“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Robert Reich: Why America’s Two Economies Continue to Drift Apart, and What Washington Isn’t Doing About It
America’s two economies are getting wider apart.
The Big Money economy is booming. According to a new Commerce Department report, third-quarter profits of American businesses rose at an annual record-breaking $1.659 trillion – besting even the boom year of 2006 (in nominal dollars). Profits have soared for seven consecutive quarters now, matching or beating their fastest pace in history.
Executive pay is linked to profits, so top pay is soaring as well.
Higher profits are also translating into the nice gains in the stock market, which is a boon to everyone with lots of financial assets.
And Wall Street is back. Bonuses on the Street are expected to rise about 5 percent this year, according to a survey by compensation consultants Johnson Associates Inc.
But nothing is trickling down to the Average Worker economy. Job growth is still anemic. At October’s rate of only 50,000 new private-sector jobs, unemployment won’t get down to pre-recession levels for twenty years. And almost half of October’s new jobs were in temporary help.
Meanwhile, the median wage is barely rising, adjusted for inflation. And the value of the major asset of most Americans – their homes – continues to drop.
Why are America’s two economies going in opposite directions?
Eugene Robinson: A Wiki Hornets Nest
Washington – The most important legacy of the WikiLeaks affair will almost surely be the rapidly escalating cyberwar that the group’s renegade disclosures have sparked. If you think you’re unaffected by unseen “battles” fought with keystrokes instead of bullets, you’re wrong.
At stake are issues of free speech, censorship, privacy, piracy, sovereignty and corporate power. We may know what we think about these concepts, but applying real-world logic to the Internet leads to unacceptable conclusions — such as sympathy for the goons in Iran or China who suppress anti-government political speech. This is, of course, out of the question. Which means sympathy for WikiLeaks nihilists who don’t deserve it.
Megan Tady: Mere Hours Left to Save Net Neutrality
I don’t want to be overly dramatic here, but there are just hours left to save the Internet.
Tomorrow, the FCC stops taking meetings and accepting official comments on its proposed Net Neutrality rules. But until then, we’re using every minute we have to remind the FCC that the public overwhelmingly wants real Net Neutrality, not a fake compromise with the phone and cable companies that will effectively kill free speech and innovation online.
Earlier this month, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski released a proposal that is Net Neutrality in name only. While details are still scarce, the Genachowski proposal reportedly would not offer the same protections to wireless Internet users as it would to those using wired connections.
John Nichols: Journalists Begin, Finally, to Stand Up in Defense of WikiLeaks and Freedom of Information
Leading Australian journalists have stepped up in a big way to defend WikiLeaks, with the head of the nation’s major media union arguing that “attacks on WikiLeaks can also be seen as attacks on the Australian media outlets which have worked with the organisation to publish leaked material.”In response to calls for the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (an Australian) and attempts to block the distribution of leaked US diplomatic cables, Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance federal secretary Christopher Warren says: “Allegations that the work of WikiLeaks is somehow illegal are yet to be proven in Australia, or in any other country. The Alliance and (the International Federation of Journalists Asia-Pacific section) calls on governments to refrain from prejudicial speculation that risks harming our democratic system.”
While most US journalists have been slow to defend WikiLeaks-and some have been openly critical of the website’s distribution of leaked US diplomatic cables-their Australian peers are pushing back against attempts to constrain freedom of information and the press.
David Weigel: Crisis Junkies
After the tax deal vote, get ready for another fiscal apocalypse.
New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh are retiring from the Senate, handing over their desks next month. This might explain why both senators seem so thrilled about the coming fiscal Ragnarok.
In an interview on CNBC on Monday, live from the post-partisan launch of No Labels, Bayh said that Democrats and Republicans could come together to attack the debt if there was “a precipitating event of some kind.” Gregg jumped in. “The event`s going to be the debt ceiling,” he said. “We`re going to hit this debt ceiling sometime in April. I believe, genuinely believe that there is going to be significant action in discretionary control, in Social Security, in entitlement reform and in tax reform. … And it’s going to all occur and the forcing mechanism is going to be the debt ceiling.” Bayh nodded. “I agree with Judd 100 percent.”
Easy for them to say, since they won’t be around for the tough votes. But plenty of people who will be around for those votes are saying the same thing. The current tax cut deal moves us closer to hitting the current debt ceiling of $14.2 trillion, which moves the analysts at Moody’s closer to downgrading America’s bond rating.
Mark Hertsgaard: Reason for Optimism out of the Cancún Climate Summit?
“You have been negotiating all my life,” 21-year-old Mima Haider of Lebanon told delegates at the United Nations climate negotiations in Cancún. “You cannot tell me you need more time.” But that’s pretty much what they did tell her, and the rest of us. True, some important agreements were reached in Cancún. Rich countries reaffirmed their legal obligation to help poor countries fight climate change, and even promised sizable sums toward that end. The Cancún Agreements oblige rich countries to contribute $30 billion in new aid over the next three years-growing to $100 billion a year by 2020-to a Green Climate Fund. This fund will help developing countries both to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and install protections against the floods, droughts and other climate impacts that disproportionately punish the global poor.
Dahlia Lithwick and Sonja West: Unplugged
When do Supreme Court justices need to just sit down and be quiet?
During his 35-year career on the Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens gained a reputation as the mild-mannered jurist who sought permission before asking questions of oral advocates. Over his decades on the bench, Stevens gave few interviews, rarely made controversial remarks in his speeches, and wrote no books.
Then he retired.
Now, mere months after hanging up his robe, Stevens has been traveling the country, letting us know what he really thinks on everything from his views on the opposition to the “Ground Zero Mosque” (“American Muslims should enjoy the freedom to build their places of worship wherever permitted by local zoning law”) to capital punishment (a system infected with racism, political exploitation, and “regrettable judicial activism”) to the merits of Bush v. Gore (“it had obviously no merit to it”).
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