STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
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February 07, 2013
So the EU leaders are getting together once more to determine the fate of the world in what the BBC calls a "crucial budget summit." What occurs to us when we observe this constant procession of summits is that this is a kind of intentional manipulation. First, ...
February 07, 2013
When I was in my late teens I discovered Ayn Rand, in particular her novel The Fountainhead. Actually I ran across her when I appeared in a theater group's rendition of her play, The Night of January 16th, at Andrews Air Force Base but her significance hadn't d ...
February 07, 2013
In recent years, a high degree of economic, financial and political uncertainty has resulted in acute volatility in stocks, real estate, commodities and precious metals. I believe that another aggravating factor has been the increasing skepticism through which ...
February 06, 2013
We were struck by a modest report (excerpt above) in the Star Online because it shows us once more that when it comes to monetary control, the International Monetary Fund is a big booster of central banking. The IMF and the world's current monopoly-model centra ...
February 06, 2013
We often repeat our points because they are idiosyncratic and no one else will. Perhaps it costs us readership but the truth is not always convenient. One important argument is that the West's current wars are for control not resources. We get a lot of pushback ...
February 06, 2013
Elite memes run deep. If the speculative reports are true, the top elites have about US$35 trillion buried in various backwaters, probably a good amount held in gold. These top elites apparently spend most of their waking hours – and they have a lot of leisur ...
February 05, 2013
Oxfam, a world aid organization, is recycling the "one percenter" meme that was made popular by the faux Occupy Wall Street movement. This dominant social theme is most useful to the power elite and thus will likely continue to be recycled even as Occupy Wall S ...
February 05, 2013
We read in SwissInfo that Swiss officials are coming under pressure to raises taxes. Switzerland is one of the world's last remaining functional republics, with power truly flowing from the bottom up in many cases. But over the past decade, every part of Switze ...
February 05, 2013
Whenever the federal government decides to reform something we can be fairly sure that the problem is about to get worse, especially if they call the plan bi-partisan. The bi-partisan immigration reform proposal launched last week in the US Senate will be no di ...
February 05, 2013
The defining characteristic of a zombified system is the way it hands out its rewards. In an honest economy, people do their best. They work hard. They take their chances. Some prevail because they are productive. Others are just lucky. The chips fall where the ...
February 04, 2013
Reuters is signaling that a Keystone Pipeline decision is coming soon. Turning the United States into two separate countries (metaphorically anyway) is an ongoing option that looks to become reality. Looked at this way, we have a solution to our "fracking dilem ...
February 04, 2013
The Rutherford Institute is well known for civil liberties and this analysis by founder John Whitehead caught our eye because he captured a significant underlying formative strategy of the power elite – the creation of neo-feudalism. The problem is that White ...
February 04, 2013
In this essay I wish to revisit democracy since all the power that our current administration is claiming for itself is supposedly justified by way of the democratic method. But, in fact, only a properly limited democracy is politically just and justified. Demo ...
February 03, 2013
The Daily Bell is pleased to present this exclusive interview with Dr. S. Fred Singer. Here's a brief snippet. Daily Bell: How did you become such a global warming skeptic? Your critics say you are irresponsible for advocating your positions. Are you? Fred Sing ...
February 02, 2013
The Dow Jones industrial average has crossed 14,000 and the US mainstream media is celebrating. Presumably the powers-that-be expect that short memories shall convince US consumers that the nation is back on track. It's part of a larger dominant social theme, I ...
February 01, 2013
The Pew Survey has found that three-quarters of the United States population doesn't trust government but for the Public Broadcasting System, it's a partisan issue and also "business as usual." From our point of view, it is not, of course. It is a manifestation ...
February 01, 2013
Free-Market Analysis: This article continues to promote one of the power elite's most important memes ... that the world is a dangerous place and each country must do its part to protect Western civilization. A subdominant social theme would be that Western cit ...
February 01, 2013
In December it will be 100 years since Congress authorized the creation of the Federal Reserve System. Throughout that century the Fed has enjoyed broad bipartisan support. That's another way of saying the Fed never appeared on the political radar until Ron Pau ...
January 31, 2013
Zero Hedge posted the article excerpted above, perhaps because the website's editors wanted to get a reaction on a slow news day. Zero Hedge is what we might call an alternative news site, so it is part of the trend that this editorial by Chindit (whoever that ...
January 31, 2013
Another brilliant analysis courtesy of Washington's Blog is circulating throughout the Internet. We've commented on Washington's Blog in the past because it is a peculiar if noteworthy hybrid ... an example of what we might call "governmental libertarianism." W ...
January 31, 2013
Something not often noted in the discussion of rape across the globe is that in an age that prizes pragmatism as opposed to firm principles of conduct, even rape can be excused based on the expected benefit to the rapist versus injury to the victim. If one does ...
January 31, 2013
In the 21st century Americans have experienced an extraordinary collapse in the rule of law and in their constitutional protections. Today American citizens, once a free people protected by law, can be assassinated and detained in prison indefinitely without an ...
January 30, 2013
But not the good, gray men of central banking. We are not surprised. The power elites are deathly frightened, in our view, that their control over central banks is in jeopardy. They will sacrifice the entire financial infrastructure to make sure central banks a ...
January 30, 2013
We continue to grow more skeptical of these universal vaccine campaigns. Knowing what we think we do about the power elite, it is highly unlikely that these global campaigns are being offered without ulterior motives. Also, it is overly convenient that the only ...
January 30, 2013
Although it was barely noticed by the American press, on January 22nd, EU finance ministers approved a new "Financial Transactions Tax" (FTT) that has implications for market competitiveness around the world. The move was conceived as a Franco-German initiative ...
