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For The Trees
Who is our economy FOR, anyway? About the Authors: Dave Johnson John Emerson Richard Reich Thomas Leavitt
Recent Posts: BEST OF STF: Dave's: Articles not at STF: The ATLA Speech on building a progressive infrastructure Lowering the Bar The Attack on Trial Lawyers and Tort Law Who's Behind the Attack on Liberal Professors On the Right and their communications infrastructure: Why Republicans Win Win or Lose The "Conventional Wisdom" Machine Some History of the Conservative Movement HOW TO FIGHT BACK An Amplifier Of Our Own Don't Blame the Democrats How They Do It 1 2 3 4 Getting Rolled Other: You're Gonna Get Drafted Scalia and Self-Government Who is Our Economy For? Voting Machine Story Link Collection What's Wrong with this Picture? (Voting Machines) Like Meat in the Supermarket Get Active Thin Line 1 2 3 Fixing Social Security Seeing the Forest I, II, III "Incredibly Positive News" The Breadth of It The Republican Crony Club Moon Bush Ralph Nader is a Scab John's Best Of: Kerry Smear Page Bandar Bush 9/11 Commission Report Damages Bush -- if you read it Florida Goon Squad Intimidated the Supreme Court The Use and Abuse of George Orwell Zizka's Archives (John's previous identity) Zizka Sampler News Sources: AlterNet BuzzFlash Common Dreams Cursor Drudge Retort Information Clearing House Smirking Chimp TruthOut What REALLY Happened Links to Other Weblogs: |
 8/13/2002 Wait Wait. Later he said "We're working hand in hand to see to it that Congress finally gets the message that we need a terrorism insurance bill to get American hard hats back to work. (Applause.) People say, does it matter? Of course it matters. There's over $8 billion of commercial construction that has been suspended last year. That means $8 billion worth of projects in which somebody is going to be able to work and put food on the table for their family." So he at least understands that if the government spends money on construction, that means construction jobs putting money into the hands of American families. Did I read it right? Or is he saying that if the government bails out big insurance companies that will lead to construction? I'm confused. If the government spends it means money in the hands of the big insurance companies which leads to construction of insurance company buildings? (The big insurance companies had their money in the stock market and now don't have the cash to cover their obligations. It might be as big as the pension problem story) but that's another story. --- Posted at 8/13/2002 06:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post  
What? I saw Bush on TV saying "More money spent in Washington means less money in the hands of American families and entrepreneurs; less money in the hands of risk-takers and job creators." Read the transcript here. What? The guy who signed the farm bill said this? Does he think that the money the government spends disappears into outer space? (And into the hands of large corporate farms.) That comment has cost me any last bit of hope I was holding on to that the economy is going to recover. Not as long as this guy's in the White House. --- Posted at 8/13/2002 06:20:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/12/2002 Thin Line Between Company and Party (Part 1) I know that Enron has fallen off of the front pages lately but I think looking back with hindsight might offer insight into the “corporate responsibility” problems. A few months back I was reading about all the cash that Enron had been giving to the Republicans. Then I learned that Enron was also making significant indirect contributions to The Party. That got me tracing campaign money in general, and the question occurs to me, “Where does the company end, and "The Party" begin?” Here’s an example of Enron company money indirectly used to benefit The Party. Perhaps you remember reading that Enron employed Ralph Reed while he really worked for the Bush campaign. Enron payroll -> Bush campaign employee. Here’s four stories about this – one, two, three, four. Now take a look at Ed Gillespie, former communications director at the RNC and a top communications advisor to the Bush campaign. He was paid at least $525,000 from Enron for "lobbying" immediately after the campaign ended. This sounds a lot like the Reed arrangement. This year-old story (from before Enron's collapse) seems very relevant today. From Page 2: In May, Gillespie launched the 21st Century Energy Project, financed by such pro-Bush conservative groups as Americans for Tax Reform and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Ostensibly, the group's aim is to advance Bush's energy plan. But its other mission is to kill any attempt by Democrats to institute price caps to alleviate the energy crisis in the West. Which also happens to be the main goal of one of Gillespie's newest clients, Enron--the energy behemoth with closer ties to the Bush administration than perhaps any other corporation. (The company's employees and executives have given more to Bush than has any other single company.) Last week the project ran its first round of ads, which will neatly complement the series of town meetings the White House is conducting on energy policy. With the energy project, which expects to spend $500,000, Gillespie not only helps Enron but also serves as the "bad cop" attacking the Democrats on energy policy while the White House remains above the partisan fray.We can get into Citizens for a Sound Economy and Americans for Tax Reform later. (There’s a lot there.) This leads us into Enron “lobbying” cash that is really just more indirect cash to The Party. Here's an article that tracks $1,785,000 of "lobbying" money that Enron spent just in the first half of 2001. How much of that money really went to activities to benefit The Party? Yet another path for Enron corporate contributions to The Party is the so-called “think tanks.” There are several supposedly independent think tanks that are really just extensions of The Party. Here's a story. OK, OK, you get the point, Enron found lots of ways to give a LOT of money to the Republicans. Where am I going with this? I'm only writing about Enron tonite. There's much more. (In Part 2) Amway, tobacco companies, drug companies, and many others are operating as if they are the funding arm of The Party! Where does the company end and The Party begin? How does it benefit the shareholders of a company when the executives are pouring untold millions into The Party rather than to shareholders as profits? We might cynically say that they are buying government benefits, tax breaks, etc. that increase profits, but it's ILLEGAL to donate money with the expectation of political favors, isn't it? And if they don't KNOW they'll be granted favors they're pissing away shareholder money. So either they're acting unethically by donating with the understanding that it's a bribe or by pouring shareholder money into The Party. It is one or the other. “Corporate Reform" reforms nothing if it does not address the freedom with which Boards and Executives are working hand-in-hand with the Republicans! Independent Boardmembers are not independent at all if they are merely ideological soldiers of The Party, infiltrating our corporations to carry out Party funding missions. Fat Chance the Congress will address this, but the shareholding public needs to be made aware of this additional way that their Boards and Officers have their hands in the till. --- Posted at 8/12/2002 09:36:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush's PR Summit Bush is holding a PR summit tomorrow, and Demcorats are not invited. It seems to me that if the Democrats were smart about PR, they would have a few Democratic members of Congress camping outside, occasionally banging on the doors, for the benefit of the news cameras. --- Posted at 8/12/2002 07:55:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Why the Dems? Nathan Newman has a good piece titled WHY THE DEMS? He looks at California where the Democrats got control of the Assembly, Senate and Governor's office in 1998 (except for issues that require 2/3 votes), and what they have since accomplished. Greens, please go read it. --- Posted at 8/12/2002 03:38:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
