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.
==========================================================================================================================================

MMT is right about economics. MMT is correct when it says cutting the deficit does not grow an economy, but instead leads to recessions and depressions. I say the same thing.

MMT is correct in favoring the Platinum Coin Solution, which I also favor as a clever way to get around the unbelievably stupid federal debt limit and federal debt concerns.

MMT is correct in wanting an end to FICA, the world’s worst tax, about which I posted back in 2009: “Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA” with the help of two MMT adherents.

I cannot even begin to count the number of things about which MMT is right and our government and our media and the mainstream economists are wrong.

So what’s my problem?

MMT is filled with college professors and other academic minds who believe that if they merely reveal the Truth, the people will learn and follow and all will be well. There is no passion in MMT. They think the people are waiting to be educated, and once seeing the Truth and the Logic and the Wisdom, the sun will shine, again.

Naive.

MMT refuses to recognize that powerful forces oppose the Truth. MMT thinks that outrage “detracts from the message.” MMT supports the calm recitation of facts as a way to change the world.

Yikes!

Has anything ever been accomplished without passion? Were the slaves freed because of a calm recitation of facts? Did King George give us freedom because of a calm recitation of facts? Did the unions free the workers from unfair labor practices because of a calm recitation of facts?

Did Knute Rockne or Vince Lombardi win because of a calm recitation of facts? Has any politician ever won because of a calm recitation of facts? Why must politicians focus on soaring language and slogans, interspersed with bare mentions of semi-fact?

When has the public ever demonstrated a desire to be led by a calm recitation of facts?

MMT likes to stand on a high podium and teach, but it sure doesn’t like to learn. It has no interest in learning the beliefs of the people. So when, from that podium, they disclose the Truth and are met with, “Eventually we’ll have hyper-inflation like the Weimar Republic, “ and “Eventually our grandchildren will pay,” and “Eventually other nations will stop lending to us,” and “Eventually the price will have to be paid” (always “eventually”), and of course, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” — then MMT retreats to dry teaching of the Facts.

MMT tries to dumb down the Truth even more, in a fruitless effort to counter the media’s, the politicians’s and the mainstream economists’ endless brainwashing.

MMT doesn’t take advantage of the one edge they have: People already are disposed to hate the .1% and to believe the worst about them and are ready to march and vote against the .1%, if given a passionate leader to follow, and a logical-sounding reason to believe him.

Here is the calm recitation of facts: Cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, aid to education, housing aid, federal employment, food and drug inspection, financial industry oversight, while increasing FICA and sending dollars to a government that creates all the dollars it wants, needlessly takes dollars out of the economy and out of the people’s pockets.

That is what we’ve told the people. Their response: Disbelief and yawns.

Obama knows the Truth. Geithner knows it. Boehner knows it. Congress knows it. The media, which are owned by the .1% know it. Every politician supported by big money coming from the Kochs et al, knows it and is required to toe the line. They lie because they are paid to lie.

But MMT, does not want to say it. They have “no proof” they say. They seem to think the Kochs of the world waste billions of dollars, just for the joy of involvement, not because they have a selfish agenda.

Meanwhile, MMT spends endless hours trying to recast the facts in ever simpler terms, so even the dullest fool can understand them, then stands puzzled about why all the dull fools in Washington don’t seem to understand. Hey guys: They are paid not to understand.

King George understood. Slave owners understood. Business owners understood. But they felt their own selfish interests were best supported by not understanding — until the people dragged them, kicking and screaming, to understand.

Affecting the rulers requires passion, marching, accusations, threats and people carrying torches and pitchforks.

MMT thinks that a calm recitation of the facts will convince the .1% to give up on their precious income gap or convince the 99.9% to vote against their intuition and the vast amount of daily brainwashing. A million times a day, from all sides, comes the message that the debt is too big, and MMT expects their wee, cautious, logical little academic voices to overcome that?

Nuts!

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================

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

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.
==========================================================================================================================================

I long have been puzzled and amused by the public’s inability to understand even the simplest ideas regarding their own benefit and safety. The notion of people wasting their time and money standing in long lines to buy a lottery ticket, is probably the easiest example.

