Daily digest – The Italian job

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

Is this how the euro ends? (WaPo)
If the euro is to survive, Italy can’t be allowed to fail. But no one can really afford to save it except the European Central Bank, which prefers not to be seen as either central or a bank.

How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich (Rolling Stone)
Tom Dickinson traces conservative ideology from the Eisenhower era, when raising taxes to pay for public investments was a bipartisan tactic, to the modern GOP, which treats the government as a money-laundering operation for the 1%.

Stanching the flow of corporate dollars into campaigns (WaPo)
Katrina vanden Heuvel makes the case for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling that when the framers wrote “freedom of speech,” they meant “freedom for multinational corporations to make unlimited secret bribes.”

Yes, it is Wall Street’s fault (Salon)
Gene Lyons questions the alternate history outlined by conservative pundits and Mike Bloomberg, in which President Barney Frank destroyed the U.S. economy in 2007 by helping poor people buy homes in 1977. (It was a delayed reaction.)

Why does the White House oppose the “Robin Hood” tax? (WaPo)
The Obama administration claims it opposes a broad financial speculation tax because it could reduce GDP. Critics argue the real reason is that Obama has the Sheriff of Nottingham running the Treasury Department.

How a Financial Pro Lost His House (NYT)
When conservatives dismiss the victims of the mortgage crisis as losers who made irresponsible choices and suffered the consequences, they’re usually not talking about financial advisers from Merrill Lynch. In fact, they’re probably talking to them.

Winds of Economic Change Blow Away College Degree (Bloomberg)
Stay in school, kids. Not because your education will get you anywhere right now, but because there’s not going to be a whole lot for you to do once you graduate.

The Secret Farm Bill (NYT)
Most Americans have never cared to know the minute details of U.S. agricultural policy, but with its maneuvering to push the latest farm bill through the Super Committee in secret, Congress is drafting a pretty unappetizing menu of cuts.

We’re Spending More on Nukes Than We Did During the Cold War?! (MoJo)
If the unthinkable happens and the Super Committee fails, triggering automatic defense cuts, we can at least rest assured knowing that we still have a large enough arsenal to annihilate most of the Milky Way if it starts to look at us funny.

Christmas Tree Tax: Obama Attacked For Agriculture Department Plan To Support Farmers (HuffPo)
With no clear exit strategy and a brazen disregard for America’s diplomatic relationship with the North Pole, the president continues to wage war on Christmas.

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Posted by New Deal 2.0 on Nov 10 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