Monday, September 28, 2009 

Hello Dr. Johnson,
I am currently watching your talk at MIT Sloan which I find very interesting - thank you for your input on so many varied matters and I think you handled the difficult art student with major poise.

An interesting topic that I have considered quite a bit recently is the idea of 'too big to fail'. Understandably people focus quite a bit on the banks these days and this question but I also worry in other areas specifically the industry I work in (technology). Frankly put, Oracle, Google, HP, Dell, Apple and others are arguably too big to fail right now as well. Telecommunications has similar issues of course. I am sure there are many industries in this situation now as well - how do we hopefully address this as well? We are living in a time of huge monopolies that not only pose a risk to us as something that might fail, but also in many other ways. Is receivership and bankruptcy the solution here? Any trust busting to come?

On the flip side I can somewhat understand how we got here as we are trying to compete on a world stage against huge nationalized corporations but that said I would be interested in your input on this matter or if I am off base in even being concerned with this at this time. Are innovation-stifling monopolies simply something we have to live with in our new world?

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 

So how can the people ‘rise up’ in your view?

A.

By electing representatives that have this one piece in their platform: The removal of money from our political system. You literally have to take money out and publicly finance elections like other western democracies. When we remove money, our political leaders will listen to us and not Wall Street.

Thursday, September 10, 2009 

It started off slow with me not sure I was into it but then really got me and reminded me why I love Letterman so.

'David Letterman has hit the part of life where he wants to talk and talk. But he seems to be still speaking of the present and the future. He is 62 and has chosen not to drift but to floor it, a boy of autumn, Huck Finn in September, the last American codger, the crabby voice of American reason, heedless, uncompromising, and driven. Long may he chortle.'

Thursday, September 03, 2009 

I have to fully admit I am disappointed in us over this past month especially. First, a little background: if I was in Obama's position and I knew that I couldn't pass healthcare reform before the August recess I would have tried to do the same thing he and Congress tried to do. Namely I would have tried to provoke civil discourse amongst our citizenry with townhall meetings or whatnot and get healthcare stories out there. Perhaps even try to provoke moments of unity or understanding between various factions.

Unfortunately what did we get? Seems we got a few True Blood maenad like conflagurations (probably less than you or I might think given the wildly skewed press coverage of any dust ups) and little healthy discourse.

You really have to think, in the larger context of things, that, wow, if we can't even civilly discuss that which must be fixed for so many reasons, well, where are we? What are our prospects?

Wednesday, September 02, 2009 

'Nobody is ordering Maria Bartiromo to lobby to keep poor people from having access to the kind of excellent health care she is fortunate enough to have been given by CNBC, for being so good at flattering Wall Street pirates on air (and off, according to some folks I know at certain banks). She just does it because that’s who she is naturally. I just don’t know how these people sleep at night — it baffles me.'

How indeed Mr. Taibbi. How indeed.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009 

Mr. Brooks, You seemingly could not be more wrong in your analysis of the 'Obama Slide' and frankly I think you are smart enough to know it too which is disheartening. To not mention 'corporations' and Obama seemingly kowtowing to moneyed interests at every turn (taking single payer off the table from day one? letting bankers run roughshod over our country and post $3bil profit in one quarter? continuing and increasing commitment to quagmire wars with no clear goals?) especially when unemployment is darn near unimaginable right now is a huge oversight and you know better. The Obama slide equates almost directly with a stunning realization from the country that our oligarchy continues.

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