Christoph Wienands
Member (since July 2009)Found NewsTrust through HuffPosts Pakistan news campaign. I find the concept very intriguing.
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William H. Gross describes how monetary policies created and keep creating even bigger imbalances between 1) the financial sector vs. producing sectors, and 2) between Wall Street firms and banks vs. insurances, pension funds and small. everyday investors. He analyzes in quite some depth how today's policies effectively devalue the savings of a broad part of the population while shifting this money to the financial sector. The opinion has several references to the author's employer, but in my opinion they do not suggest an advertisement for any product.
To rebalance debt loads and re-equitize financial institutions that should have known better, central banks and policymakers are taking money from one class of asset ... More »
Just read the Washington Times article referenced in the links:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/14/al-qaeda-hurts-muslims-most/
There it is clearly stated that Al Qaeda kills more Muslims than non-Muslims. No word of comparison to how many Muslims are killed ... More »
Forgot the Iraq and Afghanistan Index links:
http://www.brookings.edu/saban/iraq-index.aspx
http://www.brookings.edu/foreign-policy/afghanistan-index.aspx
Interesting theory. I did some research and I came across the “Saban Center for Middle East Policy” at Brookings (http://www.brookings.edu/saban/), which publishes the the Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Indexes (huge statistical compilations). Didn’t have the time ... More »
This piece remins of a story in the German "Der Spiegel". Before the credit crisis and even more so afterwards, banks have become too big to fail. By heavily overleveraging and taking on surreal risks, banks' managers celebrate and reward themselves at will. When the card house falls apart, John Doe tax payer faces the bill. Central question that said article raised was, if banks become too big to fail (= tax payer's money is permanently at risk), don't they become part of the ... More »
A comprehensive look at the larger context behing the multiple, individual bashings of White House opponents by the White House. Most cited facts and comments can be verified from records, and conclusions are logical.
That [hammering Rush Limbaugh] was child’s play compared with the Fox drubbing. Dunn has done countless interviews to slam Fox and its opinion-dominated coverage — and ... More »
While the comparisons of the federal budget to other "numbers" might or might not be true and are mostly of sensational nature, he is touching an highly critical point that will affect ad shape America for the next decades: The sheer size of our debt. +1 in the rating. The rest of it is mostly miminum rating, poorly funded and unrelated blurp.
The author takes six common preconceptions against the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and nuclear disarmament, and argues why those preconceptions are (partially) wrong. The author does not provide further references for many of his claims but to me they sound very logical.
Interesting opinion on nuclear disarmament. I found the section about the limited deterrence potential of nuclear armament (point #5) particularly insightful.
The author examines an escalating verbal battle between the White House and Fox. Not only do both sides bring their arguments, the author also looks at potential reasons why both sides might be interested in such an escalation.
While principally I think that politicians need to be able to take some criticism, it was especially enlightening to hear the arguments why both sides would want and would benefit from this escalation.
“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent”. Anita Dunn, White House. Chris Wallace [calls] the administration “the biggest bunch of ... More »
The article not only analyzes the likely cause of sever droughts in Kenya in recent years, but much more looks at the issues arising from those droughts from all sides. It cites environmental experts, interviews affected down-stream farmers as well as farmers in those forests who believe to have bought legitimate titles from allegedly corrupt politicians.
Mau forest is Kenya’s largest water tower – it stores rain during the wet seasons and pumps it out during the dry months. But during the past 15 years, ... More »
The article reports the experiences of a group of reporters investigating potentiel election fraud in Afghanistan. While much information is based on interviews and therefore not easily verifiable, the information is clearly marked as such.
In US media I don't see much talk about possible election fraud in Afghanistan. I have read some more about this problem in a German newspapers, which provided some more information, and ultimately, there is a good chance that the whole election is completely rigged. The man that supposedly has the most money to by votes: Karzai. I am amazed that this problem is mostly ignored by the US media. Rather, as one would expect, the elections in Afghanistan are presented as a big ... More »
The story looks at the current Healthcare craze/scare from the perspective of UK, whose healthcare system serves mostly as a negative example in ads and information campaigns. However, the article does not truly examine whether the UK's claims of misinformation about its NHS are correct or not, but rather.
Well, even though UK's claims of misinformation are not further examined for correctness, I believe they are likely to be true and that interest goups in the US are running misinformation campaigns based on fear. And a sad anekdote from my personal life... years ago I ws working in a small satellite office of a dental company. One day a woman walks in and asks whether we were selling crown cement (we didn't). Her crown fell out, and she neither had dental insurance nor the money ... More »
The article mentions several terms, like hundi, ban-king channel, madressah. It is up to the reader to figure out these terms, e.g. by reading a previous, referenced article. Except for Richard Holbrooke's statement, facts in the article are difficult to verify, and therefore seems more like an opinion.
This article takes a quote from Richard Holbrook to explain how philantrophic money donations can and do end up in the hands of Taliban. This funding source supposedly is larger than proceedings from narcotics production.
Transfers are thus ‘safe’ only when they are made through nonbanking channels like hundi, an informal means of transferring funds. Tackling this is a ticklish job, ... More »
I'm curious about the following quote: "Mr. Holbrooke declined to criticize Europe’s commitment to the war in Afghanistan,..." Was someone at the meeting suggesting Europe's committment was not enough? Or did he volunteer this information?









This was really an eye-opening article to me. The author Levine starts with a brief interview of Nader and Paul on the subject of populism a populist coalition. Until then I really didn't have any idea what really was supposed to be behind this term. Turns out it is pretty much the opposite of everything that, in my opinion, is wrong with today's government and coporate greed. I learned that the ugly snake even has a name, Corporatocracy. He makes a great case how depsite the great ... More »