Tag: Politics

May 30 2012

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Wednesday is Ladies’ Day

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Time to fight for a minimum wage increase

The federal minimum wage is now $7.25 cents an hour, about $15,080 for a full time, year round worker. At that level, it means poverty wages for a family of three, and weakened demand for the economy. As Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan and New York’s bishops concluded, this leaves workers “on the brink of homelessness, with not enough in their paychecks to pay for the most basic of necessities, like food, medicine or clothing for their children.”

Poverty wages offend both justice and common sense. It is time to raise the floor.

If today’s minimum wage were at its previous height in 1968, adjusted for inflation, it would be over $10.00 an hour.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that the recently-introduced proposal by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) to lift the minimum wage to $9.80 over three years would give 28 million workers a raise. In a time of faltering growth, this money would be immediately spent, a direct boost to demand and the economy.

Bryce Covert: Income Inequality Keeps Poorer Americans Away from the Polls

It’s no secret that money and politics enjoy a nasty love affair in this country. And as Ari Berman has written here, the problem has gotten even worse this cycle after the ill-fated Citizens United decision unleashed the power of Super PACs. As he reports, campaigns are increasingly reliant on that money, yet “Super PACs on both sides of the aisle are financed by the 1 percent of the 1 percent.” That means the rich have an even more outsized impact on the outcome of the election.

At the same time, it’s been hard to miss the GOP’s relentless campaign to roll back voting rights in the name of eliminating the (mostly imaginary) threat of fraud. Many of those tactics will severely impact low-income voters and likely suppress their turnout in November, handing even more power over to the 1 percent.

There’s something else that suppresses their vote, however, even if they are legally able to do so. And that something is income inequality, as a new report from the OECD on the Better Life Index shows. Of the thirty-four countries included in the report, the U.S. ranks second to last in social inequality, bested only by South Korea. When it comes to income inequality we are at the extreme end of the scale, with levels similar to those of Cameroon, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Nepal and Uganda.

Hannah Griffiths: Ahead of Rio+20, A Battle to Define ‘The Green Economy’

Memo to the Earth Summit: ‘Green Economy’ should not mean monetizing nature

The 1992 Rio Earth summit established “sustainable development” firmly in the global political lexicon – even though the term meant, and continues to mean, different things to different people. For Stephan Schmidheiny, a CEO who was appointed chief adviser for business and industry at the summit and subsequently set up the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, it apparently means continuing with business as usual: in February, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the deaths of thousands of workers at his asbestos-cement factory.

As the Rio+20 anniversary conference approaches, a battle rages over the definition of another term: “green economy”. “A green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication” is a key conference theme. It sounds good, but what does it mean?

Allison Kilkenny: Student Movement Dubbed the ‘Mexican Spring’

A coalition of thousands of mainly university students, unionized workers, and farmers in Mexico City have taken to the streets to demand greater freedom of speech and also to protest the possible return of power by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

One banner read, “I have a brain, I won’t vote for the PRI.”

The PRI is a member of the Socialist International, but don’t let the name fool you-the party is actually quite “centrist” (the term pundits usually use to describe center-right parties) in most of its policies. PRI’s main rival is the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). (Mexican Spring poster in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, via @mexicoOWS).

Dubbed the “Yo Soy 132” movement (Twitter users can follow protest updates by searching #YoSoy132), or the “Mexican Spring” by observers, this latest wave of protests marks the third large student demonstration in less than a week.

Mary Bottari: Is “Right to Work” Next on Walker’s Agenda?

Many are wondering if making Wisconsin a “Right to Work” state is next on Governor Scott Walker’s agenda if he wins the recall election on June 5. Right to Work laws weaken unions by allowing members to opt out of paying dues. Workers get the benefit of working in a union shop (higher wages, better benefits), but are not required to pay their fair share for union representation. Right to Work laws have been used effectively in the South to bust unions and keep wages low, which is why they are dubbed “Right to Work for Less” laws by opponents. The recent push for this legislation is emanating from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), where corporations and right-wing legislators vote as equals behind closed doors on “model” legislation.

This issue is newly on the radar of Wisconsin voters due to a video released earlier this month by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel showing Governor Walker having a frank conversation with his largest campaign contributor shortly after he was elected. Beloit billionaire Diane Hendricks asks Walker how he will make Wisconsin a “red” state and if he will “work on these unions” and “become a Right to Work” state. Walker replies that the”first step” will be “to divide and conquer” Wisconsin unions through a budget bill dealing with public sector workers. One month after the video was filmed, Walker “dropped the bomb” and introduced his bill to strip some 380,000 public workers of 50 years of collective bargaining rights, starting a race to the bottom in wages and benefits.

