Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, July 29, 2011
USA AAA Credit Rating in Label Only / Politics / US Debt
By: Janet_Tavakoli
Sovereigns that bailed out banks are saddled with much greater government debt than before the crisis. In the spring of 2007, the Fed and the U.K.'s FSA reported that the degree of leverage in the global financial system was less than at the time of Long Term Capital Management, but in reality it was much greater. Global regulators are now repeating their mistakes. The risks in the interconnected global banking system have moved to currency trading and currency derivatives (remember the contribution of knock-in options to the 1995 currency crisis), leveraged loans, credit derivatives, market-linked derivatives, speculation in commodities, and both foreign and domestic government debt. Winston Churchill said we must alert somnolent authority to novel dangers; but our regulators are complacent, and the dangers are not novel.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Disastrous Outcomes From An Orchestrated U.S. Public Debt Crisis / Politics / US Debt
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
With the world concerned about US financial credibility and the poor outlook for the US economy, now is not the time for the Republicans to grandstand on the public debt. The debt ceiling needed to be quietly raised. Instead, the Republicans started a fire and then threw gasoline on it, creating an inferno that could burn up the US social safety net or the US Treasury’s credit rating and the US dollar’s role as reserve currency or what remains of the separation of powers.
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Friday, July 29, 2011
Why Capitalism Is Worth Defending / Politics / Economic Theory
By: LewRockwell
Anthony Gregory writes: As Obama demonizes the wealthy and pitches a dozen plans to restructure the economy, opponents of this program need a reminder of what exactly we’re fighting for. We are resisting bureaucracy, central planning, and encroachments on our freedom and communities. Yet this does not get to the heart of the matter. We are not only an opposition movement, countering the president and his partisans’ agenda. More fundamentally, we stand in defense of the greatest engine of material prosperity in human history, the fount of civilization, peace, and modernity: Capitalism.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Boehner Loses Credibility in Revised Budget Deficit Cuts Proposal, Tells Congress to "Get Your Ass in Line" / Politics / US Debt
By: Mike_Shedlock
It was bad enough when Boehner proposed a $3 Trillion deficit cutting proposal that the CBO said would only cut the deficit by a mere $850 billion.
Please see Rating the Obama, Reid, and Boehner Deficit Reduction Plans on Mish's 10-Point Credibility Scale for details.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
The End Of The False Flag Wars / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andrew_McKillop
It is easy and comforting, for some, to see the recent and current western "military adventures" in lower income, smaller, poorly armed countries as simply a neo-colonial rampage, perhaps with the initial aim of pillaging natural resources, but later on for the simple pleasure of trashing already weak and poor countries to thrill middle class graveside voyeurs with gore and suffering TV clips and newsbytes.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Your Guide Through the Washington Debt Speak / Politics / US Debt
By: LewRockwell
Brian Wilson writes: Another "Al" once wrote: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Washington's Math Adds Up to the Debt Ceiling Deadlock / Politics / US Debt
By: Money_Morning
David Zeiler writes:
If you've been wondering why your elected officials in Washington can't reach a basic compromise to break the debt-ceiling deadlock, consider this: They can't even get their numbers straight.
Not only do the competing Democratic and Republican plans differ on what counts as a spending cut, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has disputed numbers in both plans.
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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
$8.4 Trillion Hidden Profit For The Federal Reserve / Politics / Central Banks
By: Submissions
Liberty writes: The public is aware that deficit spending is the government's ability to spend money that it does not have. The image projected is the government borrows from the public, or the Federal Reserve, and the money that can be spent is above and beyond the funds collected in the form of taxes and fees.
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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Iran's Dream for a Middle East Gas Pipeline / Politics / Natural Gas
By: OilPrice_Com
Nothing gets oilmen more excited than the idea of building pipelines from exotic, hard to reach places to seaports where the product of their endeavors can be shipped to lucrative foreign markets.
These reveries have been most pronounced with the opening since 1991 the riches of the Caspian Sea basin.
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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Bailouts, Austerity and Rage: Calm Like A Bomb, Part I - The Greek & The Irish / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
By: Ashvin_Pandurangi
"Stroll through the shanties, and the cities remain. Same bodies buried hungry, but with different last names. These vultures rob everything, leave nothing but chains. Pick a point on the globe; yes the picture's the same. There's a bank, a church, a myth and a hearse; a mall and a loan, a child dead at birth. There's a widow pig parrot, a rebel to tame, a whitehooded judge and a syringe and a vein. And the riot be the rhyme of the unheard..." Rage Against the Machine: Calm Like a Bomb
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
The Hidden Debt Risk That Could End the U.S. Empire / Politics / US Debt
By: Michael_S_Rozeff
The debt limit will be raised. Neither side will get its way.
The U.S. government always raises the debt limit. How else would the debt and the government have gotten so large?
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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
The U.S. Debt Ceiling Charade, $114.5 Trillion of Debt and Liabilities / Politics / US Debt
By: Jeff_Berwick
What a circus the debate over the raising of the US Government debt ceiling has become. It's fun to watch everyone involved wriggling around trying to ignore the blue whale in the room.
It used to be an elephant... perhaps around 1986. But now, after a decade of wars and trillion dollar deficits, the US Government debt has become like the largest mammal in the history of the world - the blue whale - and is perhaps so large now that it might be in everyone's best interest just to ignore it or their heads may explode from realizing the enormity of the problem.
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Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Bernanke Secretly Gives away Sixteen Trillion Dollars / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Richard_Mills
The first ever GAO (Government Accountability Office) audit of the US Federal Reserve was recently carried out due to the Ron Paul/Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill passed in 2010. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, while leading the charge for an audit in the Senate, watered down the original language of house bill (HR1207) so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and others, opposed the audit.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
U.S. Debt Ceiling Intransigence: Unintended Consequences... / Politics / US Politics
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
Which party is responsible for intransigence on raising the debt ceiling? Republicans say the Democrats are, and Democrats say the Republicans are.
One could blame both parties equally, as both have their positions, but as I see it, it is the Republicans who are the most intransigent. The Democrats have shown more willingness to compromise, even offering cuts in Medicare and Social Security. Moreover, the Republicans started the fight, whereas the Democrats were willing to just raise the debt ceiling routinely, as in the past, and to get on with things.
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Tuesday, July 26, 2011
U.S. Debt Ceiling - What Now? / Politics / US Debt
By: Axel_Merk
William Poole writes: As I write it appears that the federal government is at the brink of default. The Republicans and Democrats have laid out irreconcilable positions on taxes. President Obama has said that he will not sign a bill that does not have some increases in tax rates on upper-income taxpayers. Republicans have said that they will not accept legislation that provides for such increases. In the negotiations, there has apparently been some progress in identifying spending cuts both sides can accept, but there no compromise is possible on the conflict over taxes.
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