Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Bernanke Defends Fed Monetary Policy By Blaming China for Currency Manipulation / Politics / Central Banks
In a major speech delivered November 19, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke defended the American central bank’s decision to print dollars in order to purchase $600 billion in Treasury securities. The second round of so-called “quantitative easing,” launched on November 3, is designed to lower long-term US interest rates.
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Tuesday, November 23, 2010
North Korea Attacks South, Start of a Major New War? / Politics / North Korea
North Korea attacked Yeonpyeong island of South Korea in the Yellow Sea. The attack was launched in the afternoon, local time, in the area of the western sea border, where the situation had been extremely tense lately.
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Tuesday, November 23, 2010
World Stands on the Brink of Food Crisis / Politics / Food Crisis
World imports of food will exceed the level of $1 trillion as of the year-end because of the growing prices on agricultural production, UN expert said. Next year, many countries in the world may face the problem of food shortage. In the meantime, US authorities announced considerable losses of harvests of corn and barley.
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Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Ireland Still Refuses To Contemplate Leaving the “Imperial” Euro and Joining a “Mediterranean” Euro Zone / Politics / Euro-Zone
On Thursday 18th 2010 The IMF arrived in the Emerald Isle. What a sad sad day for the proud people of Ireland. Following 300 years of armed struggle the resident government have replaced English masters with the Continental variety. However the method of usurpation this time was not guns and bullets and starvation but economic and financial prowess.
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Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Ellen Brown, Bernanke's Money Printing Cheerleader / Politics / Quantitative Easing
Ellen Brown is a lawyer. Lawyers are trained to settle a case when they are losing. Brown just settled with me.
She has just switched sides. Instead of becoming an Austrian School critic of the Federal Reserve, she has become its cheerleader.
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Tuesday, November 23, 2010
North Korean Artillery Attack on a South Korean Island / Politics / North Korea
North Korea and South Korea have reportedly traded artillery fire Nov. 23 across the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the Yellow Sea to the west of the peninsula. Though details are still sketchy, South Korean news reports indicate that around 2:30 p.m. local time, North Korean artillery shells began landing in the waters around Yeonpyeongdo, one of the South Korean-controlled islands just south of the NLL.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Geithner Politicizes the Fed, Warns Congress to Not do the Same, Inflation Targeting Parabolic Curve / Politics / Central Banks
The hypocrisy of treasury secretary Tim Geithner would be stunning except for the fact hypocrisy from Geithner is pretty much an every day occurrence.
Geithner is blasting Congress for politicizing the Fed, while doing the same thing himself. To top it off, the Fed itself is politicizing the Fed by interfering and commenting on Fiscal policy while bitching about Congress commenting on monetary policy.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Investors Betting In The Endgame of Capitalism / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
There is a difference between betting in the endgame and betting on the endgame. The former is a fool’s avocation whereas the latter is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
The endgame of capitalism is a uniquely different environment where investors find themselves faced with increasingly dangerous options. In the endgame, proven strategies are improvident, buying and holding becomes a time bomb and speculators are favored over investors because of excessive liquidity and volatility.
Monday, November 22, 2010
U.S. Military War Gaming for Large Scale Economic Breakdown and Civil Unrest / Politics / US Politics
The majority of Americans believe that recent government intervention into financial markets, the economy and corporate insolvency has reversed the economic downturn which was described by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson as being “on the brink” in 2008. The stimulus, bailouts and unrelenting quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve have thus far been perceived as having averted the further erosion of the U.S. real estate and equities markets. And though the Federal Reserve and economic analysts have recently readjusted their economic growth forecasts downward for the next six months, Americans no longer have to worry about, as Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) said on the house floor in October of 2008, the sky falling, multi-thousand point drops in stock markets and martial law in America.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
TSA Treats Air Travelers as Criminal Suspects / Politics / US Politics
The growing revolt against invasive TSA practices is encouraging to Americans who are fed up with federal government encroachment in their lives. In the case of air travelers, this encroachment is quite literally physical. But a deep-seated libertarian impulse still exists within the American people, and opposition to the new TSA full body scanner and groping searches is gathering momentum.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
How and Why the State Destroys Society / Politics / Social Issues
It is not incumbent on a diagnostician to prescribe a remedy, and it would be quackery for him to do so when he has misgivings as to its curative value. It may be that the struggle between Society and the State is inevitable; it may be in the nature of things for the struggle to continue until mutual destruction clears the ground for the emergence of a new Society, to which a new political establishment attaches itself to effect a new doom.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Who's Behind the Budget Deficit Crisis / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
From the U.S. to Europe media and politicians are singing the same tune: "budget deficits must be drastically reduced -- by cutting social programs -- so that global bond investors do not threaten the economy."
