Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive.
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Americans always have seen this nation as fundamentally middle-class. We deplore royalty and aristocracy. Our politicians feign middle-class roots, or claim a Horatio Alger rise from poverty.
We sneer at the lower classes as, at least partly, deserving their poverty and somewhat dishonest. We despise the upper classes as not deserving their wealth and significantly dishonest. And, we identify with the middle class as being solid, honest, real Americans.
The “American dream,” — married, children, good job, home in the suburbs — is a middle-class dream.
Today, Barack Obama, elected to a final term, focuses on his life after office and on his legacy. Will he and his children know wealth? Will they hobnob with the rich and the famous? Will there be grossly over-paid speeches before adoring crowds? Will he be received in the halls of power. Will he be Bill Clinton?
And how will history rank him?
The two questions, wealth and legacy, are intertwined, for while Obama does not want to be considered a “President-for-the-rich,” he is acutely aware the rich have the financial power to give him the life to which he now has become accustomed, and they have the media power to write history.
He must cater to the rich, by giving them what they want, so they will give him what he wants. They, after all, have given him what he has wanted thus far, and he understands they can continue to do so.
More specifically, his fealty must be given, not to the rich, but to the super-rich, the upper .1% income/wealth people. They have more income and/or wealth than the rest, the 99.9%.
The key word is “more.” Being in the upper .1% is not an absolute measure; it is a comparative measure.
Years ago, being an American millionaire would have put you well into the upper one-tenth-of-one-percent (.1%). Today, it barely gets you into the one percent (1%), and nowhere near the .1%.
The difference between the super-rich and the rest of us is the “gap.” If there were no gap, everyone would be equal and no one would be rich or poor.
When the gap widens, the super-rich grow richer and more powerful, which is why the super-rich do not care about their absolute wealth and income. The super-rich care about the gap.
There always will be a large cap between the super-rich and the poor, so for Barack Obama to curry favor with the rich, he must help them increase the gap between the rich and the middle class. That is what they really want, and that is what they pay for.
He either must:
A. Increase the wealth and income of the super-rich, and/or
B. Decrease the wealth and income of the middle class.
But there is one other, less obvious requirement:
C. Obama must seem to favor the poor.
In a classic “Nixon-goes-to-China,” seeming to favor the poor provides an anti-rich disguise, that allows Obama to crush the middle class with minimal objection from the middle class.
He safely can help he poor, so long as he punishes the middle.
US funding bill to make sequester cuts permanent
By Andre Damon, 19 March 2013
Hundreds of thousands face unpaid furloughsCongress is moving to make permanent $1.2 trillion in spending cuts. On top of these cuts (are) provisions to freeze federal pay through the end of this year.
Leon Panetta said that the “vast majority” of the Defense Department’s 800,000 civilian employees would take pay cuts of 20 percent.
Federal employees are part of the hated “big government,” so punishing federal employees is considered just and proper, engendering scant outcry from the public. But, of course, federal employees are middle-class Americans. Cutting their pay widens the gap.
Obama is resolutely pushing for cuts in Social Security benefits and hundreds of billions of further cuts in Medicare, as well as the introduction of means-testing, which will begin the transformation of the medical insurance program for seniors from a universal program to a poverty program, a major step toward its destruction.
AP correspondent Peter Arnett writing about Bến Tre city, quoted a U.S. military official: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” Obama long has spoken of “saving Social Security” by cutting it.
Nearly 4 million long-term unemployed who receive federal unemployment benefits will see an 11 percent cut in their benefits, or about $130 per month.
These are America’s middle class, being pressed down into poverty. They are portrayed as lazy slackers, who should not be given handouts, but rather made to work (in non-existent jobs) or starve.
The joint goal of the Obama administration and congressional Republicans and Democrats is to manufacture an atmosphere of crisis, in which an immense assault on social services and workers’ living standards can be carried out.
The White House is seeking to spin this historic attack as a boon to the “middle class” and a “fair” and “balanced” approach to the deficit by linking it to token tax increases on the rich. Any such increases, however, would be more than made up for by a “reform” of the tax code that slashes corporate taxes and shifts the tax burden further from the wealthy to the working class.
Whenever any politician uses the words “fair” and “balanced” (as in “fair taxes” and “balanced budget” hold tight to your wallet. They are Obama’s favorite words.
There are dozens more examples (raising FICA is a huge one) — too many for a blog post — but you will be able to keep track of them by asking one simple question, every time you hear about any government action: “Will this benefit or will this hurt the middle class?”
Obama wants to burnish his legacy and his after-office wealth. Ultimately, he will do so, not with historical accomplishment, but rather by sucking up to the .1%.