May 29 2012

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Trevor Potter: How I Became Stephen Colbert’s Lawyer And Joined the Fight to Rescue Our Democracy from Citizens United

The Supreme Court’s campaign finance legacy has undermined the “whole purpose of the Constitution,” to have a “functioning, representative” government.

I am often asked how, after 25 years as an election lawyer, service as an FEC Commissioner, and General Counsel to 2 presidential campaigns, did you end up as Stephen Colbert’s lawyer on late night TV.  The answer is “I was lucky…”

It just goes to show-90% of life is “just showing up”-and returning phone calls.

I was at my desk one day last spring and the Colbert staff called-“What is a PAC.  Would you be willing to explain it on the Show?”  And I’ve been doing it ever since…with the forbearance of my law partners at Caplin & Drysdale, although as one of them put it to me,  “For the first time in 30 years, my kids care what I do, because I work with Stephen Colbert’s lawyer!”

Stephen Colbert does have a knack for taking very complicated legal subjects and hours of staff discussions and research and distilling it into 4 ½ minutes of Q&A that captures the essence of the issue, and explains it in layman’s language in a humorous, captivating way.  What every Supreme Court advocate wishes for!

Joe Nocera: The Simplicity Solution

Time to fess up: With the two-year anniversary of the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law approaching, I’m still not sure what to think about the darn thing.

Will the law prevent another bank bailout if we have a repeat of September 2008? Will it bring transparency to the trading of derivatives? Will the Volcker Rule truly eliminate the ability of banks to make risky trades for their own account? Are all the new regulations burying small and medium-size banks in excessive costs? Or are they ensuring their safety and soundness? No one can say for sure.

The crucial difference between the Glass Steagall Act, the landmark banking reform law that was passed during the Great Depression, and Dodd-Frank, is that the former had an appealing simplicity that Dodd-Frank lacks. Glass-Steagall did one basic thing. It forced banks to get rid of their investment banking arms. Dodd-Frank, by contrast, accepts the complexity of modern banking – and then adds to that complexity with its thousands of pages of regulations. That complexity is something to worry about.

Joe Atcheson: So You’d Like Me to Contribute to the Democratic Campaign?

Then Make Them Wear Diapers

You get them.  The letters from Obama or Debbie Wasserman Schultz.  The calls from state Democratic candidates telling you what’s at stake.  

They show up around election time with increasing frequency – sort of like Obama’s speeches about “change,” and his embrace of progressive principles.

In 2007, I gave what was for me, a lot.  And I ended up feeling like Charlie Brown after Lucy snatches the football away – fooled again.

No more.

Mr. Obama, Ms. Wasserman Shultz, Mr. Reid and the rest of you, here’s what you have to do to get my money this time.  And you’d better start now.

Stand for something besides compromise

New York Times Editorial: End of the Charade

The airwaves are already filled with blaring political attacks masquerading as “issue ads,” such as the one in the Missouri Senate race that ends with, “Call Claire McCaskill. Tell her Missouri doesn’t need government-run health care.” This ad, and dozens like it, is sponsored by the United States Chamber of Commerce, which likes to claim that it is merely educating voters about the issues rather than telling them how to vote.

The airwaves are already filled with blaring political attacks masquerading as “issue ads,” such as the one in the Missouri Senate race that ends with, “Call Claire McCaskill. Tell her Missouri doesn’t need government-run health care.” This ad, and dozens like it, is sponsored by the United States Chamber of Commerce, which likes to claim that it is merely educating voters about the issues rather than telling them how to vote.

Chris Hedges: The War on Gays

The sentencing of Dharun Ravi for the hateful abuse that may have driven his gay roommate at Rutgers, Tyler Clementi, to commit suicide, or Barack Obama’s public acceptance of gay marriage, prevents many of us from seeing that life for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people is getting worse-much worse.

No one understands this better than the gay activist and pastor Mel White. White, along with his husband and partner of 30 years, Gary Nixon, founded Soulforce, an organization committed to using nonviolent resistance to end religion-based oppression. White and hundreds of Soulforce volunteers protest outside megachurches that preach hatred and bigotry in the name of religion. White travels to communities where young gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transgender people have committed suicide. He holds memorial services for them in front of the church doors. He accuses the pastors of these churches of murder. His books “Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America” and “Holy Terror: Lies the Christian Right Tell Us to Deny Gay Equality,” are two of the most important works that examine the innate cruelty and proto-fascism of the Christian right. White, more than perhaps any other preacher in the country, has pulled young men and women back from the brink of despair, from succumbing to the tragic fate of Tyler Clementi. And White is scared.

