By Tim Pearce – Re-Blogged From WUWT
Democratic messaging on climate change has been stunted throughout the midterm election cycle, and most candidates are turning to other issues to connect with voters, the New York Times reports.
Health care and the economy consistently top polls of key issues and social security, immigration and guns usually perform well too.
By Gary Christenson – Re-Blogged From The Deviant Investor
Wars benefit the political and financial elite. Most wars are on-going, whether they include formal Congressional declaration or military actions. The following wars will continue.
By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From http://www.Gold-Eagle.com
It is a matter of personal interest that it was my uncle, Iain Macleod, who invented the term stagflation shortly before he was appointed shadow chancellor in 1965. It is no longer used in its original context. From Hansard (the official record of parliamentary debates) 17 November that year:
We now have the worst of both worlds —not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of “stagflation” situation and history in modern terms is indeed being made.
By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From http://www.Gold-Eagle.com
Since the advent of nineteenth century socialism, politicians and economists in the centre ground have argued for a balanced approach, where vital services are provided by the state, and capitalism is left to provide the rest. Vital services in a modern economy are taken to include pensions, unemployment and disability benefits, healthcare and education. Most states also provide communications, such as rail and road infrastructure, electrical grids and perhaps telecommunications. They often own and operate on behalf of the people utilities, such as the railways, ports, electricity and water.
By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From http://www.Silver-Phoenix500.com
The purpose of this article is to draw the widest attention to the chronic inability of the economic establishment to forecast recessions. Next time you hear an economist make a prediction on mainstream media, your default assumption should be he or she is simply wrong.
Why do I allege this? An IMF economist, Prakash Loungani, did some interesting research in 2000 about the accuracy of economists’ forecasts. Using data taken from a publication called Consensus Forecasts (published by Consensus Economics), which is widely used as a source of independent estimates of economic growth by individual governments, Loungani found that of the 60 recessions recorded since 1989 in the 63 countries sampled, only two were forecast in April the year before and two-thirds remained undetected in the April of the year they occurred. Furthermore, analysts’ forecasts emanating from both private and public sector economists were little different, and had a strong bias towards optimism.
By Bob Shapiro
My blog is about 2½ years old now, and I’ve had well over 30,000 views. Articles automatically also get posted onto my Facebook page, where a larger number of my friends see them; most of the comments show up on my Facebook page.
While I still write posts myself, the lion’s share are re-posts from friends around the world who write well on the issues which are important to me (hey, it’s my blog). Many times, I fall into the trap of forgetting that many (most?) readers have zero training (and less understanding) of the subjects I blog about.
Because so many people (Americans and not) have no real clue about the good that is Capitalism and the benefits that each person enjoys because of Capitalism, I’d like to go over a few basics. So, this is for the good people out there who say things like, “He can afford it,” and “He’s just greedy and only worrying about making a profit.”
