Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Welcome to Oakland - The Model City / Politics / US Debt
By: JD_Rosendahl
That title is straight from the City of Oakland’s official website. I have to agree 100% with the City of Oakland, they are The Model City. They are The Model of and for Insanity and stupidity. They are The Model City for financial disaster.
On a May 5th 2010 article (Oakland Faces Pension Costs, Higher Taxes) for the San Francisco Chronicle, Matthai Kuruvila reports, "The City of Oakland faces a budget short fall of $42 million, which will balloon to $58.7 million by June 2011. The City of Oakland owes a back payment of $43 million towards the old Policemen and Firemen retirement system." The Oakland teacher’s union is threatening to strike. Channel 4 new in report, the City of Oakland just approval to send out pink slip notifications to 416 non teacher city workers. As is the case with every municipality, the fiscal year ends June 30th, 2009. It’s just a few weeks away.
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Tuesday, June 01, 2010
BP Gulf Oil Spill Polluting the Whole Planet, The Game Changer Of The Millennium / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: T_Anthony_Michael
The Gulf Oil Spill has proven to be the most consequential environmental catastrophe of the modern era, and yet it has not even come on shore much except for the sullied patches of LA coastline that we watch on the evening news. The documentary “BLACK WAVE” quite poignantly illustrates that, with an oil spill, the most serious effects are felt for years, and even decades later. This illuminating retrospective over the last 20 years in the wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Alaska presents a graphic portrayal of the tearing of the social fabric, and the many dimensions of societal breakdown due to the unrelenting environmental degradation of that terrible disaster.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
A Better Solution Than TARP / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Rudy_Avizius
Our government has committed $12,200 Billion in bailouts, guarantees, and backstops to the very same people who created this economic mess. Most of this money has not found its way to Main Street but instead has lined the pockets of the Wall Street types. Part of this was the $700 Billion TARP program.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Put Patients and Doctors Back in Control of Healthcare / Politics / Healthcare Sector
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Most everyone agrees that health care in the United States has major problems, the biggest problems relating to skyrocketing costs. No one doubts the system is in need of reform. However, too many in Washington see tighter government controls as the solution. In fact, the problems are rooted in past government controls that created more problems than they solved.
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Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Spain's Dropout Generation / Politics / Spain
By: MISES
Jaime Levy Moreno writes: In the last two decades in Mediterranean Europe, and especially in Spain, a new social group has emerged, called jovenes (youngsters). Members of this group exhibit several specific characteristics. First, jovenes are usually male, aged 25–35, although some members are in their 40s. Second, they are in a perpetual state between graduation and their first job. Third, they usually live with their parents to save money, allowing them to go out at least three times a week.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Regulation Era – The 60’s Return / Politics / Market Regulation
By: OilPrice_Com
The decade of the 1960s stood orthodoxy on its head. It was a time when alternative everything got a hearing. Expertise came into doubt; the phrase “some decisions are too important to be left to the experts” was heard everywhere.
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Tuesday, June 01, 2010
What if Iran Had Carried Out the Gaza Carnage? / Politics / Israel
By: Global_Research
Kourosh Ziabari writes: It's not unjustifiable to consider Israel as the absolute incarnation of fraudulence, relentlessness and brutality. Since its establishment, the Zionist regime has carried out actions which contravene the international regulations and cancel out the human rights in a way or another. Only a brief look into the account of Israel's bloody interaction with the Palestinian people over the past years shows us that this fabricated regime does not deserve "the right of existence", as the U.S. and European officials put it periodically.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Ruthless Economic Austerity Measures, Crushing Exploitation of the European People / Politics / Economic Austerity
By: Global_Research
Garda Ghista writes: In mid-May, 2010, European leaders met with International Monetary Fund (IMF) leaders and finally reached an agreement comprising a £750 billion rescue package for the euro. Since then, announcements have taken place every single day regarding ruthless, merciless new austerity measures which the common people of Europe will have to now face. Workers and non-workers alike will be paying heavily for the financial games of the bankers and speculators.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
America's Complicity in Evil / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
As I write at 5pm on Monday, May 31, all day has passed since the early morning reports of the Israeli commando attack on the unarmed ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, and there has been no response from President Obama except to say that he needed to learn "all the facts about this morning's tragic events" and that Israeli prime minister Netanyahu had canceled his plans to meet with him at the White House.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Guarding Your Money from Government Onslaughts / Politics / Government Spending
By: LewRockwell
Richard Daughty writes: Grandfather-economic-report.com is famous for presenting whole constellations, in graphic form, of horrors about the mess that fiat money and government, in the hands of incompetent do-gooders, has allowed.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
High School Reunion Brings Me Face To Face With The Economic Catastrophe / Politics / Social Issues
By: Danny_Schechter
It was hard to resist an invite to my high school reunion because it came from guys who worked with me on the student newspaper at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, New York; my gateway to a career in journalism.