On the Radio I had to drive my wife to work. On the radio Paul Harvey said that Saddam Hussein "blew the top off of New York." I wonder how many of the right's audience even knows the difference between Bin Laden & al-Queda, Afghanistan and Iraq. Or even knows that there IS a difference. I think the Bush people are counting on them not knowing. And they'll use the "don't you hate those know-it-alls" against anyone who does know the difference. Sean Hannity says Time Magazine made up their big story, that Time is just lying, this is all just the Liberal Media working to defeat Bush, don't believe them, etc. Hannity says that the Clinton people not only didn't put together a plan to go after al-Queda and present it to the new Bush administration, but that the Clinton people didn't do anything to try to get al-Queda and even rejected offers from several countries to hand Bin Laden over. The Bush people are really scared that people are going to find out they sat on their hands and ignored the terrorist threat, so they're pulling out the stops on this one. They seem really afraid of the consequences of the Time article. --- Posted at 8/12/2002 02:34:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Trees Over at Blah3 there's a boint-by-point rebuttal to a letter from a Rush fan. It's a fairly long piece, he does a good job rebutting each point. But this is what I've been saying about trees. A lot of energy went into this. And each point made by the letter-writer was just a repeat of a Republican lie. What's worse, you'll see all of these points repeated over and over and over by this letter-writer, Rush, right-wing pundits, candidates, etc. for years. See the forest -- It's what they do. Blah3's piece starts with the dittohead writing, "Last year on January 20 we said good bye to 8 years of crime, cover-ups, and smokescreens." Never mind that President Clinton was cleared of every single accusation except that he got a blow job. Every single accusation was a phony made-up lie that was part of a coordinated attempt to destroy a presidency - and which led to the election of Bush with all of its consequences. And of course the complete and utter lack of evidence is proof there was a massive cover-up, right? But there I go arguing trees. It's hard not to get into it when you see that kind of nonsense repeated. It's hard not to try to refute each lie. But it wastes energy. We need to find ways to more effectively fight this. I think that getting people to see when they're being bombarded with lies might help. By the way, Clinton didn't "play golf with" Enron's Ken Lay. The true story will tell you how far the Republicans go to make up these lies. Check out this Daily Howler piece. Here's what the Republicans use as the basis of their claim that Clinton "played golf with" or was a "golf partner with" Ken Lay: "Clinton began his vacation with a bipartisan golf match Saturday at the Country Club of the Rockies in Vail, Colo., teaming up with fellow Democrat (and golf pro) Jack Nicklaus to take on the Republican duo of former president Gerald Ford and Houston businessman Ken Lay." THAT becomes "golf partner." Understand what they do - that is the forest. --- Posted at 8/12/2002 10:03:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Disgusted I was reading the San Francisco Chronicle's Op-Ed pages this morning and came across this, about Al Gore. It contains the following: This from a man who was raised in a Washington hotel penthouse by Sen. Al Gore Sr., who groomed him for the presidency. Gore blames his loss not on a faux populism, but on too many high-priced consultants telling him to wear brown suits.The op-ed piece reads like a parady of Daily Howler. If you're not familiar with Daily Howler please go take a look. Bob Somerby has spent at least 2 years looking into how the press covers politics, particularly the coverage of Al Gore during the election and the lies and how they were started by the Republicans and endlessly repeated by the press. Gore was not raised in a Washington penthouse, and Somerby has gone into great detail about how the Republicans planted that, and how the press continues to repeat the lie. In fact, Somerby has done such a good job going into this, and his work, or similar debunking of the Republicans lies, has been written about in enough places that it is inexcusable to think that any journalism professional would STILL be writing these lies. The SF Chronicle should not have allowed this lie to (again) get into print. Here's something I wrote a month ago on a similar subject. --- Posted at 8/12/2002 08:05:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/11/2002 Blog Plug I happened upon "Let it Begin Here" and I recommend taking a read. --- Posted at 8/11/2002 02:03:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/10/2002 So What Are You Going to DO About It? Anybody who has found this weblog is probably in agreement with what I'm writing about, and is probably spending time reading other online political sites, like BuzzFlash, and other weblogs. So we feel the same way, we're tuned in, we're getting info that is very different from the stuff that is in most of the papers and on almost all of TV (except maybe the new CrossFire.) Do I have to write about how "we" feel? Corporations replacing one-person-one-vote with one-dollar-one-vote and all the consequences that flow from that - pollution, cronyism, corruption, Federalist Society judges, corporate crimes of all kinds, and the stuff coming from the White House. What are you going to DO about it? That's the question. What are you going to actually DO about it? Here's my suggestion. Do something. There's an election coming up. I have started spending a little bit of my Saturdays or Sundays with a little voter registration table at a shopping center or the local Farmer's Market. There's a big "Democrats Register Here" sign taped to the table (but I sign up anyone who wants to register.) I have only done this a few times now, but I'm calling up people from a local Democratic Club's member list, asking if they would like to volunteer to put in an hour or two, so we can turn this into a full-time operation. This got started after I decided to get involved and contacted my local Democratic Club. (To contact your local Democrats go here and choose your state where it says Get Local, over on the left of the page. From there you should be able to find your way to your local Demcoratic Party organization.) Yes, I'm suggesting the boring Democrats. I used to think it was a good idea to help the Greens start a new party, but now I think that just breaks up the coalition that can get the Republicans out. Being out there getting people registered is a rewarding experience. It's also a lot more than just registering them - it's "showing the flag" - to people who think like "us" and feel isolated. I find that they really appreciate seeing people like me out there. I tell them they can be a person "like me" and help out, too. It is surprising how many are signing up to help out. It's encouraging. Talking to people at this table has been a great experience. I'm in a Democratic area (it used to be Republican but the Democrats got organized and changed that) so most people are positive. But I find that almost NO ONE is tuned in to the kind of news we get online. So I point people to BuzzFlash as a starting point. I need one place to tell them to go to, and that's a great place to get started. Here's some things YOU can do: - Join your local Democratic Club. It's more fun than most of the computer user groups I used to speak at. - Start registering voters. It's about more than just signing up new voters, it's about being out there talking to people. It was HARD for me the first time I set up that table. There's something about putting yourself out there like that that is hard. Maybe I was buying into all the years of scorn from right-wingers laughing at mushy liberals. Anyway as soon as I sat down at the table with the sign I felt GOOD about what I was doing. - Donate money. It's important. It sounds stupid but it's what makes politics run - until we can pass public financing and we aren't going to do that without getting "our people" elected. - Donate time. It takes work to win an election but working on a campaign is FUN and rewarding. - Get other people connected to what's going on online. - Send e-mails to people you know, letting them know about places to visit online, encouraging them to get involved or at least vote. - If you are a blogger you can encourage your readers to get actively involved before this election. You know the formula, if each of us can get just two people activated... --- Posted at 8/10/2002 08:06:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Hogs The Daily Enron has an opinion piece by Stephen Pizzo that is worth reading. It's another "Are the Democrats ready to step up to the plate?" piece. From the piece: "Down in Louisiana, scandal-hardened voters have a saying when they change control of the state legislature from one party to the other: "It was just time to let the fat hogs out and the lean hogs in." American voters are tired of feeding hogs of any political persuasion. It's just gotten too expensive. So, if Democrats are going to sweep the November races they are going to start now by not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. Walking the walk will mean pursuing true progressive reforms for both government and corporations, even if doing so offends some contributors who may deserve a good offending anyway. Voters are looking for anything but politics as usual. Democrats will have to prove themselves capable of delivering on that desire or risk turning off voters who will respond by simply staying at home next November rather wasting another vote on the lesser of two evils. "Also, as you can see, I realized I should use blockquote when I'm quoting, so my posts will look better from now on. Blog evolves. --- Posted at 8/10/2002 04:23:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/09/2002 Today's Google Experiment Salon debunks the story about Gore trying to get free Springsteen tickets. Just another lie. This is a tree. Here's the forest: Does anyone remember the May, 1993 Clinton $200 Haircut story? The story was that President Clinton held up all traffic at LAX for 45 minutes while his plane sat on the runway and he got a haircut that cost $200. This story helped shape public attitudes about his new administration, coming 4 months after he took office. Except that it never happened. (Scan this story for the word "haircut.") SOMEone sent FAXes with this story to newspapers and radio stations across the country. Further faxes claimed to be from passengers who missed flights. Some even claimed to be from people who missed funerals, etc. This was a very well-coordinated and very effective smear job - a sign of things to come. Google Experiment: Click here to go to Google and search on the keywords "clinton haircut