Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
BP Gulf Oil Gusher: Methane, Climate & Dead Zones / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: DK_Matai
DK Matai writes: Gas and Methane Levels At Record
As much as one million times the normal level of methane is showing up near the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher, enough potentially to create dead zones in the water. "These are higher levels than we have ever seen at any other location in the ocean itself," according to sources cited by Reuters. The "flow team" of the US Geological Survey estimates that 2,900 cubic feet of natural gas, which primarily contains methane, is being released into the Gulf waters with every barrel of oil.
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Saturday, July 10, 2010
Tame Financial Speculators By Regulating Speculative Capital Flows / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Global_Research
Kavaljit Singh writes: Just days before the G20 summit in Toronto, South Korea and Indonesia announced several policy measures to regulate potentially destabilising capital flows which could pose a threat to their economies and financial systems.
The policy measures announced by South Korea and Indonesia assume greater significance because both countries are members of the G20. In 2010, South Korea chairs the G20.
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Saturday, July 10, 2010
The E.U. Banking System Stress Test Fraud / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Mike_Whitney
The EU banking system is in big trouble. Many of the Union's largest banks are sitting on hundreds of billions of euros in dodgy sovereign bonds and non performing real estate loans. But writing down their losses will deplete their capital and force them to restructure their debt. So the banks are concealing their losses through accounting sleight-of-hand and by borrowing money from the European Central Bank. This has helped to hide the rot at the heart of the system.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
How to Fight Conspiracies and Win / Politics / Conspiracy Theory
By: Gary_North
When someone at last discovers that some conspiracy has taken over this or that institution, he gets into a mentality that sees conspiracies everywhere. Anyone who finally accepts the fact that one or more conspiracies have been operating for one or more centuries to control the affairs of his nation, or even the whole world, has a tendency to see everything in terms of conspiracies. He begins to attribute to this or that conspiracy the ability to forecast the future almost perfectly, to control the future almost perfectly, and to thwart all attempts of critics to deflect the conspiracy from its agenda.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Banks Fairy Tale Stress Tests / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Mike_Larson
Of all the questionable bailout and backstop programs the government rolled out in the wake of the credit crisis, the whole “stress test” episode for the banks stands out the most.
The idea was that the Fed and Treasury would evaluate whether 19 major U.S. banks could survive a recession without a catastrophic erosion of their capital.
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Friday, July 09, 2010
Russian Spies Get Quick “Justice” While Wall Street Criminals Remain At Large / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Danny_Schechter
1500 Bankers went to Jail After the S&L Crisis. Almost None Today
We just witnessed justice on steroids. Ten Russian “spies”—even if we still don’t know what they were spying on or why—were brought to court, copped a plea, and were on their way out of the country by midnight.
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Friday, July 09, 2010
BP Relief Wells Are Ahead of Schedule … But Will They Work? / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Washingtons_Blog
By all reports, BP is ahead of schedule in drilling the relief wells. In fact, BP will likely complete the first relief well this month.
The team leader for BP’s relief wells – Boots and Coots – is 40 for 40 in successfully stopping oil spills using relief wells (around 6:10 into video).
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Friday, July 09, 2010
Russia Natural Gas Politics vs Germany, Geopolitical Importance of Lubmin / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: F_William_Engdahl
In the postwar history of the Federal Republic, German Chancellors tend to disappear once they pursue political goals that deviate from the Washington global agenda too much. In the case of Gerhard Schroeder, it involved two unforgiveable “sins.” The first was his open opposition to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The second, far more serious strategically, was his negotiations with Russia’s Putin to bring a major new natural gas pipeline directly from Russia, bypassing then-hostile Poland, to Germany. Today the first section of that Nord Stream gas pipeline has reached the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern coastal town of Lubmin on the Baltic Sea, making Lubmin into a geopolitical pivot for Europe and Russia.