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Monday, November 22, 2010
What If NATO Is Defeated In Afghanistan? / Politics / Afghanistan
Eric S. Margolis writes: Amazing as it sounds, NATO, the world’s most powerful military alliance, may be losing the only war the 61-year old pact every fought. All its soldiers, heavy bombers, tanks, helicopter gunships, armies of mercenaries, and electronic gear are being beaten by a bunch of lightly-armed Afghan farmers and mountain tribesmen.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Energy Tells Tale of Fading West, Booming East / Politics / Crude Oil
The patient is the United States and the diagnosis is "Asia shock."
It is a psychological disease with physical symptoms and no known cure. However there are therapies, therapies of trade, diplomacy and fiscal restraint at home.
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Sunday, November 21, 2010
Russia, India and China Forming Strategic Geopolitical Alliance / Politics / GeoPolitics
Russia, India and China are pursuing common goals in their international policies and economic development.
In what is the latest step to promote trilateral cooperation in a variety of fields, the foreign ministers of China, Russia and India met for two days last week in Wuhan, capital of central Hubei province. Tenth of its kind, the meeting was shown as being conducive to deepening trilateral ties between Beijing, Moscow and New Delhi.
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Sunday, November 21, 2010
Russia Flexes Its Muscles, War for Caspian Sea Inevitable? / Politics / GeoPolitics
The countries of the Caspian region are trying to find a solution to a long-standing dispute about the Caspian Sea. There is something to argue about indeed: sturgeons, crude and natural gas deposits, as well as the transportation of oil and gas. The leaders of Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan gathered in Baku (the capital of Azerbaijan) to discuss the problem in detail.
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Saturday, November 20, 2010
Bernanke's Crybaby Blabber Speech at ECB Conference / Politics / Central Banks
Say what you will about Alan Greenspan, he was never a whiner. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about present Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. Bernanke's speech on Friday at a conference for the European Central Bank (ECB) was so full of crybaby blabber that attendees must have thought they'd ducked into a Frankfort daycare center by mistake. What an embarrassment! For nearly an hour, Bernanke went on and on about how mean China is and how they manipulate their currency to gain competitive advantage. It was surreal; like listening to a serial arsonist complain about his wife smoking in bed.
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Saturday, November 20, 2010
Capitalism Destroys Ireland's Workers Republic / Politics / Euro-Zone
James Connolly, the Irish socialist and trade union leader shot by the British in May 1916 for his part in the Easter Rising, was convinced, early in the last century, that capitalism simply could not develop fully in Ireland.
From that assessment he argued that only a Workers’ Republic could really free Ireland from foreign domination. In any case, he didn’t want capitalism to develop — didn’t want the Irish bourgeoisie to climb on the backs of the working people of Ireland.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Perhaps Bernanke And Geithner Should Try Acting? / Politics / Central Banks
When Ronald Reagan became President of the United States some people were surprised that an actor could reach such a high level of government service. Do you think maybe it could work in reverse and that these two in government "service", Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner, could make it in the acting business? They certainly have had some on the job training and I guess you could say their ongoing screen tests have passed with flying colors.
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Friday, November 19, 2010
From One Corrupt Congressman to Another / Politics / US Politics
"A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain." -William James
The House Ethics Committee has just voted to confirm there is "clear and convincing" evidence that Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has violated at least eleven different Congressional ethics rules. His violations include failing to pay taxes on his property in the Dominican Republic, illegally transforming a rent-controlled residential apartment into a campaign office and using his status as head of the Ways and Means Committee to secure funds for his public policy center.
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