It is the .1% who will give him his large Presidential library in Chicago. They will hire him for lucrative speaking engagements, ala Bill Clinton. The media, owned by the .1%, will praise Obama for “saving” America’s middle class.
But despite his, and the .1%’s, best paid plans, history ultimately will remember Barack Obama as the man who crushed America’s middle class and America’s dream, all for his own ego, ambition and greed.
His name forever will be linked to Herbert Hoover and to Benedict Arnold.
So much for legacy.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
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Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Medicare — parts A, B & D — for everyone
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
4. Long-term nursing care for everyone
5. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
6. Salary for attending school (Click here)
7. Eliminate corporate taxes
8. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
9. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99%
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports
#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
Let he who is without morals cast the last stone?
You know, the one that broke the middle class’ back?
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Durbin obeys the .1%.
It goes like this: Social Security pays such wonderfully huge benefits, the middle class is getting rich, and way too close to the .1%. Also, FICA is so low (despite Obama’s recent increase), the middle class easily can afford to pay far, far more.
So Sen. Durbin has decided to follow his President’s lead and adjust this unfair and unbalanced situation:
Of course, being a federal agency, Social Security never can be insolvent. The federal government has the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency, the dollar, so “insolvent” has no meaning for any federal agency.
What Sen. Durbin really means is what I have bolded in the first paragraph. His commission will come up with one or both of two solutions:
1. Cut benefits or
2. increase FICA
That’s it folks. There are no other Durbin solutions.
Benefits can be cut by raising the qualification age, changing the way inflation is calculated, or simply changing the way benefits are calculated.
FICA can be increased by raising the pay age, applying it to non-salaried income or simply by raising the percentage taken.
What absolutely, positively will not happen is for the commission to recommend that the federal government simply pay for Social Security, which would keep it solvent forever.
It would be the easy solution, the correct solution, and the solution that wouldn’t cost anyone anything. Completely free, benefiting everyone.
But that would not please Durbin’s super-rich bosses, because it would lift the middle classes, thereby narrowing the gap.
Remember: Durbin, too, thinks about life after the Senate, and he wants to give those lucrative speeches, just like Obama.
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Even disregarding the facts of Monetary Sovereignty, the feasibility of Social Security (as a direct transfer program) is tied to only economic productivity. If productivity falls short ,then supporting a class of retirees is pretty much impossible, regardless of how much “cash” is in those “mythical trust funds” or even how many extra years recipients must wait to qualify. With retirees and the disabled’s numbers exceeding 44 million now and estimated at 70 million by 2035, reducing benefits is THE guaranteed way to chop a substantial chunk out of GDP. If productivity does not keep pace in the future, then “financing” Social Security is trivial. With austerity looming now and long into the future, productivity will NOT keep pace. I believe this is the .1%’s long term plan.
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Obama’s response will result from weighing his financial cost for punishing criminals vs. his political cost for not punishing criminals.
So far, he has chosen loyalty to his super-rich supporters over loyalty to voters. Will this latest disgrace change things?
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Readers have asked for Rodger suggestion on how to reduce the wealth gap. What specifically is his approach? Like exactly.
My own view (and I think Rodger’s) is that we can begin to reduce the wealth gap by promulgating a small but momentous change in the definition of key words such as “deficit” and “national debt.” Without this change, nothing else can happen.
For example, Rodger (above) quotes from a blog post by Andre Damon at the World Socialist Web Site. Consider this line by Mr. Damon…
“The White House is seeking to spin this historic attack as a boon to the ‘middle class’ and a ‘fair’ and ‘balanced’ approach to the deficit by linking it to token tax increases on the rich.”
Mr. Damon implies that the deficit is indeed bad, and that politicians use unfair means to deal with this bad “problem.” In this way he leaves the door open for austerity, no matter how much he complains about it. As long as rich people and their puppet politicians dictate the definitions of words like “federal deficit,” they will continue to impoverish the masses.
Socialists are especially guilty of leaving the door open. Their complaints are mostly legitimate, yet socialists have a self-righteousness that defeats their socialist cause. They agree with rich anti-socialists that the national debt and federal deficit are bad, and they reject the facts of Monetary Sovereignty. (Trust me; I have debated many of them.) They do this because it gives them an excuse to continue holding forth in their habitual manner. Rather than understand the core of capitalist power (i.e. the money power), they prefer to champion unions, feminism and homosexual “rights.”
As long as we accept the usual definitions of “national debt” and “federal deficit,” we serve the rich at the expense of the poor. An example is the socialist article above.
