Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
United States Debt and Exporting of the U.S. Economy Abroad Silent Conspiracies / Politics / US Politics
By: Richard_C_Cook
I met Senator Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings (D-SC) in 1985 in the aftermath of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. I had testified before the Rogers Commission after I leaked documents to the New York Times about NASA’s past knowledge of flaws with the O-ring joints whose failure caused Challenger to blow up. Later I told commission investigators and the press it was political pressure from the Reagan White House that likely caused NASA to overrule the engineers who tried to stop the launch.
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Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Secretive Bank Stress Tests Heighten Stress for Investors / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: The bank stress test of the nation’s 19-largest financial institutions is a flawed exercise that threatens to elevate the very economic-system stress it was designed to relieve.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Swine Human Flu Hybrid Spreading Fast Towards Global Pandemic / Politics / Global Pandemic
By: Pravda
Today’s world is connected closely because of air travel. This makes everyone, no matter where they live, threatened as the disease easily travels from location to location virtually within hours. In nature, influenza viruses circulate continuously among animals, especially birds. Even though such viruses might theoretically develop into pandemic viruses, in Phase 1 no viruses circulating among animals have been reported to cause infections in humans. Now at Phase 4, it is not yet considered a pandemic but the potential does exist.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Latvia Claims $200 Billion For 84 Year of Russian Occupation / Politics / Russia
By: Pravda
Latvia, one of the three Baltic States, a former Soviet republic, found a way out of the financial crisis. The country calculated the damage that the nation suffered from the Soviet occupation after WWII. Forty-eight years of Soviet power supposedly cost the country $200 billion. The amount includes Latvia’s costs for the loss of its independence, the deportation of the population, the ecological damage and even the Afghan war and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Latvia intends to collect the amount from Russia with the help of the European Union.
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Manipulated Bank Stress Test Reveals Only One Bank in Trouble? / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Money_Morning
William Patalon III writes: Only one of the 19 financial institutions that received a bank stress test would require additional capital, the controversial government initiative has reportedly concluded. The identity of the bank that is alleged to have failed the bank stress test was not revealed.
The bank-stress-test findings were reported yesterday (Sunday) by CNBC.com, which said it obtained the information from a source that it did not identify. The source did not identify the company, CNBC.com reported.
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009
China and Russia Sign Oil Deal as America Watches From the Sidelines / Politics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: BEIJING, The People's Republic of China - It's Day Two of my three-week trip here, and already I feel myself getting quickly reacquainted with this capital city. If you've never been here, it's hard to do this city justice with simple prose - and without sounding a bit cliché. Beijing - like much of emerging China - is special. And it deserves to be seen that way.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Is Swine Flu A Biological Weapon? / Politics / Global Pandemic
By: Global_Research
Paul Joseph Watson writes: There are some factors that suggest the swine flu killing people in Mexico may be a biological weapon, but obviously no such conclusion can be drawn at this time. The World Health Organization and the U.S. government have been quick to deny such claims [2].
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Condoleezza Rice Could Go on Trial For her Role in Torture / Politics / Al-Qeeda
By: Pravda
Barack Obama’s recent initiative to expose the information about CIA’s secret torture chambers has come into effect already. As it turned out, the information is directly connected with a person from the previous US administration. It goes about Condoleezza Rice. As National Security Advisor in 2002, Rice gave her personal approval to water tortures.
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Swine Flu to Accelerate Collapse of Global Economy / Politics / Recession 2008 - 2010
By: Pravda
Mankind has finally become aware that the financial crisis is not the most dangerous thing in the world. The world has come across a new danger – the swine flu virus. Many explain yesterday’s reduction of stock markets with the threat of the epidemic of the new disease. The struggle against the distribution of the new virus has made a number of countries ban the imports of pork. Russia introduced a ban too.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Energy Production and Going Green, Incompetent U.S. Intelligence Agencies / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: John_Mauldin
I send you Outside the Box each week not to make you comfortable but to make you think. Usually it is on some financial topic, but life is more than investments. Economics is not an isolated discipline (more like an art form I think) so we have to have a real understanding of the world around us. This week I offer two essays which made me both think and reflect. We live in a world which wants easy solutions to complex problems, and wish as we may, will not get easy solutions which will work.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
U.S. Treasury Smoke and Mirrors Turning Bankrupt Banks Solvent / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Paul_L_Kasriel
Preferred Equity into Common Equity – Accounting Alchemy? - Congress currently is in no mood to authorize more funds to help recapitalize the financial system. The Treasury says this will not be a problem. If financial institutions need additional capital from the taxpayers to remain solvent, the Treasury will simply shift the preferred shares it already owns in financial institutions to common equity shares. Voila - capital adequate financial institutions! Really?
