“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.
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New York Times Editorial: Their Learnable Moment
On Tuesday, the Senate Banking Committee is holding a hearing on reforming derivatives – not a topic one would expect to draw a lot of energy or attention. But in the wake of JPMorgan Chase’s stunning trading loss, now reportedly at $3 billion and counting, committee members need to push the regulators testifying – and each other – to explain why, four years after the financial meltdown, speculative trading in these risky instruments has not been reined in. [..]
The committee’s ranking Republican, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, has vowed to repeal Dodd-Frank altogether. The panel’s chairman, Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat of New York, have called for looser rules on banks’ international derivatives trades.
After JPMorgan’s losses came to light, Mr. Johnson issued a statement saying that it shows “why opponents of Wall Street reform must not be allowed to gut important protections for the financial system and taxpayers.” He is right. Now and he other committee members, and the regulators, need to show what they have learned.
Richard (RJ) Eskow: JPMorgan Chase: Break Up the Big Banks Now. Here’s How.
When Jamie Dimon revealed that JPMorgan Chase had lost billions through risky and legally questionable trading, he said the losses would be about $2 billion and maybe more. Apparently it is more — a lot more. People in a position to know are saying the real figure is probably in the $5-7 billion range.
The JPMorgan Chase scandal — and yes, it is a scandal — shows us why we need to break up the big banks as quickly as possible.
But that won’t happen unless we can get our hands around the real scope of the problem, which is probably far greater than we’re being told. That means cutting through the enveloping shroud of jargon, euphemisms and double talk — “crap,” if you will — that keeps us from seeing the situation as it really is.
In the wake of this week’s House votes on the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act – which left the NDAA’s domestic military detention provisions even more noxious than they were before – one might legitimately wonder what country we live in.
Once again, our nation has demonstrated that the “land of the free” is an empty slogan, a vestigial nod to a constitutional vision that has long inspired the world yet seems wasted on our own shores. For what purpose, exactly, did the United States squander decades, trillions of dollars, and thousands of lives during the Cold War?
FDR was right: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” More so than any terror threat, it is the fear mongering about national security that presents the greatest danger to our Republic’s future. No “home of the brave” would be brow-beaten by fears of “giving rights to terrorists” into resigning its own rights, inviting repression upon itself by allowing government powers long used to define authoritarianism.
Dean Baker: Mortgage and Securitization Fraud: Where Is the Task Force?
It was almost four years ago that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paul Paulson, and then New York Fed Bank President Timothy Geithner ran to Congress warning that the end of the world was near. They told members of Congress that the banks were drowning in bad debt and without a massive bailout they would soon be forced into bankruptcy. Congress quickly coughed up the money in the form of $700 billion in TARP loans. The Fed contributed trillions more.
Undoubtedly most of the bad debt was due to stupidity, which does not seem to be in short supply on Wall Street despite the high paychecks. The folks running the major banks somehow could not see the largest asset bubble in the history of the world. The fact that house prices had risen by more than 70 percent above their trend level, with no plausible explanation in the fundamentals of the housing market, did not trouble these high-flyers.
Wendel Potter: Insurers Laying the Groundwork to Remove Consumer Protections if Mandate in Obamacare Is Tossed
I learned that Mitt Romney had won the Nebraska Republican presidential primary last week via a “Breaking News” e-mail alert from POLITICO. It wasn’t the news from the Cornhusker state, however, that caught my eye. It was instead the health insurance industry’s decision to spend our premium dollars on an Internet ad — an ad warning of dire consequences if the Supreme Court doesn’t rule the way insurers want on the constitutionality of Obamacare.
The worst-case scenario for insurers is if the high court strikes down the provision of the law requiring us to buy coverage (the so-called individual mandate), but allows the law’s important consumer protections to go forward.
The reason Obamacare is built around the individual mandate is because of the relentless lobbying by insurers, and not just on Capitol Hill. Representatives of the industry made frequent trips to the White House during the debate on reform to twist the arm of President Obama, who had campaigned against the mandate when he was running for president.
Jim Hightower: Feeding Obesity
Attention foodies: There’s a new craze in Cuisine World, and it’s going 180 degrees in the opposite direction from the much-publicized healthy-eating movement.
It has nothing to do with dressing locally sourced beets and arugula with artisan balsamic vinegar. We’re talking a big gooey Pizza Hut pepperoni pie with a long looping hot dog stuffed right into the crust around the entire circumference.
Hey, some might see the growing global problem of obesity as a crisis, but YUM! Brands, Inc., the conglomerate that owns Pizza Hut, sees it as a money-making opportunity.
That’s why the worldwide pizza peddler has introduced another belt-buster ringed by a dozen mini cheeseburgers. Sadly, you can only order one if you travel to Dubai, Saudi Arabia, or the other Middle Eastern countries where Pizza Hut operates.
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