Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Wednesday, March 09, 2011
How the Fed Can Be Abolished / Politics / Central Banks
Things are not always as complicated as they seem. With respect to the Federal Reserve System, it is a deliberate mystery. It was deliberately designed in 1910 to deceive the public, who were opposed the idea of a central bank. The conspirators who met on Jekyll Island in November 1910 knew this. They did good work from their point of view. They concealed the beast.
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Wednesday, March 09, 2011
How Cameron’s SAS and MI6 Secret Op Bungled in Benghazi, Libya / Politics / UK Politics
As far as paperback novels and heroic British failures go, few can top events in Libya this week. Eight British men – including six SAS soldiers and a James Bond-style MI6 agent, dropped by helicopter in Benghazi under the cover of night, only to be surrounded and captured by local farmers-*****-rebels, according to major news reports.
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Tuesday, March 08, 2011
U.S. And NATO Prepare For War With Libya / Politics / Middle East
March 7 was a pivotal moment in plans by Western powers to launch military operations against Libya.
After meeting with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in Washington, President Barack Obama stated "we've got NATO, as we speak, consulting in Brussels around a wide range of potential options, including potential military options, in response to the violence that continues to take place inside of Libya."
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
U.S. Government Deliberate Lies That Shift Attention Away From The Economy / Politics / US Politics
Rick Gedeon writes: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a blatant admission during a U.S. Foreign Policy Priorities committee meeting by arguing that the State Department needs more money because the US military-industrial complex is losing the information war to the likes of Russia Today and Al Jazeera. This loss of course is due to the US corporate media having completely abandoned real news.
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Tuesday, March 08, 2011
The Wisconsin Labor Dispute, More for Me Does Not Mean Better for Us / Politics / Employment
In the Wisconsin labor dispute, now increasingly spreading nationwide, I have lost count of the times union defenders have justified their position based on little more than the assertion that some union benefitted them or some member of their family — followed by the conclusion that all Americans must therefore gain. Unfortunately, that "logic" is invalid. A policy that gives me more does not mean the result is better for us. And the primary effect of unions and union-backed policies is to harm the vast majority of Americans.
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Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Bahrain and the Battle Between Iran and Saudi Arabia / Politics / Middle East
The world’s attention is focused on Libya, which is now in a state of civil war with the winner far from clear. While crucial for the Libyan people and of some significance to the world’s oil markets, in our view, Libya is not the most important event in the Arab world at the moment. The demonstrations in Bahrain are, in my view, far more significant in their implications for the region and potentially for the world. To understand this, we must place it in a strategic context.
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Monday, March 07, 2011
U.S. Buying Friends Creates More Enemies / Politics / US Politics
Last week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and I had the opportunity to raise some of my concerns regarding US foreign policy and the costs of our interventionism around the world.
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Monday, March 07, 2011
Stunning Lack of Economic Understanding at the Fed / Politics / Central Banks
As the world confronts one of the most critical periods of economic upheaval that it has ever seen, it is clear that our most influential economic stewards have absolutely no idea what they are doing. But, like kids with a new chemistry set, they are nevertheless unwilling to let that stand in the way of their experimental fun. As they pour an ever-growing number of volatile ingredients into their test tubes, we can either hope that they magically stumble on the secret formula to cure the world's ills, or more pragmatically, we can try to prepare for the explosion that is likely to result.
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Monday, March 07, 2011
The Social Snobbery of Free Trade / Politics / US Politics
Skepticism about free trade is often stigmatized with ad hominem attacks. These mostly come down to variations on the following:“Protectionists are dummies, losers, incompetents, hippies, rednecks, dinosaurs, closet socialists, or crypto-fascists.”
Thomas Friedman’s version in The World is Flat (the Das Kapital of Globalism) runs thus:
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Sunday, March 06, 2011
The Support For Slavery in the United States as Public Unions Bankrupt Cities and States / Politics / Social Issues
A large number of people have recently come out in support of extortion, bribery, coercion, and even slavery. They don't realize it, but I can make a rock-solid case.