Robert Fisk: The Going Price of Getting Away with Murder… Would $33m Be Enough?

La Clinton hath spoken. Thirty-three million smackers lopped off Pakistan’s aid budget because its spooks banged up poor old Dr Shakeel Afridi for 33 years after a secret trial. And, as the world knows, Dr Afridi’s crime was to confirm the presence of that old has-been Osama bin Laden in his grotty Abbottabad villa.

Well, that will teach the Pakistanis to mess around with a brave doctor who is prepared to help the American institution that tortures and murders its enemies. Forget the CIA’s black prisons and rendition and water-boarding, and the torture of the innocents in the jails of our friendly dictators. Dr Afridi was just doing the free world a favour. And WOW, Dr Afridi got shopped by Leon Pannetta when he was CIA boss, and now Barack Obama is accused of letting him down.

May 28 2012

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Mike Scotti: The V.A.’s Shameful Betrayal

THE Department of Veterans Affairs, already under enormous strain from the aging of the Vietnam generation, the end of the Iraq war and the continuing return of combat troops from Afghanistan, announced in April that it would increase its mental health staff by about 10 percent. But too many veterans waging a lonely and emotional struggle to resume a normal life continue to find the agency a source of disappointment rather than healing. [..]

What this generation of veterans needs from the V.A. is a recognition that when the color of life has faded to gray, you need to talk to someone about it today, not weeks or months from now. We need America to acknowledge what war does to the young men and women who fight it and to share the message that dragged me out of the darkness: It’s O.K. if you’re not O.K.

Robert Reich: Memorial Day Thoughts on National Defense Spending

We can best honor those who have given their lives for this nation in combat by making sure our military might is proportional to what America needs. [..]

At a time when Medicare, Medicaid, and non-defense discretionary spending (including most programs for the poor, as well as infrastructure and basic R&D) are in serious jeopardy, Obama and the Democrats should be calling for even more defense cuts.

A reasonable and rational defense budget would be a fitting memorial to those who have given their lives so we may remain free.

Paul Krugman: Big Fiscal Phonies

Quick quiz: What’s a good five-letter description of Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, that ends in “y”?

The obvious choice is, of course, “bully.” But as a recent debate over the state’s budget reveals, “phony” is an equally valid answer. And as Mr. Christie goes, so goes his party.

Until now the attack of the fiscal phonies has been mainly a national rather than a state issue, with Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, as the prime example. As regular readers of this column know, Mr. Ryan has somehow acquired a reputation as a stern fiscal hawk despite offering budget proposals that, far from being focused on deficit reduction, are mainly about cutting taxes for the rich while slashing aid to the poor and unlucky. In fact, once you strip out Mr. Ryan’s “magic asterisks” – claims that he will somehow increase revenues and cut spending in ways that he refuses to specify – what you’re left with are plans that would increase, not reduce, federal debt.

Ethan Cox: In Quebec, A Revolution of Love, Hope and Community

In almost every report on the social movement now sweeping Quebec, including my own, words like conflict, crisis and stand-off figure prominently. Anger is omnipresent. The anger of protesters, the anger of government, the anger of those supposedly inconvenienced. Pundits scream about mob rule, anarchy in the streets and the dissolution of society as we know it.

Don’t get me wrong, there is anger present of course. But that is not what you see if you take to the streets, or watch on CUTV’s live stream. Pundits can’t stop bemoaning the inconvenience to “ordinary” Montrealers posed by these protests. But I wonder, are there any “ordinary” Montrealers left to inconvenience?

Glen Ford: Obama’s War: Criminalize the Left

Like no other president in modern times, Barack Obama is determined to criminalize the Left opposition through relentless reshaping of Constitutional notions of law. Whistleblowers are domestic public enemy number one. “Having knowledge of government wrongdoing is criminal, in the eyes of this administration.”

The Obama administration is methodically erecting the legal structures of a police state. The president late last year smoothed the way for bipartisan passage through Congress of a preventive detention bill that is so vaguely worded, a federal judge in New York last week ruled that it is likely to be successfully challenged on Constitutional grounds. And in Richmond, Virginia, a three-judge appeals court heard Justice Department lawyers argue that reporters can be compelled to reveal the identities of whistleblowers in so-called national security cases.

Bruce A. Dixon: Corey Booker and the Hard Right’s Colonization of Black American Politics

A new black political class has arisen, one with only nominal connections to black voters or communities Their careers and orientation are corporate through and through. Some prominent black Democrats have actually been operatives of the hard right for decades, like Newark’s Corey Booker.

