Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Public Sector Spending Cuts, George Osbourne Speech Full Text Transcript / Politics / UK Tax & Budget
By: Submissions
Mr Speaker. Today's the day when Britain steps back from the brink. When we confront the bills from a decade of debt. A day of rebuilding when we set out a four-year plan to put our public services and welfare state on a sustainable footing - for the long term. So that they can do their job - providing for families, protecting the vulnerable and underpinning a competitive economy. It is a hard road, but it leads to a better future. We are going to bring the years of ever-rising borrowing to an end. We are going to ensure, like every solvent household in the country: that what we buy, we can afford; that the bills we incur, we have the income to meet; and that we do not saddle our children with the interest on the interest on the interest of the debts we were not ourselves prepared to pay. Tackling this budget deficit is unavoidable. The decisions about how we do it are not. There are choices. And today we make them. Investment in the future rather than the bills of past failure. That is our choice.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
U.S. Government Confiscating Retirement Accounts / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: Gary_North
The Social Security System went into red ink mode this year. I predicted last January that this would happen. My video is here.
More money is now flowing out of the Social Security Administration to recipients than is flowing in through FICA taxes and interest payments to the SSA Trust Fund from the U.S. Treasury's general fund.
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Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Why is the World Rushing Headlong into Environmental Armageddon? / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Dr_Tom_Termotto
Is there any doubt that planet Earth has been undergoing an environmental armageddon for decades? We are not just referring to the spate of oil spills all over the world such as the BP Gulf Oil Spill, or the many other toxic deluges which go unreported unlike the Hungary Toxic Sludge Disaster, or the ongoing destruction of the world’s rainforests like those being systematically wiped out in the Amazon Basin. We are also alluding to the “unseen” worldwide chemical apocalypse, the global proliferation of electro-pollution (EMR), the major uptick in man-made geopathic stress events on both the micro and macro levels, as well as the relentless contamination of living environments throughout the planet with radioactivity.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
New Challenges to the U.S. Employment Problem / Politics / Employment
By: Hans_Wagner
The view of the employment numbers for September gives the impression that the economy is improving. The private sector is adding jobs even as the government reduces employment as census workers end their assignments. Looking deeper, the employment situation faces new challenges from state and local governments dealing with their revenue short falls.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Has the Coalition Government Sunk the British Navy? / Politics / UK Politics
By: LewRockwell
Eric Margolis writes: PARIS – Britain’s mighty Royal Navy ruled the waves until World War II, fully 25% of the earth’s surface. There are few greater epochs in history than the stirring saga the Royal Navy, Britain’s famed "wooden walls."
As a boy, I thrilled to the glorious adventures of Britain’s sailors, such as Sir Francis Drake, the renowned admirals Anson and Howe, and the great Sir Horatio Nelson, whose name will live forever in naval glory.
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Monday, October 18, 2010
U.S. Economic Recovery, Tax Cuts Won't Cut It / Politics / US Politics
By: Peter_Schiff
Congressional Republicans and Democrats are engaged in a heated debate over which Americans deserve not to have their taxes raised, with both claiming that some form of tax cut will stimulate the economy. The primary point of divergence is what type of cuts will be most likely to get Americans spending, and whether the wealthy will wastefully save their extra cash or use it to create jobs. This debate is academic. If a stronger economy (rather than pre-election posturing) is really the goal, then tax cuts alone will fail. Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Wall Street and White House Blame Homeowners For Foreclosure Crisis / Politics / US Housing
By: Global_Research
Tom Eley writes: Wall Street has raised its voice against any government moratorium on foreclosures, even as evidence mounts that banks systematically and illegally falsified documents in order to expedite hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of foreclosures.
Documented examples of abuse include banks hiring contractors and what one Goldman Sachs executive referred to as “Burger King kids” to process thousands of foreclosure documents per week, all the while declaring to courts they were familiar with the cases. Lenders also falsified signatures, notary stamps, and tossed legal documents into the garbage. Every major bank is implicated in the widening scandal.
