Here is something that has been erased from people’s memories: The top income tax rate used to be 90%+ and the corporate tax rate was 52%. This was in both the US and UK. The inheritance tax on the rich was 77% in the US, 85% in the UK.

AFTER you took home a nice amount of income, then the rest, above a certain amount, was taxed a lot. People with high incomes were still quite well off, but these taxes prevented the extreme inequality we see all around us now. It also prevented the wealthiest from being able to buy the government.

And obviously there was plenty of investment. Society managed quite well.

Then It All Changed

Reagan and Thatcher changed all that, with “trickle-down” economics: If you give tons of money to the rich, then they will do what’s best for society and that money will “trickle down” to everyone else. They even promised that tax cuts would “pay for themselves.” This was a Republican talking point for decades!

Instead Of Taxing The Rich, Countries Now Borrow FROM The Rich And Pay Interest TO The Rich

Now instead of taxing the rich and doing things to make people’s lives better these countries “borrow” that money back FROM the rich and and pay “interest” TO the rich. The US pays interest payments of more than $1 TRILLION a year TO the rich. The UK pays over £110 billion.

And now these countries that used to do so much for the public say they’re “broke” so they can’t.

This can be undone, but only if you take the money out of the political system so these ultra-wealthy can’t just buy elections.

This post originally appeared at Government Cheese – Chronicling the collapse of democracy

The climate crisis is like an asteroid that is heading towards the Earth. AI could be another asteroid coming at us, but much sooner.

I used to think AI was amazing. Then I tried using the stuff they’re putting out there for various things and it was terrible, wrong and annoying. So I started to scoff at it.

I’ve changed my mind again. We shouldn’t disregard it or scoff at it. It is already replacing coders, and it is good at lots and lots of other things. It will get better and it will get better really quickly.

Here’s a prediction: Without regulation AI will be used to manipulate the 2026 elections in ways we don’t see or understand. In other countries the same will happen. The oligarchs are guaranteed to try this, and might well succeed.

The goal of the AI effort is “superintelligence.” This is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that can learn and make itself better. Once it gets to that point it will immediately accelerate its own learning and will very, very quickly surpass anything people can do.

The people running the AI companies are hoping to “get there first” and use it to take over the world, for themselves, personally. For their own benefit, and never mind anyone else. I think that’s obvious.

Imagine a tool that lets dictators anticipate and disrupt anything – anything – that might try to stop them, and that can manipulate the public with a power beyond our comprehension. A tool that is infinitely smarter than us or anything humanity has ever encountered. People have been able to overcome people in these situations, but this will be different – if we let it happen. It is the INTENT of Musk and the others for this to happen.

So here is a warning from someone on the inside who understands what’s going on. I listened to the podcast while walking. Look for “GZERO World with Ian Bremmer”

“OpenAI whistleblower Daniel Kokotajlo on superintelligence and existential risk of AI”

Here it is on YouTube. (The settings “gear” icon lets you increase the playback speed.)

This post first appeared at Government Cheese – Chronicling the collapse of democracy

There will be a lot of finger-pointing but Harris ran a great campaign and there was nothing anyone could have done to change the outcome. Nothing. It was just too late to fix things.

Culmination

I think this election was determined some time ago. This election was the culmination of the long-term “conservative movement” strategic campaign begun in the 1970s. The country has been subjected to decades of unanswered, well-funded propaganda and it has had its way with people. One by one conservatives inserted the right people into the courts and those people chipped away at the guardrails. Piece by piece the billionaires gained control of America’s information ecosystem and far too many people now believe what they’re told to believe. (The podcast “The Master Plan” does a very good job of explaining how this happened, going back to the Powell Memo.)

Corporate Dems

They got rid of campaign finance limitations. That inevitably led to moneyed interests gaining control of and neutralizing the Democratic party as an opposing force. Those we called “corporate Democrats” blocked reform after reform. And when there were majorities for reform anyway they refused to eliminate the filibuster, preventing majority rule from restoring the Fairness Doctrine, voting rights, campaign finance, and many other popular reforms that would have prevented what happened.

Inevitable

So I don’t think it was even about Harris vs Trump at this point. It was inevitable. We had hope that we could overcome it, but this was set in stone some time ago.

When I worked my first post-college job at Ford (later 70s) I worked on a PDP-11 in a remote lab (working on the 1st EEC – computerized carburetor.) To access the “disk” – a huge thing they would insert in the top of a huge device – you had to contact the “operator” at the big computer. Ford had a redundant system where everything typed was echoed across all of Ford’s computers, and data was stored in several places. I can only imagine the data loss that brought this about. One Saturday I was working and had to get to my data. I typed in “Sharon, please mount Dave Johnson’s disk.” But I typed a ‘c’ instead of an ‘s’. When I came in to work Monday every single person in the building was laughing.

Another time, when I was at Gobe, up in Portland, I gave a demo to a key client, using an overhead monitor. In front of everyone I was demonstrating how text could be made larger and smaller with a slider. I didn’t look at the keyboard, typed the word ‘TEXT’ and used the slider to make it huge. Well, the ‘W’ key is just to the left of the ‘E’ key, and the ‘A’ key is just to the left of the ‘S’ key and my fingers were just to the left…

I wonder how they got a prototype? (It came out as Quick Step not Kwibble.)

I have a cartridge at home with a special version I made for the sales staff where the kangaroo comes up behind the squirrel and … uh …

From Bojack Horseman. Spoken by Mr. Peanutbutter: “Raven on a wire. A gloomy portent, precariously perched. And, as the sun sets, so does it spread its deathly shadow across the just and unjust of the outdoor seating area of the California Pizza Kitchen.

You come to work, clock in, you put sugar in your coffee, and watch it slowly disappear into nothingness. But the sugar doesn’t know why. Sugar didn’t ask to be born.”

Happy Holidays from the Johnsons:

That’s our dog Paddington.

The back of the card:
Published by Sudeep Johnson
Doggie Paw Cards, Inc.
www.doggiepawcards.com
Many thanks to Paddington the little white dog, without whom this card would not have been possible.

Here is last year’s: Holiday Card From The Johnsons. (That card has a link to the previous year’s, which has a link to the previous year’s, etc…)

I mentioned the other day that I haven’t been writing.

On July 16,2002 I tried out blogging at a place called “Blogspot”, and ended up writing something almost every day since, sometimes several pieces per day.

But at the end of April I left my position as a “Senior Fellow” at Campaign for America’s Future, and haven’t written much since. I’ve started working at the Center for Media and Democracy and will start writing regularly there at same point. But right now I’m having a problem writing.

The problem has a few causes (I think).