–How to bribe the President, in 3 easy steps.

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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 motive.
=====================================================================

Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (housing the best economics department in America, if not the world), wrote the following article for Naked Capitalism: How Dare DOJ Insult HSBC’s Crooks as Less “Professional” than Liberty Reserve’s Crooks?

As usual, with Bill’s articles, he details the utter criminality of the “too-big-to-fail” banks and their “too-big-to-jail” leaders.

For example:

I described in a prior article how HSBC hit the money launderer’s trifecta.

1. Laundered billions of dollars for some of the most murderous drug gangs in the world. These gangs have murdered many thousands of Mexicans and devastated much of the nation.

2. Aided Iranian entities to evade U.S. financial sanctions on Iran. If Iran is actually developing a nuclear weapon and if it uses such a weapon to attack it could kill tens of thousands of people and HSBC and Standard Chartered will likely have proven useful to Iran in developing the weapon.

3. Aided Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda to evade U.S. financial sanctions. The U.S. considers them terrorist organizations.

Bill compares Liberty Reserve, the accused money-launderer, with the big banks (just as we did in “Apparently they didn’t contribute enough to the Obama campaign.”)

And, just as we often have, Bill complains about the Obama adminsitration’s willingness to jail comparative small fry like Liberty Reserve, but reluctance to go after the big crooks.

And as usual, Bill tells a compelling story, but fails to tell WHY the government won’t jail the banksters.

The answer, as we have been telling you for years is: Barack Obama has been bribed by the upper .1% income people to govern for their benefit.

When I ask MMTers why they refuse to use the “B” (bribed) word, they tell me there is no evidence of bribery. (To these innocent souls, bribery looks like a fat envelope, surreptitiously slipped into the desk drawer of a cigar-chomping politician.)

Sorry, MMT, that is not how you bribe the President of the United States. Little, dumb Chicago aldermen get caught that way, but big-time, national politicians use a different system — a system they have made legit — a system endorsed by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Here’s Easy Step 1. Campaign contributions.

Chicago Tribune
Obama returns to Chicago for fundraising pitch
By John Byrne and Kim Geiger, May 30, 2013

At the Hilton, about 100 supporters were on hand at a reception where tickets started at $1,000 each and topped out at $5,000 for two tickets and a photo.

From there, Obama headed to the Streeterville home of longtime supporters Bettylu and Paul Saltzman. Tickets there ran from $10,000 for dinner and photo to $50,000 for a table, photo and preferred seating.

When you read a number like $50,000 for a table, photo and preferred seating, you have to believe one of two things: Either rich people don’t care about money, or they want something special done.

My acquaintance with rich people tells me the former never is true, while the later always is true. For instance:

Penny Pritzker nominated for Commerce secretary
May 02, 2013|By Christi Parsons, Melissa Harris and Katherine Skiba | Tribune staff

Chicago business executive Penny Pritzker was nominated by President Barack Obama to become the new Secretary of Commerce on Thursday, in an expected move that could prove controversial for the longtime political supporter and fundraising heavyweight.

Her nomination, which still needs Senate confirmation, also could bring up questions about the failure of a bank partly owned by her family.

(She) was Obama’s national finance chair in his first campaign for the White House and co-chair of his reelection campaign.

Billionaire Penny Pritzker is Obama’s big money. She also is Chicago’s big money. No expensive deals are done in Chicago without her knowledge and/or involvement.

Another Chicago Tribune article said:

A 61-page report carrying the seal of the Treasury’s inspector general, chronicles the 2001 failure of Pritzker’s Superior Bank after Pritzker and her family expanded subprime lending there and did pioneering work with the kind of mortgage-backed securitization that would eventually spread and help spark the worst recession since the Great Depression.

When it closed, Superior was one of the nation’s largest bank failures in a decade. Throughout the 1990s, Superior had reported rising profits that allowed it to distribute about $200 million in dividends to shareholders, specifically the Pritzkers.

Clint Krislov, a Chicago attorney who represented depositors in both the state lawsuit and a federal one against the bank and Penny Pritzker accused her family of improperly taking those dividends based on an over-valuation of the bank’s assets. “No one else appears to have taken a crashed bank and crashed it again and kept $200 million in profits,” said Krislov.

Fear not. The Department of Justice won’t investigate Barack Obama’s cash machine.

Next easy step: If campaign contributions are easy step 1 in bribing a President, what is easy step 2? Lucrative work afterward.

Bill Clinton’s $106M speech circuit windfall
By Robert Yoon CNN Political Research Director, May 23, 2013

According to a CNN analysis of 12 years of federal financial records, former President Bill Clinton had his most active and profitable year on the lecture circuit in 2012, delivering 73 speeches for $17 million from mid-January 2012 through mid-January 2013.

That brought his total haul in speaking fees since leaving the White House to $106 million.

That’s an average of $233,000 per speech. The upper .1% run the charities and the other groups that are ready, willing and able to hire Bill Clinton and give him that obscene amount of payback.

The crown jewel of Clinton’s administration was his federal surplus, which caused the recession immediately following his exit from office. Recessions widen the gap by hurting the 99.9% far more than the .1%.

Bill did his job, well, and he has been rewarded well.

Then, there is the 3rd easy step in bribing a President. Take care of the family:

Chelsea Clinton was an assistant vice provost at NYU. She’s also a special correspondent at NBC News.

Chelsea might have great qualifications to be “assistant vice provost” (whatever that is) at New York University. And she may be a top notch “special correspondent” (whatever that is) at NBC News.

And maybe paying off her father for his services rendered, had nothing to do with her getting those jobs.

But watch for Michelle, Malia and Sasha to get extremely pleasant and lucrative jobs, when Barack leaves office.

In summary, bribing the President is a 3 (easy) step procedure:
1. Political contributions, while he’s in office.
2. Lucrative jobs for him when he leaves office.
3. Take care of the family.

That is the gentlemen’s agreement between the .1% and the President. They know it. He knows it. And to get along, he goes along.

How? Here’s just one of many, many examples. Tax breaks.

Los Angeles Times
Tax breaks benefit rich households the most, report says
By Lisa Mascaro, Washington Bureau, May 29, 2013

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the top 10 major tax breaks “are distributed unevenly across the income scale,” with the top 1% of households — those who make more than $450,000 a year — receiving more than 17% of the savings in 2013.

The top tax breaks include the mortgage-interest deduction, the low rate on dividends and capital gains, breaks for charitable giving and the tax-free status of employer-sponsored healthcare plans.

Almost 70% of the benefit of the lower tax rate for capital gains and dividends is going to households in the top percentile.

The tax code is skewed to favor the rich. That is why taxes on payroll income are levied at a higher rate than taxes on capital gains. And that is why businessescan deduct for business expenses, but families cannot deduct for family expenses.

There you have it. Three simple steps in the bribing of a President. No envelope slipped into a desk drawer. The money is way too big for an envelope.

Greedy Presidents are well aware of the established quid pro quo: “Mr. President, you take care of us now, and we’ll take care of you later.”

And it’s all legit. The lawmakers, i.e. the bribed, passed the laws that make taking bribes O.K.

Easy.

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. Click here
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%

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

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:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY