Month: December 2010

–More “Constitutional” phony baloney from the Tea Party

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand monetary sovereignty, do not understand economics. Cutting the federal deficit is the most ignorant and damaging step the federal government could take. It ranks ahead of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.
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Each day I become more convinced that being a member of the Tea Party is a litmus test for childishness. Back in April, I wrote the post “What does the Tea Party want?” in which I explored some of the truly inane pronouncements by this group. It is an amazing attribute of the human species that anything sober and logical (Monetary Sovereignty) will be rejected by a large group, but anything outrageously juvenile (Lady Gaga) will be revered by an even larger group.

In the earlier post, I commented not only on the Tea Party’s adoration of such sages as Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell, but it’s hopelessly confounding message:

Unfortunately for Tea Party “logic,” they not only want lower taxes, but lower deficits and less government. At the same time, they want a stronger army, better schools, federal supervision of banks and other financial firms, better roads, defense of our borders, less crime, more guns, defense against terrorism, safer food, better retirement, better unemployment insurance, police, health care, rescue from hurricanes and other disasters, more jobs and a better environment.

I reminded readers that what the Tea Party wants costs money, the money they don’t want the government to spend. But now that bit of TP logic has been superceded by the next puerile demand, to which the eagerly submissive GOP has agreed. Not only must the House of Representatives waste an hour or a day listening to someone read the U.S. Constitution aloud (“Now follow along, children. See Spot jump.”), but every new bill must contain a statement by the lawmaker who wrote it citing his constitutional authority to enact the legislation.

Puleeze. The most contentious bill passed by Congress – hated by the TP – already contains such a statement, and that hasn’t prevented two judges from ruling one way and a third judge from ruling the other. What is called the “Individual Mandate” of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act already includes these sentences:

The individual responsibility requirement provided for in this section (in this subsection referred to as the requirement) is commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate commerce . . . In United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association (322 U.S. 533 (1944)), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that insurance is interstate commerce subject to Federal regulation.

Well, I guess that should satisfy the TP.

The problem is that the Constitution was written 200+ years ago to address problems of the time, and must be interpreted to address today’s problems. And while “originalist” Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas claim to have special insight into the original intent of the Constitution framers, they don’t, they don’t even try, and anyway, why should anyone want that?

The Supreme Court has nine members rather than just one, because the Constitution, like the Bible, is either vague, outdated or repeatedly misconstrued concerning almost all we wish to know. Every Justice has pledged to obey the Constitution, yet seldom do we see a 9 – 0 decision. Does this mean some Justices intentionally disobey the Constitution every business day?

Reality check: The true issue is not whether a law obeys or disobeys the Constitution, but rather, whether the sponsors are Democrats or Republicans (aka TP sycophants). But that bit of truth does not perturb the TP members, who live in a magical world of dreams, where all wishes come true, even (especially?) those that are self-conflicting.

It seems our Representatives prefer time-wasting, populist, pandering nonsense, to actually learning about, and coming to grips with, real problems, which is why the recovery has been so slow, and why millions of Americans have no jobs, no homes, no health insurance and no retirement.

What next from the Guns ‘n’ God Group? A rule that the House must stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

No nation can tax itself into prosperity. Those who say the stimulus “didn’t work” remind me of the guy whose house is on fire. A neighbor runs with a garden hose and starts spraying, but the fire continues. The neighbor wants to call the fire department, which would bring the big hoses, but the guy says, “Don’t call. As you can see, water doesn’t put out fires.”

–Are you for immigration reform? What does that mean?

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand monetary sovereignty, do not understand economics. Cutting the federal deficit is the most ignorant and damaging step the federal government could take. It ranks ahead of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.
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Congress has been debating immigration reform, and like all political “reforms,” the word means different things to different people. Health insurance “reform” means federally provided, affordable insurance to everyone, or to no one, or somewhere in between. Budget “reform” means cut spending, increase taxes, both or neither. Tax reform means make taxes simpler or fairer or lower or higher.

But what does immigration reform mean? Does it mean fewer or more immigrants? Does it mean an easier or more difficult procedure? And more importantly, what is the goal? Is it to:
–Protect our nation from terrorists and other enemies?
–Protect American workers from competition?
–Protect America from crime?
–Save our limited resources?
–Keep American white? Or Christian? Or English speaking?
–To relieve an overcrowded America?
–Just keep Mexicans out?

For example, consider Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who wants to end automatic or “birthright” citizenship for all children born in the United States. What is the benefit to America? He says it’s to prevent non-citizens from coming here on a visa, and intentionally having a child, thereby circumventing immigration laws. Aside from the probability the number of such people is small, what is the problem? What if some women do that? Who has been harmed? How has that diminished America?

Or consider those Republican lawmakers from southern states and lawmakers who wish to copy Arizona’s harsh law. They would give police the massive job of screening all suspects for immigration status. Why? They claim the undocumented immigrants are too costly, using medical and educational facilities without paying taxes. But how true is this really? What percentage of undocumented immigrants do not pay taxes? And what would be the police costs and the court costs and attorney costs and the logistic costs of pursuing all these people, trying them and deporting them, only to have them return again and again? And what would be the cost in human suffering, or do we now consider undocumented immigrants to be something less than human?

