“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 Board: A Lack of Full Accountability
Having agreed this week to pay $920 million in fines to resolve federal and international investigations into its $6 billion “London Whale” trading loss, JPMorgan Chase has reportedly reached “some closure” in the case and is ready, in the words of its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, to move forward in a process of “simplifying” the bank.
While JPMorgan may feel some closure, there is scant closure for the American public, which deserves accountability for bank recklessness that continues to endanger the economy and which understands that without accountability true financial reform is impossible.
Charles M. Blow: Kamikaze Congress
Delay and defund. And default.
That is the House Republicans’ brilliant plan in their last-ditch effort to block implementation of the Affordable Care Act. It is a plan that threatens to grind the government to a halt and wreak havoc on the economy.
If they can’t take over Washington, they’ll shut it down. It’s their way or no way. All or nothing.
This is what has become of a party hijacked by zealots.
When it comes to the economy, the White House is talking tough to the Republicans … about the debt ceiling. It’s true that the threat to shut down the government by refusing to honor its debt obligations is downright un-American. The Administration’s right to call them out for that. But there’s a larger question: Who’s going to give the American people some straight talk about the GOP’s economic ideas?
Forget the debt ceiling for a moment, if you can. Forget the GOP’s attempt to shut down the government over the Affordable Care Act. Who is going to explain to the American people how profoundly misguided, and even immoral, the Republicans’ entire economic agenda has become?
Willie Nelson: It’s Time to Stand Up With Family Farmers
Every year, come harvest season, we gather for the annual Farm Aid concert. Artists, farmers, activists and eaters, we come together to recognize the crucial importance of family farmers. We take account of how far we’ve come and we renew our spirits for the fights ahead.
We stand with family farmers.
This strength is what’s grown the Good Food Movement. Today, we’re at our strongest. More people than ever are seeking out family farm food. Businesses sourcing from family farmers are searching for new farmers because demand exceeds supply. Entrepreneurs are making new connections between eaters and farmers. Community organizations and passionate volunteers are bringing good food to neighborhoods that need it most. Together, all of these people are building communities centered on a family farm economy. They’re linking eaters with farmers, building relationships and nourishing bodies and souls. Their actions are transforming food and agriculture, from the ground up.
But even still, a handful of corporations dominate our food system.
Ralph Nader: Five Years Later: Wall Street Is Still At It
It has been five years since the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. The aftermath is well known: the Too Big To Fail bailouts, the Too Big To Jail avoidance of guilt by culpable executives, the loss of millions of jobs, the loss of hard-earned life savings, and severe damage to the world economy. One would hope that, five years later, our country would be on the road to economic recovery. Yet many of the worse excesses of Wall Street remain. Regulators make many of the same mistakes they made in the past and the same warning signs are routinely overlooked. Wall Street and the big banks are even bigger, richer and more powerful than they were in 2008 when U.S. taxpayers bailed them out of their self-inflicted crisis. Little of substance has changed — Wall Street remains largely unshackled, fueled by the same old unrelenting greed and weak government oversight. And Wall Street’s continued reckless risk-taking with other peoples money has been setting off alarm bells — see Gretchen Morgenson’s recent column in the New York Times on the disturbingly vulnerable “repo market.”
Les Leopold: How Wall Street Devoured the Recovery
We are entering a disastrous new era in which all the economic gains go to the top one percent, according to data from economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. They report that “Top 1% incomes grew by 31.4% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.4% from 2009 to 2012. Hence, the top 1% captured 95% of the income gains in the first three years of the recovery…. In sum, top 1% incomes are close to full recovery while bottom 99% incomes have hardly started to recover.” (In 2012, $394,000 is the cutoff to make it into the top 1 percent.)
The odds are that we in the bottom 99 percent will never recover. That’s because our nation has evolved into something entirely new: a billionaire bailout society. When I first used that phrase in 2009 at a presentation in Los Angeles I could feel the audience squirm. Surely I was exaggerating. Surely, I was just using a rhetorical flourish to stress income inequality. Surely cooler heads would prevail rather than my hot one. Oh, do I wish it were so.
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