runway" and see how many press articles, etc. you can find that refer to this smear as fact. Remember, it not only never happened, but very quickly was shown to be phony. This one is cute. You'll see a lot more stories like the Springsteen Ticket story as the Presidential campaign gets going. The stories are trees. See the forest. See the bigger picture. Learn how it's done so you don't fall for it yourself. --- Posted at 8/09/2002 12:25:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Go Watch This! WOW! Take a look at this great Flash piece! To see others, go to this site, click on the links on the upper left. --- Posted at 8/09/2002 10:26:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Democrats Not Invited The Bush Administration motto may as well be, "Democrats Not Invited." --- Posted at 8/09/2002 08:46:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More on that Pension Problem I have been writing about the corporate pension problem - the "other" corporate accounting problem that could be as serious as the falsely reported earnings scandal. This is an important problem worth paying attention to. In a nutshell, when stocks were climbing corporations didn't have to contribute to their pension funds, and could report higher profits. Now stocks are lower, the pension funds are underfunded, and the companies have to come up with cash and put it into the funds. Today's New York Times has a story about this. "The fine print in G.M.'s 2001 annual report shows that its retiree benefit plans, including pensions and health care, have unfinanced liabilities of a staggering $61 billion. That is up from $34 billion in 1999 and reflects how the market has affected companies that made big promises to their workers. Some of that shows up in liabilities on the balance sheet, but about $11.5 billion does not." ... "In the first half of this year, G.M.'s pension funds lost about 3 percent of their value. If the accounting rules required G.M. to report based on actual performance, rather than the 10 percent annual gains it optimistically assumes, I estimate that it would have posted a net loss of $2.3 billion rather than a $1.5 billion profit. Similarly, reported profits from 2000 and 2001 would have vanished." In other words, a $11.5 billion problem not showing up on the books, GM reports a profits of $1.5 billion, when actually it is a loss of $2.3 billion, and their profits from 2000 and 2001 were not really profits. --- Posted at 8/09/2002 08:17:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/08/2002 Funding Progressives and Moderates I've been thinking about that American Prospect article that I referred to a few days ago. Tomasky writes, "The fact that this imbalance exists, however, is partly the Democrats' fault. Democrats don't have the money Republicans have, and they never will. They can never match Republicans dollar-for-dollar on message creation and dissemination. That said, it's also true that they have not set up the structures to do that. Republican backers slowly and methodically set out to build those structures in the 1970s, knowing full well that they wouldn't bear fruit for a generation or two. Democratic money people, and party leaders, have not been as engaged in such long-term thinking. As one leading Democrat told me not long ago, they'd rather spend their money on a full-page ad in the Times than seed and water a long-range, partisan strategy group or think tank. Accordingly, Democrats have developed no organic relationship with the intellectuals and activists on their side, while Republicans have." I agree with Tomasky that moderate and progressive money would do better if it were applied with a long-range view. I've recently been talking to the people at The Commonweal Institute (CI). CI is just starting up now, and hopes to get full funding to develop a multi-issue policy "think tank" that will be able to support moderate and progressive groups by building up mainstream support for moderate and progressive philosophy in general and for the moderate and progressive perspective on a broad range of particular issues that are so important to all of us. Let me explain their view of this. There are moderate and progressive foundations with money for progressive projects, and there are lots of well-to-do moderates and progressives with a philanthropic attitude. But moderate and progressive philanthropy has been directed differently from how the right-wingers are doing it. Clearly the right-wingers have been much more successful. Right-wing-oriented foundations are funding organizations like The Heritage Foundation, The American Enterprise Institute and The Cato Institute. (Note, these links point to a list of their funding sources so you can see how this works.) By funding multi-issue organizations like these, right-wingers have used foundation money to build a general policy "infrastructure" that supports the web of right-wing organizations while appealing to a broader mainstream audience. I think that moderate and progressive foundations have focused their grants and donations toward more narrow-target projects, like environmental groups or community housing projects as just a couple of examples. These groups are great and support great causes, but they reach narrower, usually sympathetic audiences and focus only on their particular issues. But here's what happens. Because the right-wingers have a well-coordinated (and very, very well-funded) web of organizations that provide underlying SUPPORT for the efforts of their own narrow-project groups by pumping out right-wing propaganda to the masses, their investment in those narrow projects is able to achieve maximum bang-for-buck. Moderate and progressive investment in individual projects, on the other hand, shows a lower ROI (return on investment) because the effectiveness of that right-wing web has put enough right-wingers in powerful positions that the achievements of moderate and progressive organizations are wiped out with one Presidential Directive, or one ruling by a well-placed Federalist Society judge! In other words, the well-funded right-wing multi-issue, broad-based, mainstream audience work gets people like Bush and his Federalist judges in position to support their causes and destroy moderate and progressive achievements. If the moderate and progressive foundations were willing to support more general, multi-issue, "infrastructure" organizations, like Commonweal Institute, which could help progressive politicians and activists and organizations make their case to the public on a broad range of issues, and moderate and progressive philosophy in general, then perhaps the achievements of environmental and other organizations wouldn't be in peril and they wouldn't always be trying to hold on to what they have achieved, constantly fighting to keep from being pushed backwards instead of building on their achievements. It's great to fund narrow-focus environmental and other groups, but that funding is always in danger of being wasted, doing no one any good at all, if the success of the right's web of organizations allows them to wipe out so much of the progress that moderates and progressives are trying to make. The moderate and progressive foundations need to fund organizations like the Commonweal Institute - "Heritage Foundations of the left" - because their work will PROTECT the work of environmental and other moderate and progressive organizations. --- Posted at 8/08/2002 10:34:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/07/2002 The Party of the Confederacy The Party of Lincoln has become the Party of the Confederacy. The Republicans have been working hard to become a regional party, and we should do everything we can to reinforce this trend. The entire Republican leadership is from the South. Their policies are "states rights" and anti-"big-city". They are shifting the government's spending to the South. They talk about "the heartland" and they mean southern former-Confederate states. I can go on but I'll pause here so you can envision more examples. There is a political opportunity here for Northern Democrats. Republican candidates should be asked why they are running for office in the North under the banner of the Party of the Confederacy. They should be asked if they're trying to bring the South to Vermont or Wisconsin or New York. --- Posted at 8/07/2002 01:53:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Quiz Go take a look at Bush Impeachment Countdown and today's quiz! --- Posted at 8/07/2002 09:53:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush Gave Corporate Lawbreakers Green Light Bush is on TV giving a speech saying corporate lawbreakers will be punished. He shouldn't be allowed to get away with this two-faced lying crap, acting like the big hero, after what he did when he took office. I wrote about this a few days back. When Bush got into office he repealed Clinton administration rules that blocked companies that repeatedly broke the law from getting government contracts. He gave companies the green light to feel free to break the law! Now he is saying those same lawbreaking companies should be punished. --- Posted at 8/07/2002 09:40:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/06/2002 Saying it a Different Way An article in The American Prospect has better words for what I said below, "Never in modern American history has a party so failed its core constituents as the Democratic Party has during this period." --- Posted at 8/06/2002 10:46:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