On the first weekend in May, Newark mayor Corey Booker appeared alongside Fox News host Juan Williams and ultra-conservative Republican governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana to sing the praises of charters and school privatization, and the evils of organized teacher and parent power at the annual conference of the Alliance for School Choice.. It’s not a big step for Corey Booker, it’s the place he’s been all along, since his first late 1990s gig as a founding board member of the Bradley Foundation’s Black Alliance for Educational Options. What’s new is that in 2012 black Democrats with national profiles like Booker can appear in public spouting pro-corporate right wing dogma alongside such creatures, and hardly anyone notices. What has happened to Democratic party politics, to black politics?

May 28 2012

Lest We Forget Those Who Defend And Protect

Photobucket

War Dog Memorial

University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine

h/t to SouthernDragonand at FDL a deep thank you for remembering our loyal friends

Faithful friend, loyal companion,

We say farewell to you now. You have kept us warm at night, protected us and offered us unconditional love. For this we are thankful, and we will remember you forever.

May the Goddess guide you on your journey over the Rainbow Bridge to the Summerlands. May all those who loved you and the world find Peace.

The Wheel Turns. Blessed Be.

May 27 2012

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

 “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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

Up with Chris Hayes: Sunday’s Up with Chris‘ guests are Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn), author of The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World; Liliana Segura (@lilianasegura), associate editor at The Nation; John McWhorter, professor of linguistics and American studies at Columbia University; Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd), politics editor at Business Insider; Mary Kirkland, mother of Private Derrick Kirkland (1987-2010); Barry Scheck (@barryscheck), co-founder of The Innocence Project and co-author of Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution and Other Dispatches from the Wrongfully Convicted; and Lt. Col. Steve Beck, active duty Marine, casualty assistance officer, and associate professor of naval science at Carnegie Mellon University.

The Melissa Harris-Perry Show: MHP’s Sunday guests were not announced.

This Week with George Stephanopolis: George has an exclusive interview with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta who will tell everyone why we still need to be afraid and must continue to act against our own self interests at home & abroad with military aggression, and trampling the Constitution.

The roundtable guests are ABC News’ George Will, former Michigan governor and host of Current TV’s “The War Room” Jennifer Granholm, Fox Business Network anchor Liz Claman, Washington Post national political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson, and National Journal editorial director Ron Brownstein.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:  Sunday’s guests are Republican Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY); and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) who lost his bid for reelection to a Tea Party backed candidate, opening the possibility of a Democratic take over of the seat.

The panel guests are authors Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, co-authors of “The President’s Club,” Robert Merry, author of “Where They Stand,” and Douglas Brinkley, author of “Cronkite” who will examine the role of the president through history.

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Kasie Hunt, Associated Press political reporter; Helene Cooper, The New York Times White House correspondent; Major Garrett, National Journal Congressional correspondent; Joe Klein, TIME columnist.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: The guests for Sunday are Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD) and former Republican Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich; best-selling author and award-winning journalist, Maria Shriver< and best-selling author Michael Lewis will give their advice to the 2012 graduates.

The roundtable panel guests are Mayor of Los Angeles and Chairman of the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Antonio Villaraigosa; Vice Chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and former head of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina; author of the new book “Our Divided Political Heart,” the Washington Post‘s EJ Dionne; and from the New York Times, David Brooks.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are former Republican Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani, and DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz; General Peter Chiarelli (ret.), Fmr. vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army on treating PTSD and brain injuries in veterans; and Senator Patty Murray, chairwoman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, on the V.A.’s struggle to break the backlog of disability claims; Tim Tetz, Legislative Director of the American Legion, and Paul Rieckhoff, Founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America on the challenges our nation’s veterans have in finding a job in a struggling economy.

May 26 2012

Montreal Student Protests Over 80% Tuition Hike

“À qui la rue? À nous la rue!”

For 15 weeks the students in Montreal, Quebec have been boycotting classes and protesting in the streets over the provincial government’s plan to hike university tuition fees by 82 percent over the next seven years. The students have been joined by other Montreal residents, young and old, who are now taking to the streets to protest Bill 78 which imposed draconian fines and measures to end the protests. Every night st 8 PM they take to the streets with pots and spoons, banging and marching in what has now been labeled the “Saucepan Revolution” and not just in Montreal:

People took up the percussive protest Thursday night in several towns and cities including Sorel, Longueuil, Chambly, Repentigny, Trois-Rivieres and even in Abitibi — several hundred kilometres away from the hot spot of Montreal.