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Sunday, October 17, 2010
Report from the Epicentre of Foreclosures Fraud / Politics / US Housing
By: Danny_Schechter
WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA: In all of the economic issues we are dealing with, there is always a “back story, a deeper context” that is usually missing, “disappeared” like those Allende supporters in Chile in the l970’s who wanted to empower workers, not just rescue them when they get buried in a deep hole.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
The Nobel Prize for Capitalism Awarded to Chinese Dissident Liu Xiaobo / Politics / China
By: Global_Research
Stephen Gowans writes: Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident who was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, has been hailed as a champion of human rights and democracy. His jailing by Chinese authorities for inciting subversion of the state is widely regarded as an unjust stifling of advocacy rights by a Chinese state intolerant of dissent and hostile to ”universal values”. But what Western accounts have failed to mention is that Charter 08, the manifesto Liu had a hand in writing and whose signing led to his arrest, is more than a demand for political and civil liberties. It is a blueprint for making over China into a replica of US society and eliminating the last vestiges of the country’s socialism.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Foreclosuregate: Time to Break Up the Too-Big-to-Fail Banks? / Politics / US Housing
By: Ellen_Brown
Looming losses from the mortgage scandal dubbed “foreclosuregate” may qualify as the sort of systemic risk that, under the new financial reform bill, warrants the breakup of the too-big-to-fail banks. The Kanjorski amendment allows federal regulators to pre-emptively break up large financial institutions that—for any reason—pose a threat to U.S. financial or economic stability.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
U.S. Plans To Seize Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal War Rumour / Politics / Pakistan
By: Rick_Rozoff
Two recent news items emanating from the United States have begun to reverberate in Pakistan and give rise to speculation that growing American drone strikes and NATO helicopter attacks in that country may be the harbingers of far broader actions: Nothing less than the expansion of the West’s war in Afghanistan into Pakistan with the ultimate goal of seizing the nation’s nuclear weapons.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
End The FED and Get The Gold / Politics / Central Banks
By: Gary_North
How can we end the Federal Reserve System? Prior to 2008, this question would have been entirely hypothetical. It is still entirely hypothetical, because the Federal Reserve System is in charge of monetary policy; the Congress of the United States is not. Certainly, the voters of the United States are not. Nevertheless, I wish to indulge myself in a completely hypothetical speculation. I wish it were less hypothetical than it is, but things are better than they were before 2008. "All hypothetical possibilities are equal, but some are more equal than others."
Friday, October 15, 2010
Unsustainable Policies and Practices with Deficits, Is America On A Burning Platform? / Politics / US Debt
By: James_Quinn
David Walker, the former Comptroller of the United States from 1998 until 2008, has been warning politicians, the media, and the American public for over a decade that we are off course and headed for disaster. In August 2007, before the financial system meltdown of 2008, Mr. Walker declared:
Friday, October 15, 2010
A Valuable Lesson: Education Must Pay Off for US / Politics / Educating Children
By: Barry_Elias
The United States spends more money per student than any country in the world: roughly $35,000 total for primary, secondary and tertiary education.
In 2006, the United States was ranked 32nd and 22nd in math and science, respectively, out of 52 countries. This was based on testing by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) at the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD).
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Friday, October 15, 2010
Financial Markets Tensions Rise as Global Policymakers Part Ways / Politics / Global Financial System
By: Mike_Larson
The tension out there is so thick you can cut it with a knife. I’m talking about the tension building between central bankers and policymakers in developed nations and their counterparts in so-called emerging market countries.
On the one hand, you have policymakers here, in Japan, and in England promising to print money until the cows come home. Their aim is to boost their faltering domestic economies and combat deflation.
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Friday, October 15, 2010
China and the Future of Rare Earth Elements / Politics / Metals & Mining
By: STRATFOR
A recent diplomatic spat between China and Japan has heightened territorial tensions and called attention to China’s growing forcefulness with foreign powers. One of the more intriguing aspects of this development was China’s suspension of the export of “rare earth” elements (REE) to Japan. REE comprise 17 metallic elements with a variety of modern industrial and commercial applications ranging from petroleum refining to laptop computers to green energy applications to radar. China produces roughly 95 percent of the global supply of REE and Japan is the largest importer. China’s disruption of REE shipments to Japan has caused alarm among other importer countries, bringing new urgency to the search for new supplies and substitutes.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Democracy is Destroying the U.S. / Politics / US Politics
By: Jeff_Berwick
Faced with a horrible unemployment situation and many companies moving out of the US to countries such as China and India, many point the finger of blame at "globalism". But companies aren't necessarily leaving the US just because it can be cheaper to operate in other regions. The problem is much deeper and has more to do with companies escaping high taxation, ridiculous amounts of regulation and moving to regions that are growing as opposed to the US which is in a terrible state of disrepair and only getting worse.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Petty Socialism Compells Governments to Introduce the "Fat Tax" / Politics / US Politics
By: J_M_Finegold_Catalan
Rising healthcare costs and continuing recession-related fiscal problems have impelled numerous world governments to introduce a "fat tax."[1] Support for a similar policy is growing in the United States, which according to leading intellectuals suffers from a collective "weight problem."[2]
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Swiss Finish Sets New Standard for Global Bank Regulation / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Global_Intel_Report
INCIDENT: The traditional Swiss finishing school taught young women etiquette and social graces, but international bank regulators are talking about something much tougher when they refer to a "Swiss finish" for global banks.
Just how tough became clear last week, 4 October, when a Swiss commission proposed that its two giant banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, be subjected to capital requirements of up to 19%, nearly three times as tough as the 7% capital-to-assets ratio recently suggested by the Basel Banking Committee as a minimum global standard.
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Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Why Do We Give the Police and Courts the Benefit of the Doubt? / Politics / US Politics
By: Jeffrey_A_Tucker
It's been five years since the feds took aim at nasal decongestant. Under George Bush, a normal part of everyday civilized life became a criminal act, namely the over-the-counter purchase of Sudafed and many other products containing pseudoephedrine. You can get it now, but it is seriously rationed. You have to present your driver's license and no one without one may purchase it. The limits on quantities you are permitted to purchase fall far below the recommended dosage, and buyers rarely know when they are buying too much.