Things Would Be Very Different

-- by Dave Johnson

Things would be very different if government employees, regulators and legislators were banned (for at least five years) from taking any job with or accepting anything of value (including campaign donations) from any company, organization, person or other entity that they did any business with in government.

No more lucrative positions after leaving the job. No more bribes of any kind. That would remove an incentive for doing anything other than serving the interests of the public.

(For book contracts I would ban all advances and any compensation that is different from what most publishers give as a standard contract. Also, there should be an oversight mechanism that tracks bulk purchases... Remember when FOX's Murdoch tried to give Newt Gingrich a "book contract" advance of $4 million, and when the book came out no one bought it?)

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:40 PM PST on January 06, 2009.

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Bush, Harken, the SEC and Fraud

-- by Dave Johnson

A component of the current financial collapse is loss of confidence due to fraud resulting from inadequate regulation. In an op-ed in Sunday's New York Times, The End of the Financial World as We Know It, Michael Lewis and David Einhorn wrote,

Created to protect investors from financial predators, the commission has somehow evolved into a mechanism for protecting financial predators with political clout from investors. (The task it has performed most diligently during this crisis has been to question, intimidate and impose rules on short-sellers — the only market players who have a financial incentive to expose fraud and abuse.)

This might be a good time to remind people of a scandal that was developing before the 9/11 attacks removed everything else from the news.

Summary of the Bush/Harken scandal: George W. Bush was on the Board of Directors of Harken Energy Company and owned stock that had been purchased with a loan from Harken. In 1989 Harken used an Enron-like scheme to conceal losses by selling most of a subsidiary to an off-the-books entity that was controlled by company insiders. This caught up to them and in June, 1990, the Directors were warned that the company was about to report a big loss. The Directors were also warned that it would be illegal for them to sell any stock because they had insider information. Bush promised he would hold the stock and then sold his stock for more than $800,000. (It has not been disclosed who the buyer was.) Soon after Bush's sale the company announced the loss and the stock price dropped. Bush also did not file required forms with the SEC. When this came to light Bush was quietly investigated by the SEC - with his father as President of the United States. The SEC never interviewed Bush, and of course they did not file any charges even after finding significant wrongdoing. It also appears that Bush may not have paid any taxes on the stock sale or on loans he received from Harken and never repaid.

Boston Globe: Board Was Told of Risks Before Bush Stock Sale

Salon: Memos: Bush knew of Harken's problems.

Democrats.com: Did George W. Bush Evade Income Taxes on His Harken Loans?

Here is the BuzzFlash Bush/Harken Insider Trading Collection.

UK Guardian: Bush and Harken Energy

Time: The Rap on Bush and Cheney

And, about that SEC, June, 2005: Bush S.E.C. Pick Is Seen as Friend to Corporations

Oh, and about that Harken: June, 2008: Indicted Saudi investor in Harken Energy gets $80 million Pentagon contract

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:06 PM PST on January 06, 2009.

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Tom Geoghegan for Congress

-- by Dave Johnson

Go learn about Geoghegan for Congress | Democrat for Illinois’ fifth district

He posted this at DailyKos: I'm running for Congress in IL-5. (Progressive candidacy announcement for Rahm's seat.)

I’m running for Congress in the Fifth District of Illinois.

As a Chicago lawyer for thirty years, I have fought for working people in the Fifth District and throughout the city. I have represented unions as well as people with no unions to protect them. In plant closings I have helped them recover health and pension benefits. I obtained health care for the uninsured. I've been pressing the State of Illinois to crack down on payday lenders.

In my life as a lawyer I have lived out a commitment to one cause above all – to bring economic security to working Americans, in our District, in our country. That’s the same commitment I will bring to Congress.

We’re deep in an economic crisis unlike any other we’ve known. It may last years. We need new and creative ways to protect working Americans, especially our older working people who have no real pensions to live on.

