
Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Monday, November 08, 2010
Plutocracy Now! / Politics / US Politics
By: Ashvin_Pandurangi
Every so often, Americans should stop everything they're doing for a moment, and reflect upon the nature of their country. Specifically, upon what has traditionally been this country's defining characteristic. Was it our capitalist economy? No, there are many capitalistic countries around the world and capitalism was not first formulated by Americans. What about our emphasis on personal freedom? Well, once again, many countries preach the virtues of freedom and many groups of people have fought for freedom well before America was formed. Surely it has been our diverse populace and our tolerance of all races, genders, sexual preferences... yeah, right. Personally, I would answer that it was our written Constitution and the democratic values embodied within it.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Dollar Breakdown, America Has Lost its Imagination, Its Population Brainwashed to Do the Elites Bidding / Politics / US Politics
By: Anthony_J_Stills
“Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity.” -L. Frank Baum
In my opinion America has lost its imagination. The populace has been brainwashed into letting a select group of individuals do all the thinking for them. In the best of all possible worlds it will produce a population that is dull and capable of only doing menial tasks for a menial wage, even if the people in charge have the best of intentions.
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Monday, November 08, 2010
Time for Congress to Reject the Welfare / Warfare State / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last week's midterm elections have been characterized as a victory for grassroots Americans who are fed up with Washington and the political status quo. In particular, the elections are being touted as a clear indicator that voters demand reductions in federal spending, deficits, and debt.
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Monday, November 08, 2010
America's Economic and Social Crisis, Profits or Prosperity? / Politics / US Politics
By: Global_Research
Zoltan Zigedy writes: Data on US profits for the second quarter of this year are well worth studying, not only for what they say about the health of the corporate sector, but also for what they reveal about the structure of our economic system and the priorities of our policy makers.
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Greenspan and the Economic Crisis, "Moral Hazard" and Financial Fraud are the Main Problems / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Washingtons_Blog
Even Alan Greenspan is confirming what William Black, James Galbraith, Joseph Stiglitz, George Akerlof and many other economists and financial experts have been saying for a long time: the economy cannot recover if fraud is not prosecuted and if the big banks know that government will bail them out every time they get in trouble.
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Fake U.S. Unemployment Data, Rising Poverty in America / Politics / Economic Statistics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
If we cannot trust what the government tells us about weapons of mass destruction, terrorist events, and the reasons for its wars and bailouts, can we trust the government’s statement last Friday that the US economy gained 151,000 payroll jobs during October?
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Sunday, November 07, 2010
Mobile Cell Phone Radiation The Health Hazards / Politics / Social Issues
By: Joel_S_Hirschhorn
It is now inconceivable that our world could function without the 5 billion cell phones used globally. The new book by Devra Davis “Disconnect” deserves your attention. Indeed, if you use a cell phone a lot it should be mandatory reading.
It also seems inconceivable that the trillion dollar cell phone industry and governments worldwide could have pushed this technology without ever having solid research results proving the safety of cell phones. If true that would be deadly frightening. But that is exactly the reality.
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Saturday, November 06, 2010
How the Republicans Will Sucker the Tea Party / Politics / US Politics
By: Gary_North
First, you must understand that Boehner is a GobGop: a Good Old Boy of the Grand Old Party. The GobGops' goal is to keep the present system funded by the Bigs: Big Business, Big Pharma, Big Oil, and Big Banking. If you do not understand this, then you are as naive as a Democrat who thinks Obama speaks for The Common Man.
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Left-Center Political Parties Pay the Price for Bailing Out the Bankster's / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Global_Research
James Petras writes: The November 2, 2010 electoral debacle of the Democratic Party in the US cannot be solely ascribed to the failed policies of President Obama, the Congressional leadership or their senior economic advisers. Nor is the demise of what passes for the American “center-left” confined to the US – it is a world-wide pattern, expressed in countries as diverse as Greece, Portugal, Spain, Great Britain and Japan.
Saturday, November 06, 2010
ForeclosureGate Could Force Bank Nationalization / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Ellen_Brown
For two years, politicians have danced around the nationalization issue, but ForeclosureGate may be the last straw. The megabanks are too big to fail, but they aren’t too big to reorganize as federal institutions serving the public interest.
