Mitchell’s laws:
●The more 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.
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I have a plan to protect our children. It is a proven plan that has been tried in the past and failed miserably. It is a plan that was demonstrated to cause a dramatic increase in crime, and has been responsible for many thousands of deaths among our young people. It is a plan that is guaranteed to send thousands of our young people to jail.
My plan absolutely will cost our society many millions of dollars and thousands of lives and destroy many families, and not only doesn’t work, but actually worsens the problem it is supposed to solve.
My plan is called “Prohibition.”
What? You say that name is taken? “Prohibition” was the name given to a plan to save us from the most potent, the most dangerous, most addictive drug America ever has known: Alcohol? And all Prohibition did was increase alcohol consumption and crime? Wow. I didn’t know.
O.K., so “Prohibition” didn’t work, in fact made things worse, but if I keep my plan but give it a new name, I’m sure it will work. So, my new name for my plan is “War on Drugs.”
What? You say that name is taken, too? You say the “War on Drugs” has had exactly the same results as “Prohibition”? More drug use? More crime? More cost? More young people in jail? More lives and families destroyed?
Could it be that (and this may be a stretch) Prohibition and the War on Drugs have had the same results because they are the same plan?
Now, let me get this straight. You’re telling me if I have a plan that fails miserably, and even exacerbates the problem I’m trying to solve, changing the name of the plan won’t work? Hmmm.
So, how did we solve the problem of the most potent, most dangerous, most addictive drug America ever has known? You say we legalized it, regulated it and taxed it? You’re kidding. That’s how we solved the problem? Legalization?
Well that sounds crazy. Surely, if you outlaw a product that people want and will risk jail or even death to obtain, that should reduce usage. It doesn’t? Who’d a thunk?
So, if legalizing, regulating and taxing alcohol was proven to reduce usage, crime, jail time, financial and social costs and the destruction of our youth, do you think that maybe, just maybe, that same proven idea could work with currently illegal drugs?
Oh, you say Colorado and Washington State have begun the process by legalizing recreational use of the most benign of the illegal drugs, marijuana? What is the likelihood that the rest of the states and the federal government will learn from experience and legalize the recreational use of any drug someone wants to put in their own bodies?
I mean, the Democrats talk about privacy, and the Republicans complain about too much government intrusion on our lives. And taking recreation drugs is a private, personal decision, like drinking alcohol.
So could it be that the government should simply let people eat, drink, smoke and otherwise ingest whatever they want? And if we did that, might millions of lives and billions of dollars be saved?
So what’s the problem?
Ah, I see. You say that if only we tried harder, we could make Prohibition and the War on Drugs work. Makes sense to me. As I always say, if a plan does not work, never has worked and never can work, and actually makes things worse, keep doing it.
Only more so.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
P.S. I have an idea. Next, let’s have a “War on Sugar.” Oh, Mayor Bloomberg already has begun that?
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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 
Prohibition, the “war on drugs,” the “war on terror,” and so on are all class wars. They are among the ways that the 1% keep down the 99%. In Mexico for example (where I lived for several years) the government uses the “drug war” as an excuse to refuse government spending for the people, and to crush populist rebellions among the poor. The USA is the same. I worked as a guard in a state penitentiary for 2 years. Two thirds of the inmates were locked up for petty drug “offenses,” largely against themselves (e.g. they were caught smoking weed). This is a bonanza for the rich owners of private prisons, for whom more prisoners mean more profits. States and counties must repeatedly increase taxes to pay these private prison owners, and to pay for successful inmate lawsuits against them. Wall Street loves it, because banks profit by laundering drug money. And in many states, if you are fined for a drug “offense,” you can get a high-interest bank loan to pay your fine. If you default, you go to jail on a triple “offense” (the drugs, the default, and the violation of probation). It’s all part of neo-liberal culture.
On the bright side, the “war on drugs” helps create jobs for countless law enforcement people at all levels, just as the “war on terror” creates jobs for soldiers and military contractors.
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Our freedom to drink ourselves into oblivion has some pretty high costs:
Three in every ten Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some point in their lives.
Of fatal accidents in 2009, 32 percent involved alcohol-impaired drivers.
On average, one person died every 48 minutes in 2009 due to an alcohol-impaired driver.
