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Financial Stress and Extreme Political Ideologies: Can We Learn from History?
Friday, May 18, 2012 - 11:30am | 1540Can humanity afford to have history repeat itself? In June 2010, economist Paul Krugman discussed parallels between contemporary economic policies and events in the 1930s. At that time, Krugman wrote regarding the prospect of austerity policies in Europe: "How bad will it be? Will it really be...
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A New Economic Model? Revisiting Capitalism and Implications of Global Economy
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - 12:02pm | 1857On May 14, 2012, MarketWatch featured an interesting article written by Jason O'Mahony discussing the possibility of a new economic model for the world. The heading to the article stated that "picking either unregulated capitalism or stifling socialism is a false choice." O'Mahony: "Watching the...
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Revisiting Student Loans: Societal Tension and Portension
Saturday, April 28, 2012 - 9:00pm | 2497With respect to student loans, it is as if for those who know where to look, the writing is on the wall. Given recent political events and ongoing political dialogue, let's revisit the issue of student loans.I. Should there be a student loan bailout?CNBC's Kelly Evans discussed on April 25, 2012...
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Moment of Truth: Israeli Air Force Preparing for Attack on Iran?
Monday, April 16, 2012 - 10:10am | 1325Should we expect Israel to attack Iran this summer? The Drudge Report on Sunday linked to an article from The Times of Israel's Greg Tepper suggesting that the Israeli Air Force is "gearing up" for an attack on Iran. According to the article, journalist Alon Ben-David "had spent weeks with the...
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ETF Showdown: Jumping For Junk (HYG, IHY, HYXU)
Friday, April 13, 2012 - 7:07pm | 682In a market environment that seems to be putting a premium on eschewing risk, it might not feel like like the right time to be embracing high-yield, or junk, bonds. The iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (NYSE: HYG) and the SPDR Barclays Capital High Yield Bond ETF (NYSE: JNK), two of...
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Higher Ed Bubble Bursting: US Bank, JPMorgan Cutting Back on Student Loan Market
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - 9:43am | 1880Has the higher education bubble finally popped? There is reason to believe that it in fact has.I. Banks Restricting Student LoansAmerican Banker reported on March 30, 2012 that US Bank (NYSE: USB) will no longer be offering private student loans and that JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) will be...
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Our Kafkaesque World: The Market, Mayhem, and Mankind
Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - 11:11am | 2042"Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already...
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Leviathan: On Monarchs, Mandates, and the Mainstream Media
Sunday, April 1, 2012 - 10:09pm | 1751"They that are discontented under monarchy call it tyranny, and they that are displeased with aristocracy call it oligarchy; so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy call it anarchy." ~Thomas Hobbes In the 17th century, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote of the...
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Lamentation over Big Brother: The Specter of Turnkey Totalitarianism and Why Freedom Will Prevail
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - 1:18pm | 2066"For a creative writer possession of the 'truth' is less important than emotional sincerity." ~George Orwell "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past." ~George OrwellZero Hedge's Tyler Durden had an interesting article published March 17, 2012...
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What Does Income Inequality Really Portend for the Future?
Friday, January 20, 2012 - 3:46pm | 2233Income inequality has become a hot issue in the current political debate, but what does income inequality really portend for the future?MarketWatch's Darrell Delamaide had an article Wednesday arguing that the issue of income inequality in the American political debate is not going away anytime...
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Go North, Young Man!
Thursday, January 5, 2012 - 3:15pm | 1513Might young Americans begin to look north in order to avoid financial and societal tumult? Young Americans could always look to Canada. MarketWatch's Bill Mann recently had an interesting article on the topic of Canada's economic health. According to Mann, the release of two major reports shows...
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Student Loans: One of the Biggest Economic Issues of 2012?
Monday, January 2, 2012 - 12:13am | 2118Are student loans going to make for one of the biggest economic issues this year? Though the topic has been somewhat in the background lately as media attention to the Occupy movement has waned, there is reason to believe that student loans may be one of the hottest economic and political issues...
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Götterdämmerung: Hell, Tribulation, and Economic Collapse
Friday, December 16, 2011 - 1:18pm | 2587The end of the world may not be coming, but whatever is coming might as well be the end of the world. And as we walk in this twilight, perhaps at the very least, we would do well to enjoy the sunset while it lasts.As We Traverse Towards TribulationMarketWatch's Paul B. Farrell had an interesting...
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MF Global Files for Bankruptcy
Monday, October 31, 2011 - 11:20am | 432Court records show that the company has now filed for bankruptcy. That's according to a brief Reuters report, which cited a person familiar with the matter. This comes after reports early this morning that the firm was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy. The company has been struggling for...
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Did the Second Dot-Com Bubble Just Burst?
Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 5:58pm | 288Zero Hedge thinks so. The site just published a piece on the matter, along with a graph that shows the declining performance of new Internet IPOs. “Of all the dot com 2.0 IPO to hit the market in the past 3 months, the average return is now down 20%, but that has not prevented an underwriting...