Daily digest – Practicing unprotected finance

What you need to know to navigate today’s most critical debates.

Nullification Lives: GOP Blocks Cordray (TNR)
Americans can breathe a sigh of relief on behalf of their defenseless lenders, as Republicans have stalled Richard Cordray’s nomination to head the CFPB.

99 Percenters, Meet the Fearsome 40 (Slate)
Eliot Spitzer looks at how a small group of protesters has changed America’s political landscape in just a few months, and how an even smaller group of senators plans to keep using the filibuster to make sure everything stays the same.

All the G.O.P.’s Gekkos (NYT)
Paul Krugman notes that despite Republicans’ efforts to exalt the rich as indispensable job creators, one of their top presidential contenders became rich by firing people. Greed is good? Yeah, turns out it’s pretty awesome if you do it right.

Gingrich Uses Fog of Words to Cloud Our Memory (Bloomberg)
Jonathan Alter writes that Newt Gingrich has demonstrated a remarkable ability to twist concepts like liberty and taxes into new shapes, while President Obama continues to give nice speeches that fade away like a dream the next morning.

Eyeing 2012, White House Presses Europe on Debt (NYT)
The Obama administration claims its interest in resolving the eurozone crisis is purely altruistic, but the president probably knows that while the last global economic meltdown helped him win in 2008, voters aren’t eager for an encore performance.

The Wrong Fix (TAP)
Harold Meyerson argues that the eurozone’s plan for imposing painful austerity measures on struggling economies is focused not only on the wrong solution but on the wrong problem, like a doctor treating a broken arm by performing a lobotomy.

The Recession Was Sexist (So Is the Recovery) (The Atlantic)
Men lost more jobs during the recession, but women are recovering much more slowly thanks in part to policymakers’ plan to balance the scales by eliminating the public sector jobs women once held. (Just kidding; they have no plan.)

The End Of The Affair (TNR)
Timothy Noah writes that Jon Corzine’s ritual humiliation before the House Agriculture Committee should be the final proof Democrats need that progressivism and Wall Street cronyism are not a chocolate and peanut butter-like combination.

Jamie Dimon Doesn’t Know What His Tax Rate Is, But He Sure Is Mad About It (Slate)
Good news: The CEO of JP Morgan has traveled back from the future to bring word of President Obama’s success in restoring the Clinton-era top marginal tax rate. Unfortunately, he’s feeling pretty whiny about the whole situation.

Credit Card Confusion: CFPB Developing Simpler Credit Card Form (HuffPo)
Even without a leader, the consumer agency has unveiled a new form that attempts the seemingly impossible task of helping consumers understand exactly what they’re getting when they sign up for a credit card, while also looking very pretty.

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Posted by New Deal 2.0 on Dec 9 2011. Filed under New Deal 2.0, the reading room. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry