Government spending is good. Government taxing is good. It’s all good.

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 ultimately 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.

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

In June, we published Government/media disinformation. You won’t learn this from your morning paper.

The article quotes Reuters “news” service. You know Reuters, that climate-change-denying, terrorism denying, owned-by-the-rich “news” source.

I you read the Reuters article, you’ll see that it claims the government’s purchase of General Motors stock stimulated the economy (by adding dollars to the economy), while the government’s subsequent sale of GM stock benefited taxpayers (by taking dollars from the economy).

Apparently, there is no difference between federal purchases and sales of private sector stocks, an amazing duality of benefit in which no matter what the federal government does, it’s good.

Now today, Time published:

U.S. Treasury Sells Final Shares in General Motors
The U.S. helped bail GM out with $49.5 billion in investments in exchange for an ownership stake
By Anita Hamilton

The United States Treasury has sold off the last bit of the 912 million shares in General Motors it received when it bailed out the automaker in 2009 under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

General Motors said in a press release that the bailout saved 1.2 million jobs. However, taxpayers wound up paying approximately $10 billion to save GM, according to the Detroit News.

Translation: The federal government pumped $10 billion into the economy, which saved 1.2 million jobs. Taxpayers payed an additional $10 billion although no new taxes were levied. No one can explain this.

President Barack Obama also released a statement on the sale.

“Today, we’re closing the book by selling the remaining shares of the federal government’s investment in General Motors. GM has now repaid every taxpayer dollar my Administration committed to its rescue.

The government’s total recovery from all TARP investments is about $432.7 billion.

Translation: The government has benefited taxpayers by taking $432.7 from the private sector. The fewer dollars taxpayers have, the better off they are.

The government will continue to benefit taxpayers by reducing the federal deficit. This will require adding fewer dollars to the private sector, while taking more tax dollars from the private sector.

Since taxpayers constitute the private sector, adding fewer dollars together with taking more dollars, impoverishes the private sector, which somehow benefits taxpayers.

And this is good for the economy.

Please do not ask for an explanation from Time or Reuters, or from the wealthy people who own these “news” services or from the bought-and-paid-for politicians and main stream economists.

And by the way, just because austerity impoverishes the poor far more than the rich, this all has nothing much to do with widening the gap between the rich and the rest. Nothing at all.

If you need an explanation, ask George Orwell.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

—–

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

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Why do the British enjoy committing economic suicide?

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 ultimately 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.
======================================================================================================================================================================================

Britain brilliantly did not give up its Monetary Sovereignty to join the euro nations. It kept its sovereign currency, the pound, and as a result, has the unlimited ability to create its money.

The British government never, and I mean NEVER, can run short of pounds to pay its bills.

Compare their situation with that of Greece, Spain, Italy, France, Ireland and the rest of the euro nations, none of which has a sovereign currency.

They all use the euro, the supply over which, they have no control. They are at the mercy of the EU, which is why they are in trouble. They cannot create the money to pay their debts.

So Britain is safe, right?

Yes, they are safe from the EU, but not safe from their own politicians:

December 4, 2013 9:31 pm
Osborne holds out prospect of surplus
By Chris Giles and George Parker

George Osborne will proclaim on Thursday that a budget surplus is in sight for the first time since the millennium, raising Tory hopes of significant tax cuts in the next parliament after nearly a decade of austerity.

The chancellor will deliver his Autumn Statement against a backdrop of sharply rising growth forecasts, which could pave the way for Britain to be back in the black by 2018-19 – almost two years earlier than seemed likely in March.

What does it mean for a Monetarily Sovereign nation to be “in the black”? For Britain, it means more pounds are sucked out of the private sector than flow in.

And who is the private sector? The citizens of Britain.

A government surplus = a private sector deficit. The British citizens are being impoverished.

Although Mr Osborne will say tax cuts should be introduced when the country can afford them, he will also urge Tory MPs not to get carried away by the recent recovery, with austerity far from over.

However the chancellor may struggle to contain the euphoria of Conservative MPs who believe that new growth forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility will confirm their view Mr Osborne’s fiscal Plan A has been fully vindicated.

Ah the euphoria of the conservatives, watching the populace starve in economic misery. How wonderful, that the gap between the rich and the rest, grows wider and wider and wider.

It’s what the rich pay the conservatives to do.

Once the government is running a surplus, David Cameron has made it clear he would seek to reduce taxes.

He will reduce taxes primarily on the rich, because after all, they pay the most taxes. And, the rest of Britain’s population will make so little money, they’ll pay little taxes, anyway.

And now for the funniest line of the entire article:

Speaking from China, he said the country needed “to put some money aside”, but added “it is possible to reduce people’s taxes as your economy recovers”.

“Put some money aside”? The British government already has the unlimited ability to create pounds. So where is “aside”?

This surely is one of the nuttiest statements any politician ever has made, perhaps exceeded only by, “Trust me.”

Ed Balls, shadow chancellor, will insist that the recovery is not feeding into household budgets and that working people are £1,600 a year worse off than when David Cameron entered Downing St.

What a surprise. Working people are suffering because of Britain’s austerity. Not to worry. The rich are doing just fine — better than ever.

To address Labour’s successful “cost of living” attack, Mr Osborne is expected to cancel a planned rise in fuel duty as well as confirming a transferable married couples tax allowance and free school meals for all infants.

To help fund those plans – costing about £2.3bn – the chancellor will announce a further cut of £1bn a year from central government spending, a foretaste of much bigger reductions planned for the next parliament in welfare and other spending.

The usual political magic show. “Focus on my hand putting a tiny bit of money in your hand, but pay no attention to my other hand stealing lots of money from your pockets.”

The rich grow richer; the poor grow poorer. And everyone who matters, is happy.

During the bombings of WWII, Britain learned to live down in the tube. They soon may learn to do it, again. So, stiff upper lip; keep calm and carry on.

Conservative George Osborne is the British government’s version of Jack Kevorkian.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

—–

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

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–How you can make a few million (I’d do it, but I’m too old to start something new.)

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 ultimately 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.

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

The other night, on the 60 Minutes TV show, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos revealed he was developing drones that would deliver 5-lb packages to your house in under a half hour.

Order that book or weight/size equivalent and a half hour later, it’s in your hands. A bit slower than a Kindle, but especially impressive for non-book items.

monetary sovereignty

Obviously lots of problems to be worked out: Package dimensions, the cost of the carrier, reliability of the drones, FAA clearances, trees, weather — the list goes on and on. But yesterday’s impossible is today’s necessary and tomorrow’s passe, as yesterday’s Cathode ray TVs and today’s smart phones have demonstrated.

So, I’m guessing Bezos will do it. And when he does, here’s where you can make a bundle: Drone garages.

Cars are parked in garages to protect them from weather and thievery. Before there were cars, garages did not exist. Now garages are everywhere. And they’re not little things. A tiny garage is 500 square feet, and 10 feet tall.

So (you guessed it) we will need drone garages, to protect our packages from the weather, mishaps and thieves. (You don’t want that drone dropping your package into a snow bank or on top of your car parked in the driveway, do you?)

Some of the features of a drone garage might be:

1. Your drone garage should be large enough to accommodate a drone with a package.
It’s probably bigger than what the above pictures indicate. Maybe as big as a car garage, as drone delivery expands.

Initially though, I suspect your drone garage will be mounted on a pole, ala bird houses. Later, it probably will be an integral part of your house.

2. You’ll want a radio-controlled door the drone can open before it enters, and closes when it leaves.
When drone delivery catches on, Amazon won’t be the only one to do it. So who owns the garage door opener? I suspect you’ll set up a code with each retailer — something like online ordering — and the drone will be given a one-time access to your drone garage.

3. Also, the door may have multiple openings large enough (and high enough?) to fit the drone, but not fit any strangers walking by (You don’t want strangers wandering into your drone garage.) The drone could signal your garage what size opening to provide.

4. Your drone garage probably would need a homing beacon. Google Maps/Navigation might get the drone in front of your house, but a beacon would be needed to find the door.

5. And then there are apartments. Drone garages could be mounted in windows, and fortunately, you invested in that beacon (#4), so the drone would have no trouble finding your garage.

6. Your drone garage should be heated, air conditioned and refrigerated, in case the drone delivers something cold- or heat-sensitive. And what about delivery of food? That’s where a refrigerator comes in.

7. Your garage should signal your smart phone that a delivery has been made, and if it’s a “smart garage,” it will bring the package right into your house

So there it is: Your million dollar business. Drone garages. No one should be without one.

(When you get the patents, please make sure I receive my share.)

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

—–

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

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–What do “Divide & Rule,” “Fairness” and “Food Stamps” have in common.

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 ultimately 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.

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

What do “Divide & Rule,” “Fairness” and “Food Stamps” have in common?

Divide & Rule

The most common variation is to win by having your opponents fight each other.

Traiano Boccalini cites “divide et impera” as a common principle in politics. The use of this technique is meant to empower the sovereign to control subjects, populations, or factions of different interests, who collectively might be able to oppose his rule.

Machiavelli identifies a similar application to military strategy, that a Captain should divide the forces of the enemy, either by making him suspicious of his men in whom he trusted, or by giving him cause that he has to separate his forces, and, because of this, become weaker.

Divide and Rule is the strategy the rich use to maintain control over us.

Fairness

UCLA psychologist(s) explore(d) fairness and self-interest in the laboratory. In (one) test, Person A has $23, which they can divide in any way they want with Person B. All Person B can do is accept or reject it; there is no negotiation. If Person B rejects the offer, neither of them gets any money.

Whatever Person A offers to Person B is an unearned windfall, even if it’s a miserly $5 out of $23, so a strict utilitarian would take the money and run. But that’s not exactly what happens in the laboratory.

If Person B felt the offer was unfair, he might reject it, even though that meant he would get nothing. Rejecting money is completely illogical and self-harmful. But this is exactly what people do, when faced with what they believe to be unfairness.

And this human failing is what the rich use against us.

Food Stamps

Brotman: SNAP Challenge is no snap
Barbara Brotman, Chicago Tribune, December 2, 2013

I was embarking on “the SNAP Challenge”. I was going to spend the week eating only what I could afford on the average benefit an individual gets on food stamps, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The national average for an individual is $31.50 a week — $1.50 a meal. Illinois recipients got an average of $34 a week before an increase in food stamps benefits to help people during the recession expired. The average probably now will be closer to $31.25.

And Congress is poised to shrink the program further. The House has proposed $40 billion in cuts; the Senate, $4.5 billion.

So what would the challenge be like?

Unpleasant, said Kate Maehr, executive director of the Greater Chicago Food Depository, who has taken it several times.

“I just feel crappy,” she said. “Part of it is physical; I’m having more carbohydrates than I typically do, and I feel sluggish. But some of it is mental. Thinking about food so often when you are physically feeling hungry is a terrible predicament to be in.”

Stephanie Sklar, director of domestic affairs for the Jewish Community Relations Council said $31.50 is just not enough. “It’s impossible to do it in a healthy way.”

I began my education at Aldi’s, where I figured my allowance would stretch furthest. Milk, cereal, chicken thighs, cheese, sliced turkey, one grapefruit, lettuce, grapes — I was up to $18.91, and the lettuce was my only vegetable. I put back the grapefruit.

I got generic tuna, generic chocolate cookies and the store’s cheapest sandwich bread. My only other vegetable, a bag of three peppers, cost as much as the chicken.

Read the entire article and consider what a starvation diet does to people. Think of what it does to children — to their minds and bodies.

Now, getting back to the title of this post: What do “Divide & Rule,” “Fairness” and “Food Stamps” have in common?

The upper .1% income group wants the gap between the rich and the rest to widen. Without the gap, no one would be rich, and the wider the gap, the richer are the rich.

The easiest way to widen the gap is to impoverish the middle classes and the poor. In essence, a “99%er” wanting to increase his income is an enemy of the .1%.

So to widen the gap, and defeat the 99%, the rich use a Divide & Rule (aka “Divide & Conquer”) strategy. They convince us, the 99%, that it is unfair for some people to receive free help from the government while others don’t.

If we personally don’t receive food stamps, or unemployment compensation, or Medicaid or any other federal benefit, we are told to resent those who do.

The 1% (i.e. the media, politicians and university economists — all owned by the 1%) give us “good reasons” for this resentment.

The strategy is to convince us that not only are the poor receiving unfair benefits, but they are unworthy of any benefit. We are told these people are “lazy takers,” who would rather subsist on charity than work.

We are brainwashed to accept the rich as the “makers,” who create the jobs, and so deserve all the benefits they receive in the form of tax breaks and exorbitant salaries. It’s a lie.

(Companies of all sizes create jobs, but very few of the rich themselves ever created a single job. CEOs, Directors, Shareholders, Bankers, Wall Street Traders — those are the upper .1% — and almost none of them ever created a job. They are the real takers.)

We are made to accept that the Waltons deserve to luxuriate in their billions, while Walmart workers barely deserve their starvation minimum wage, which should be reduced further. It’s a lie.

(The Waltons do everything possible to extract dollars from the working poor and from America. They buy from overseas, taking jobs from American companies; they underpay their workers; they put smaller American businesses — the real job creators — into bankruptcy).

We are told the government “can’t afford” such benefits, and these programs are “socialist” and “unsustainable” and “inflationary.” We are told our children and grandchildren will pay for these benefits. It’s a lie.

(The government never can run short of dollars. Our children and grandchildren do not pay for federal spending in this Monetarily Sovereign nation. And socialism is not government spending; it is government ownership. And there is no historical relationship between federal deficit spending and inflation.)

With these lies, the very rich retain power over us. They divide us to rule us. They give us reasons to hate others in our 99%.

The rich use false “fairness” to make us reject what actually would be good for us (more unemployment compensation, more support for the poor, better Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits), by convincing us these not only are unaffordable, but undeserved.

And we fall for it. Every time we sneer at “food stamp mothers” — every time we criticize the unemployed and those receiving unemployment compensation and those on Medicaid — every time we do the dirty work of the rich, we fall for it and we hurt our own futures.

How much longer will we remain their dupes? How much longer will we cannibalize our own children and grandchildren?

How much longer?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

—–

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

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY