“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 Good News and Bad News About 5.9 Percent Unemployment
The jobs report on Friday showed the economy created 248,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate fell below 6.0 percent for the first time since the early days of the recession. This is good news for workers. While we are still far from anything resembling full employment, it is getting easier for people to find jobs. [..]
Immediately after the jobs report was released, James Bullard, the president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, was on television insisting that the Fed had to start raising interest rates. Bullard complained that the Fed was behind schedule and needed to slow the economy to prevent inflation. [..]
Bullard wants to see the economy slow because he doesn’t want to see more workers get jobs. This is because when more workers get jobs, it will increase their bargaining power and they will be in a position to demand higher wages. This is exactly the inflation that worries Bullard. If workers are getting higher wages then we will see more inflation than in a situation where wages are stagnant. Bullard wants the Fed to slow the economy so that wages remain stagnant.
New York Times Editorial Board: One Step Closer to Marriage Equality
On Monday morning, the first day of the Supreme Court’s new term, the most exhilarating news came not from anything the justices did, but from one thing they didn’t do. Without explanation and against expectations, the court declined to hear any of the seven petitions asking them to reject a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. By choosing not to review those cases, the justices made it possible for same-sex couples in a majority of states to marry. {..]
Every day that the justices do not declare a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, a child in San Antonio feels confusion and shame that her fathers cannot get married; a woman in Atlanta is prohibited from making emergency medical decisions for her life partner; a man in Biloxi, Miss., is denied veteran’s survivor benefits after his husband dies. The consequences of being treated as inferior under the law are real, immediate and devastating.
Same-sex marriage is among the most important civil-rights issues of our time, and the country is ready to resolve it once and for all. The justices have all the information they need to rule that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. What are they waiting for?
The kindest word one can apply to Attorney General Eric Holder’s record is “undistinguished.” Now that his time in office is drawing to a close, it’s clear that his failure to pursue criminal bankers will always overshadow his other accomplishments in public memory. But President Obama’s tenure is not yet over, and his next pick for attorney general could help reshape both the nation and his own legacy.
Two candidates could be truly transformative as the next Attorney General: Former regulator William K. Black and Labor Secretary Tom Perez.
Holder’s refusal to pursue criminal action against his former Wall Street clients was matched only by his contemptuous dismissal of the criticism engendered by his inaction. He attempted to disguise this inaction with false claims which earned widespread rebukes. He ran out the clock on a number of criminal prosecutions. He oversaw the indictments of twice as many government leakers than in all previous administrations put together, insisting that they required “very aggressive action.” He didn’t feel the same way about the bank fraud which decimated millions of lives and nearly destroyed the economy.
As economist Dean Baker reminded us after his departure, the problem isn’t that Eric Holder never put Robert Rubin, Lloyd Blankfein, or other chiefs of lawbreaking banks behind bars. The problem is that he never even tried.
Cenk Uygur: What Has Obama Done for You Lately?
an anyone tell me what President Obama’s second-term goals are? What has he accomplished? What would he like to accomplish?
A little bit of immigration reform? Wow! What else? Still waiting.
I’ve never seen a guy want to coast this much as president. Even Bush who couldn’t wait to get out of office and be an ex-president was at least still trying really bad ideas to the end. What in the world is President Obama’s agenda?! [..]
The base has been eviscerated. There is no vision. The approval ratings have been battered. And President Obama hasn’t really done anything colossally wrong yet. That’s why you have Fox News invent nonsense non-scandals like the IRS because they don’t have anything real on him. His biggest real problem has been that he has continued George Bush’s foreign and economic policies. Of course, the right-wing doesn’t want to criticize him for that. But what if he does at some point make a real mistake? The roof is going to cave in.
We have a do-nothing president to match our do-nothing Congress. Gee, I wonder why nothing gets done in Washington? Imagine a progressive president fighting to fix the insane economic inequality in the country or to end the senseless drug war or best of all battling to get money out of politics. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Well, that’s not the president we have. We have one who is coasting. But God knows what he’s coasting toward.
David Dayen: Secrets of the bailout, exposed: Why you should be watching the AIG trial
To this day, information on the banks’ heist and how it went down is pathetically scant. That’s about to change now
The AIG bailout trial began in Washington last week. This is a case where one ruthless, reckless corporate CEO, AIG’s former chieftain Hank Greenberg, argues that his company wasn’t treated as well during the bailout as those of other ruthless, reckless corporate CEOs. So there’s no real rooting interest for anyone with at least one foot planted in reality.
But as I wrote recently, regardless of the outcome, this trial should matter to every American. In fact, just in its first week, we’ve learned a lot of new information about how the bailout architects- then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, ex-Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke, and former president of the New York Fed Timothy Geithner – conducted themselves amid the chaos of the financial crisis. And it doesn’t reflect well on any of them, with concealed information, bait-and-switches, and favorites played among financial institutions. As these three prepare to take the stand this week in the case, we should be pleased to finally have this debate about the bailout in public.
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