“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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Robert Reich: Why Consumers are Bummed Out
The Conference Board reported Tuesday that the preliminary January figure for consumer confidence in the United States fell to its lowest level in more than a year.
The last time consumers were this bummed out was October 2011, when there was widespread talk of a double-dip recession.
But this time business news is buoyant. The stock market is bullish. The housing market seems to have rebounded a bit.
So why are consumers so glum?
Because they’re deeply worried about their jobs and their incomes — as they have every right to be.
E. J. Dionne, Jr.: The New Politics of Immigration
Think back to the battle over health care reform. Can you imagine Republicans, upon hearing that President Obama was about to offer his own proposals, would want to rush ahead of him to put their own marker down-and take positions close to his?
That’s the comparison to keep in mind to understand the extraordinary transformation of Beltway politics on immigration reform. Until Obama was re-elected, party competition translated into Republican efforts to block virtually everything the president wanted to accomplish. On immigration, at least, the parties are now competing to share credit for doing something big. It’s wonderful to behold.
The New York Times‘ Charlie Savage reported yesterday that the State Department “reassigned Daniel Fried, the special envoy for closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and will not replace him”. That move obviously confirms what has long been assumed: that the camp will remain open indefinitely and Obama’s flamboyant first-day-in-office vow will go unfulfilled. Dozens of the current camp detainees have long been cleared by Pentagon reviews for release – including Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a 36-year-old Yemeni who died at the camp in September after almost 11 years in a cage despite never having been charged with a crime. Like so many of his fellow detainees, his efforts to secure his release were vigorously (and successfully) thwarted by the Obama administration.
Perfectly symbolizing the trajectory of the Obama presidency, this close-Guantánamo envoy will now “become the department’s coordinator for sanctions policy”. Marcy Wheeler summarizes the shift this way: “Rather than Close Gitmo, We’ll Just Intercept More Medical Goods for Iran”. She notes that this reflects “how we’ve changed our human rights priorities”. Several days ago, Savage described how the Obama DOJ is ignoring its own military prosecutors’ views in order to charge GITMO detainees in its military commissions with crimes that were not even recognized as violations of the laws of war.
Jared Bernstein: The Economics of Immigration
Dylan Matthews, a major-general in supreme-commander Ezra Klein’s Wonkbook army, has an interesting piece with some nice graphs up on the economics of immigration. It cites research that paints quite a sunny picture of the impacts on our economy and domestic workers.
I agree with much of what’s in Dylan’s piece. I’m particularly interested in the impact of immigrant flows on macroeconomic growth. Economists are well aware that slowing labor force growth is a factor in slower growth predictions in the future, but faster immigrant flows can improve that outlook.
But what about the near term impact of immigrant competition in a job market that’s already too weak? Here I think Dylan’s piece is too sunny. Let me explain.
Ari Belber: Why Graph Search Could Be Facebook’s Largest Privacy Invasion Ever
Here is one iron law of the Internet: a social network’s emphasis on monetizing its product is directly proportional to its users’ loss of privacy.
At one extreme there are networks like Craigslist and Wikipedia, which pursue relatively few profits and enable nearly absolute anonymity and privacy. At the other end of the spectrum is Facebook, a $68 billion company that is constantly seeking ways to monetize its users and their personal data.
Facebook’s latest program, Graph Search, may be the company’s largest privacy infraction ever.
Robert Borosage: Smart Talk on the Next Austerity Disaster
The United States is in the midst of the most protracted unemployment crisis in modern history, and for vast segments of the population, the recession has never ended. Wages are still sinking; more than 20 million people are in need of full-time work. Yet, the national debate is fixated on fixing the debt rather than fixing the economy.
This is “austerity” economics, which demands cuts in government spending in the belief that this will reduce government deficits, even as it costs jobs and imposes hardships on people. [..]
Worse, the austerity debate is now focused on whacking at the basic pillars of family security – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The cuts under discussion – slowing the inflation adjustment for Social Security, raising the eligibility age for Medicare or the retirement age for Social Security – would harm the most vulnerable in our society.
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