People vs Powerful The press is playing up a Gore vs Lieberman debate over whether the Democratic Party should stand for "The People vs the Powerful," as Gore worded it, or follow Lieberman's position: "The people versus the powerful unfortunately left that track and gave a different message, which may have been caused by the pressure that the Nader campaign was giving us," Mr. Lieberman said, referring to Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate. "But I think it was not the New Democratic approach." I think Lieberman hit the nail on the head, but completely missed the point. There IS pressure from the Greens and it is there for a reason - too many people feel that the Democratic Party has stopped supporting their interests. If the Democratic Party isn't going to stand up for the people vs. the powerful, then the Green Party is going to get the votes. It's called "losing your base". Look what happened in 2000 - enough of the left of the Democratic Party voted Green instead of Democrat. If you want to be Republicans, than just BE a Republican, but don't try to tell Democrats they shouldn't stand up for "The People vs The Powerful." --- Posted at 8/06/2002 08:39:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/05/2002 Seeing the Forest III Yesterday I wrote about Time Magazine's big story describing how the Clinton Adminisration handed Bush a plan to get rid of al-Queda, the Bush people sat on it, and then after 9/11 attempted to blame Clinton for the attack while taking credit for the Clinton plan as their own. These are trees. See the forest. Take a look at this story from February, "PR CAMPAIGN BLAMES CLINTON FOR SEPT. 11 ATTACKS." Now, take a look at who is behind the group launching that PR campaign and the increadible amounts of money put into just this one right-wing attack group (there are so many). It's funded by the Scaife Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, etc. - the usual suspects you see funding all of these Republican attack groups. Here's the forest: THIS IS WHAT THEY DO! If you try to argue the individual points that Republicans put out, you will go crazy. Those are the trees. You can argue about whether Clinton is to blame. You can argue about whether tax cuts cause tax revenue to increase. You can argue about whether Bush and Cheney knew their companies were about to tank when they make fortunes selling their stock to unsuspecting buyers. These are just trees. See the forest. See the bigger picture. Look at what they do and who is doing it, not at what they say. When you see the signs of a coordinated PR campaign coming from the right, IT MEANS THEY ARE UP TO SOMETHING! Don't look at what they are saying, look at the pattern, look at what they are doing. I'll go so far as to say this, When you see them spreading a story about Democratic or "liberal" wrongdoing it often means it's really about something THEY have been doing and they are "innoculating" themselves by accusing the other side before the real story can start coming out. When you see the signs of a coordinated right-wing propaganda attack, get on Google, look up the names of the spokespersons or organizations spreading the story, see what else they have been doing and saying, see if you can track down who funds them. Guess what you're going to find? In every single instance you are going to find one of these right-wing attack groups, and they are going to be funded by the Bradley Foundation or Scaife or one of the others, and the spokesperson is going to have published pro-tobacco and/or anti-environmentalist articles. And one other thing - you're going to hear the smear story on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and O'Reilly or Hannity, and you'll se it in the Washington Times, etc., etc. and pretty soon it will seem like you are hearing everyone in the media saying exactly the same things! In this instance the Republicans got caught with their pants down, letting the country get attacked on 9/11. So they immediately started the usual response. A coordinated campaign to smear the opposition - in this case blaming Clinton for letting it happen (as well as other efforts, like blaming multiculturism, etc.) - combined with a coordinated campaign to make Bush look like the hero, saving us from the mess Clinton got us into. Ignore what they say and look at what they do. See the forest. It works every time. Update - the PR CAMPAIGN article mentioned above can still be found here. --- Posted at 8/05/2002 10:31:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/04/2002 WTF - I already link to WTF Is It Now?? in my links section, but I'm mentioning it again because just love reading it. --- Posted at 8/04/2002 04:07:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Funny cartoons here. --- Posted at 8/04/2002 03:40:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Whoosh, Bye! Please! Looking at the bad news and opposing forces moving in -- the economy might be tanking, stock market diving, Time Magazine's major piece on Bush screw-ups leading to 9/11, Gore's great, great piece in today's NY Times, the polls starting to show that the Democrats could do very well in the upcoming election -- it strikes me that this is the point in corporate life where the top executives sell all their stock to the unsuspecting public and bail just before things fall apart, flying away to the Cayman Islands in their private jets. Whoosh, bye! Maybe Bush, Cheney and the rest of that crowd will stick to their previous instincts and do what they did at Harken and Halibutron and Enron and the rest of the companies these guys and their cronies looted, and skip town one of these nights. Wish they would. --- Posted at 8/04/2002 09:47:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Now We Know Now we know why the Bush administration has been fighting tooth and nail to prevent an independent look at intelligence failures leading up to 9/11. Time Magazine has a story about an extensive Clinton plan to attack al-Queda, developed after the Cole bombing. Leaving office, they handed the plan to the incoming Bush administration, who did nothing with it because they didn't see al-Queda as an important enough problem. The plan is an outline of the very same extensive anti-terrorist activities that the Bush administration is getting so much credit for. After blaming the Clinton administration for 9/11, claiming Clinton did nothing and taking full political credit for "their" plan to attack al-Queda, we now see why they fought so hard to keep the truth from coming out. --- Posted at 8/04/2002 09:04:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/02/2002 Bush Gave Go-Ahead to Corporate Lawbreakers Buzzflash picked up on my previous blog piece pointing out that Bush gave corporate lawbreakers the go-ahead back in March, 2001. (Had to write to them a few times, though.) Back then Bush reversed a Clinton rule prohibiting corporate lawbreakers from getting government contracts. Now Bush gives speeches about how corporate lawbreakers need to be punished. Bush puts lax regulators in the EPA and his crony corporations know they are free to pollute. He puts lax regulators on the FERC, and his crony corporations cause power blackouts in California so they can jack prices through the roof. He puts lax regulators on the SEC because his crony corporations have been complaining that they're getting flack for doing what Bush and Cheney did. (I think I could develop quite a long list of how many oversight boards and commissions Bush has gutted. Labor, removing the Bar Assoc. from approving judges, civil rights...) And then he says if somehow you get convicted of CRIMES, the government is going to GIVE THEM CONTRACTS!!! A while ago I wrote, "Republicans delegitimized government, and act surprised when corporate executives act as if government were not legitimate." --- Posted at 8/02/2002 12:08:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/01/2002 Tax Cuts Don't Raise Revenue I’m so tired of hearing Republicans claim that cutting taxes increases tax revenues and that Reagan's cut taxes caused revenue to double by the end of his term. Here’s the numbers. In 1981 the on-budget (not from Social Security) tax receipts were $469 billion which was a 16% increase over the prior year. Then the Reagan tax cuts started. 