Working on the Clinton News, yes, a half century ago, inspired my perhaps naïve hope that here was a field that promotes the values of democracy I espoused even back then. I am still at it, but as an insider turned outsider where the media trend is no longer my friend.
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Monday, May 31, 2010
United States Deafening Silence Over Israeli Terrorist Attack / Politics / US Politics
By: Finian_Cunningham
This time, the Israeli war machine may have gone too far for international public opinion to stomach. In the early hours of 31 May, before daybreak, Israeli commandos stormed the international civilian aid convoy heading for Gaza. Between 20-24 volunteers onboard have been killed and at least 50 injured, according to various reports, but the number of casualties has risen rapidly from the initial reports of two dead. The final death toll could be greater.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Save Yourself From Perpetual Debt Slavery and Government Inflation / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Nadeem_Walayat
The politicians as evidenced during the sovereign debt crisis bailouts continue to show that they are firmly in the back pockets of the bankster elite. Instead of countries such as Greece defaulting on their debts, they are being forced to become debt slaves to finance their debt masters (the bond market) in perpetuity, as power continue to drift from the debt slave sovereign states to the their debt masters i.e. the debt providers, the IMF and now the German Government which through its bailout holds countries such as Greece by the balls, and is fully willing to squeeze governments that show dissent and disobedience to the New German European Order. Off course looking at the bigger picture, the German state itself is enslaved to the banking elite.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Proposed Solution(s) to Gulf BP Oil Spill / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Dr_Stephen_Rinehart
Dr Stephen A Rinehart writes:
Background: The following comments are based in part on my 45+ years experience in structural dynamics/mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech and extensive design/project management experience including offshore oil platforms, oil pipelines, conventional/nuclear DOD weapons effects and combat weapons designs, and environmental fate and transport of chemical/oil plumes.
Monday, May 31, 2010
UK FTSE and Financial Markets Could be Hit by David Laws Resignation / Politics / UK Debt
By: Nadeem_Walayat
As if the brewing Korean Crisis and European Sovereign debt crisis were not enough, the weekend has seen the first internal crisis to hit the Con-Dem coalition government with the shock surprise resignation of David Laws, Chief Secretary to the Treasury after he was allegedly caught out fiddling his parliamentary expenses by funneling £40,000 to his gay lover in contravention of the expenses rules (Con-Dem Government Starts to Crumble, David Laws Resigns, Liberal Democrats Betray Voters).
Monday, May 31, 2010
Did an U.S. Mine Sink the South Korean Ship? / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Global_Research
Yoichi Shimatsu writes: BEIJING - South Korean Prime Minister Lee Myung-bak has claimed "overwhelming evidence" that a North Korean torpedo sank the corvette Cheonan on March 26, killing 46 sailors. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed that there’s "overwhelming evidence" in favor of the theory that North Korea sank the South Korean Navy warship Cheonan. But the articles of proof presented so far by military investigators to an official inquiry board have been scanty and inconsistent.
Monday, May 31, 2010
The Korean Crisis Breaking News, Cui Bono? / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: F_William_Engdahl
The alleged North Korean sinking of a South Korean boat in March has dramatically escalated tensions between north and south Korea. It has also caused a reversal of a planned Japanese government push to close the US military base on Okinawa. The major question in the bizarre affair is Cui Bono?
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Kyrgyzstan’s ‘Roza Revolution’—Cui Bono? Geopolitics of Central Asia / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: F_William_Engdahl
Part I: Kyrgyzstan as a Geopolitical Pivot
The remote Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan is what Britain’s Halford Mackinder might call a geopolitical ‘pivot’—a land that, owing to its geographical characteristics, holds a pivotal position in Great Power rivalries.
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Sunday, May 30, 2010
North Korea Crisis and the World Economy / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Brian_Bloom
The reader should understand that this analyst is neither a maverick nor an agitator. All he is interested in is “The Truth”. Investor confidence across the Western Markets appears to him to be on the brink of collapse – an outcome which he has recognized for some years was a possibility based on the emerging facts. He is on record as having made consistent references to this possibility in his various blogs over a period of several years. He is also on record as having been focusing on what might be done by society’s leaders to extricate society from a dysfunctional world economy, should a collapse in world markets materialize.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Oily Politics Led to BP Gulf Environmental Disaster / Politics / Environmental Issues
By: Walter_Brasch
Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) had a good idea to slow or stop the Gulf Coast oil spill from reaching shore. Build artificial barrier islands, he told the federal government. He wanted the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River to strengthen and connect the existing barrier islands. The $350 million plan, which Jindal demanded be paid for by BP Oil, would establish an 80–85 mile barrier, about 200 feet wide and six feet high. The barriers would also protect the marshlands, the federal wildlife preserves, and a fragile ecosystem.Read full article... Read full article...