Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Thursday, January 14, 2010
Google's China Hypocrisy Ignores Deep CIA Connections / Politics / Google
The western media is currently full of articles on Google's 'threat to quit China' over internet censorship issues, and the company's 'suspicion' that the Chinese government was behind attempts to 'break-in' to several Google email accounts used by 'Chinese dissidents'.
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Thursday, January 14, 2010
Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age / Politics / Climate Change
The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.
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Thursday, January 14, 2010
Blunder and Plunder, The History of War / Politics / GeoPolitics
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) claimed that "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." Perhaps. But more serious are those who know history but learn nothing from it.
Victor Davis Hanson is a Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a columnist for National Review Online—all institutions with admittedly right wing views. He writes about war but has never fought in one. He is a historian whose views of history are based on his biases, not the evidence.
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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Fed Publishing Mathematical Gibberish to Hide Balance Sheet Secrets / Politics / Central Banks
The Fed is pulling out all stops to defend its secrets, including publishing self-serving mathematical gibberish. Please consider the St. Louis Fed article on the Social Cost of Transparency.
Unless you are an academic wonk, you will be stymied by pages that look like this ...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Fed Seeks Control Not Profits To Protect the Banking Cartel / Politics / Central Banks
This report is from Fortune. It says that the Federal Reserve System made $51 billion in 2009, and it returned over $46 billion to the government.
If you are a regular reader of my reports, you are well aware of this. I write articles on this at least once a year. Why? Because so few critics of the FED understand this. I keep getting questions on the forums about how the FED works.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Geithner in Increasing Trouble Over AIG Bailout Decisions / Politics / US Politics
Representative Edolphus Towns, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee plans a Subpoena to probe Geithner's AIG decisions.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Bank Shareholders Should Reject Bankster Bonuses / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
In July 2009, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's report found that, among other things, the compensation structures at most banks were "a major impetus for the subprime fiasco."*
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Why the Fed Likes Independence / Politics / Central Banks
Last week it was revealed that when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, he urged AIG officials not to disclose to the Securities Exchange Commission relevant details of agreements with banks to bail out Goldman Sachs. Apparently he felt at the time that regulators and the public would be angry that taxpayer money was used to fully compensate bankers who made some horrifically bad investment decisions. These banks should have suffered the consequences of the huge risks they were taking. After all, they kept plenty of rewards when times were good. Instead, the Fed found a way to socialize these major losses so these banks could survive and continue making more bad decisions, at the expense of the American people and the value of the dollar.
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Monday, January 11, 2010
Americans Walking Away From Mortgages / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
It seems now almost acceptable that Americans can walk away from their mortgages. Why not? So many are upside down, owing more money on a house than the house is actually worth.
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Monday, January 11, 2010
The Military-Industrial Complex is Ruining the U.S. Economy / Politics / US Politics
Everyone knows that the too big to fails and their dishonest and footsy-playing regulators and politicians are largely responsible for trashing the economy.
But the military-industrial complex shares much of the blame.
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Monday, January 11, 2010
Gold and United States Steepening Slippery Slope Towards Facism / Politics / US Politics
The United States is rather rapidly sliding into a fascist-type state (you can use the "corporatism" euphemism if the truth is too difficult to swallow). The government and their corporate oligarchy are stealing from the people and no longer care if the people have any cake to eat. The process was gradual at first, then accelerated during George Bush Jr's tenure.
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Monday, January 11, 2010
Why Paying Your Mortgage May Be Financially Irresponsible / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
Roger Lowenstein has written one of the best articles I have read on the topic: walking away from your house. The prominent author and journalist published a January 7, 2010 article in the New York Times with the headline, "Walk Away From Your Mortgage!" Lowenstein acknowledges that it may be financially careless for homeowners who are upside down on their mortgage to keep paying it in order to hang onto a fantasy of ownership and avoid the shame of default. In this article, Lowenstein’s subject is the borrower who can afford to pay the mortgage but considers opting out for reasons of financial benefit and survival. This is referred to as a strategic default.
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Monday, January 11, 2010
Tim Geithner Must Go As Unemployment Festers A New Economic Strategy Team Is Needed / Politics / Recession 2008 - 2010
When a pitcher gets tired, starts throwing walks or being hit, most attentive managers take him out of the game. When policies fail, as in the case of the security system that didn’t work to spot the alleged Christmas bomber, the President starts acting tough with bluster about the buck stopping here and orders to straighten out a failed system.
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Sunday, January 10, 2010
Airline Bomb Plots, Is Anyone Telling Us The Truth? / Politics / Al-Qeeda
What are we to make of the failed Underwear Bomber plot, the Toothpaste, Shampoo, and Bottled Water Bomber plot, and the Shoe Bomber plot? These blundering and implausible plots to bring down an airliner seem far removed from al-Qaida’s expertise in pulling off 9/11.
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Saturday, January 09, 2010
America’s Healthcare Fraud, Confessions of a Drug Rep / Politics / US Politics
If America ever expects to fix its broken healthcare system, all of the problems must first be identified. Only then can a solution be engineered.
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Friday, January 08, 2010
The American Elite / Politics / US Politics
William Blum writes: Lincoln Gordon died a few weeks ago at the age of 96. He had graduated summa ***** laude from Harvard at the age of 19, received a doctorate from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, published his first book at 22, with dozens more to follow on government, economics, and foreign policy in Europe and Latin America. He joined the Harvard faculty at 23.
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Friday, January 08, 2010
Timothy Geithner, I Call Your Bluff / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
The Treasury responded to reports that the New York Fed asked AIG to suppress and delay facts about the bailout. Meg Reilly, a Treasury spokesperson claimed: “In the transaction at the heart of this dispute…the FRBNY [Federal Reserve Bank of New York] made a loan of $25 billion which is on track to be paid back in full with interest.” She claims the loan is currently “above water.”
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Friday, January 08, 2010
Pennsylvania Borough Gives Homeless the 'Cold Shoulder' / Politics / Recession 2008 - 2010
SUGAR NOTCH, Pa.--A regional advocate for the rights of the homeless says actions by Sugar Notch officials to deny shelter to homeless men may be based upon fear and a lack of knowledge.
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Thursday, January 07, 2010
Time To Indict Geithner For Securities Fraud / Politics / US Politics
The web of known parties guilty of fraud, coercion, or securities manipulation keeps getting bigger. Please consider N.Y. Fed Told A.I.G. Not to Disclose Swap Details.
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Thursday, January 07, 2010
Bernanke and Greenspan, Financial Crisis Not Our Fault / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
It seems that the primary qualification needed by any chairman of the Federal Reserve is the ability to never admit error, no matter how damning the evidence. During his tenure on the job, Alan Greenspan set the standard for implausible deniability. But in a speech last weekend in Atlanta, current chairman Ben Bernanke did the Maestro one better.
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