Therefore, in order to reduce the wealth gap, we must debunk the core lies whenever we see them. When someone (anyone) refers to the federal deficit and national debt as bad things, or “problems,” we must point out that the federal deficit is the public’s surplus, and that the “national debt” is national assets, i.e. the amount of money on deposit at the Fed. Our comments will be purged ninety percent of the time, but this is all we can do. And in the long run, it’s the most effective thing we can do.
For instance, at one time it was socially acceptable to refer to African-Americans as “niggers.” This word sustained racism and slavery. Today it nauseates anyone with a shred of moral conscience, even though it’s just a word. But a simple word (or how it is defined) has tremendous effects on society.
Human beliefs and behavior are largely based on core definitions. Change the definitions, and we change everything built on them. Uproot the core lie, and we kill all branching lies. Otherwise the evil will thrive, no matter how many branches we cut off.
Only by stabbing the heart can we kill the multi-headed hydra.
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Federal “debt” is nothing other than “deposits” in T-security accounts at the FRB.
Federal “deficits” are “additions” to the economy.
If we call them deposits and additions, their functions might be clearer
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Calling Treasuries “debt” I think is confusing and misleading to people – they always, wrongly, think of their own debt, like credit card debt, and view it as being bad.
Maybe calling fed. government creating treasury “assets” (deposits or funds) instead of calling them debt instruments.
The infamous “debt clock” should be called the “Asset clock.”
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I’d say Obama should be linked to US Grant, not Hoover. Hoover honestly believed that balanced budgets would end the Depression. US Grant just did what his Gilded Age bosses told him to do.
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1.) Since September 2012 the Fed has been giving $40 billion per month to billionaire Wall Street bankers to buy their worthless mortgage-backed securities. The Fed has also been spending $45 billion per month to buy Treasuries. Today Ben Bernanke reaffirmed that this will continue indefinitely.
Thus, the Fed creates $1.2 trillion per year on its computer keyboard.
Imagine the outcry if that $1.2 trillion were instead distributed into the real economy, thereby easing the depression.
The rich and their puppet politicians would scream, “We can’t spend money we don’t have!”
And average Americans would scream right along with them.
2.) Speaking of money we “don’t have,” today the U.S. Senate approved legislation to keep government agencies and programs funded through 30 Sep 2013. (25 of the 26 “No” votes were from Republicans like Rand Paul.) The House will do likewise tomorrow.
So what happened to sequestration? It’s still around. The constant buzz is designed to keep average Americans on the edge of their seats, wondering if everything will shut down tomorrow. This keeps the masses submissive to the general trend of ever-worsening poverty.
3.) Last Sunday on the TV program Disgrace the Nation, Paul Ryan said the USA does not have a debt crisis, but that a debt crisis is “irrefutably” on its way. (Therefore he wants more austerity to “get ahead of the problem.”)
Ryan has been spouting the same garbage for fourteen years. It got him re-elected seven times.
4.) Curtis Ohlers is a former “senior analyst” (i.e. bullshit slinger) for the U.S. Department of State in Baghdad. He is now president of International Human Development Corp. in Naples, FL, which evidently consists of himself alone.
Mr. Ohlers claims that deficit spending is “systemic corruption,” and has resulted in a $16 trillion national debt.
“Every citizen and every child born into the U.S. system currently holds more than $50,000 in debt, about $20,000 of which has been passed to them in just the past four years. This will rise to $60,000 per citizen by 2017. The youth, children and the unborn will inherit approximately $20 trillion in debt…”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/20/escaping-the-deficit-spending-trap/
It’s scary to think that such cretins are driving on the streets! Right here among us! THEY LIVE!
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though i see where you’re going with it, i think, rodger, you’re being unduly harsh on obama.
the beauty of presidential term limits is that the president will soon be unemployed. so, how’s he gonna make a living after his term is up?
besides, apart from being the (titular) head of the military and the top cop, the president is powerless. congress is in control of the economy via the budgetary process (currency issuance) and the regulatory structure. but, now, they are under the tight control of the .1%:
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He’s not being forced into hurting the middle classes. He long has expressed the desire to cut Social Security (“reform” is his word), and he voluntarily raised FICA.
It was he who appointed Simpson and Bowles, two notorious budget cutters, and each day he talks about “achieving fiscal sustainability” (euphemisms for cuts to social programs).
He has made zero effort to end the sequester. If he wanted the sequester he could back the bill proposed by Representatives Grayson and Conyers.
The bill reads: “Section 251A of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 is repealed.”
Short, sweet and simple. Where is Obama on this?
All apologists for Obama should understand what the man really wants: A widening of the gap.
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Is there anyone out there (aside from MMT) who doesn’t believe Obama and his entire administration have been bribed by the .1% to widen the gap? If so, read this:
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2013/03/senator-sherrod-brown-drops-a-bombshell-in-mary-jo-whites-hearing/
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