Politics / Social Issues
By: Gary_North
MarketWatch ran an article on the lack of optimism for the American job market. It offered no analysis of why the market is bad, but it made it clear that it is not likely to get better anytime soon.
The article focused on the job market since 2008. It included a chart on salaries since 1980. It has three categories: college graduates, high school dropouts, and total. The chart reveals that there has not been much improvement for a decade. The flat-lining of salaries began a decade ago, not in 2008.
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Monday, March 05, 2012
U.S. Recession Explanations, Does the ECRI Believe Its Own Economic Indicators? / Politics / Economic Statistics
By: Mike_Shedlock
Late last month in ECRI Sticks with Recession Call on CNBC; More than a Bit of an Exaggeration by Achuthan to Make His Call? I questioned the ECRI's use of coincident indicators to make a claim regarding recession
I count three instances between 1990 and 2000 where ECRI coincident indicators flagged a recession by the methodology Achuthan cited.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Greece and Credit Default Swaps: Bucking the ISDA Cartel / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Janet_Tavakoli
Credit derivatives were originally hyped as hedging tools to protect the value of a portfolio. For example, if you own a bond, you can buy protection against the possibility of default by paying a protection premium, similar to the premium you pay on an insurance policy. The difference between insurance and the credit derivatives known as credit default swaps (CDS) is that you don't actually have to own the bond in order to "buy protection." But like an insurance policy, you have to negotiate the terms of the contract.
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Russia Election Fraud, Czar Putin Elects Himself President of Corrupt Russian Mafia State / Politics / Russia
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Czar "Prime Minister" Putin in September 2011 decided they would swap jobs again with his President front Man Medvedev and today Vladimir Putin elects himself President for another 6 year term in a repeat smoke and mirrors bogus fraudulent election.