Daily digest – Ryan shrugged

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

Europe Agrees to Basics of Plan to Resolve Euro Crisis (NYT)
After tense negotiations, Europe’s leaders have decided to make banks take a 50 percent loss on Greek debt and recapitalize. It’s sad that it had to come to this when poor people still had so much more to give.

Wall Street is Still Out of Control, and Why Obama Should Call for Glass-Steagall and a Breakup of Big Banks (Robert Reich)
If President Obama wanted to draw a clear line between himself and Mitt Romney, he could get as tough on the banks as they pretend he’s been and take serious steps to end “too big to fail.” But then they might stop hate-donating to him.

Ex-Goldman Director Gupta Accused in Indictment of Feeding Rajaratnam Tips (Bloomberg)
Rajat Gupta is charged with leaking information shared with him by several high-profile firms to disgraced hedge funder Raj Rajaratnam, tarnishing the otherwise squeaky-clean reputation that America’s top boardrooms have long maintained.

Why the SEC Won’t Hunt Big Dogs (ProPublica)
Jesse Eisinger notes the pitfalls of matching financial firms with an addiction to risk up against regulators who won’t dare to bring charges unless they can find a banker dumb enough to post “I committed so many crimes today!” on his Facebook page.

Will demonizing OWS win elections? (Salon)
David Sirota writes that the GOP is ramping up its efforts to smear Occupy Wall Street protesters as America-hating hippies and Democrats as their co-conspirators, but it’s hard to summon a lot of patriotic fervor for defending JP Morgan.

The Vatican meets the Wall Street occupiers (WaPo)
A Vatican critique of the financial system has conservatives mad that the Church has strayed from talking about abortion and gay marriage instead of leaving questions about social justice up to niche right-wing magazines, like Jesus would have wanted.

Why Obama Should Pay Attention To Occupy Wall Street’s Critique Of Higher Education (TNR)
Kevin Carey observes that many of the young people camped out in Zuccotti Park are fed up with being turned into the indentured servants of the banking industry as punishment for trying to finance their educations.

Supercommittee Democrats Offer Major Capitulation (The Nation)
Democrats have doubled down on Barack Obama’s pre-concession strategy and offered $400 billion in Medicare cuts split evenly between providers and beneficiaries, to which Republicans responded with their traditional counter-offer of nothing.

Income Inequality Is Hobbling the Middle Class (Fiscal Times)
Mark Thoma points out that the pain of rising inequality could be partially offset if economic mobility were also increasing, but instead of helping everyone else to move up the ladder with them, the 1 percent are sawing the rungs off behind them.

The Ideological Fantasies of Inequality Deniers (New York)
Jonathan Chait writes that like Tolkien fans who wear elf ears or Harry Potter fans who stage Quidditch matches, Paul Ryan is basically a guy who once read an epic fantasy story and never got over it. His just happened to be Atlas Shrugged.

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Posted by Nunzia Rider on Oct 27 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