1982 tax receipts were $474.3 billion, 1.1% over 1981, and the on-budget deficit shot up to $120 billion, an increase of 62% in a single year!. 1983 receipts were $453.2 billion, a DROP of 4.4% creating a deficit of $208 BILLION, an increase of 73%! Tax Increases - Revenues Went Up (Duh!) This huge jump in deficits panicked Congress enough to pass the 1984 Deficit Reduction Act, the largest tax increase in our history. Tax receipts climbed to $500.3 billion, a 10.4% increase, and the deficit shrank almost 11% to $185.6 billion. In 1985 Congress passed the Gramm-Rudmann-Hollings Anti-Deficit Act. In 1985 tax receipts were $548 billion, a 9.5% increase. But now the huge military spending increases AND the debt interest were kicking in and the deficit rose to $221 billion, and increase of 19%. That's another story - the TAX RECEIPTS were climbing again, leading to the doubling Republicans claim was brought about by cutting taxes, conveniently leaving out that the largest tax increase in the history of the world occurred in between. An Aside. Also during this time Congress passed the huge Social Security tax increase, dramatically increasing a tax ONLY paid by poor and middle class working people. This is the largest tax item in most people's paychecks and is not counted when we're told that the rich pay a large share of taxes. In 1984 and 1985 Social Security tax receipts jumped 12%!, and continued to increase through the 80’s, generating huge surpluses which were used to make the huge deficits look lower. This money collected from the poor and middle class workers went out to pay for Reagans's tax cuts for the rich. (And now it is being used to pay for Bush's huge tax cuts for the rich.) See for Yourself. You can look at the numbers here. It's table 1.1, in Excel file format, so I'm not linking directly to it. So when they say that Reagan's tax cuts led to tax revenue doubling, IT'S A TRICK! Why they constantly use tricks to get support for their policies is a good topic for another piece. --- Posted at 8/01/2002 05:30:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/31/2002 Who Is Our Economy For? William Greider has a piece in The Nation talking about the "cult of the CEO" and what to do about it. It's long but he has some interesting observations and I urge you to read it or perhaps bookmark it for later. "The fundamental perversion is a doctrine that encourages managers to squeeze the other constituent contributors to a corporation's success--taking away real value from employees, suppliers, supporting communities and even customers--in order to reward the absentee owners. That twisted logic explains the internal destruction familiar to those who work for many (though not all) major corporations, from the researchers to middle managers to assembly-line workers. If this false doctrine survives reform, then CEOs may no longer be ripping off the shareholders so boldly, but society's larger long-term interests will continue to be sacrificed on the altar of "shareholder value." My thoughts? The government should require that representatives of the public be given seats on corporate Boards of Directors. Let me pose a question: Who is our economy for? I think it's a dangerous question that leads to lots of useful places. We should get more people asking who is our economy supposed to be for, anyway? --- Posted at 7/31/2002 06:11:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Crucified in the Blogosphere Nathan Newman wants all of us webloggers to beat up Bush for backing off from the corporate crime law within hours of signing it. As he puts it, "Bush should be crucified in the blogosphere for this." --- Posted at 7/31/2002 03:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/30/2002 What Bush Says Now - What Bush Did Then Today President Bush SAID, "Every corporate official who has chosen to commit a crime can expect to face the consequences," he said. "No more easy money for corporate criminals, just hard time." NYTimes version here. This is what President Bush previously DID about corporate criminals. "The Bush administration Friday ordered the suspension of a Clinton rule that would have significantly strengthened the government's ability to deny contracts to companies that have violated workplace safety, environmental and other federal laws." A good story about this can be found at Mother Jones. "The government continues to award federal business worth billions to companies that repeatedly break the law. A Mother Jones investigation reveals which major contractors are the worst offenders." --- Posted at 7/30/2002 07:07:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Pension Problem - "at least 50 WorldComs" I've been writing about corporate pension funds, the "other" accounting problem (here and here). Today Paul Krugman in the New York Times talks about the issue, "As the current issue of Business Week explains, the pension time bomb involves large numbers; I'd say it's the equivalent of at least 50 WorldComs." From the Business Week piece, "Amid the wreckage of the worst bear market in at least three decades, hemorrhaging corporate pension plans are rapidly becoming Wall Street's biggest new worry. They have lost hundreds of billions of dollars, and now companies face the end of their long-running holiday from writing checks to the plans. Over the next 18 months or so, companies ranging from General Motors to United Technologies face having to pump billions into their plans to comply with federal laws to protect pensioners." "The squeeze on U.S. pension funds has the potential to be the defining U.S. financial crisis of the 2000s, like the savings and loan squeeze of the 1980s," says Bob Prince, director of research and trading at money manager Bridgewater Associates." --- Posted at 7/30/2002 07:53:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/29/2002 Well Worth Reading Dick Cheney's Brilliant Career - From the Toronto Star. "There was nothing illegal about the decision by Cheney and four other Halliburton insiders to dump their shares in the company in August, 2000, about two months before Halliburton stunned investors with news that its engineering and construction business was spiralling downward, and that a grand jury was investigating charges it had overbilled the government." --- Posted at 7/29/2002 08:43:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Dick Cheney's Brilliant Career - From the Toronto Star. --- Posted at 7/29/2002 08:41:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Paul Krugman - "If you want to see the smear machine at work..." As I would word it, the Robert Rubin stuff is a tree. See the Forest. --- Posted at 7/29/2002 11:11:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Only 200 Al-Queda? I haven't seen any follow-ups to Saturday's story in which the FBI and CIA said there are really only 200 members of Al-Queda. It seems this should be the biggest story in the news. We're at "war", the government is being reorganized, Constitutional protections are being disassembled, the budget is shot - but it's all about only 200 people, many of whom are already in custody? Can someone tell me what is going on? Maybe this is why Bush feels like he can slip away on vacation for a month. --- Posted at 7/29/2002 10:37:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Stock Market The current PE (Price to Earnings) ratio of the S&P 500 is 23.8. This is where the stock market usually falls FROM, not TO. Click here to see some charts. (Two links at the top of the page: Still Overvalued and Another Perspective.) --- Posted at 7/29/2002 08:37:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/28/2002 Bush Scorecard Scroll down to the item titled "Bush Scorecard" over at the blog called Bush Impeachment Countdown. It's a table listing some of Bush's campaign promises, and how he's doing at keeping them. --- Posted at 7/28/2002 06:02:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/27/2002 More on the Pension Problem Here is a follow-up to my entry a few days ago, "ANOTHER Corporate Accounting Problem?". "Shortfalls in private companies' pension plans soared to $111 billion last year, the highest level ever reported by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp." ""The implications of such massive shortfalls in pension funds are staggering," said Rep. George Miller of California, the top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee. Miller urged the Bush administration to investigate and ensure that workers' retirement savings are not in danger." --- Posted at 7/27/2002 11:38:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Found Another Report I found a longer more detailed report in the Palm Beach Post. "It includes Al-Qaeda members who are now in custody at Guantanamo Bay." --- Posted at 7/27/2002 11:14:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
WTF?! WTF is going on here? Today's San Jose Mercury News has a very small report on page 8. I'll look for the wire service it came from, and see if I can find confirmation online. This is the entire article: "Fewer Al-Qaida members than reported, FBI says Senior FBI officials believe there are now no more than 200 hard-core Al-Qaida members throughout the world. ``Al-Qaida itself, we know, is less than 200,'' said an FBI official, referring to those who have sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. That figure, far less than recent media reports suggested were in the United States alone, is based on FBI and CIA reports." If this is an accurate report, I have to ask, WHAT THE F$$$ IS GOING ON HERE? --- Posted at 7/27/2002 10:54:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/26/2002 Funny At SatireWire: BUSH VOWS CRACKDOWN ON CORPORATE CORRUPTION UNLESS IT HAPPENED IN 1990 ""Also, it doesn't count if a person's last name begins with the letter 'B,'" he added." --- Posted at 7/26/2002 08:04:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