In 2009, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico made it illegal to drive with a BAC of .08 or higher. Of the 10,839 people who died in an alcohol-related crash, 7,281 (67 percent) had drivers with BACs above the legal limit.
For fatal crashes occurring from midnight to 3 a.m., 66 percent involved alcohol-impaired driving.
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No one says people should drink alcohol. I, myself, never drink alcohol. But the reality is this: The government should not try to prevent its citizens from doing what they are bound and determined to do to their bodies, and when the government does try, the consequences are worse than the original “crime.”
Prohibition proved it, and the War on Drugs reinforces it.
In addition to the impossibility of winning, or even staying even on, the War on Drugs, there is yet another problem. What is a drug?
There are thousands of chemicals that can give someone a “high.” Virtually all compressed gas canisters (hairspray et al), if inhaled, will do it. So will paints, correction fluid, wart cures and literally thousands of legitimate medicines.
It is impossible to monitor them.
A “war” is something someone can win and eventually ends. But the “War” on Drugs never was winnable and never can end. It will go on forever, causing more and more damage, until the government and the voters come to their senses.
The best solution is the alcohol/cigarette solution. Don’t try to outlaw. Instead, legalize, supervise and tax.
That will save more lives.
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Why is tobacco legal, but marijuana not? Nicotine is as deadly as arsenic. Why is pornography-for-pay legal, but prostitution illegal? Why are gambling casinos legal? Why was it good that Prohibition against alcohol ended in 1933, but Prohibition against drugs remain? Why is it good that the U.S. military publicly admits that it protects opium and heroin production in Afghanistan? (Evidently that’s what the “war” is all about.) It’s all so ridiculous.
I’m with Rodger on this. I say we should control the actions of minors for their own protection, but we should not not declare an adult person’s (18+) actions illegal unless they cause harm or the threat of harm to others.
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Rodger, here is another answer to the people who cry “inflation!” when we call for more government spending. We know that when the federal government reduces spending, it forces people to seek bank loans, thus going into debt. True, banks are not lending these days to individuals and small business, but they are still buying state, county, and municipal bonds. That is, banks are lending to local governments, and the debt load is forcing local austerity. (Increases taxes, decreased services, etc.)
For example, State Budget Solutions (a research and non-partisan advocacy group) says that California alone has a total debt of $617.6 billion, and that America’s 50 state governments owe an aggregate $4.19 trillion in outstanding bonds, un-funded pension commitments and budget gaps. At the end of 2010, California had to pay a general obligation and revenue bond debt of $158 billion, of which $70 billion (44%) was owed as interest on its state bonds. That’s $70 billion sucked away by Wall Street.
How is it “inflationary” if we ask for increased federal spending to ease some of this crushing burden on the states?
How would it be “inflationary” if, in 2010, that $70 billion stayed in California, instead of going to Wall Street? Indeed, how it is “inflationary” if increased government spending boosts the real economy, as opposed to the financial economy? How it is “inflationary” if we rein in the predatory bond vigilantes? How is it “inflationary” if American college students are no longer burdened with $1 trillion in student loan debt? How is it “inflationary” if Americans no longer get most of their money as bank loans? How is it “inflationary” if Americans’ general efforts go to more than just paying interest?
One reason that people oppose the truth of MMT and MS is that they falsely think the U.S. government has a “debt crisis.” In calling for reduced federal spending, they doom students, states, and themselves to a real debt crisis. Why do they think it is good to have crippling debt, but evil to have government spending that does not come with debt? Why do they insist on devoting most of their energy to paying interest? Why do they oppose tax increases, but favor spending cuts, which amount to the same thing? (A $500 billion federal spending cut is the same as a $500 billion federal tax increase). Why are they not able to do the simplest of arithmetic problems? (Don’t respond. These are merely rhetorical questions.)
Why are even intelligent people unable to see simple realities? Ellen Brown is a popular author who favors publicly owned banks like the Bank of North Dakota. I say this might be a good idea at the state level, but at the federal level we must blame Congress and the President. Ellen and her followers deny this. They think the federal government is like a household, and has a debt problem. They think the Federal Reserve is consummately evil. They think the federal government relies on tax revenue. They think that if the Fed were made “public,” then everything would be fine. Thus, they ignore the federal dispensing part of the equation. If I try to explain the facts to them, they reject me (often with anger). It’s amazing how smart people can be so dumb.