Monday, April 27, 2009
Why Monetary Reform? / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Richard_C_Cook
Do you remember the TV cartoon show “Pinky and The Brain”?Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, April 27, 2009
Do Not Take a Swine Flu Vaccine, It Could Kill You! / Politics / Global Pandemic
By: Global_Research
I am making a plea to everyone who reads this, please, please DO NOT TAKE ANY VACCINE THAT IS PURPORTED TO 'PREVENT' THIS FLU.
Monday, April 27, 2009
How To Survive When the Economy Stinks / Politics / Recession 2008 - 2010
By: LewRockwell
Cristina C. Espina writes: So your economy stinks. It’s not as bad as you think. Really.Let me explain the view from several cultures away . . .
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Sunday, April 26, 2009
The Financial Barbarians at the Gate / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Submissions
Guns & Butter Interviews financial economist and historian, Dr. Michael Hudson.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
United States Escalates Threats Against Pakistan / Politics / Pakistan
By: Global_Research
Keith Jones writes: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned Pakistani authorities that US-Pakistan relations will be imperiled unless Islamabad heeds Washington’s admonitions and bloodily suppresses a growing Islamacist insurgency that has been fueled by the US occupation of Afghanistan.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, April 26, 2009
India, the Reality of Mass Poverty and Social Exclusion / Politics / India
By: Global_Research
Prof. Ananya Mukherjee Reed writes: “How is India?” asked an erudite friend of mine from North America soon after I reached India last December.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
United States Empire Built on False Prosperity Collapsing / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: James_Quinn
KEEP ON ROCKIN IN THE FREE WORLD - The American Republic is 226 years old. The Roman Empire lasted 13 centuries before collapsing. The Roman emperors attempted to stave off the collapse by providing bread and circuses to the masses. Feeding Christians to lions worked only for so long. I picture Caligula “Mad Money” Cramer exhorting the masses that the worst was over and not to worry about the Vandals and the Huns. Nero “Mustard Seed” Kudlow probably saw a recovery on the horizon as Barbarians were at the gates of the city. Cleopatra “Money Honey” Bartiromo was proclaiming that the stupid masses didn’t know what was best for the system. Caesar “Glimmers of Hope” Obama was sure that if they just distributed more bread and added a few more circuses, things would improve by the Ides of March.
Friday, April 24, 2009
The Fed: Our Next Troubled Biggest Bank? / Politics / Credit Crisis 2009
By: Money_and_Markets
Mike Larson writes: The Federal Reserve is watching the backs of U.S. banks. But sometimes I wonder, “Who’s watching the Fed’s back? Is the Fed our next troubled bank?”
You see, all of this garbage paper that’s going bad — the troubled residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS), the commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS), the asset backed securities (ABS), the Fannie Mae bonds, the corporate loans, and so on — hasn’t just gone
Friday, April 24, 2009
U.S. ‘Soft Power’, Dollar Standard and the Banks / Politics / Global Financial System
By: Global_Research
Steven Lesh writes: The privilege of supplying the world’s reserve currency, the money nations use to conduct business beyond their borders, is a source of power to the nation that possesses it more valuable than the most powerful military. Since virtually all money is created ‘out of thin air’ by entries in bank ledgers, the nation supplying the world’s reserve currency has the power to create enough money to buy the world. Working in conjunction with its banks, a nation supplying the reserve currency can conquer and control vastly more of the world’s wealth than it could hope to with military force.