Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Nationalizing the Banks – Response to reader criticism / Politics / Nationalization
By: Brian_Bloom
Thank you for your carefully considered argument in rebuttal of my (conceptual) proposal to nationalize the banking industry.
Perhaps you will think less ill of me if we can agree on precisely what has been occupying my thoughts – because it appears to me that you are making some unfounded assumptions regarding what I am actually proposing for consideration.
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Saturday, October 18, 2008
Paulson Panics Over UK Banking Crisis Solution / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: F_William_Engdahl
America's de facto Finance Czar, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has reached for the panic button and made a dramatic 180-degree reversal of his financial bailout plan passed only days before. On September 23 in testimony before the US Congress, Paulson, former CEO of the politically influential Wall Street investment firm, Goldman Sachs, declared his adamant opposition to the idea of the US Government taking equity stakes in troubled major banks in order to provide them capital and stabilize the frozen interbank trading market. On October 13, that opposition to ‘nationalization' collapsed. What happened to cause that sudden reverse is what interests us here. It shows the utter lack of coherency in the US financial elites over how to deal with their home-grown securitization of risk fiasco. Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Eight Forecasts in the Wake of the Financial 9/11 / Politics / Financial Crash
By: T_Anthony_Michael
Forecast #1 As we all sit back and wait for this year's October Surprise, please know that it came a little bit early this year on September 15th which will forever be known as BLACK MONDAY. Actually, the entire month of October is set up to be a series of Black Monday's, as well as every other day of the week is shaping up to be. It's really a good time to brace your self since this year's election cycle, and beyond, will bring with it a whole new season of surprises. Things like the beginning of the end of FIAT money – the real root cause of all our financial problems and economic ills.
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Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Big Bailout of 2008 Breeds Moral Hazard and Socialism / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Michael_J_Kosares
There has been a great deal of finger-pointing going on.
Who is to blame for this extraordinary crisis? Arguably, it is the most personal of the many crises visited upon us in my lifetime and probably the most far-reaching since, as of this morning, it had engulfed most of the world. Congress and the American people are looking for a "villain" or "villains" -- someone or some group that can be tagged with the blame for what has happened to the world economy.
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Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Voter Backlash Coming Against Labour Government Economic Incompetence / Politics / UK Economy
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Whilst Gordon Brown continues to enjoy and revel in the financial armageddon bounce, that looks set to ensure that the leadership challenge has been delayed until September 2009. However as the UK economy plunges into recession increasingly voters will become outraged at the Labour party effectively doubling the national debt by an additional £500 billion of which at least £90 billion is money lost, never to be recovered. After all this is what socialism is all about i.e. to stop bankrupt companies from going bust, whilst ratcheting up enormous amounts of debt. Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Welcome to George Orwells Version of the "Free Markets" / Politics / Government Intervention
By: Mike_Shedlock
In what may be the most Orwellian comment in history, President Bush just stated: " Bank buyout needed to preserve free market ".
The US Government is to spend up to $250 billion buying direct stakes in banks and other financial institutions under a controversial emergency plan which President Bush insisted today was "not intended to take over the free market but to preserve it".
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Capitalism Without Capital? / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
It has been long understood that our federal government is going deeper into debt, consistently raising the debt ceiling and demonstrating no fiscal restraint. In recent years, debt ceiling increases have been placed in "must pass" legislation as a means to guarantee that Republicans as well as Democrats would vote for them when Congress was under Republican control. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Central Banks Announce Unlimited Borrowings / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Mike_Shedlock
Stocks soared today as Europe, the US, and in fact Central Bankers everywhere "let it all hang out". Please consider Europe puts more on the line for banks than US .
Europe put $2.3 trillion on the line Monday to protect the continent's banks, a figure that dwarfs the Bush administration's $700 billion rescue program, in its most unified response yet to the global financial crisis after a stumbling start.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008
International Financial Crisis Economies and Markets Redefining the Rules / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
By: STRATFOR
A complex sequence of meetings addressing the international financial crisis took place this weekend. The weekend began with meetings among the finance ministers of the G-7 leading industrialized nations. It was followed by a meeting of finance ministers from the G-20, the group of industrial and emerging powers that together constitute 90 percent of the world's economy. There were also meetings with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. The meetings concluded on Sunday with a summit of the eurozone, those European Union countries that use the euro as their currency. Along with these meetings, there were endless bilateral meetings far too numerous to catalog. Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, October 13, 2008
Unavoidable Financial Collapses and Backfiring Government Actions / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Money_and_Markets
Open Letter to
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of
The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
From
Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D., Chairman,
Sound Dollar Committee
Saturday, October 11, 2008
U.S. Congress in Violation of the Constitution, Sumpreme Law of the Land / Politics / Fiat Currency
By: Submissions
Constitution Mandates- Congress shall coin the money and establish the value thereof.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 11, 2008
G7 Talks About Halting Ongoing Financial Crash / Politics / Credit Crisis 2008
By: Mike_Shedlock
Bloomberg is reporting G-7 Commit to `All Necessary Steps' to Stem Crisis .