They were still loudest in Montreal, where a chorus of metallic clanks rang out in neighbourhoods around the city, spilling into the main demonstrations and sounding like aluminum symphonies.

The pots-and-pans protest has its roots in Chile, where people have used it for years as an effective, peaceful tool to express civil disobedience. The noisy cacerolazo tradition actually predates the Pinochet regime in Chile, but has endured there and spread to other countries as a method of showing popular defiance.

Thursday’s protest in Montreal was immediately declared illegal by police, who said it violated a municipal bylaw because they hadn’t been informed of the route. They allowed it to continue as long as it remained peaceful.

Usually the nightly street demonstrations, which have gone on for a month, have a couple of vigorous drummers to speed them along their route. At the very least, someone clangs a cow bell.

But in the last few days, the pots and pans protest — dubbed the casseroles by observers — have acted like an alarm clock for the regular evening march, sounding at 8 p.m. on the nose in advance of the march’s start.

Occupy Wall Steet has joined in solidarity with the protests and Occupy livestreamer Tim Pool is now in Montreal and covering the protests every night starting about 8 p.m. when the pots and pan bashing begins.

Arrest have exceeded 2500 surpassing the October 1970 crisis when martial law was declared in the city in response to actions by Quebec nationalists. Friday night the student protesters and their allies surpassed them selves marching through the streets in downpours, with high winds and tornado warnings. The event was caught on video and an enterprising videographer set it to the music of local band named Arcade Fire that has now gone viral:

May 26 2012

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship: On Memorial Day Weekend, America Reckons with Torture

Facing the truth is hard to do, especially the truth about ourselves. So Americans have been sorely pressed to come to terms with the fact that after 9/11 our government began to torture people, and did so in defiance of domestic and international law. Most of us haven’t come to terms with what that meant, or means today, but we must reckon with torture, the torture done in our name, allegedly for our safety.

It’s no secret such cruelty occurred; it’s just the truth we’d rather not think about. But Memorial Day is a good time to make the effort. Because if we really want to honor the Americans in uniform who gave their lives fighting for their country, we’ll redouble our efforts to make sure we’re worthy of their sacrifice; we’ll renew our commitment to the rule of law, for the rule of law is essential to any civilization worth dying for.

After 9/11, our government turned to torture, seeking information about the terrorists who committed the atrocity and others who might follow after them.  Senior officials ordered the torture of men at military bases and detention facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, in secret CIA prisons set up across the globe, and in other countries – including Libya and Egypt – where abusive regimes were asked to do Washington’s dirty work.

William K. Black: Romney Messes Up, Tells the Truth About Austerity

Mitt Romney has periodic breakdowns when asked questions about the economy because he sometimes forgets the need to lie. He forgets that he is supposed to treat austerity as the epitome of economic wisdom. When he responds quickly to questions about austerity he slips into default mode and speaks the truth — adopting austerity during the recovery from a Great Recession would (as in Europe) throw the nation back into recession or depression. The latest example is his May 23, 2012 interview with Mark Halperin in Time magazine. [..]

Romney explains that austerity, during the recovery from a Great Recession, would cause catastrophic damage to our nation. The problem, of course, is that the Republican congressional leadership is committed to imposing austerity on the nation and Speaker Boehner has just threatened that Republicans will block the renewal of the debt ceiling in order to extort Democrats to agree to austerity — severe cuts to social programs. Romney knows this could “throw us into recession or depression” and says he would never follow such a policy.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: How to Fix the Fed: Dismiss Dimon, Boot the Bankers, and Can the Corporations

More and more people are calling for Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, to resign from the Board of the New York Federal Reserve.

His latest scandal, combined with Dimon’s hypocrisy and relentless self-promotion, make him an obvious target. But Dimon isn’t alone. Bankers dominate the Fed at the regional and national levels, and most of the other outside seats are held by executives from large corporations. (Remember Herman Cain?)

Should Dimon resign? They all should.

Alan Grayson: Dumb Rich People

In 2008, the New York Times reported that since 1929, $10,000 invested in the stock market under Democratic Presidents (over 40 years) had become $300,671. Meanwhile, $10,000 invested in the stock market under Republican Presidents (over 35 years) had become only $11,733.

Well, at least the affluent caste didn’t lose money during Republican regimes, right? Wrong. The value of the dollar dropped by 92 percent during that period. So in real value, $10,000 invested in the stock market under Republican presidents actually became just $955. And 46 cents. In economic terms, roughly the same effect as some foreign enemy blowing up 90 percent of our factories, warehouses, farms, malls, office buildings, apartment buildings, and every other productive asset.