For years we’ve heard the doomsayers: "We can’t afford Social Security." "We can’t afford ‘single-payer’ national health." One thing we all learned from the $700 billion bail out: We’ve got the money to do all of this and more.

Give money here:

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What Are Tax Brackets?

-- by Dave Johnson

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

In 2009 California is going to have to confront and settle a number of budget issues that we have been putting off for decades. We have been putting off so many necessary decisions -- deferring maintenance of our infrastructure, pushing pain into the future by borrowing, setting aside the needs of our people by cutting school, police, fire and other budgets, and practicing almost every form of avoidance of reality that we could find.

Well, the karma is coming back on us, all the chickens have come home to roost, we are getting what we gave and we are going to pay for our sins. (Please leave more cliches in the comments.)

The number one budget issues that has to be confronted is taxation.

So, let's talk taxes, beginning with the basics. I have found that many people don't really understand how taxes work so I want to write a bit about that here. One reason for the lack of understanding of taxes is that there has been quite a bit of deliberate misinformation. By confusing people, the very wealthy and corporate interests have been able to trick people into letting them avoid paying their fair share. Instead we either take on ourselves the bulk of the burden of paying for democracy, or just borrow and put that burden on our children.

One thing that I have found many people do not quite understand is the concept of tax brackets.

Tax brackets

A "progressive" tax is one where the tax rate increases as income increases. A progressive tax structure consists of brackets. You pay a certain tax rate on income up to the next bracket. After that bracket is reached, a higher tax rate applies to income that is earned that is above that amount. Let's say that you pay 5% on income below $10,000 and 7% on income above $10,000. So if you make exactly $10,000 of income the tax is $500. At $10,100 the tax is still that $500 on the amount below $10,000 and $7 on the additional $100, for a total of $507. The key point is that only the amount in the new bracket is taxed at the higher rate.

Many people believe that once you reach a higher bracket you pay the higher tax rate on all the income that falls below that bracket amount as well. I have actually talked to people who think they need to "get their income into a lower bracket" to avoid paying a higher tax rate, because they think that a higher tax rate would apply to all of the income they earned.

Using the example of the earlier paragraph, many people believe that you would pay $707, not $507, on income of $10,100, assuming that the entire $10,100 is taxed at a 7% rate because the total income is above $10,000. This incorrect belief is one result of anti-tax arguments. It is also the basis of many tax-avoidance schemes.

So, to repeat: If you enter a higher tax bracket, you only pay the higher tax rate on the amount of income you earn that is in the new tax bracket, not on all of your income.

Come join the discussion at Speak Out California

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:27 AM PST on January 06, 2009.

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"Franken Stole the Election!!!"

-- by John Emerson

Now that he's lost, Norm Coleman plans to stink up the place. In his statement he revives some old claims that were knocked down weeks ago. The WSJ is on board. The odious Dick Morris is hard at work; presumably he's being paid. The national attack is being coordinated by the Swiftboater Benjamin Ginsberg.

Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, Lott, and the WSJ have been flogging the "stolen election" idea for a month already, and now we can expect it to explode. They won't be able to keep Franken from being seated, but they can raise suspicions. This will be just one more small obstacle in Obama's path -- keeping a Democratic Senator out of office for awhile, sucking up the media oxygen, and diverting attention from Obama's attempts to prevent a depression, deal with the Israel Palestine dispute, etc. They want to cripple this American President the way they crippled Clinton.

The truth of the matter is that Franken honestly won a very close election after an honest, carefully done recount. The wingers will be pushing a lie: "Franken stole the election". They don't really need people to believe that -- they just want to put Franken (and indirectly Obama) under a cloud. If the conventional wisdom becomes "Franken won in court after a controversial and flawed recount -- some say he stole it", then the wingers will have won. And something like that's about what we should expect from the zombie media.

The battle against the lies has just begun. My guess is that some of the Republican scum kept their horns pulled in while it still seemed that Coleman might win, but we can now expect to see them crawling out from under their rocks. (And sorry for the mixed metaphor).