January 30, 2013
When you get to know people, you are, in part, building a reputation with each other. "What kind of person is he?" "How does she handle a difficult situation?" "What kind of attitude does he bring to his work?" "How does she respond to confrontation or adversit ...
January 29, 2013
Actually, it is NOT surprising that BIS officials have begun to warn about a bubble; it is perhaps a bit surprising that they would choose to speak about it now. Maybe they are trying to get "ahead of the curve."As we've pointed out often in the past (as part o ...
January 29, 2013
Glasgow, come on down! Congratulations ... not. Sure, this rundown union municipality in Scotland is now going to receive 24 million pounds to help it convert to a smart city of the future. But this is actually a marriage of union socialism and technocratic fas ...
January 29, 2013
President Obama last week began his second term by promising that "a decade of war is now ending." As he spoke, the US military was rapidly working its way into another war, this time in the impoverished African country of Mali. As far as we know, the US is onl ...
January 29, 2013
Americans demanding a return to limited government, a balanced budget and an end to spiraling sovereign debt have been voting for the GOP for decades and the result has been total failure on all counts. To accomplish these goals we really must turn the governme ...
January 28, 2013
Leo Panitch has the idea that because "private banking" is not working very well, banks ought to be turned into purely public facilities. Say what? In our humble view, this is akin to the neo-Nazi idea of late that has to do with nationalizing central banking i ...
January 28, 2013
When US President Bush tried to grant illegal immigrants amnesty under a proposal he clumsily launched at the end of his second term, the reaction was quick and vitriolic. It was a final cack-fisted gambit launched by one of the most authoritarian of all modern ...
January 28, 2013
Actually, the excerpt leading off this article is not from 1984 but from China's international mouthpiece publication, China Daily. But it might just as well be from 1984. The intent fits right in with the agenda of Orwell's fictional totalitarian society. The ...
January 28, 2013
Over the last few weeks, indeed since his victory at the polls, I have been listening to President Obama's speeches quite regularly. I wasn't surprised one bit at his ready exploitation of the Connecticut school shooting. As one of his hacks, Rahm Emanuel, said ...
January 27, 2013
The Daily Bell is pleased to present this exclusive interview with Peter Schiff. Here's a brief snippet. Daily Bell: Are you still bearish on the dollar and bullish on investment in tangible assets? Peter Schiff: Oh, very much so. Everything that's happening ju ...
January 26, 2013
Bloomberg provides us with an article – "Contagion Thesis Once Derided Proven by Kristin Forbes" – profiling Ms. Forbes in a fulsome manner. She is obviously the mainstream's latest economic celebrity. This is an interesting phenomenon, in fact, where econo ...
January 25, 2013
For years, so many years, we've launched article after article pointing out the insanity of beliefs in elite "scarcity memes." And Peak Oil has been one of the most stubborn and longest-lasting. We've argued that the market itself (the Invisible Hand) would fin ...
January 25, 2013
Wow. Memes are flying like a cloud of malicious monkeys over the Wicked Witch's western castle. Every time we look up we're assaulted. We can hardly catch our collective breath. And then there is this from the Vancouver Sun ... Exposure to pro-conspiracy materi ...
January 25, 2013
How long can the US and NATO keep lying about the Middle East and Northern Africa before the lies become untenable and the ones propounding the lies do irreparable damage to the credibility of the organizations they support? The larger question to ask is whethe ...
January 25, 2013
The reflection that you provide for others has a greater impact than you might know. When a person looks inward, exploring his or her thoughts, feelings, motivations, or values, we call it self-reflection. What we compare our actions to when we self-reflect are ...
January 24, 2013
In a little-noticed convention (see above), the United Nations is once again making it harder for poor people to earn a living. In this case it is the small gold miners that use mercury to help them sift for gold. While the UN provides the requisite disclaimers ...
January 24, 2013
Hillary Clinton testified before the US Congress yesterday and suggested, as Bill Clinton used to do, that legislators just "move on." Ms. Clinton's urgency in this regard may not only be because she wants to remove the focus of the investigation from how an Am ...
January 24, 2013
Paul Krugman has a regular column in The Times and can discuss what he chooses to discuss so why is he fussing, as he did in a December column, that others have other topics they wish to discuss not the ones he likes? Must we all take the lead of Krugman? What ...
January 23, 2013
Interesting to read about the mood at Davos, which is yet another confab of mostly lower elites and Hollywood "stars." Lower elites go to such confabs to divine just what dominant social themes are in fashion at the moment. The idea is to promote those themes c ...
January 23, 2013
To argue with Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is risky. He is well-informed, he has travelled much, writes well and has a sharp intellect. Yet I must affirm that he is mistaken in some of the opinions expressed in his recent article at The Telegraph, "A new Gold Standa ...
January 23, 2013
Last week the Bundesbank (the German central bank) surprised markets around the world by announcing that it will repatriate a sizable portion of its gold bullion reserves held in France and the United States. To many, the news from the world's second largest ho ...
January 22, 2013
As pointed out by our Beijing columnist in a recent article, Japan is a curious amalgamation of features and a kind of bifurcated culture. There is the exquisite genius of Japanese art ... and then there is the brutality of Japanese industry, economics and poli ...
January 22, 2013
The spectacular, tragic and bloody hostage-taking in Algeria that has now failed at the cost of almost all the lives of the involved hostages is widely being reported as organized by "veteran jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar." And according to newspapers like the Gu ...
January 22, 2013
PBS executives apparently want people to go to jail. Or some people anyway. Wall Street people. But here are some people they seem to be leaving out. They don't seem to want company execs of failing "green" companies that have borrowed hundreds of millions from ...
January 22, 2013
List of children killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen Compiled from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports. – Droneswatch.org Dominant Social Theme: "Crack some eggs to make an omelet." Free-Market Analysis: ... OK, that's the list. What is t ...