Poor rich people. All the money gone. Those darned Republicans.

New York Times Editorial: Nuclear Power After Fukushima

The resignation of Gregory Jaczko, the embattled chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, means the country is losing a strong advocate for public safety who was always willing to challenge the nuclear industry and its political backers in Congress.

The White House’s choice to replace him, Allison Macfarlane, has strong credentials as an expert on nuclear waste and weapons. She will need to be as independent and aggressive as Dr. Jaczko. Both industry and her fellow commissioners will have to be pushed to implement necessary improvements highlighted by the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.

Jared Bernstein: Private Equity Firms: What Are They Good For?

I’ve very much enjoyed the recent debate over Bain Capital and the role of such private equity firms in the economy, not for partisan reasons, but because it’s far too rare that we step back and ask about the societal costs and benefits of opaque mechanisms like PE.

I mean, if I showed you a barber shop, a school, a car factory, an accounting firm — you’d quickly get what they were doing here. But PE is different, and absent explanation, it’s easy to get stuck on one end of the “vampire/vulture-to-capitalism’s-savior” continuum. In that regard, here’s one of the more nuanced, and thus worth reading, pieces about private equity and its role in the larger economy.

Note, for-the-record, that I’m not talking here about this week’s debating point as to whether PE experience is relevant to the job of president — the main point I and others have tried to bring to that debate is: whatever the merits and demerits of private equity, job creation is not part of the mix. If profitability meant laying off workers, that’s what the PE firm would do, and vice versa.

May 26 2012

Cholera: Haiti’s Epidemic

After the massive earthquake that struck Haiti on January 2010, the United Nations sent peace keeping troops from around the world to assist with keeping order during the recovery process, Unfortunately, some of those forces introduced a virulent strain of Cholera that was until October 2010 never seen in the Western Hemisphere. The faulty sanitation contaminated the Artibonite River, the longest and most important river in Haiti. The UN has refused to acknowledge its responsibility and has done little to help treat, prevent and control the disease.

The enormity of the epidemic is in the numbers that are increasing as this is written. Since October 2010, over 500,000 cases have been reported, including 7,000 deaths. In a New York Times Editorial on May 12, it was reported that this year’s toll could effect another 200,000 to 250,000 people:

Doctors Without Borders said this month that the country is unprepared for this spring’s expected resurgence of the disease. Nearly half the aid organizations that had been working in the rural Artibonite region, where this epidemic began and 20 percent of cases have been reported, have left, the organization said. “Additionally, health centers are short of drugs and some staff have not been paid since January.”

It gets worse: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report this month that cholera in Haiti was evolving into two strains, suggesting the disease would become much harder to uproot and that people who had already gotten sick and recovered would be vulnerable again.

From Doctors Without Borders press release:

While Haiti’s Ministry of Health and Populations claims to be in control of the situation, health facilities in many regions of the country remain incapable of responding to the seasonal fluctuations of the cholera epidemic. The surveillance system, which is supposed to monitor the situation and raise the alarm, is still dysfunctional, MSF said. The number of people treated by MSF alone in the capital, Port-au-Prince, has quadrupled in less than a month, reaching 1,600 cases in April. The organization has increased treatment capacity in the city and in the town of Léogâne, and is preparing to open additional treatment sites in the country. Nearly 200,000 cholera cases were reported during the rainy season last year, between May and October. [..]

An MSF study in the Artibonite region, where approximately 20 percent of cholera cases have been reported, has revealed a clear reduction of cholera prevention measures since 2011. More than half of the organizations working in the region last year are now gone. Additionally, health centers are short of drugs and some staff have not been paid since January. [..]

The majority of Haitians do not have access to latrines, and obtaining clean water is a daily challenge. Of the half-million survivors of the January, 2010 earthquake who continue to live in camps, less than one third are provided with clean drinking water and only one percent recently received soap, according to a April 2012 investigation by Haiti’s National Directorate of Water Supply and Sanitation.

The Center for Disease Control estimates that the cost of adequate water and sanitation systems will run from $800 million to $1.1 billion. That money is available from funds that were pledged from other nations.

Awareness needs to be raised. The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, a human rights group, has sued the United Nations on behalf of 5,000 cholera victims and there is a Congressional letter to US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice urging UN authorities to play a central role in addressing the epidemic.

