Partial Readings: After Wall Street

After Wall Street
Obama on the light at the end of the tunnel: “More talent, more resources will be going to other sectors of the economy. And I actually think that’s healthy. We don’t want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader. We want some of them to go into engineering, and we want some of them to be going into computer design.”

Double Down
Robert Kuttner on Geithner and Bernanke’s bad gambling habits: “Orthodoxy has come to mean doing whatever it takes to revive the Wall Street casino. The plan recently announced by Treasury Secretary Geithner and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke is intended not to drive the money changers from the temple but to lend them public funds so that they can double down on their bets.”

Just Warfare
Avishai Margalit and Michael Walzer on Israel’s military code: “This is the guideline we advocate: Conduct your war in the presence of noncombatants on the other side with the same care as if your citizens were the noncombatants.”

No Exit
Dexter Filkins on the troop surge: “But the fact that the outcome of the war in Iraq is still up for grabs is perhaps the greatest irony of the surge’s success. By stopping the slide toward cataclysm, the surge all but ensured an even longer American commitment to the people of Iraq. And, we might as well add, to the people of Afghanistan. America, take note: we are still in the middle of two terrible and complicated wars, and we are likely to be fighting them for many years to come, even if we lose.”

More Than Transparency
David Bromwich on the torture memos: “Mere knowledge that crimes were committed is not in itself a remedy. It is necessary that the people responsible for acts of maladministration be rooted out and exposed to public opprobrium. If they committed crimes, they ought to be punished just as other citizens are, without any benefit owing to their official status. Praise of the good is meaningless where blame of the bad is prohibited.”

Crisis Control
Cornel West on Obama’s economic policy: “[Obama’s] first response was to reassure the neoliberal establishment. Economic team: here comes Geithner, here comes Summers…here comes Goolsbee…all recycled Clintonites…Without mobilized, organized social movements…we don’t have the wherewithal at the moment to put the pressure on our dear brother Obama.”