From the Right - The Forest This piece says a lot about why the left needs organizations like The Commonweal Institute to counteract the web or right-wing organizations. The article is about the far-right National Journalism Center, training lots of busy-bee right-wing so-called journalists. It's remarkable how far to the right the prespective of the piece's auther is, even though it's in the supposedly respected The Christian Science Monitor. As I wrote in Seeing the Forest II, "It's a new era. The information business isn't about journalism anymore and you'll be frustrated and disappointed as long as you hold the old-fashioned notions that it is "supposed to" be. That's all gone. Now it's different and the public is only getting one side of the story. The public is getting its information from the likes of Rush Limbaugh. As old and worn-out as this sounds, a few large corporations now own almost all of the sources of information and they are using that power to benefit themselves, not the public. This is the forest." --- Posted at 7/26/2002 03:05:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Moon Bush People are finally looking into Bush's business relationships and turning up all sorts of stuff, from cronyism (Krugman, today's NY Times) and S&L crisis involvement to the notorious bailouts and buyouts of Bush Junior's businesses by Middle East connections involving BCCI (here and here). If this keeps up, maybe people will start looking into the weird connections between the Unification Church - also known as the Moonies - and the Bushes. At first it sounds pretty weird, but if you know about the influence on the "Conservative Movement" of The Washington Times - owned by the Moonies - then you know that the Moonies are a big part of what is going on with the current crop of right-wing Republicans. Somehow the Moonies have TONS of money and they spread it around. Here are some links: Moon background - Detailed background of Moon's organization and an extensive collection of links to other sources. Consortium News with 15 different articles Two Online Journal pieces (One, Two) SpiritWatch An ex-Moonie site with lots of info including Moon links to "conservatives". ABC Australia piece, about Moon in Brazil Assorted pieces here, here, here and here. --- Posted at 7/26/2002 09:24:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/25/2002 The Commonweal Institute There's a new think tank starting up, intending to bring a progressive voice to the general public. It's called The Commonweal Institute. "Commonweal" means the public good. Think of them as a Heritage Foundation for the left. They are starting to raise funds now, and from what I have heard and seen they're going to be a force for progressive ideals. Wish them luck. Help them out. --- Posted at 7/25/2002 09:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Arrests Yesterday's arrests of the Adelphia executives made me think of Jay Leno's comment during the 1996 election, after Bob Dole said that drinking too much milk is just as dangerous as smoking, "Sounds like the milk people forgot to mail their check. Maybe these guys forgot to pay their Club dues. --- Posted at 7/25/2002 10:29:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More Breadth Bob Herbert's column in today's NY Times talks about what I wrote about a couple days back. "What we have here is a massive breakdown of the internal controls that are supposed to protect customers and promote confidence in the industry." --- Posted at 7/25/2002 10:23:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/23/2002 The Other Kind of Corporate Irresponsibility Arianna writes, "We are up in arms -- and rightly so -- about corporate greed that leads to massive shareholder rip-offs, but shouldn't we be even more irate about corporate greed that leads to loss of life? " --- Posted at 7/23/2002 04:51:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Breadth of It I'm amazed by the breadth of the failures of the institutions involved in the stock failures. Corporate executives were supposed to watch the interests of their shareholders. Accountants - well, we all know what they did. The SEC was supposed to be monitoring these companies. Analysts were supposed to be taking a close and careful look at the companies they analyze - not just accept the word of the company but actually look in warehouses to see if the goods are there. Mutual Funds were supposed to manage their holdings and their real value was supposedly in a bear market carefully screening out companies that wouldn't hold their value. Brokers were supposed to watch out for the interests of their clients instead of putting the assets of retired people into tech stocks with PE ratios of 100 in an obviously overvalued market. The Media was supposed to be keeping an adversarial eye on all of these, informing and warning the public.. And The Democratic Party was supposed to be the protector of working families, opposing the moneyed interests. As I look at it I can't think of a single institution that did its job. --- Posted at 7/23/2002 11:21:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Irrational Exuberance Paul Krugman points out that the stock market has now fallen below the level it was at when Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan felt it necessary to warn that it was too high, with his "irrational exuberance" remark. Krugman writes, "Our economic problems are real, but by no means catastrophic. What scares me is the utter inflexibility of the people who should be solving those problems." What would Cinton do? The current PE ratio of the S&P 500 is 22.1. Still high, and the E (earnings) is based on accounting that is not necessarily credible. --- Posted at 7/23/2002 09:15:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
They're Still At It Read this editorial to remind yourself what Republicans are really like. This is from Richard Mellon Scaife's newspaper, just last week. Scaife is the guy who funds many of the Republican "think tanks" and "policy committees" and various activities of the Republicans - particularly the Federalist Society where so many Bush Administration figures and judicial appointments came from. Scaife funded much of the anti-Clinton investigations as well as those nasty magazines that were full of smears (read the editorial and remember). Ted Olson, now Solicitor General, helped run the anti-Clinton activities for Scaife. Ken Starr was associated with several Scaife organizations, and after the impeachment even tried to leave his position as Special Prosecutor to take a Scaife-funded professorship. Read this editorial and ponder that THIS is the crowd that is now running the country. --- Posted at 7/23/2002 08:37:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/22/2002 ANOTHER Corporate Accounting Problem? Because of the stock market drop many corporations are going to have to ante up a bunch of cash into their pension funds to cover stock losses, which is likely to affect their own stock price. Which will, of course, affect any pension funds that are invested in those companies, which could mean ... Get it? ANOTHER accounting problem that might be big news in a few days. Read about it here. "Topping off an underfunded pension plan hurts company profits because it soaks up cash flow that could otherwise be used to pay debt or buy new equipment. But some companies got even more mileage out of their plans' investing success: In the late 1990s, pension-fund holdings grew so lush that companies could properly account for excess fund profits as part of their earnings. --- Posted at 7/22/2002 09:21:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Found a really funny website - Dubya's World - pictures of Bush with funny captions. --- Posted at 7/22/2002 08:19:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Clinton Did It? In the last few days I've heard Limbaugh, and Hannity, Fox News, the Republican on Crossfire and a few other right-wingers all repeating pretty much the same line, some variation of, "All these corporate crimes we're hearing about happened when Clinton was President. Bush came in and uncovered them" See the forest. It's a safe bet that this has been focus-group and poll tested so it could well work. I wrote about this sort of thing the other day. The Republicans are well able to drown out anything that the other side can put forward. It's time for the Democrats to speak up. Don't let them get away with this one, like they did with the Savings and Loan crisis. --- Posted at 7/22/2002 05:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Republican Crony Club I've wondered what is in it for the big-money Bush supporters. I mean, sure, they get special favors from the government, tax breaks, etc. But when, for example, the government gives Microsoft a pass for their monopolistic activities it increases costs FOR OTHER BUSINESSES! Even the Bush-Backing businesses have to spend almost twice as much for computers and an enormous amount for software like MS Office. It isn't about just being pro-business because Bushism helps some businesses while it hurts others. Bushism helps oil companies but hurts fuel cell, solar and wind-power companies. Those are businesses, too! ALL businesses in California paid a lot more for electricity back when Bush was letting Enron rob the state through price manipulations. Bush supporters had to pay 3 times as much to heat or cool their homes, just like Democrats did. And all of us will suffer from global warming. So I wondered, what real good do they think they are doing for themselves by supporting these corporate Republicans? Now I'm thinking that the attraction is like being in a special club. Cronyism describes the Bush thing so well. If you're in the Republican Crony Club you get bailed out when you need it. You get special tax breaks - like a free pass to move your company to Bermuda to avoid paying American taxes. You get first crack at public resources. You get a pass on being investigated for violating laws - you even get to continue doing business with the government after you've been convicted of stealing from the government! Being in the Republican Crony Club is about what you can buy today with your campaign cash. Never mind that it means the economy is destroyed by it - you can fly away somewhere in your private jet, with your money safely in the Cayman Islands. Whoosh, bye-bye! It's not like you're going to be prosecuted for anything or ever have to give any of the money back. --- Posted at 7/22/2002 03:25:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/21/2002 Scofflaws I have observed in business circles that two decades of conservative rhetoric delegitimizing the concept of government has created a "scofflaw" atmosphere