Just Foreign Policy has set up a petition pressing the UN to take formal responsibility for the epidemic and do more to alleviate the cholera epidemic:

Tell Congress: Urge UN to Alleviate Cholera Crisis in Haiti

The United Nations bears heavy responsibility for the ongoing cholera epidemic in Haiti-it has become widely accepted that UN troops introduced the disease into the country via the UN’s faulty sanitation system. Even a UN panel has conceded this point. Yet, the UN has done little to treat, prevent, and control the disease. Rep. John Conyers’ office is circulating a letter to Amb. Rice urging UN authorities to play a central role in addressing the ongoing cholera crisis in Haiti.

The effort to contain this epidemic needs support. There are lives to be saved.

Note: The photo by Frederik Matte is from the Doctors Without Borders web site of patients affected by cholera receive treatment at an MSF cholera treatment center in Port-au-Prince.

May 25 2012

Punting the Pundits

“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”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Egos and Immorality

In the wake of a devastating financial crisis, President Obama has enacted some modest and obviously needed regulation; he has proposed closing a few outrageous tax loopholes; and he has suggested that Mitt Romney’s history of buying and selling companies, often firing workers and gutting their pensions along the way, doesn’t make him the right man to run America’s economy.

Wall Street has responded – predictably, I suppose – by whining and throwing temper tantrums. And it has, in a way, been funny to see how childish and thin-skinned the Masters of the Universe turn out to be. Remember when Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group compared a proposal to limit his tax breaks to Hitler’s invasion of Poland? Remember when Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase characterized any discussion of income inequality as an attack on the very notion of success?

New York Times Editorial: The Crisis This Time

They blew it, again. With Greece in meltdown, raising fears of cascading bank insolvencies and deepening recession, Europe’s leaders failed again this week to agree on the ambitious initiatives needed to quell the crisis.

For a few days before their Wednesday dinner meeting, it sounded as if Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany might be ready to change her all-austerity-all-the-time tune. France’s new president, François Hollande, had campaigned and won on a pro-growth agenda, and Ms. Merkel was suddenly suggesting that some stimulus for Greece and others to spur growth might be possible.

But, on Wednesday, she was again insisting on the same draconian budget cuts and the same unreachable targets as the price of aid to Greece and other indebted euro-zone nations.

Allison Kilkenny: Global Protests Against Draconian Education Cuts, Tuition Hikes

Austerity protests have become part of the new global landscape, a reality underscored by a wave of recent protests in Philadelphia and Quebec.

More than 1,000 people rallied Wednesday to protest the Philadelphia District’s plans to “transform schools,” a pleasant euphemism generally meaning school closures and mass layoffs. The Philly district plans to possibly lay off 2,700 blue-collar workers, including every member of SEIU B2BJ Local 1201, the city school union representing bus assistants, cleaners, mechanics and other workers. [..]

For over 100 days now, protests have raged in response to Quebec Premier Jean Charest and his Liberal Party’s plans to raise tuition fees at universities by a whopping 82 percent, or $1,700, over five years, a move that would price many students out of an education.

The police have responded by making mass arrests. More than 300 protesters were arrested overnight on Sunday following the passage of the draconian law, Bill 78, that places restrictions on demonstrations and suspended classes at strike-bound universities, the AP reports.

Robert Reich: Obama has to Explain Why Fairness is Essential to Growth (and Why Some Democrats Have to Stop Believing Otherwise)

The Cory Booker imbroglio has ignited a silly but potentially pernicious debate in the Democratic Party between so-called “pro-growth centrists” who want the President to focus on how well he’s done getting the economy back on its feet after the Bush administration almost knocked it out, and “pro-fairness populists” who want him to focus on the nation’s widening inequality and Wall Street’s (and Romney’s) continuing role in generating profits for a few at the expense of almost everyone else.

According to the National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar, for example:

   Conversations with liberal activists and labor officials reveal an unmistakable hostility toward the pro-business, free-trade, free-market philosophy that was in vogue during the second half of the Clinton administration….. Moderate Democratic groups and officials, meanwhile, privately fret about the party’s leftward drift and the Obama campaign’s embrace of an aggressively populist message… [T]hey wish the administration’s focus was on growth over fairness.

This is pure bunk – or should be.

Fairness isn’t inconsistent with growth; it’s essential to it. The only way the economy can grow and create more jobs is if prosperity is more widely shared.

Robert Sheer: Do the Bain Hustle

Obviously Barack Obama was right in criticizing Mitt Romney’s stewardship of Bain Capital. How else to evaluate the business experience that Romney has made a central tenet of his campaign?

