Mitchell’s laws: Reduced money growth never stimulates economic growth. To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments. Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder. Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
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Presumably, people favor candidates whose views on the issues parallel their own. Which of the following is the single most important issue for you?
Pro or con?
Abortion
Adultery
Aid to other nations
Aid to the poor
Anti-terrorist security
Big government
Cutting the federal budget
Defending Israel
Gay marriage
Gun control
Immigrants
Marijuana
Preventing global warming
Protecting the ecology
Reducing Social Security benefits
Religion in government
School prayer
Tax cuts
Unions
Universal health care insurance
Speaking of issues and the candidates associated with those issues, what does this graph tell you about the issues and the voters?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com
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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 exports
#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
Rodger,
Knowing your reading audience, I’d say the deficit, and the economy in general (you didn’t list the economy as a broad choice), would be the choice of most of them. Anyway, here’s my take on it –
Romney – he’d flip-flop himself into (rightly) exploding the deficits. Everybody would complain that he didn’t stick to his campaign promises, but things would improve and it would stop being a big deal. Basically, I see no difference between how he’d be as President and how Reagan was.
Obama – (rightly) wants to raise the deficits, but the GOP won’t allow it. You would see four more years of the same. Anemic recovery (if at all, depending on future spending habits/curbs) and political gridlock.
Gingrich – I have no idea, and that’s scares me.
No one else has a real chance at getting elected in my mind at this point.
With the first two, I honestly have a feeling they know about MS/MMT principles but they just know it’s political suicide to try to sell it to the American people. The only difference is that Romney will be in a position where he will have a supportive Congress (according to Intrade anyway), so it will actually go through. At least there will be less political gridlock.
I have a feeling Gingrich has no idea about economics, whether it be MMT/MS or anything. To be honest, I have no idea why Romney hasn’t chosen this line of attack in the primaries. The economy will be the focal point of the election, and a history degree and experience as a legislator does not qualify you to manage the country or fix the economy.
If Romney doesn’t get the nomination, this Republican will be voting for Obama. He at least now has more executive experience than Gingrich and, like I said, Gingrich is unpredictable (personally and professionally).
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I’m not sure what is supposed to be gleamed from the graph, or how it relates to the issues above.
Echoing Nathan’s post… I’ve been a lifelong Rebublican, but I can see myself voting for Obama. The vote is for status quo and political paralysis. I fear a Republican president and a Republican House could do some real damage towards a balanced budget or privatization of social security.
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I think most of the Republican rhetoric at this point is only because Obama is in office. If Romney got elected, I honestly think it’d all go away.
Romney says he’d support a balanced budged amendment, but I don’t think he’ll actually do it once in office. None of them would (Paul Ryan’s plan, which Romney supported and accuses Gingrich of being too liberal for not supporting it, called for ten years of deficit spending.) balance the budget. It’s all just campaign talk. And I know NONE of the candidates would touch Social Security. They say they will, but all it will be is another broken promise to the Republican base (this specific promise has been broken for years). Old folks vote, and no politician, President or otherwise, will survive if they touch SS. It’s the “third rail” of politics for a reason.
The thing with Gingrich, however, is that he has a surprising lack of knowledge with regards to economics (at least he hasn’t shown any deep knowledge in the debates). While this wouldn’t be that big of a deal in good economic times, we obviously aren’t in that situation today. Plus, he’s never managed/ran anything of any note. PLUS, he has problems in his personal life that, in my opinion, indicate a lack of judgement.
I think Gingrich has too much ego/hubris to listen to economic advisors. I honestly think this man believes his history PhD qualifies him to govern.
Obama may lead to more sensible policy, but only if the gridlock ends, which I don’t see happening. More of the same.
Romney is a robot but, quite frankly, I want that in the White House. Policy wonks make my day. When push comes to shove, I know he won’t touch SS and I’d be willing to bet he’d be pretty pragmatic in general (or as the Tea Partiers call it: “Left Wing Socialist RINO Scum”), so I don’t see him going too far left or right (remember – for all his talk, Reagan was relatively liberal by today’s standards, as Governor of CA and as President….he was from a liberal state just like Romney). frankly, I don’t see too much of a difference governance wise between him and Obama. At least with Romney, there won’t be gridlock.
I’d vote for Romney over Obama, but Gingrich will never get my vote.
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The issue most important to me is preventing global warming, so President Obama and the Democrats have my vote in the bag.
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…also the issue the president has the least control over.
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I’d say the ability to appoint the Secretary of Energy, and the ability to sign Cap and Trade legislation, amounts to substantial control over man-made global warming.
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I think the graph demonstrates the “horse race” quality of the press coverage. Who’s up, who’s down, is what the news seems to be all about. Who fell on his face in the most recent debate. No issues mentioned, unless they can’t help it. The polls don’t reflect the news, they ARE the news.
Whatever you say about Gingrich, he is an outside-the-box thinker, and may be open to a new idea like MMT. He’s a history professor, not economics, but is able to analyze the past with an eye to not repeating its mistakes. (Maybe less economics training is an advantage in learning MMT!) If someone could just give him the right lens to look through, he could be a very persuasive advocate for MMT.
Absent any MMT advocate winning, our short-term economic hope is that whichever party wins the presidency will also have a majority in both houses of Congress. The Democrats would increase deficits by spending more, the Republicans by taxing less, and either way will help us out of the mess. The “muddle though” economy is the result of the lack of unified leadership in Washington.
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Persuasive points, John, and I hope you’d be right if Gingrich was elected, but I suspect it wouldn’t turn out that way.
Gingrich has probably heard enough economic jargon to think he knows about it. Unfortunately, I don’t think he’s been talking to the right people. Additionally, I think he has too much ego to let others tell him how to govern or to share government power. Look at how he wants to treat judges. While I think the other stuff is just campaign talk, I believe he actually wants to severely weaken our independent judiciary, which is dumb and dangerous to our freedom.
Also, I actually see his history degree as an impediment to learning MMT/MS. He’ll scream “Weimar! Weimar!” in a minute and we’ll be right back to the failed policies of the past.
I honestly think Romney and know MMT/MS (Remember Mosler’s conversation with Al Gore in his book? I think that’s the view of most politicians…they know about it, but actually saying/implementing is the politically difficult part), and I agree with you that the best hope for us is to have a President with a majority in Congress to put what he knows is correct (but won’t ever say for political reasons…remember the backlash when Cheney said it?), which is why I’d vote for Romney. The guy is a major policy wonk, and I’d bet you a steak dinner he knows why the economy recovered during the Reagan years. Not to mention the fact that he’s ran a state and a large revenue business.
Obama won’t get the majorities in Congress he needs in Congress. Gingrich has a character, knowledge, and experience deficit that is a big gamble in my book. Romney is surely no Reagan, but he’ll have the experience, Congress, and I think the knowledge even though he’ll never say it, in place to to turn the economy around. The guy is a robot for sure, but I’ll take that in the White House. You don’t have to worry about a robot.
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