Progressive Opinion

alternet.org — As the final Twinkies, Sno-Balls and those glowing orange cupcakes were stuffed with cream and wrapped in cellophane on Friday, the business world and much of the news media knew who was to blame for this dying American icon. It was the unions. As Hostess moved to end its operations last week — a bankruptcy judge asked the company Monday to try mediation with its unions; those talks are scheduled to begin today — commentators were eager to blame the rigidity of unions. But the story is far more complicated than that — and in some ways, the exact opposite of the tale pushed by those on the right. It’s the story of two bankruptcies, hundreds of millions of givebacks from Hostess unions and hundreds of millions of debt piled onto the company by venture capitalists. It’s a story of management that boosted its own salaries, while failing to make agreed payments into workers’ pension funds. And it’s a story of changing tastes and diets.

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motherjones.com — Not even two weeks have passed since Democrat Elizabeth Warren rode a wave of grassroots support to victory in the US Senate race in Massachusetts, ousting Republican incumbent Scott Brown. Senator-elect Warren has not yet hired her staff. She has not yet moved into her Senate office. But the banking industry is already taking aim at her, scurrying to curb her future clout on Capitol Hill. Lobbyists and trade groups for Wall Street and other major banking players are pressuring lawmakers to deny Warren a seat on the powerful Senate banking committee. Democrats have two spots to fill on the committee before the 113th Congress gavels in next year. Warren has yet said whether she wants to serve on the committee. But she would be a natural: she's a bankruptcy law expert, she served as Congress' lead watchdog overseeing the $700 billion bank bailout from 2008 to 2010, and she conceived of and helped launch the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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prospect.org — You remember the Twinkie Defense? It was a term of ridicule coined by reporters covering the 1979 San Francisco murder trial of county supervisor Dan White. The right-wing White had assassinated both fellow supervisor Harvey Milk, a heroic figure in San Francisco’s gay community, and Mayor George Moscone. Lawyers for White claimed that he overdosed on Twinkies, and was acting under the delusional influence of a sugar high. Now, there is a new Twinkie Defense, and it is equally shameless and delusional. The Twinkie Defense is: the unions made us do it.

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policyshop.net — There are basically two ways to thwart regulatory oversight of Wall Street: One, block new rules or weaken existing rules; and, two, make sure that whatever rules exist are not fully enforced. The finance industry and its allies in Congress are pursuing both strategies. Yet while the campaign against Dodd-Frank has received much attention, less heed has been paid to how a budgetary attack is undermining the two top watchdogs over Wall Street: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC).

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policyshop.net — In 2008 alone, the securities industry lost over $2 trillion in workers’ hard-earned 401(k) and IRA savings. This loss was problematic enough for the millions of American families who watched their balances plunge in horror, but the number that really drives home the need for reform is the more than $120 billion that the industry took home in compensation and commissions the same year it lost $2 trillion in savers’ wealth. Clearly, there must be something wrong with the rules and incentives for the securities industry for it to be able to pay itself so much while simultaneously performing so poorly. There are, however, several relatively simple rules that could be implemented to insure that the industry responsible for millions of Americans’ retirement works to help them retire comfortably -- as opposed to simply lining its own pockets at their expense.

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aljazeera.com — The gang for gutting Social Security and Medicare (aka "The Campaign to Fix the Debt") are running in high gear. During the long election campaign they gathered dollars, corporate CEOs and washed up politicians for a full-fledged push in the final months of the year. They are hoping that the hype around the budget standoff (aka "fiscal cliff") can be used for a grand bargain that eviscerates the country's two most important social programmes, Social Security and Medicare. They made a point of keeping this plan out of election year politics because they know it is a huge loser with the electorate. People across the political and ideological spectrums strongly support these programmes and are opposed to cuts [PDF]. Politicians who advocated cuts would have been likely losers on Election Day. But now that the voters are out of the way, the Wall Street gang and the CEOs see their opportunity.

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policyshop.net — One of the most visible signs of climate change was last summer’s prolonged extreme drought. Over eighty percent of the corn and soybean crops were impacted. Not surprisingly, we saw record food prices globally. Price increases due to drought are easy to understand given the reduction in crop supply that accompanies drought. Yet, even before this summer’s drought, food prices have been increasing and record high prices were seen in 2008 and again in 2011. Part of the increase in prices can be attributed to the increase in global population, and therefore, increased demand. Part of the increase, however, is artificially manufactured and not a result of increased demand or decreased supply. Financial speculation destabilizes the commodities market and increased speculative action correlates with increased food prices. In other words, financial manipulations are causing food prices to increase when there is no other reason why they should be increasing.

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neweconomicperspectives.org — Third Way, lobbyists for and from Wall Street who are leading the effort to enrich Wall Street by privatizing Social Security, was created by Wall Street to fool some of the people all of the time.  I have written previously to expose their fictional claims to be a moderate or liberal Democratic group. Eric Laursen documented Wall Street’s effort to become even wealthier by privatizing Social Security in articles and his recent book. I showed that Third Way makes itself useful by providing a faux “liberal” or “moderate” “Democratic” quote machine that can be used to discredit Democrats and Democratic policies such as the safety net.  I gave examples of how Third Way gave aid and comfort to the effort to defeat Elizabeth Warren and the effort to unravel the safety net.  Third Way continues to prove that you can fool some of the people all of the time.

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guardian.co.uk — The morning after Barack Obama's re-election, panic broke out. Radio 4 described financial markets slumping on worries over something called a "fiscal cliff". The clock is ticking, apparently. Obama has until New Year's Eve in which to strike a deal with the Republicans – otherwise nearly 50 tax cuts will expire and the defense department alone will get slapped with $1.2 trillion in cuts. Unless the Democrats give the Republicans what they want in the form of further tax giveaways for the richest, the senator Mitch McConnell and his right-wing allies will block any attempt to extend borrowing – with disastrous economic consequences. It sounds like a budgetary version of the film Speed; but this is the fiscal cliff Washington is driving off. And the result will be another recession and soaring unemployment. There is just one problem with this version of events: it's exaggerated. Distorted. More spiced-up than a bargain balti.

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truth-out.org — Let’s face it, if your opponent in Monopoly scoops up Boardwalk, Park Place, North Carolina Avenue, Pacific Avenue, both utilities, and the four railroads – that’s game over. But let’s assume the Monopoly game doesn’t end there. Let’s assume the broke players keep rolling the dice and keep going around the board. They essentially keep living their lives desperate and broke, using their credit cards and home lines of credit to stay in the game. Meanwhile, the oligarch who owns everything can no longer collect any income. The other players can’t afford to pay rent, they can’t pay utilities, and they can’t ride on the railroads. Eventually, without consumers spending money, the Monopoly oligarch goes broke, too. His properties and businesses disappear and suddenly everyone is broke! That’s what Monopoly’s version of economic collapse looks like. And it’s very similar to what global economic collapse in the real world looks like, too.

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