The struggle to get people to wear motorcycle helmets is another (though a helmet is to protect your brain, and if you don’t have a brain, I guess you don’t need a helmet).

The belief that cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment compensation, aid to education, food inspection, drug inspection, financial industry regulation, so you can send dollars to a federal government, which can create all the dollars it wants, surely is an amazing example of self-stupification.

And then there are guns. The NRA, worshipped by gun lovers everywhere, has put forth a solution to mass shootings: Place armed guards in every school. As the NRA says, “The only solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

The argument really is about automatic and semiautomatic guns, and the prime purpose for owning them seems to be self defense (unless you are hunting a large herd of charging bison) — defense against bad guys and defense against the government.

Let’s forget for a moment, that if you are attacked by a bad guy, you had better already have a loaded AK47 in hand or it will be useless (Sit at home with one in your lap? Carry it down the street, with 30-round cartridge attached?), and let’s go to the meat of the NRA’s recommendation: Armed guards in every school.

Schools merely are places where people congregate, so it would be senseless to protect the many thousands of elementary school, high school and college buildings spread throughout America, without also protecting other places where people congregate: Churches and synagogues, indoor and outdoor sports venues, large stores, office buildings, museums, movie theaters, orchestra halls, bus and train stations, beaches, parks and shopping malls.

There must be, if you add them all up, millions of such locations, and since some of them are quite big, multi-storied and spread out (think college campuses), some would need many, many armed guards. It total, I could imagine the need for — just a guess here — perhaps ten million guards, all carrying AK47s (to even the odds) — a huge army patrolling our nation.

Try to imagine the training needed for that many armed people, not to mention the sheer cost. (You may not realize it, but to be a good police officer requires months of training.) But more importantly, what makes them “good guys” and who supervises them?

For those of you whose paranoia extends to fear of our government, how about 10 million guys, just like you, walking around with loaded AK47s? They wouldn’t work for the government, because you are afraid of the government.

You’d want some independent organization — a militia, if you please — complete with combat fatigues, boots and neck tattoos (Swastikas are nice), which you trust more than the government.

So there you stand in your local mall, carrying your own AK47 (because of “concealed carry” laws), while trained, semi-trained, untrained, good guys, bad guys, sane guys, crazy guys, drunks, drugged up hippies, high schools kids, grade school kids, good shots, bad shots, supervised, unsupervised and someone’s nutty uncle, all are carrying semi-automatic guns.

Meanwhile, in school, your kid is being watched by an armed nut, there to protect him from a hug by the teacher.

It makes me feel so very secure. How about you?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================

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

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.
==========================================================================================================================================

Last night, Barach Obama spoke to America, in a courageous and far-seeing speech that established him among the greatest of American presidents. Here is the complete text:

My fellow Americans,

I come to you with and apology and a promise. You have been lied to – by Congress, by the media, and yes, by me. From some, the lie was due to ignorance. From others, the lie was intentional. Either way, you have been misled, and for that I truly am sorry.

You have been told the federal debt is too high, that it is a danger to our economy, that our children and grandchildren will be forced to repay it. You have been shown debt clocks that purport to demonstrate how much of the federal debt you owe.

All lies.

On August 15, 1971, the U.S. became Monetarily Sovereign. Unlike our states, counties and cities, the federal government acquired total sovereignty over our sovereign currency, the dollar.

In simple English, this meant we could create dollars at will. The government no longer needed to ask anyone for dollars – not you, not me not China – though unaccountably it continues to beg for the dollars it freely can create.

We continue to pretend that federal financing is like our own personal, kitchen-table financing, so we use phrases like “live within our means,” and “unsustainable debt,” which may be appropriate to you and me, but no longer are appropriate to the federal government.

Unlike you and me, U.S. government never can run short of dollars, never can go bankrupt, never can be unable to pay any bill. In short, the so-called “debt crisis” is an accounting myth.

And today, I’m going to prove it to you.

I am holding in my hand a genuine U.S. coin, made of platinum.[Holds up coin]

Look at it closely. It’s denomination is $20 trillion.

