Author Archives: John Cox

About John Cox

I'm a 47 year old software engineer and father of four.

Looking Up in Marion County, SC

Posted on September 19, 2010 by John Cox

In 2009, the average SAT score for students in Marion School District One in South Carolina increased by 150 points or 11.5%. But before we break into a round of high-fives, let’s have a closer look. This improvement managed to … Continue reading →

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Is Our Generation Relevant?

Posted on September 13, 2010 by John Cox

Is our generation relevant? Looking back over my life so far, I struggle to find any significant contributions or events that occurred during my lifetime that have truly shaped our country. It seems like all of the important stuff happened … Continue reading →

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The Real Spill

Posted on July 28, 2010 by John Cox

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My Response to “Anonymous” on National Debt

Posted on March 31, 2010 by John Cox

I received a comment to my blog post entitled “National Debt” from an anonymous reader. Call me long-winded, but I felt that it deserved a slightly longer response than was allowed for comments. First, here is the poster’s original comment: … Continue reading →

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Show Me the Money

Posted on March 22, 2010 by John Cox

There are about 4,000 companies listed on America’s stock market exchanges, NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ. Together their total market value is $13.3 trillion. That’s every publicly traded company in this country. That means for a cool $13.3 trillion you could … Continue reading →

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The Saturday Morning Toast

Posted on March 20, 2010 by John Cox

I took my 4 year old son to eat breakfast this morning. Having three sisters, he appreciates the father-son time more than most. We went to eat at one of Marion’s iconic eateries, Richard’s Restaurant. It’s your typical greasy spoon … Continue reading →

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Obama Wants to "Double Down" on Your Future

Posted on March 6, 2010 by John Cox

There was an article posted on Yahoo Finance today from Andrew Taylor of the associated press.  I’ve pasted the article below just in case this link to it becomes unusable.  In it, Taylor discusses a new report by the Congressional … Continue reading →

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The National Debt

Posted on March 1, 2010 by John Cox

Santa left a very special present for us this past Christmas Eve. Our line of credit, as a country, was increased by $290 billion to a total of $12.4 trillion. If that wasn’t enough (and it wasn’t) the Ground Hog … Continue reading →

Posted in deficit, fiscal responsibility, national debt | 4 Comments

Energy Independence (Part Two): Is Ethanol the Answer?

Posted on July 27, 2008 by John Cox

In 2007, the US consumed 3.4 billon barrels of gasoline. That’s 143 billion gallons. For the U.S. to ever become energy independent, we have to figure out where we are going to get all of that gas? Could ethanol be … Continue reading →

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Energy Independence (Part One)

Posted on July 11, 2008 by John Cox

Imagine if the next time you went to fill up your car, the gas pump had two nozzles: a blue one and a red one. Let’s suppose that the blue nozzle pumped gas from the normal gasoline supply which is … Continue reading →

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