“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.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Dean Baker: The TPP’s Children’s Table: Labor Rights and Currency
The concept of the children’s table has moved from Thanksgiving dinner to presidential politics with the networks having a separate debate for the low-polling candidates for the Republican nomination. But the concept of the children’s table is also useful for understanding trade policy and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
The TPP has two classes of issues. On the one hand, there are the issues that really matter to the drafters of the deal. These are issues like protection of patents and copyrights and other forms of investment. Disputes that arise over investment can be taken directly by foreign investors to the investor-state dispute settlement tribunals set up by the TPP.
The investor bringing the complaint gets to appoint one of the three judges hearing the complaint. A second judge is appointed by the country against whom a complaint is being brought. The third judge is jointly appointed by the investor and the government. This panel is then empowered to impose fines of whatever size it considers appropriate. This is entirely an extra-judicial process. The verdict is not appealable to any domestic court.
That is the story of the adult table. The children’s table is for issues that are of concern to labor rights, human rights, and environmental rights activists. There is no mechanism through which any of these issues can be brought directly to an independent panel by labor unions or civil society groups that believe they are being violated.
David Dayen: Wall Street is finally getting its comeuppance: Why new global regulations are a vital step in the right direction
People all over the world have been appalled and infuriated by “too big to fail” banks receiving taxpayer lifelines rather than facing the consequences of their hazardous actions. After the financial crisis, governments vowed to change the rules so this would never happen again, and the public rolled their eyes, cynically figuring that government bailouts of failing banks were as immutable as the seasons.
That public outrage has gradually driven a more robust post-crisis response as we get further and further away from the event, an unusual and encouraging scenario. The latest action, from the global banking regulator known as the Financial Stability Board (FSB), would force the world’s 30 biggest banks to raise over $1 trillion in additional funds that can be used to absorb losses in a downturn.
This welcome turn of events, announced yesterday by the regulatory body, does not eliminate the need for insistent financial reform activism; instead, it proves its worth. Only outside pressure has pushed regulators toward what were previously seen as unattainable targets. And because there’s so much more to be done, reformers should not close up shop but work even harder.
Robert Reich: The real reason Donald Trump appeals to working-class whites
I’ve just returned from three weeks in “red” America.
It was ostensibly a book tour but I wanted to talk with conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers.
I intended to put into practice what I tell my students – that the best way to learn is to talk with people who disagree you. I wanted to learn from red America, and hoped they’d also learn a bit from me (and perhaps also buy my book).
But something odd happened. It turned out that many of the conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers I met agreed with much of what I had to say, and I agreed with them.
For example, most condemned what they called “crony capitalism,” by which they mean big corporations getting sweetheart deals from the government because of lobbying and campaign contributions.
David M. Perry: Politicians are ignoring Americans with disabilities
There’s no reason to think that Donald Trump knows or would care that his book title, “Crippled America,” is deeply offensive to millions of Americans with disabilities. “Crippled” is a slur that has long been used to denigrate people with disabilities, especially with physical disabilities, and to mark them as weak, useless and unwanted. Trump might as well as used the R-word to describe an America that he sees as falling apart or picked some other stigmatizing insult. While “crip” and “cripple” are being reclaimed by activists, that’s no excuse for Trump to use it.
It would be nice to think that at least one candidate in the Fox Business Network debate tonight might call Trump out on his language, but I don’t expect anyone on the stage to champion the rights of disabled Americans. Although there are at least 56 million Americans who have disabilities, living in every part of the country and holding every conceivable political position, no presidential candidate so far this cycle has done anything but make the most cursory of overtures to this untapped, ignored constituency.
Joshua Kopstein: Britain has declared war on Internet security
For the past two and a half years, many have hoped that the mass surveillance programs revealed by U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden would inspire serious reform of Western intelligence agencies, nudging the post-9/11 national security pendulum back in the direction of privacy and civil liberties. Unfortunately, the opposite is occurring.
With few exceptions, the past year has seen governments around the world double down on intrusive mass surveillance. Unprecedented and draconian new laws crafted in the name of fighting crime and terrorism have emerged in France, Australia and many other countries. Last month the U.S. Senate passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, a deceptively named bill that has nothing to do with security and everything to do with having companies give more of their customers’ data to U.S. government agencies. And last week, U.K. Home Secretary Theresa May presented a long-awaited draft of the new Investigatory Powers Bill, a collection of sweeping reforms that gives more powers to British police and spy agencies, including the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the NSA’s close ally and longtime collaborator.
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