“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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Dean Baker: The Damage From the Housing Bubble: How Much Did the Greenspan-Rubin Gang Cost Us?
Eduardo Porter asks how much the housing bubble and its collapse cost us in his column today. (He actually asks about the financial crisis, but this was secondary. The damage was caused by the loss of demand driven by bubble wealth in a context where we had nothing to replace it.) Porter throws out some estimates from different sources, but there are some fairly straightforward ways to get some numbers from authoritative sources. [..]
If we really want to have fun, we can sum the shortfall over the infinite horizon, an accounting technique that is gaining popularity among those advocating cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The loss over the infinite horizon due to the Greenspan-Rubin bubble would be over $140 trillion, or more than $400,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country.
Obviously these numbers are very speculative but the basic story is very simple. If you want to have a big political battle in Washington, start yelling about people freeloading on food stamps, but if you actually care about where the real money is, look at the massive wreckage being done by the Wall Street boys and incompetent policy makers in Washington.
Juan Cole: Bill Gates Worries Pakistan Violence Blocks Polio Eradication, but Is CIA Partly to Blame?
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has done an amazing job in targeting diseases for eradication, and the world is very close to getting rid of polio altogether, in part because the Gateses in recent years have given their support to the effort, which began in 1988. Cases have fallen 99% since then.
Bill Gates worried yesterday in an interview with AFP, however, that violence in Pakistan and Nigeria would interfere with the goal of wiping the disease out by 2018. [..]
Unfortunately, as the Scientific American explains, the problem of Taliban violence against vaccination workers in Pakistan was exacerbated by the US Central Intelligence Agency, which in its search for Usama Bin Laden in the northern Pakistani city of Abbotabad used agents falsely pretending to be vaccinating against Hepatitis B. The ploy failed, but news of it reached the Taliban. [..]
At a time when the US is grappling with all the dirty tricks played by the National Security Agency with regard to electronic surveillance, it is important to remember that unethical operatives have sometimes acted in rash and foolhardy ways that have produced more harm than good.
Bill Gates is perfectly correct that Taliban violence in Pakistan, which often targets non-combatants, is evil. But the evil has been compounded by unwise false flag tradecraft on the part of out of control operatives who were working for the executive branch of the US government.
Have you heard? Goldman Sachs is “a shell of its former self.”
Fortunately for its executives, this “shell” earned $8.91 billion in 2013, just a few short years after its leaders mismanaged it into the ground as its bankers committed serial fraud. [..]
Politico chief economic correspondent Ben White concludes that “Washington won in a blowout.”
In this version of recent history, populist and reform-minded political leaders turned the “swashbuckling” wolves of Wall Street (there are other, more apt adjectives) into whimpering puppies … and may soon make them an endangered species. [..]
White’s right about one thing. There was a war — but Wall Street won it. What’s more, it’s not satisfied with the billions it’s already looted from our ransacked economy. It’s counting on narratives like White’s to help it get even more.
Robert Sheer: We’re All Suspects In Barack Obama’s America
Barack Obama’s speech Friday on surveillance was his worst performance, not as a matter of theatrical skill, though he clearly did not embrace his lines, but in its stark betrayal of his oft proclaimed respect for constitutional safeguards and civil liberty.
His unbridled defense of the surveillance state opened the door to the new McCarthyism of Mike Rogers and Dianne Feinstein, the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees, who on Sunday talk shows were branding Edward Snowden as a possible Russian spy.
Instead of crediting Snowden for forcing what the president concedes is a much-needed debate, Obama bizarrely cited the example of Paul Revere and the other early American rebels in the Sons of Liberty to denounce their modern equivalent. But the “secret surveillance committee” Obama referenced that Revere and his fellow underground conspirators established was intended to subvert rather than celebrate the crimes of the British controlled government in power.
Samuel R. Bagenstos: A Supreme Court Case Threatens the Independence of Americans with Disabilities
ver the past three decades, disability rights activists and state governments have developed a program that enables people with disabilities to live independently in their own homes, one that avoids costly and stultifying institutionalization. But a case to be argued in the Supreme Court this Tuesday threatens to undo the great progress they have made.
The case is Harris v. Quinn. The program it threatens is called consumer-controlled personal assistance services. That program responds to a basic problem: Many people with disabilities are fully capable of making choices about how to live their lives, but they lack the physical ability to perform the necessary tasks themselves.
Too often, our society has responded to this problem by placing people with disabilities in nursing homes or other institutions. But those institutions segregate people with disabilities from the broader community and deprive their residents of an array of choices regarding how to live their lives.
Michael Cohen: Richard Sherman’s immature gloating shows he’s not ready for sport stardom
Sherman wasn’t just trash-talking his opponents, he kicked them while they were down and rubbed salt in their wounds
There’s a lot of things that you can say about Richard Sherman, the powerhouse cornerback for the Seattle Seahawks (many of which he has said himself). He’s one of the best defensive players in all of American football. He comes from a disadvantaged background, went to Stanford University and got straight As. He is a brash, bold trash-talker on the football field. But for all his glory, he still has a lot to learn about sportsmanship.
In case you missed it, Sherman went on the tirade heard round the world on Sunday night after he led his team to the NFC championship victory. Reactions have ranged from those who think he’s “classless” to those who defend him as a stand-up guy who was merely showed some well-earned emotion after making the crucial game winning play.
There’s just one problem: Sherman’s actions were classless and, what’s worse, violated one of the few basic norms that exist in sports, namely to treat your opponents with a modicum of respect.
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