[Turns to Ben Bernanke]I am giving this coin to Chairman Ben Bernanke, along with a deposit slip, and asking him to deposit this coin into the appropriate account at the Federal Reserve Bank, to offset the accounting debt.

[Turns back to the camera] There, it is done. Today, the so-called federal debt was $12 trillion. Tomorrow, when you awaken, the federal debt will be zero.

Those debt clocks will have to be rewound to zero. The annual fight over the debt limit will become a distant and unpleasant memory. The accounting myth known as the “federal debt” will be undone by the reality of the $20 trillion platinum coin.

Given this new-found reality, we will act slowly, carefully and prudently. First, I can tell you there will be no tax increases of any kind, not on the rich and not on the poor. This should greatly please my friends on the other side of the aisle.

Then, we will eliminate FICA, the single worst, most unfair, most unnecessary tax ever devised, as it punishes the salaried people, especially at the lowest end, and it punishes companies. It exacerbates unemployment. It fosters recessions.

Again, still moving at a measured pace, we will begin to improve Social Security, by returning the starting age to 65, with a longer term goal of 62, and we will devise ways to increase benefits so that our elderly can actually live on what they receive.

Additionally, our target will be to provide Medicare – free Medicare – to every man, woman and child in American. This will eliminate the need for Medicaid – everyone will be covered by Medicare – and the associate costs to our financially overburden states.

This will not happen tomorrow. It will be done, careful step by careful step, so as never to shock the economy with too many changes at once.

Some of our other targets are to cut unemployment, provide long-term nursing care for everyone, a free college education for all who want it, a salary for attending school, the end to corporate taxes, the reduction in income taxes by annually raising the standard deduction, and many other initiatives that will benefit America.

We will go again to the moon and on to Mars and beyond. We will build the greatest, most advanced civilization the world has ever known, and we will carry the rest of mankind along with us.

For those who hear this and worry about inflation, I give you this solemn promise: Preventing inflation always will be top of mind. That is why we will move carefully. So in addition to giving Chairman Bernanke that $20 trillion platinum coin [Aside: “Please don’t lose it.”], I give him this instruction:

[Turns again to Bernanke] Henceforth, your primary obligation will be the maintenance of inflation at your target rate of 2%. You will have no need to stimulate the economy – a task that sometimes can conflict with inflation prevention. Stimulating the economy will be Congress’s and the President’s job. You will focus on preventing inflation, and you have the tools to do it.

In the unlikely event, it ever should happen that you find yourself losing ground to inflation, and despite your best efforts, inflation were to rise, we will back off on our plans, catch our breath, and await the next opportunity.

But until that happens, we have the power and we judiciously will use it, to bring America back to the healthiest, wealthiest, best educated nation on earth, where poverty and disease and homelessness and hopelessness have all but disappeared and every American adult and every American child lives the American dream.

That is our goal. That is our vision. And together, we can, we will accomplish it.

Sleep well tonight, my fellow Americans, and when you awaken, let us begin this dramatic new journey, together. You will be remembered as the generation that began it all.

God bless America.

Thank you.

AH, IF ONLY IT WERE TRUE.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================

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

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.
==========================================================================================================================================

Readers of this blog know:

1. The U.S. became Monetarily Sovereign on August 15, 1971. Unlike the states and local governments (and the euro nations), the U.S. has the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency, the dollar. It never can run short of dollars. It never can be “broke.” It does not need to ask anyone – not you, not me, not China – for dollars.

2. Our children and grandchildren never will pay the federal debt, which is nothing more than the total of dollars in specific savings accounts at the Federal Reserve bank. It is completely unlike personal debt, and is not burden whatsoever on the government or on the economy.

3. In fact, the federal deficit is a surplus for the economy, which is why The federal deficit is absolutely necessary for economic growth. It cannot cause inflation until we reach full employment. Even then, the Fed cures inflation by raising interest rates.

4. Thus, the debt “crisis” is a fraud, made up by politicians to please the upper .1% income group. Why? To cut the debt, the government must cut benefits for the middle and lower classes – Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment etc., while raising FICA, the worst tax ever invented to hurt working people.