among executives. Like drivers ignoring speed limits, most executives I encounter see government regulations (and government itself) as an annoyance, an anachronism, a relic of old-fashioned do-gooder days when dinosaur socialist liberals created barriers to efficient business. Republicans delegitimized government, and act surprised when corporate executives act as if government were not legitimate. --- Posted at 7/21/2002 04:48:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What Would Clinton Do? Consumers and corporations are carrying a high debt load, and the stock market is still sitting at an historically high P/E ratio. I fear that things could take a bad turn when people realize that Bush isn't DOING anything about this economic situation! What would Clinton do? (Jeeze, this is from a YEAR ago!) --- Posted at 7/21/2002 09:30:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Investor Confidence Ebbs as Market Keeps Dropping (New York Times) "The really big risk is that consumers will reawaken to the timeless truth that the best way to save money is to stop spending," said Richard Hastings, chief economist at Cyber Business Credit, a retail advisory firm in New York. "And I think that will impact aggregate demand in a way that has not been seen since the 1930's." Regular people lost their jobs, took pay cuts or had to work extra hours so the execs can get huge paychecks, free loans and stock options. Regular people lost government services to pay for tax cuts for the rich, and will have to pay off the deficits resulting from tax cuts. (In Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips shows how regular people's tax burden greatly increased while the rich and corporations pay less and less.) Recently regular people have seen their retirement savings collapse at the same time as Bush wiped out the Social Security surplus. But they had better go further into debt living way past their means, or the whole economy is going down. It's all their fault! What about raising taxes on the rich or corporations, and maybe getting some of the money BACK from them! Remember what happened to the economy after Clinton RAISED taxes on the rich in 1993? --- Posted at 7/21/2002 09:18:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/20/2002 Here's a good one from John Dean on the history of presidential scandals. --- Posted at 7/20/2002 07:22:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Another Good One In today's LA Times. "It is no wonder that today's corporations do not value "older" workers. They know too much." --- Posted at 7/20/2002 04:59:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Seeing the Forest II In an earlier "Seeing the Forest" piece I wrote about the surprising transformation in the 2000 election of candidate Gore's image to the point where people questioned his character instead of Bush's. (!) The "Love Canal" and "Invented the Internet" stories were trees. The forest is the bigger picture of this transformation. Today I read that Republicans are making the accusation that the "Democrats are willing to hold the economy hostage to help their chances in the November elections." Polls show that more voters say Republicans are better at handling the economy than Democrats. Recent polls show that more people blame Clinton than Bush for what's going on with the stock market. Those are trees. These polls largely reflect the Republican line on issues. Blaming Clinton may sound silly to many of us, but maybe this says something about where the public now gets its information. Have you listened to AM radio lately or turned to Fox News? You hear the same things repeated over and over and over, and then you see it reflected in the polls. This is the forest. It's a new era. The information business isn't about journalism anymore and you'll be frustrated and disappointed as long as you hold the old-fashioned notions that it is "supposed to" be. That's all gone. Now it's different and the public is only getting one side of the story. The public is getting its information from the likes of Rush Limbaugh. As old and worn-out as this sounds, a few large corporations now own almost all of the sources of information and they are using that power to benefit themselves, not the public. This is the forest. --- Posted at 7/20/2002 11:49:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Powerful Robert Hemsley, a machine operator at a paper mill, has written a powerful op-ed piece in today's New York Times titled "Losing My Stake in the Economy". "Free enterprise is a system of risks and rewards. As it now stands, employees suffer most of the risks, while executives enjoy most of the rewards." P.S. When is the last time you saw in the media - ANY media - the words of someone identifying him or herself as a union member? --- Posted at 7/20/2002 11:30:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Hooray for Frank Rich in today's New York Times. "What is the president hiding? Clearly the story here is not merely a hard-to-prove case of insider trading, tardy stock-sale forms and Mr. Bush's knowledge of the sham transaction involving Aloha Petroleum. Most likely it also involves the mystery first raised by The Wall Street Journal and Time in 1991. Back then, their investigative journalists tried to break the cronyism code by which tiny Harken, which had never drilled a well overseas, miraculously beat out the giant Amoco for a prized contract for drilling in Bahrain. They also tried to learn what various Saudi money men, some tied to the terrorist-sponsoring Bank of Credit and Commerce International, may have had to do with Harken while the then-president's son was in proximity." --- Posted at 7/20/2002 11:06:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/19/2002 Still overvalued. Another perspective. --- Posted at 7/19/2002 05:30:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Cliche Item I turned on the cable news channels this morning and every one of them had Bush on, live, giving a speech (mispronouncing much of it). Now the stock market is down more than 300 points. Can't they just keep the guy off the tube for a while before we're all broke? This reads like a cliche, but, jeeze, just get the guy away from TV cameras for a while. --- Posted at 7/19/2002 12:23:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Campaign Finance Reform - Unintended Outcome? After this November's election the Democratic Party is going to have to start asking Democrats for money instead of hitting up corporate Republicans as they have been doing. They are used to getting large chunks of cash from corporations and now they have to raise lots of smaller chunks from actual Democrats. I think the changes they will have to make to tailor their message to actual Demcorats is going to make a huge difference in the message of the Democratic Party. I've been to a few Democratic clubs and other meetings lately and have to say that the mood of the grass roots is nothing like the message that the Democratic Party has been putting out. Grass-roots Democrats are not at all happy with the way House and Senate Democrats have been voting for several years. I think we are likely to see a very strong populist resurgence. --- Posted at 7/19/2002 12:02:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Corporate Culture - It Comes From the Top I wouldn't expect many changes in corporate culture as long the White House insists that President Bush did nothing wrong when he sold his Harken stock just before the company announced a surprise earnings drop. (He sold shortly after he received a "weekly flash report" of the revenue drop). It's called leading by example. He says he was "cleared" by the SEC but refuses to let us see the SEC file. The file will tell us if the SEC was told he had received that "flash report" about the coming earnings drop. And on that other matter - the Aloha Petroleum accounting scam where they sold the company to themselves for an inflated price and recorded the sale as a profit, to move the stock price up - Bush told reporters to look in the Minutes of the Board Meetings to learn whether he was involved. And of course, now he refuses to make those minutes available. --- Posted at 7/19/2002 11:13:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Stock Market I hate to refer to this extremely pessimistic opinion piece about the stock market, but its numbers look accurate. Remember, it describes a worst-case-scenario. The market is still way overvalued. It does have a wonderful line, at the end, "It is vital to remember that, during a financial panic, just preserving what you already have is a wonderful investment." --- Posted at 7/19/2002 11:01:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Today's Google Experiment - S&L Crisis, Insider Deals and Redwoods If you are wondering how the current "Corporate Responsibility Crisis" could turn out, let's revisit the Savings and Loan Crisis of the early 90's. This is a two-part experiment today. For background, go to Google and search using these keywords, "savings and loan crisis". Or, just click here. Once you've refreshed yourself on the events, get ready to get angry, and go to Google and search using these keywords, "savings and loan Hurwitz Maxxam Pacific Lumber Company". Or, just click here. That's right, this guy not only got away with looting $1.6 billion from an S&L, he used the proceeds to buy Pacific Lumber, with much of the remaining old-growth redwood forest acreage in the West, and started cutting it all down as fast as he could. To slow this down the government PAID HIM $380 million to save just the Headwaters old-growth