Seeing the Forest

My Op-Ed In SJ Merc News -- Tax The Rich

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-19T09:02:07-08:00

I have an op-ed in today's San Jose Mercury News: Opinion: Why America needs to go back to taxing the wealthy. Here is a bit of it: While America has always been a place where a person could get rich, it used to be that you got rich a bit more slowly, and everyone benefited in the process. This...

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My Landline

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-18T15:47:24-08:00

The Johnsons have two cell phones and a landline. Pretty much the only calls we get on the landline are telemarketing calls, but for some reason we keep it around. It would be nice if the government kept a database of people who do not want to be called at home by telemarketers. Maybe they...

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The Problem With A Jobs Bill – And With Everything Else

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-18T13:32:19-08:00

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF. The country needs a jobs program and needs it right now. Cash for Caulkers would be a good start. A new Civilian Conservation...

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COBRA Subsidy Expiring - Hundred Of Thousands Will Lose Insurance

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-17T11:13:16-08:00

In two weeks the first wave of unemployed who qualified for COBRA health insurance subsidies under the "stimulus plan" will start losing their health insurance, and Congress has not acted. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will start losing their health insurance each month as their COBRA...

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Washington Times Against Protectionism Before They Were For It

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-16T15:30:05-08:00

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF. President Obama is visiting Asia, and is blasted over and over about America's supposedly "protectionist" policies. "China on...

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Record Deficit Was Bush's Last Budget

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-16T08:46:19-08:00

Everyone thinks this huge deficit is Obama's doing. For example, a letter in today's San Jose Mercury News, Deficit story should have been Page 1 The brief Associated Press story "October federal deficit is a record'' (Page 9A, Nov. 13) should have been front-page news. And the headline should...

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How The Rich Get Richer

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-14T20:59:23-08:00

Paul Rosenberg nails it: Open Left:: The "Entitlement Problem": Racing ourselves to the bottom But to a very large extent, the culture wars are a war of constructed tribal identity, fronting for elite corporate interests, and their primary historical achievement has been to transform...

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NBC Nightly News Leads With Promo of Palin's Book

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-14T18:40:34-08:00

In the intro to tonite's NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, led with "Sarah Palin's Book, you can't get it yet, but we've got it." The second segment of the "news" broadcast was entirely Palin and her book. It started with all the "buzz' about the book, just a huge puff piece, calling it a...

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The Public Purpose Of Banking

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-14T11:47:37-08:00

Food for thought: Attention Lloyd Blankfein: The Public Purpose of Banking, ... WHO controls the banks is ultimately less important than HOW we control the banks’ activities. Oversight is all very nice, but at times it pays to get back to first principles. What on earth is the public purpose of...

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Bush's Last Budget - Blame Shifted To Obama

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-13T15:20:29-08:00

Bush's last budget year wrapped up last month, leaving us a deficit of over $1.4 trillion. But everyone blames Obama because the right's noise machine has repeated over and over that Obama is "spending" -- and no one shows up to explain the truth. A New York times analysis of this deficit...

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Do Taxes Slow The Economy?

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-11T17:23:07-08:00

On the NewsHour the moderator just said "new taxes slows down the economy at a time when people are hurting." This is in a discussion of how to fix state budgets. The panelist responds, "That's exactly right." This is just absolute nonsense. This shows what happens when something is repeated...

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Why Chinese Goods Cost Less

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-11T10:37:26-08:00

This is what "externalizing" pollution costs looks like: Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China | ChinaHush

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$140 Billion for Bonuses, Zero for America’s Future

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-11T07:46:24-08:00

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF. Here is another story about Wall Street’s war on the real economy. US Steel was planning to invest $1 billion in building an...

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How Wall Street bought Tim Geithner

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-10T10:51:47-08:00

I just came across this: How Wall Street bought Tim Geithner -- DailyFinance. Have you ever wondered why Wall Street was able to get $23.7 trillion from the federal government after making some bad bets that wiped out $30 trillion in stock market value worldwide and helped throw 15.1 million...

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Climate Denial and the Chamber

Dave Johnson — 2009-11-10T08:58:37-08:00

In James Boyce: Chamber Me This. some guy named James Boyce writes about the head of the Chamber of Commerce and their climate-denial efforts to prevent us from reducing CO2 emissions. Did you know that Tom Donahue, head of the Chamber of Commerce, is on the Board of Union Pacific, which hauls...

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