Group of Seven finance chiefs, meeting after global stocks plunged the most since 1970, pledged to prevent the failure of key banks while stopping short of fresh initiatives to thaw credit markets.
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Saturday, October 11, 2008
Financial Storm to Usher In New World Order / Politics / New World Order
By: Peter_Schiff
More than just a mere liquidity or credit crisis, the current financial storm represents the death throes of the old global economic order, and perhaps the birth pains of a new one. The sun is setting on the borrow and spend culture that has defined us for a generation. Our long ride on the global gravy train is finally coming to an end, and once it does nothing will be the same. The sooner we come to grips with this the better. Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, October 11, 2008
G7 Financial Crisis Meeting Geopolitics / Politics / Financial Crash
By: STRATFOR
The finance ministers of the G-7 countries are meeting in Washington. The first announcements on the meetings will come this weekend. It is not too extreme to say that the outcome of these meetings could redefine how the financial markets work, certainly for months and perhaps for a generation. The Americans are arguing that the regime of intervention and bailouts be allowed to continue. Others, like the British, are arguing for what in effect would be the nationalization of financial markets on a global scale. It is not clear what will be decided, but it is clear that this meeting matters. Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, October 10, 2008
Maine Is Not Part of America and America Is Not Part of the World / Politics / US Politics
By: Michael_T_Bucci
You won't find too many people who understand that bad economic times have arrived in Mid-Coast Maine for the simple reason that they haven't arrived. In this town of 2,000 the last summer was as "normal" as normal could be. I asked local merchants - who outnumber chains in this semi-affluent mix of locals and "Transplants" - how business was this summer? Business was good, everyone says. Busy, busy! Yet, I spot a few vacant storefronts here and there that no one but the town office and me notice. The GM dealer disappeared last year leaving a giant space that the Health Store plans to fill next spring.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Financial Warfare Over Future of Global Banking Power / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: F_William_Engdahl
What's clear from the behavior of European financial markets over the past two weeks is that the dramatic stories of financial meltdown and panic are deliberately being used by certain influential factions in and outside the EU to shape the future face of global banking in the wake of the US sub-prime and Asset-Backed Security (ABS) debacle. The most interesting development in recent days has been the unified and strong position of the German Chancellor, Finance Minister, Bundesbank and coalition Government, all opposing an American-style EU Superfund bank bailout. Meanwhile Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pursues his Crony Capitalism to the detriment of the nation and benefit of his cronies in the financial world. It's an explosive cocktail that need not have been. Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Post 9/11 World Strategic Analysis / Politics / Al-Qeeda
By: STRATFOR
One day after 9/11, U.S. President George W. Bush declared a global “war on terror.” Al Qaeda had first reared its head years before in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 U.S. Embassy attacks in East Africa and the 2000 USS Cole bombing, but it was not until the World Trade Center towers came crashing down that the global international security community became almost completely consumed with battling global jihadism. Professors of political Islam came out of the woodwork, Osama bin Laden became a household name, university students started pouring into Arabic language courses and, for the first time, terrorism became a national security priority. This era became known as the “post-9/11 world.” Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Bailout Bill Full of Pork Fuelling U.S. $11trillion Debt Mountain / Politics / US Debt
By: Michael_Pento
Buried in the bailout bill signed into law on Friday was a plethora of tax incentives and increases in government intrusion into our privacy. Following in the spirit of the Patriot Act, this new law now allows the IRS to run undercover operations where they can pose as accountants and offer illicit advice to entrap clients. Additionally, it provides in total over $100 billion in tax exemptions for makers of wooden arrowheads, owners of stock car racetracks, Virgin Island rum runners and others.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Gold and the Flood of Cheap Government Money / Politics / Gold & Silver
By: Paul_Tustain
"...If we allow governments to control finance, we give them extraordinary power over which projects are allowed and which are deemed inappropriate..."
The BRITISH PRIME MINISTER , Gordon Brown, says the current mess in world finance and credit is the fault of "irresponsible" bankers.
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Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Congress Risked Financial Collapse to Charge Commission / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: John_Browne
Faced with an imminent financial meltdown and a looming depression, one might have expected Congress, inspired with a rush of patriotism, to have stepped vigorously to the plate to pass Paulson's rescue package without delay. Read full article... Read full article...