As Obama put it all too accurately: “My opponent, Governor Romney-his main calling card for why he thinks he should be president is his business experience. He’s not going out there touting his experience in Massachusetts. He’s saying: ‘I’m a business guy. I know how to fix it.’ ”

And the fixing of the beleaguered companies acquired under Romney’s leadership at Bain Capital involved the very practices that have led to the loss of good American jobs to ensure the outrageous rewards that made Romney so wealthy.

E. J. Dionne: Conservatives used to care about community. What happened?

To secure his standing as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney has disowned every sliver of moderation in his record. He’s moved to the right on tax cuts and twisted himself into a pretzel over the health-care plan he championed in Massachusetts – because conservatives are no longer allowed to acknowledge that government can improve citizens’ lives.

Romney is simply following the lead of Republicans in Congress who have abandoned American conservatism’s most attractive features: prudence, caution and a sense that change should be gradual. But most important of all, conservatism used to care passionately about fostering community, and it no longer does. This commitment now lies buried beneath slogans that lift up the heroic and disconnected individual – or the “job creator” – with little concern for the rest.

Pratap Chatterjee: How Obama Helped Authorize Shell’s Drilling the Arctic

President Barack Obama personally helped Shell obtain authorization to drill for oil in Alaska, according to a 4,678 word front page article in the New York Times. This is a startling break from decades long U.S. policy which regarded the environment in the Arctic region too fragile to tamper with.

“(T)he president concluded that the reward was worth the risk, and created an unusual interagency group, overseen by a midlevel White House aide, to clear Shell’s path through the often fractious federal regulatory bureaucracy,” write John Broder and Clifford Krauss.

In November 2010, almost two years after he was elected, Obama told William K. Reilly and Carol M. Browner, two former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, what he wanted them to do. “Where are you coming out on the offshore Arctic?” he asked. “What that told me,” Reilly told the New York Times, “was that the president had already gotten deeply into this issue and was prepared to go forward.”

May 25 2012

EU Split Over Euro Bonds

This was predictable:

Germany and France clash over eurobonds at summit

French president François Hollande marks his Brussels debut by challenging chancellor Angela Merkel over bailout

A special EU summit marking the debut of France’s President François Hollande saw him challenge Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, on the euro, arguing that the pooling of eurozone debt liability – eurobonds – had to be retained as an option for saving the currency. Merkel has ruled out eurobonds as illegal under current EU law.

Hollande told the dinner of 27 leaders that he wanted to see eurobonds established, while conceding that this would take time, witnesses at the talks said.

Merkel responded that this was nigh-on impossible since it would require changes to the German constitution and around 10 separate legal changes, the sources said.

There was no policy breakthrough at the summit, rather a reiteration by leaders of known positions. Any decisions were postponed until the end of next month after French and Greek parliamentary elections on 17 June.

Illegal? Require changes? Well, they created this mess by changing laws and constitutions, now they need to fix it by changing the laws and the EU constitution. Chancellor Merkel sounds more and more like George W. Bush, “it’s hard work” (read: I don’t want to do this). The Euro Zone nations can’t have their cake and eat it, too. They want Greece to to stay in the Euro Zone but they want them to accept the austerity agreement that the Greeks have clearly rejected.

In a New York Times Op-Ed, Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate and a professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard, points out that the EU economic crisis is a road to hell paved with good intentions:

There are two reasons for this.

First, intentions can be respectable without being clearheaded, and the foundations of the current austerity policy, combined with the rigidities of Europe’s monetary union (in the absence of fiscal union), have hardly been a model of cogency and sagacity. Second, an intention that is fine on its own can conflict with a more urgent priority – in this case, the preservation of a democratic Europe that is concerned about societal well-being. These are values for which Europe has fought, over many decades. [..]

Europe cannot revive itself without addressing two areas of political legitimacy. First, Europe cannot hand itself over to the unilateral views – or good intentions – of experts without public reasoning and informed consent of its citizens. Given the transparent disdain for the public, it is no surprise that in election after election the public has shown its dissatisfaction by voting out incumbents.

Second, both democracy and the chance of creating good policy are undermined when ineffective and blatantly unjust policies are dictated by leaders. The obvious failure of the austerity mandates imposed so far has undermined not only public participation – a value in itself – but also the possibility of arriving at a sensible, and sensibly timed, solution.

This is a surely a far cry from the “united democratic Europe” that the pioneers of European unity sought.

As David Dayen said, “we’re are essentially in a holding pattern” until the Greek and French Parliament elections on June 17. Please, do not hold your breath for a good solution, no matter what you may think a good solution is. Not everyone is going to be happy at the end of this. Let’s hope it’s the austerians who are unhappiest.

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