The upper .1% continually wants to increase the income gap between the rich and the rest, and the easiest way to do that is to take money from the rest. So, to cut the deficit, they bribe politicians via campaign contributions, which our pro-wealth Supreme Court has made even easier.

The Democrats and Republicans invented the debt crisis, in order to make the only possible “solution:” Starve the middle and lower classes, thus increasing the gap. You have been sold a lie.

That is the background to the following article:

Boehner pins responsibility for avoiding ‘fiscal cliff’ on Obama, Democrats

By Ed O’Keefe and Lori Montgomery, Updated: Friday, December 21,

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) sought to shift responsibility Friday to President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Senate to reach an agreement to avert a series of spending cuts and tax hikes after his fellow Republicans delivered a stunning rebuke to Boehner’s own plan to raise taxes on those making more than $1 million.

Boehner vowed to continue negotiating with the White House to avert the “fiscal cliff.” He said his plan failed because many of his fellow Republicans simply did not want to be perceived to be raising any taxes.

Translation: “Obama already compromised by offering to raise taxes only on $1 million earners. That, of course, would require additional spending cuts, which will put more burden on the lower classes. But that isn’t good enough for us. We won’t raise any taxes. So, the only possible ‘solution to the debt crisis’ is to slash benefits to the 99.9% — exactly what the .1% wants.”

Boehner said he continues to favor a grand bargain with the president that would set the stage for a dramatic overhaul of the tax code and significant changes in federal entitlement programs./i>

Translation: “When we say, ‘Overhaul of the tax code,’ we really mean, “broaden the base,” i.e make more of you poor people pay more. ‘Changes in entitlement programs’ is our sneak phrase for ‘gut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment. etc.’”

Boehner noted that the House has already passed a bill embodying the Republican position that all Americans should be spared a tax increase in January.

Translation: “Of course, I mean all rich Amerians should be spared a tax increase.”

Asked what went wrong with Plan B, Boehner said: “We had a number of our members who just really didn’t want to be perceived as having raised taxes.”>

Translation: “We had a number of our members who receive so much money from the Kochs et al, they are not allowed to vote for increase taxes on the rich.”

.“It’s too bad Speaker Boehner wasted a week on this futile political stunt — and that’s all we can call it,” Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said. “But at least House Republicans have gotten the message loud and clear: A comprehensive solution to the looming fiscal cliff will need to be a bipartisan solution. No comprehensive agreement can pass either chamber without Democratic and Republican votes.”

Translation: “We have brainwashed the American public into believing a bipartisan solution – any bipartisan solution – is good. So eventually, the Democrats will pretend to compromise, and do what they have said they were going to do all along: Cut benefits for social programs.”

“Instead of making hard choices and compromising, as President Obama has been willing to do, the speaker retreated to his corner and resorted to political stunts,” Reid said later.

Translation: “Obama, always ready to compromise, will sell out the people who elected him.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said. “Democrats may be popping champagne corks today about bringing down Plan B, but all their effort to do so yesterday won’t protect a single taxpayer from a massive tax hike in just a few weeks.”

Translation: “Every single one of us Republicans voted for the fiscal cliff, but now we want the Democrats to get us out of it.”

If Obama and Congress fail to reach a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, many Americans would feel the pain, with less money in their paychecks in the first week of the New Year. In the second week of January, about 2 million jobless Americans who have been relying on federal unemployment insurance would stop receiving checks. By around the middle of the month, hundreds of thousands of doctors who accept Medicare, the health-insurance program for the elderly, would see their reimbursement rates automatically slashed by about 30 percent.

Translation: “The fiscal cliff is nothing more than deficit reduction, also known as “austerity.” It is identical with the austerity that is destroying the euro nations. The President’s and Congress’s solution to austerity is – get this – austerity. They not only want economy-destroying deficit reduction, but they want the 99.9% income group to pay the bill.”

It’s why the .1% have contributed all those millions the Supreme Court said were legal.

“The President will work with Congress to get this done and we are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly that protects the middle class and our economy.”

Translation: “I will screw you, but I will do it in a bipartisan way, which will make you happy. And I will convince you the screwing was necessary. That will be my legacy.”

Sincerely,

Your President
Barack Obama
My place in history is assured.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================

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