acreage from clear-cutting. I'll be doing some research and will try to post some figures on just how many S&L looters went to jail, and how many of them had to even pay any of the money back. The S&L bailout was another huge transfer of taxpayer money to the very rich, and the selling off of the acquired assets to the well-connected for pennies on the dollar. The outcome of the S&L crisis will not leave many of us feeling optimistic about the outcome of the "Corporate Responsibility Crisis". I doubt that that ANY corporate execs are going to go to jail, or even have to pay any of the money back. Certainly no one from Enron has been charged with anything yet, or has given any of the money back. It's more likely that the public outrage will be engineered into a situation where even more of our money will be channeled to the very wealthy. --- Posted at 7/19/2002 08:59:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Today's Homework - Beef, Corn, Health, Environment and Economics In March the New York Times Magazine had a story about beef. This extremely informative article talks about how the cattle are raised, what they're fed, and how all of this affects our health, the economy and the environment. For example, in nature cattle eat grass, which converts sunlight into food. But we feed them corn, which is grown using fertilizer, tractors and other products that use fossile fuel. So we've taken a SOLAR source of fuel and turned it into a PETROLEUM consumer. And the cows can't digest corn, so they get sick and we have to feed them antibiotics. They're miserable and we're making the germs resistant to antibiotics. There's so much more in the NY Times Magazine article... And the article's author has a follow-up op-ed piece in today's NY Times, talking about the effect on the Federal Budget of our focus on growing corn. "The problem in corn's case is that we're sacrificing the health of both our bodies and the environment by growing and eating so much of it." --- Posted at 7/19/2002 08:07:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
KPIG Off the Web It's a sad day in webland. KPIG has been forced to shut down their webcast because of the new Copyright Office fee structure. Corporate radio has succeeded in knocking out more of our choices. Read more at their website. --- Posted at 7/19/2002 08:01:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/18/2002 Address Change If you're reading this, you're at the right address. --- Posted at 7/18/2002 01:52:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Great Column by Ralph Nader Ralph Nader has a great op-ed piece in today's Washington Post. It's a "must read." Thanks, Ralph! (Usually these days when I say that I mean something entirely different.) --- Posted at 7/18/2002 08:39:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/17/2002 More bribery and backscratching with the Bushes! Have you been filled in on the Texas Rangers' land deal that made Bush Junior rich? If not, go do your homework and read Joe Conason's Harper's Feb., 2000 article. (alternate source) According to the article the lucrative land deals were set up by Mayor Richard Greene of Arlington, Texas. Well it turns out that while Mayor Greene was working against his constituents to set up a public land grab that made Junior rich he was being sued by Bush Senior's Resolution Trust Corporation! (That's the organization that was set up to handle the Savings and Loan bailout.) What a coincidence! He's getting sued by Daddy so he starts handing public land to Junior! I bet I can guess how the suit turned out - probably a lot like how Dad's SEC investigation of Junior's insider trading scam did. ;-) Read about it here at Salon (Premium, pay up). (Go to page 2 to read about Mayor Greene.) Then refer back to page 6 of Joe Conason's article to read about how Mayor Greene handed the loot to Bush. Maybe now we know why. --- Posted at 7/17/2002 05:20:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Today's Google Experiment Today we will examine a page in the history of corporate responsibility. Go to Google and search using these keywords, "union carbide bhopal." Or, just click here. --- Posted at 7/17/2002 01:33:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush Says Probe Will Clear Cheney and Bush Defends Cheney in Face of SEC Probe. I'm sorry, but this is really inappropriate. Bush is the guy at the top, the boss of everyone involved in the probe. So what's he doing describing the probe's conclusions before the probe starts? Can you imagine being on the team that's looking into this, after getting this subtle hint from the boss? And, meanwhile, Cheney led the transition process that gave jobs to everyone who will now be probing his activities. And, by the way, Bush is still refusing to let the SEC release the file on his father's "investigation" of his insider trading scam. --- Posted at 7/17/2002 01:20:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Seeing the forest Recent polls show that the public is blaming Clinton for the business scandals, and Bush's popularity remains astronomical. That's a tree. Let's see if we can see the forest. Look back to the 2000 election. Step back and look at the candidates. The Democrat's candidate was a well respected, well liked, extremely experienced, Vietnam vet, former seminary student, character beyond reproach, faithfully married family man, foreign policy expert, with many accomplishments including being the person in the Congress most responsible for advancing the Internet... The Republicans ran a foul-mouthed thoroughly inexperienced scandal-ridden (Harken oil, Rangers stadium, recipient of bribes directed at his father) failed businessman, continuously bailed out of jams by his father's connections, draft-dodger (worse, he got into the Nat. Guard through connections and then played hooky!), former drunk, probable drug-user, kids constantly in trouble, with a campaign entirely financed by large corporations obviously looking for favors. But by election time the only issue was “character”, and the character in question was the Democratic candidate’s! That's the forest. Issues like the "Love Canal story" and "I invented the Internet" were trees. The forest was how they pulled it off - the smears, the propaganda blitz, the way they spread their message and the way people hear messages these days. With this weblog I'll be writing about this issue, seeing the forest for the trees. --- Posted at 7/17/2002 09:18:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
7/16/2002 Rebecca Knight has an excellent accounting of the things Republicans did to block Democratic attempts to reform accounting and other business practices in their Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency Act of 2002. It's at Southern Style. "Democrats have attempted several times to enact legislation to eliminate or restrict corporate corruption, but the Republicans voted them down. Now Bush is proposing many of the same ideas. " Look about halfway down the page for the list. --- Posted at 7/16/2002 02:07:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Good one today from Robert Scheer! "Cheney's Grimy Trail in Business" "Cheney's business behavior could serve as a textbook case of much of what's wrong with the way corporate CEOs have come to play the game of business." --- Posted at 7/16/2002 12:58:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Where did Junior get his Money? Joe Conason wrote a great article (alternate source) detailing President Junior's business background. --- Posted at 7/16/2002 11:29:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bribe Senior through Junior The White House is still refusing to release the SEC files from the investigation of Bush's insider sales of Harken stock, as well as the minutes of Harken Board meetings. We need to see the SEC files to see whether it was just a cover-up of the President's son's illegal activities. Isn't it obvious this is the reason they aren't being released? I think those Harken Board minutes are likely to show that Bush was not particularly involved in decisions on the Aloha Petroleum scam - but not for innocent reasons. I think that perhaps Bush's involvement with Harken in the first place was part of a bribe to his father and had little to do with Bush himself. The company gives the President's son all this money (and salary) for no reason, then it starts getting contracts with countries like Bahrain (more bribes to Dad - hire Junior's company). Junior takes off to Washington and isn't involved. Just collecting his checks. But I really don't think that Harken was particularly interested in having Junior around and involved in making any important decisions. I mean, really, would you? --- Posted at 7/16/2002 10:57:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Ralph Nader is a Scab In the union movement we learned the hard way that the only way to fight the moneyed interests is to stick together. It's called SOLIDARITY. It's what "union" MEANS. When unions are in a fight the members stick together, and those crossing the lines are called "scabs". In the 2000 election it was the usual fragile Democratic coalition fighting the usual moneyed interests. Ralph Nader broke the solidarity, divided the coalition, and lost us the election. Ralph Nader is a scab. --- Posted at 7/16/2002 09:55:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
WelcomeWelcome to Seeing the Forest, a Blog for political (and occasionally other) commentary.--- Posted at 7/16/2002 08:52:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
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