“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”.
New York Times Editorial: A Long Bleak Winter
The European Central Bank’s cheap lending to euro-area banks may have briefly stabilized the financial markets. But the respite won’t last. The decision by Standard & Poor’s on Friday to downgrade the credit ratings of nine euro-zone countries, including France, Italy and Spain, should remind European leaders that their economic strategy based on austerity for all is just not working.
After umpteen rescue plans, Europe remains a long way from coming to grips with its mushrooming debt crisis. Greece, which negotiated a second $165 billion bailout plan with its European neighbors in October, is back on the brink of a financial collapse. Even the new technocratic Italian government, appointed in November with strong German backing to execute a policy of fiscal austerity, says it is an illusion to believe the crisis can be overcome through budget cuts alone.
Paul Krugman: Deliberate Deception in the US: Blaming Fannie and Freddie for Crisis
Joe Nocera gets mad. And it’s a beautiful thing to see.
In a Dec. 23 column in The New York Times, Joe once again went after the Big Lie – the claim that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial crisis – and drove home the point that the people advancing this story aren’t just wrong but are acting with intent, engaging in deliberate deception. [..]Basically, Joe is arriving where I’ve been since 2000: what’s going on in the discussion of economic affairs (and other matters, like justifications for war) isn’t just a case where different people look at the same facts but reach different conclusions. Instead, we’re looking at a situation in which one side of the debate just isn’t interested in the truth; in which alleged scholarship is actually just propaganda.
Last evening, Tavis Smiley hosted a program that was broadcast live on C-SPAN live and that focused for two-and-a-half hours on the issue of poverty in America. It was terrific. The energy and commitment of the experts assembled to investigate and help alleviate poverty made the conversation rich beyond anything I’ve seen in ages. Each panelist came at the topic from a different perspective. That added to the richness of the discussion about being poor in America. [..]
Even though I’ve been through the slide from middle-income to poor and now am fighting the unwinnable fight to climb back out, I still need the affirmation these sorts of discussions can give to remember that it still isn’t my fault. The system crushed me, and the system will crush me again unless I stay intensely vigilant — and maybe it will crush me again even if I do. But I do not want to stay vigilant about the wrong things.
John Nichols: Mitt Romney Abandons His Father’s Civil Rights Legacy
The Republican Party, founded by militant abolitionists and once the political home of civil rights champions such as George Romney, has since the late 1960s been degenerating toward the crude politics of “Southern strategies” and what former Republican National Committee chairman Lee Atwater referred to as the “coded” language of complaints about “forced busing,” legal-services programs, welfare and food stamps. But the 2012 campaign has seen this degeneration accelerate, as the candidates have repeatedly played on stereotypes about race, class and “entitlements.” [..]
If ever there was a time when the man who is likely to be party’s 2012 presidential nominee should be joining the NAACP in objecting to the racialized language being heard on this year’s GOP campaign trail, it is now.
But that’s not happening.
Instead of objecting to the excesses of the other contenders, the “adult” in the race, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, picked up on the themes developed by Santorum and Gingrich to gripe about “the ever-expanding payments of an entitlement society” as “a fundamental corruption of the American spirit.”
Romney is arguably the most disappointing of the current candidates, as he surely knows better.
Charles M Blow: Bitter Politics of Envy?
You’re just jealous. At least that’s how Mitt Romney sees it. The millionaire who posed for a picture with the boys at Bain Capital with the long green clinched between their teeth and poking out of their collars and jackets now says that people who question what he did there, and what rich people do now, are just green with envy.
In his New Hampshire victory speech on Tuesday, Romney lambasted his Republican opponents (who have raised real issues about his role at the private equity firm Bain Capital) for following the lead of President Obama, whom he described as a leader who divides us “with the bitter politics of envy.”
Gail Collins: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Back in the late-1950s there was a TV show called “The Millionaire” about a mysterious rich man, named John Beresford Tipton, who would anonymously give checks for $1 million to total strangers.
Usually, the recipient was a poor schlub who was over the top with joy until it turned out that the money didn’t buy happiness. Clearly, we were all better off in our humble homes, clustered around our 14-inch TVs.
I am bringing this up because the current presidential race has demonstrated that a million dollars is nothing – nothing – these days. Nothing! A million dollars is what they give you for designing the best pantsuit on a reality TV show.
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