Friday, July 09, 2010
ConLib Government to Give NHS GP's £80 Billion Blank Cheque / Politics / NHS
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The ConLib government appears hell bent on repeating Labours 2003 GP Contracts mistake by effectively giving GP's a blank cheque that is expected to result in huge pay rises as GP's take money meant for improving patient healthcare to reward themselves for working less hours.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Big U.S. Banks Laundered Money From Drug Trafficking / Politics / Banking Stocks
By: Pravda
Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, American Express and Western Union have profited over the years with laundering money from drug trafficking and only pay minimal fines, with no executive jailed when authorities were able to detect illicit transactions. These U.S. banks have admitted failing to comply with federal regulations and laws to control money laundering, participating in the transfer of billions of dollars in illicit funds from drug smuggling in Mexico.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Ron Paul - More Power for the Fed / Politics / Central Banks
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Last week I was pleased to see my Republican colleagues take up the cause to fully and completely audit the Federal Reserve by including my language from the Federal Reserve Transparency Act in a Motion to Recommit the financial regulation reform bill. Although this effort was defeated by the Democrat majority, there were many good reasons to support it.
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Wednesday, July 07, 2010
BP Hard Cap Installation And Relief Wells Wellbore Problems / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Dr_Stephen_Rinehart
Background -
In December 2005 (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090804090942.html), scientists aboard IODP (Integrated Ocean Drilling Program) Expedition 312 approached mantle depths while drilling to investigate superfast seafloor spreading rates. The research expedition penetrated volcanic rock (gabbros) and reached a fossil magma chamber lying 1.4 kilometers beneath the seafloor.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Offshore Drilling Moratorium: Hear It From The Little People / Politics / Oil Companies
By: Static_Chaos
Hornbeck, a $400-million vessel company in Louisiana, filed a lawsuit against the administration on June 7, a month after the moratorium started.
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Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Oil Espionage: Don’t Mess With China! / Politics / US Politics
By: Static_Chaos
An American geologist-- Xue Feng--was sentenced to eight years in prison for gathering data on China's oil industry, as reported by the Associated Press today:
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Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Economists Gathering Data Whilst Economy Burns / Politics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
Mark R. Crovelli writes: When future generations of scholars look back on the economic and political disaster enveloping the United States today, three questions should be at the forefront of their minds.
First, they should wonder whether the many generations of politicians that collectively engineered this economic and political disaster were either (1) too outrageously stupid to know that what they were doing would produce such a dreadful catastrophe, or (2) whether they were so evil and underhanded that they did know what they were doing would result in disaster — and yet they did it anyway.
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Tuesday, July 06, 2010
State Pension Woes Only Worsening … / Politics / Pensions & Retirement
By: Nilus_Mattive
I know some investors right now who are making major mistakes when it comes to retirement planning …
First, they have been consistently underestimating how much money they’ll need down the line. In essence they are pretending that inflation doesn’t exist …
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Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Striking Overpaid Workers, Public Unions Should be Banned / Politics / Social Issues
By: Mike_Shedlock
Illinois construction workers live in fantasy land of business-as-usual. They are demanding 15% pay hikes when everyone of them ought to be fired with their jobs outsourced to the cheapest non-union shop.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Fireworks To Distract Attention From Economic Depression Taking U.S. Down / Politics / US Politics
By: Danny_Schechter
July 5, 2010, Two days after a jobs report showed how many Americans are down, the nation was looking up -- at fireworks signaling the anniversary of American independence (even as the BP disaster shows how dependent we’ve become.).
On July 4th, here in New York, my block was jammed with ooing and ahing onlookers as was the whole West Side of Manhattan when the Macy’s Department store shot off 40,000 shells at a rate of 1500 a minute and at a cost of $500,000.
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Tuesday, July 06, 2010
BP Gulf Oil Spill Day 76: A Whale Awaits EPA and Jones Waiver / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Dian_L_Chu
The world’s largest oil skimmer vessel arrived in the Gulf and has docked in Louisiana since June 30 awaiting U.S. official review and approval.
The Taiwanese-flagged vessel was originally commissioned as a conventional oil tanker earlier this year in South Korea. But the ship’s owner, Taiwan shipping giant –TMT (“Today Makes Tomorrow”) Shipping Offshore—modified it into an oil skimmer immediately after the BP Deepwater Horizon rig explosion.
Monday, July 05, 2010
Coming Chaos: No Banks, No Public Facilities, No Food and Rampaging Gangs of Desperate People / Politics / Social Issues
By: Mac_Slavo
Bob Chapman, of The International Forecaster, says it’s time to prepare for the worst, comparing our impending economic crisis to that which was experienced at the onset of 1348 and the following century and a half.