Here is a partial list of prominent names willing to support or ignore slavery for political reasons.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Global Food Prices Panic? / Politics / Food Crisis
Growing demand, falling production, a market based upon speculation. Global food prices have increased for the 8th consecutive month. Most commodity groups have risen. The ones who are going to pay the invoice are the world's poor, as per the humanitarian catastrophe looming in Somalia. The world can no longer feed itself under this model.
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Sunday, March 06, 2011
Libya Crisis. What the Mainstream Media is Hiding / Politics / Middle East
Two weeks have elapsed since the first demonstrations in Benghazi and Tripoli. The disinformation campaign about Libya has sown confusion in the world. First a certainty: the analogies with events in Tunisia and Egypt are misplaced. These rebellions contributed obviously to depoliticize street protests in both neighboring countries, but the peculiar Libyan process has characteristics inseparable from the conspiring strategy of imperialism and what can be defined as the metamorphosis of a leader.
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Sunday, March 06, 2011
The Class War, March Madness Time in the USA / Politics / US Politics
“The worst things get, the harder it is for people to agree on what to do.”
The term class war has been extricated from the archives of another era, while divisions over the future of the economy have become a battleground in which the adversaries yell at each other, but rarely engage in any discourse with each other in a shared language.
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Saturday, March 05, 2011
Enemies of the Middle Class / Politics / Social Issues
With less than one quarter of 2011 gone, we have seen the spread of three revolutions. The first is literal. It is happening in North Africa. The second is intellectual: the acceptance by large numbers of voters of a shutdown of the United States government, which is deemed to be out of control. The third is political: the willingness of state legislatures in the rust belt to remove the 70-year government subsidies to public employees' unions.
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Saturday, March 05, 2011
Doug Casey on Labor Unions / Politics / Social Issues
(Interviewed by Louis James, Conversations with Casey)
Contrarian investor and free-market thinker Doug Casey doesn't mince his words. That's why he is a sought-after speaker at investment conferences - not only for his spot-on investment advice but for his no-holds-barred views of the markets, economy, and politics. In light of the recent events in Wisconsin, here are his musings on labor unions.
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Friday, March 04, 2011
1 In 5 Workers Are Underemployed, What is Capitalism? / Politics / Employment
Decline of the Empire writes: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) redefined the "official" jobs reality today, as it does every month. The BLS provides the data Americans incapable of thinking outside the box will cite over and over to reassure themselves and any remaining doubters that the economic "recovery" is on track, though that recovery been a bit slower than the True Believers would like to see.
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Friday, March 04, 2011
Capitalism and Socialism / Politics / Economic Theory
How many times have you heard "capitalist" used as an epithet or a put-down? How many people do you know who use variations on "capitalism" to describe pretty much anything they don't like? It's a vice that cuts several ways. As the tea-party movement has risen to prominence, how often have you heard people denounce President Obama as a socialist?
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Friday, March 04, 2011
U.S. Taxpayers in Revolt / Politics / Taxes
Jimmy John Liautaud, founder of the Jimmy John's sub chain, just applied to move his residence from Illinois to Florida — and his company's headquarters could soon follow. "All they do is stick it to us," he says of the state legislature's move to jack up the personal income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent — and the corporate income tax from 7.3 percent to 9.5 percent.
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Friday, March 04, 2011
Currency Revaluation Won’t Fix America’s Trade Mess / Politics / US Economy
It is sometimes suggested that our trade problems (job losses, international indebtedness) will go away on their own once currency values adjust. Bottom line? A declining dollar will eventually solve everything.
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Thursday, March 03, 2011
Lies and the Truth in the Wisconsin Worker Rights Battles / Politics / US Politics
Historian and satirist Thomas Carlyle said "a lie cannot live." However, Mark Twain casually remarked, "It shows that he did not know how to tell them."
More than a century later, newly-elected Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-dominated Wisconsin legislature have proven themselves to be "quick studies," having learned how to tell whoppers about the working class and unions. Here are just a few.
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