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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 motivation.
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MMT followers have a loud voice. They are on TV and the radio, frequently. But progress is minimal, if that. The public remains convinced the federal deficit must be reduced.
I’ve been urging MMT to introduce the economic facts by first revealing the scandal, namely that the 1% intentionally are bribing politicians and the media to beat down the 99%. The bribes are in the form of political contributions and promises of lucrative employment, later. The media, of course, are owned by the 1%. The goal is to widen the gap between the 1% and the 99%; the wider the gap, the more power the 1% has.
The reason to disclose the scandal first is to provide a basis for the public to accept the truth about Monetary Sovereignty. First disclose the lies and the motive; then reveal the truth. That makes the truth more believable.
Sadly, MMT simply cannot bring themselves to accuse the 1%. Perhaps they feel it is beneath them. Or they don’t think the public would accept it (although there is ample evidence the public loves to believe the worst about the rich). So MMT continues trying to explain the facts in ever simpler terms, only to have the public repeatedly throw the facts back with sneers and derision.
Here is yet another example of how the rich want to work the public to death, by delaying and reducing Social Security benefits.
AARP
CEOs Want You to Work Till You’re 70Financial planners have been urging us to work longer to save more for our retirement. Now a group of CEOs is pushing for a plan that would hike the retirement age to 70, meaning you wouldn’t be eligible for full Social Security benefits and Medicare until then.
Currently, workers are eligible to get early Social Security benefits at age 62 and full Social Security benefits at 66; for Medicare, it’s age 65. For workers born in 1960 or later, the eligibility age for full Social Security benefits is 67.
The plan by the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs from some of the largest U.S. companies, would raise the age for Social Security and Medicare for people who are age 54 and younger. Those 55 and older would be protected from the changes.
The CEOs released their proposal amid calls by some lawmakers for spending cuts as part of a deal to raise the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said the government will not be able to make its payments, perhaps as early as mid-February, if the debt ceiling is not raised.
In summary, the CEOs of “some of the largest U.S. companies,” the core of the 1%, have decided to help the 99% by forcing us to work until we’re 70. Of course, we won’t be able to find jobs in our later years, so these largest U.S. companies will be able to hire us for pennies, or force us to beg for money, then criticize us for being sloths.
Additionally, to “save” Social Security, benefits will be cut. One method is to institute a new, cockamamie computation for inflation.
Interestingly, we tend to think the public is stupid for refusing to recognize the truth of Monetary Sovereignty. How stupid are we for refusing to recognize the truth of the 1%’s plan to enslave us?
MMT, are you listening?
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 
No the MMT people are not listening. They are too busy chattering about meaningless hypothenticals like their silly “jobs guarantee,” and whether the Fed could actually refuse to accept a trillion dollar coin.
For them, politicians are “misguided,” and austerity is “puzzling.” Their effeteness is disgusting. They grasped part of the truth, and will budge no further.
Hence I say they are more frustrating than deficit hawks and austerity cultists. I mainly ignore them.
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Roger, I made a comment on your later post, above, before I read this one. And I forgot to say that, along with someone like Philip Agre, whose essay I have linked to here sometimes, you are one of the voices that can not only explain the facts, but can venture into the more speculative realm of motive. It’s not that we don’t know the 1%’s motives; it’s that they are hard to “prove” empirically. They are more in the scope of the “soft” social sciences or political science, or humanistic fields like history. So you and the MMT academics overlap somewhat but are also complementary to each other. There are a few politicians — not very many! — who are valuable too, like Alan Grayson.
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Tim,
“Prove” is something scientists rarely do, if ever. What scientists do is speculate on probabilities. There may not be a statement you can make which has been proved 100%.
True, some things have a high degree of probability, like the world is more round than flat, except even there, some scientists speculate that the universe as we know it, is nothing more than an illusion.
But rather than my continuing to play with words, let’s say this: A scientist should ask questions. In another post, I suggested that MMT followers should ask things like:
“Do you think it is possible that the President of the United States, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Fed, all of their advisers, the Counsel of Economic Advisers and their 400+ PhD economists and all 535 members of Congress — not one of them — understands that federal deficits are private sector surpluses and that federal deficit spending is part of GDP?”.
“And if they do understand that GDP growth relies of deficit growth, what is their motive for not wanting GDP growth?”
“Is it possible the motive is that the politicians are paid by the upper 1% (via political contributions and promises of lucrative employment later) to widen the income gap between them and the 99%? The gap is what makes people rich.”
“If there were no gap, no one would be rich, and the wider the gap, the more power the rich have. Does it sound reasonable that wealthy people like the Koch brothers, Pete Peterson et al — people who also own most of the major media — spend millions, if not billions, to widen the gap? What other reason sounds logical?”
Why are economists — scientists whose job it is to question — not asking those questions, during interviews?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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