Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Greenspan Came Not to Save Consumers but to Bury Them / Politics / Central Banks
By: Fred_Sheehan
April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan defended the central bank's record on consumer protection in the years before the financial crisis.... "The Federal Reserve, often in partnership with the other federal banking agencies, was quite active in pursuing consumer protections for mortgage borrowers," Greenspan said in testimony for a hearing today of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Congress's FCIC Nearly Nailed Former Citigroup Executives to the Wall -- Then Blew It / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Janet_Tavakoli
Phil Angelides, Chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, had Robert Rubin, former senior advisor Citigroup (also former Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton, and former Co-Chair of Goldman Sachs), and Chuck Prince, former CEO of Citigroup, in the palm of his hand today. He asked them why they weren't alarmed for Citigroup in May of 2007, when the Bear Stearns hedge funds ran into trouble. He recalled they imploded in June 2007 and joked that it happened around the time of his birthday. Rubin and Prince shrugged it off, and Rubin that he didn't know about Citigroup's CDO troubles until the fall of 2007.
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Thursday, April 08, 2010
Mexico in Crisis, The Struggle for Balance / Politics / Mexico
By: STRATFOR
This week’s Geopolitical Intelligence Report provided a high-level assessment of the economic forces that affect how the Mexican people and the Mexican government view the flow of narcotics through that country. Certainly at that macro level, there is a lot of money flowing into Mexico and a lot of people, from bankers and businessmen to political parties and politicians, are benefiting from the massive influx of cash. The lure of this lucre shapes how many Mexicans (particularly many of the Mexican elite) view narcotics trafficking. It is, frankly, a good time to be a banker, a real estate developer or a Rolex dealer in Mexico.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
A Floating Alternative to Nabucco Undercuts Potential Disruptions to EU Energy Supplies / Politics / Natural Gas
By: OilPrice_Com
In late February 2010, Romania, Azerbaijan, and Georgia finalized an agreement on the direct export of Azerbaijani natural gas to Romania. This has profound ramifications for halting Turkey’s ability to hold the EU hostage to energy supplies via Turkey, and offers far more rapid easing of European energy pressures. Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Kyrgyzstan And The Battle For Central Asia, Russia and China At Geopolitical Crossroads / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Rick_Rozoff
Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was deposed five years after and in the same manner as he came to power, in a bloody uprising.
Elected president two months after the so-called Tulip Revolution of 2005 he helped engineer, he was since then head of state of the main transit nation for the U.S. and NATO war in Afghanistan.
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Thursday, April 08, 2010
What Happens When We Don't See the Tipping Points / Politics / US Politics
By: Submissions
Bernard Weiner writes: Often in our busy daily lives, we miss the significance of a piece of news. Sometimes it's not until years later that we realize how very important that news event was in shifting the paradigm.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Congress Is a Criminal Syndicate / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
The director of Trends Research Institute, Gerald Celente, comments on Congress taking a 2-week break while 200,000 American people may lose their unemployment benefits.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Understanding the Fed, Not Just the Myths / Politics / Central Banks
By: EWI
If you would like to understand more about how the U.S. Federal Reserve works, you can spend some time on its website -- or you can get the real story. Elliott Wave International has collected eight of Robert Prechter's most trenchant articles about what the Fed actually does. He takes on the misleading myths about the Fed and explains what's really going on as he writes about these topics.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Wall Street Bank Bailout Tally Shows Billions of Dollars of Stolen / Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts
By: Global_Research
Methodology: In calculating the bailout totals, CMD’s focus has been on direct and indirect support to financial institutions that had a role in causing the financial crisis. We tally programs across five federal agencies (Federal Reserve, Treasury, Federal Housing Administration, Federal Housing Finance Agency, and the FDIC) and include direct support, loans, and guarantees.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Going After the Banksters, Then and Now / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Danny_Schechter
A Tale of Then and Now, FDR vs Obama: A Story of Shame, Co-optaton, Partisan Bickering and Industry Lobbying To Undermine Financial Reform
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Goldman Sachs Spinning Gold / Politics / Credit Crisis 2010
By: Janet_Tavakoli
Goldman Sachs claims great risk management skills, while it shirks responsibility for its role in the near collapse of the U.S. economy. The former is a myth, and the latter is a dodge. [1] As taxpayer wealth was destroyed, Goldman exploited the financial crisis it helped cause, while the U.S. was (and remains) at war.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
The Global Economic Crisis: Riots, Rebellion and Revolution / Politics / Recession 2008 - 2010
By: Andrew_G_Marshall
This is Part 3 of the series, "When Empire Hits Home."
Part 1: War, Racism and the Empire of Poverty
Part 2: Western Civilization and the Economic Crisis: The Impoverishment of the Middle Class
As nations of the world are thrown into a debt crisis, the likes of which have never been seen before, harsh fiscal ‘austerity’ measures will be undertaken in a flawed attempt to service the debts. The result will be the elimination of the middle class. When the middle class is absorbed into the labour class – the lower class – and lose their social, political, and economic foundations, they will riot, rebel, and revolt.
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Wednesday, April 07, 2010
The Greek Financial Crisis and the European Timetable / Politics / Euro-Zone
By: Global_Research
Dimitri Diamant writes: Now that the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 is behind us, after it was forced through Ireland, after the Irish were told to keep voting on this until they said "yes"; now the European Union moves on to the next item on its timetable. The next step is to create a centralized Ministry in Brussels for Finance and Taxation, thereby further eroding the diminishing national sovereignty of the now twenty-seven member states; and what better way to do this than to organize a specific potshot against the little country of Greece?
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
The NY Times and Other Establishment Broad Sheets are Dead as Doornails / Politics / Mainstream Media
By: Gary_North
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." ~ A. J. Liebling
"People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news." ~ A. J. Liebling
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Wednesday, April 07, 2010
U.S. Will Lose a Trade War with China / Politics / Global Economy
By: Michael_Pento
In light of the number of manufacturing and goods producing jobs lost in America over the past decade, it’s no wonder why many in Washington and on Main St. are clamoring for a trade and currency war with China. The raucous has grown so loud that Congress, Treasury and the Commerce department may soon be forced to declare China a currency manipulator. Senators Lindsey Graham (R) South Carolina and Chuck Schumer (D) New York have introduced legislation that would compel the Treasury to cite the Chinese as currency manipulators, which would allow the Commerce Department to impose duties and tariffs upon them.