It’s also amazing how naïve people can be so sharp. For example, yesterday I explained some of the precepts of MMT to my neighbor who is Mexican. He lives here legally, and owns his house, but speaks no English. (I speak fluent Spanish.) He picked it all up instantly. I know this, because he correctly filled in some of the blanks before I had a chance to explain them. Financially speaking, his mind was like that of a child, and thus he had far more wisdom than do most “sophisticates.” It was a textbook case of “the emperor’s new clothes.”
Amazing.
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After reading her blog and then watching some of her dreadfully difficult to view videos on youtube, i think Ellen Brown kind of gets Monetary Sovereignty but is totally hung up on “interest on the debt,” like so many others. As a lay person she is hated by the Economic mainstream, you know, those “sophisticates.” I found one guy (Gary North, a gold bug, yes with something to SELL) who gave 50 reasons why she is an idiot. Most of his reasons seemed ridiculously wrong, making this guy even more clueless than Brown. I explained MS to my 12 year old and he grasps the basics and better understands much more than virtually any of the adults who continually lambaste me (at a rate of about 90%) on my commentaries on internet sites on a daily basis.
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“The chief financial officer, Peter Taylor, came to UC Berkeley from Lehman Bros., where he was managing director for public finance until Lehman collapsed in the largest bankruptcy in American history. While Taylor was at Lehman, the company was hired to help expand UC’s debt load. Lehman ultimately was party to one of UC’s interest rate swaps – a bad deal that has already cost the university more than $23 million.
California taxpayers have entrusted the regents with stewardship of the university, but the regents’ cozy ties to Wall Street raise questions about their financial priorities. It’s time for the UC Board of Regents to stop gambling with California’s future.
The millions of Californians who voted for Proposition 30 deserve nothing less.”
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Prop-30-funds-for-UC-will-go-to-Wall-Street-4031472.php#ixzz2CBLqf6PN
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I am shocked, SHOCKED, that the bank put its own interests before the interests of its clients. Who did they think they are — politicians?
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Prohibition, wars on abstract nouns are fundamentalist authoritarian “solutions”; Just say no but the drugs/alcohol don’t listen, it focuses the mind/attention on the problem, just as with abortion/unwanted pregnancies.
Some part solution is to have a better alternative, the possibility of fully employed and meaningful lives, giving back to society, the common person’s common wealth, strengthening what we all have.
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I’m all for legalizing soft stuff like weed, and maybe mushrooms and lsd. Legalizing harder stuff like heroin or meth makes me kind of uneasy though. That kind stuff is highly addicting with serious health risks, much more so than alcohol. Not all drugs are equal, so I don’t think it’s appropriate to compare something benign like weed with a much more addicting and dangerous drug like meth. It’s not just about individuals having the freedom to choose what they do to their body, at some point it becomes a societal concern as well. I think it’s a complex issue, and it’s difficult to decide where the line should be drawn.
That being said, I think that it’s a mistake to put so much emphasis on criminalizing users and spending so much time an money on the never ending and unwinnable “war on drugs”. Throwing users and addicts into jail solves very little. Addicts are still addicts when they’re released. We need to make a serious effort to educate and actually treat addicts. Addicts aren’t criminals, they have a disease which must be dealt with appropriately. Clean needle programs should also be in place in every state.
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The truth about Prohibition is that not only doesn’t it work, but it makes things worse by adding a new class of criminals to the judicial overload.
More work for the police. More work for the courts. More people in jail.
That’s what criminalizing alcohol did. That’s what criminalizing cigarettes would do. That’s what criminalizing marijuana, cocaine, heroin et al does.
It is not the job of the government to prevent all the bad things people do to themselves. There are people who, for instance, are bulimic. This is an addictive behavior. Thankfully, there is no law against it, or thousands of bulimics would be prosecuted and in jail.
There are people who are addicted to cutting themselves. There are people addicted to fatty food. There are all sorts of harmful addictions. People simply must pay the price. The government cannot prosecute people for their addictions.
The prosecution itself is what really hurts society.
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