These lawmakers claim their goal also is to protect their states from crime, but do undocumented immigrants cause more or less crime than citizens?

Rather than allowing the xenophobes, who wish to create a “fortress America,” to coopt the word “reform,” perhaps those, who still belief the words on the Statue of Liberty, might wish to define reform in our own terms. How about if “immigration reform” means make immigration much faster and easier? How about recognizing that going through danger, cost and effort is prima facie evidence of people who truly want to be Americans, and such desire might make them more loyal and more devoted to our nation than those lucky enough to be born here?

Surely, we can protect America without building a North Koreanesque barrier. Is Mexico our enemy? Are the great open plains so crowded? Is the American worker too weak to compete? Are resources truly limited to a Monetarily Sovereign nation that at the snap of an finger, can spend trillions on the world’s greatest war machine? And don’t immigrants actually contribute to our resources? My immigrant parents did.

Yes, let’s have immigration reform. Let’s open the welcoming arms of a great, confident, powerful America, rather than hiding behind the barbed wire curtain of a crouching, fearful, mean spirited bunch of petty losers.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

No nation can tax itself into prosperity. Those who say the stimulus “didn’t work” remind me of the guy whose house is on fire. A neighbor runs with a garden hose and starts spraying, but the fire continues. The neighbor wants to call the fire department, which would bring the big hoses, but the guy says, “Don’t call. As you can see, water doesn’t put out fires.”

–Ron Paul’s brilliant defense of Wikileaks

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand monetary sovereignty, do not understand economics. Cutting the federal deficit is the most ignorant and damaging step the federal government could take. It ranks ahead of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.
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This is amazing. I always, always, always disagree with Ron Paul. Always. But suddenly, he says something with which I agree wholeheartedly. I will post it here just as it was on “Ron Paul’s Passionate Defense Of Julian Assange And WikiLeaks On House Floor”

Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

Number 2: Could a larger question be: how can an army private access so much secret information?

Number 3: Why is the hostility directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our government’s failure to protect classified information?

Number 4: Are we getting our money’s worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?

Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war, or Wikileaks revelations, or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?

Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?

Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?

My sentiments, exactly.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

No nation can tax itself into prosperity. Those who say the stimulus “didn’t work” remind me of the guy whose house is on fire. A neighbor runs with a garden hose and starts spraying, but the fire continues. The neighbor wants to call the fire department, which would bring the big hoses, but the guy says, “Don’t call. As you can see, water doesn’t put out fires.”

–Juijitsu economics or how to win by making the other guy think he’s winning

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand monetary sovereignty, do not understand economics. Cutting the federal deficit is the most ignorant and damaging step the federal government could take. It ranks ahead of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.
====================================================================================================================================================

I think Professor Randy Wray (UMKC), one of the leading proponents of Modern Monetary Theory, has given up butting heads with debt-hawks, and has adopted a new, and perhaps more realistic approach. Recently, he gave a radio interview in which he said that the states (and counties and cities), desperately needed financial help, and that this help only could come from the federal government.

As I’ve noted previously on this blog, ( Why the states are in financial trouble ) it is mathematically impossible for any monetarily non-sovereign entity to last long-term without an outside source of income. You and I are monetarily non-sovereign, and to survive long term we need a salary and/or investment income sufficient to prevent us eventually from going bankrupt. We cannot survive indefinitely on the money we have saved, no matter how much that may be.

The states (and counties and cities) also are monetarily non-sovereign, and they too need an outside source of income. Taxes, coming from money that already exists in the state, are not sufficient to support a state long term, because inflation makes that money decline in value each year. For a state, outside income might come from exports or tourism. Examples are Alaska’s exports of oil and Nevada’s tourism.

Most states find even these outside sources of income insufficient to pay for education and infrastructure, two huge expenses the federal government could and should support. So most states have entered into a downward spiral of borrowing, which causes their credit ratings to drop and interest payments to increase, then borrowing more, which causes further ratings drops, and on and on and on.

Professor Wray suggested, in his interview, that the government should provide economic aid to the states and this would re-energize the economy, which eventually would reduce the federal deficit. Now Randy knows the following three things:

1. Re-energizing the economy does not reduce the federal deficit. GDP growth does not reduce the deficit. Yes, GDP growth can increase taxes, but taxes are not necessary for spending. More importantly, deficit growth is necessary for GDP growth (See: Summary)
.and
2. There is no economic or financial reason to reduce the federal deficit, though reducing state deficits is necessary. The federal government is Monetarily Sovereign. The states are not.
3. There is no negative economic results from federal deficits.

So if increasing deficits are what drives a growing economy, why did Randy suggest stimuli as a way to decrease deficits? My belief: By positioning a stimulus plan as a way to reduce the federal deficits, he may be trying to provide political cover for our leaders to do what must be done, i.e. financially support the states. If so, that is a clever approach, which I have termed “jiujitsu economics.”

I’ve written Randy to see whether that, in fact, is what he had in mind. I’ll let you know what he says.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

No nation can tax itself into prosperity. Those who say the stimulus “didn’t work” remind me of the guy whose house is on fire. A neighbor runs with a garden hose and starts spraying, but the fire continues. The neighbor wants to call the fire department, which would bring the big hoses, but the guy says, “Don’t call. As you can see, water doesn’t put out fires.”