-- Posted by John Emerson at 8:10 AM PST on January 06, 2009.

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Employee Free Choice Act

-- by Dave Johnson

The Employee Free Choice Act revises labor law to make it easier for working people to organize unions. Currently it is extremely difficult to start a union. Organizers are fired and workers are threatened and intimidated. The Employee Free choice Act changes some rules, so that workers themselves can make decisions about unionizing.

Something you should know about the Employee Free Choice Act: The main talking point from the corporations is that it "eliminates the secret ballot." This is a flat-out lie and people need to know the facts. The Employee Free Choice Act allows workers to choose whether to a have secret-ballot vote or a "card check." A card check is when a majority of the workers have signed cards saying that they want a union.

The Employee Free choice Act adds the ability to start a union using "card check." It does not "eliminate the secret ballot." Period.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:29 AM PST on January 05, 2009.

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Why 40 Hours Per Week?

-- by Dave Johnson

Question. With rising unemployment, why are we all still supposed to work 40 hours a week to be considered "full time?"

Who is our economy FOR, anyway?

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:21 AM PST on January 05, 2009.

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It Was A Joke

-- by Dave Johnson

My post the other day -- about the show Dallas, where they declared the entire previous season was a dream, and this causing the ruination of America -- that was a JOKE. Admittedly very dry humor but some people didn't get it and decided I wasn't funny, I was crazy.

It was a joke, OK? So can I get out of this facility now? Hello?

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:33 PM PST on January 04, 2009.

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Big Companies Are Public Resources

-- by Dave Johnson

Deep Thought: When companies reach a certain size, they are public resources. They are large because they do something that is important to many of us. They have a great impact on all of our lives. We all depend on their success and are hurt by their failure.

They are public resources. Do we usually leave public resources in the hands of a few people?

Think of startup companies as auditioning for a job. The ones who reach a certain size are then rewarded by getting the "contract" to, say, develop oil resources or make cars...

Update - You say this sounds radical? I never proposed that the government borrow $700 billion dollars and hand it over to giant companies. It was the "private property free market conservatives" who did that.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:00 AM PST on January 04, 2009.

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Uncle Jay Sings 2008

-- by Dave Johnson

For more go to Uncle Jay Explains

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:47 AM PST on January 04, 2009.

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The Next Debt Bomb?

-- by Dave Johnson

The next bomb to go off might be US Government debt -- timed perfectly to ruin Obama's entrance. The government has been able to finance Bush's massive bailouts-of-the-rich because people everywhere are scared enough to put their money in what is perceived to be the safest place. In fact the return on short-term US T-bills is actually negative right now. People are paying the US government to hold their money! And the government has been obliging them.

But all of this short-term debt is due very soon and the government will need to find new people to lend to it. And other debt is also coming due, compounding the problem. And on top of that the Obama stimulus plan will require borrowing another $700 billion or more.

I am not predicting this will happen. I'm saying this is another bubble and at some point it has to pop.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:01 AM PST on January 04, 2009.

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Report Potential Terrorists

-- by Dave Johnson

I think we should all report anyone who looks like Timothy McVeigh when they try to get on airplanes.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:50 PM PST on January 03, 2009.

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Ruining America

-- by Dave Johnson

I think the two things that ruined America were:

1) Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon. This told the country that the elite are above the law, no matter how serious the crimes. It separated people from their government.

2) When Bobby died on Dallas, and then a whole season went by, and then they brought him back and said the whole previous year had been a dream. This told the country that double-duty suspension of disbelief can work. This led to the massive budget deficits, the stock bubble, housing bubble, increased fossil fuel use, obesity crisis, not banning tobacco products, deforestation, trade deficits and debt.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:22 PM PST on January 03, 2009.

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Big Box Mart

-- by Dave Johnson

Where your job went.

-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:50 PM PST on January 02, 2009.

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