In January 2009, only a week into Obama’s presidency, David Sanger reported in The New York Times that nationalizing the banks was being discussed. Privately, the Obama economic team was conceding that more taxpayer money was going to be needed to shore up the banks. When asked whether nationalization was a good idea, House speaker Nancy Pelosi replied:
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Saturday, November 06, 2010
QE2 and U.S. China Politics, Shrewd as Serpents / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Submissions
Everyone has heard about the Prisoners' Dilemma before, I suppose. For those who don't know, here is the gist: It is about a situation between two players that if they cooperate, they will get the biggest benefit. However, if one decides to cooperate yet get betrayed later, he will suffer more than if he simply betrayed the other guy in the first place. Logically, the two players should simply cooperate, but sometimes when you are uncertain about the other player's sincerity, the situation becomes tricky.
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Friday, November 05, 2010
Russian's Forget What they Were Celebrating on November 4th / Politics / Russia
By: Pravda
What is Russia celebrating on November 4th? According to sociologists, many of Russia's residents simply have no idea what the Day of National Unity is. And yet this is not a new holiday of the post-perestroika era designed to replace the October Revolution Day on November 7. The history of this day counts over three centuries.
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Friday, November 05, 2010
Democrats Prepare to Move to the Right / Politics / US Politics
By: Shamus_Cooke
On the eve of the Republican-dominated mid-term election, working people were told to vote Democrat to prevent a "truly dangerous" Republican party from taking power. There is an element of truth in this: the Republican Party has been sprinting to the far right for decades, to the point where they are incapable of speaking sensibly about political issues.
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Thursday, November 04, 2010
Taxing the Rich to Cure the Governments Debt Crisis? / Politics / Taxes
By: Robert_Murphy
This week's episode of 60 Minutes featured a 13-minute segment on "taxing the rich" in order to cure the government's debt problem. In addition to being an outrageously biased story, the coverage was filled with more economic fallacies than I can address in a single article.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
The World Looks at Obama After the U.S. Midterm Election / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
The 2010 U.S. midterm elections were held, and the results were as expected: The Republicans took the House but did not take the Senate. The Democrats have such a small margin in the Senate, however, that they cannot impose cloture, which means the Republicans can block Obama administration initiatives in both houses of Congress. At the same time, the Republicans cannot override presidential vetoes alone, so they cannot legislate, either. The possible legislative outcomes are thus gridlock or significant compromises.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
U.S. Midterm Elections Further Demonstrates The Need for Revolution / Politics / US Politics
By: David_DeGraw
The Obama referendum came in and he got what he deserved. When you run on change and leave the same criminals in positions of power and don’t hold anyone accountable for obvious crimes, and allow them to continue to commit those crimes, you deserve to lose your power. This is what happens when you put Tim Geithner and Larry Summers in charge of the economy, and support Ben Bernanke for reconfirmation as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
The Impotence of U.S. Elections, Democrats and Republicans One Party with Two Names / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
In his historical novel, The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa writes that things have to change in order to remain the same. That is what happened in the US congressional elections on November 2.
Jobs offshoring, which began on a large scale with the collapse of the Soviet Union, has merged the Democrats and Republicans into one party with two names. The Soviet collapse changed attitudes in socialist India and communist China and opened those countries, with their large excess supplies of labor, to Western capital.
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Thursday, November 04, 2010
Northern Rock Remutualisation or Privatisation? / Politics / UK Politics
By: Submissions
Today Compass calls on the Government to launch an investigation into the feasibility of remutualising Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. A Compass commissioned YouGov poll yesterday showed nearly twice as many people favoured remutualisation of Northern Rock as opposed to a private sale. This follows on from Ed Miliband's recent support for remutualisation of the bank.
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Wednesday, November 03, 2010
The U.S. Mid-Term Elections are Over… Yet it Ain’t Over / Politics / US Economy
By: Joseph_Toronto
Our financial system and our economy nearly collapsed over two years ago. With proper management we should have recovered, but we haven’t. Unemployment, the one thing that voters see and feel, front and center, remains the highest it’s been for decades and voters are justifiably angry.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
U.S. Mid-term Elections 2010, Learning From Defeat / Politics / US Congressional Elections
By: Global_Research
Eric Walberg writes: In the US mid-term elections, Republicans picked up approximately 65 seats in the House for a 237-198 majority, and six seats in the Senate — including the Illinois seat formerly held by President Obama and that of liberal icon Russell Feingold of Wisconsin — for a 49-49 tie in the Senate, where two independents will hold the Democrats ransom. Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio will succeed Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California as speaker of the House. Republicans gained eight governorships, but Democrats hold the two biggest states: Andrew Cuomo beat Republican Carl Paladino in New York, and Jerry Brown returned to the governor’s job in California, defeating former eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman.
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