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.
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Thank you reader Ian Winograd for calling to our attention this article:
Radio Station Burns $5,000 Cash in Publicity Stunt
By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Healthy LivingA contest, “Bank It or Burn It,” run by 90.3 AMP Radio in Calgary, asked listeners to weigh in on whether the stacks of bills should go to a lucky listener or be set on fire.
Morning cohosts Katie Summers and Ryan Lindsay say they were left with no choice but to follow through when 54 percent responded with the hashtag “#BURN” via text.
The contest continues, this time with $10,000 on the line. But if the outcry so far is any indication, this vote could go much differently.
“I just wanted to let you know that you guys make me sick,” one call-in listener declared, echoing the sentiment that had been building throughout the weekend. Hundreds of commenters have expressed anger.
“Disgrace. Absolute…disgrace, this makes me embarrassed to live in this city.” “I hope AMP literally burns for this. Words can’t explain my disgust.” “. . . the contest shouldn’t have existed in the first place. AMP’s fault.”
A slew of tweets say the burning of the bucks was “stupid,” “dumb” and “selfish,” with some calling for station boycotts and attempting to divert public focus to various charities that are hard up for donations right now.
As reader Winograd said, “There was a huge outcry that the money could have gone to charity. But when Canadians pay their billions of dollars in taxes, and the money is destroyed, there is no outcry. Shouldn’t that be the critical debate?”
Absolutely. There is no functional difference between austerity and burning dollars. In either case, there is less money in the economy than there would have been without the austerity or the burning.
(Yes, paper dollars are not actually dollars; they are titles to dollars. But burning those titles effectively removes dollars from the money supply, identical with a reduction in deficit spending.)
National Post
Federal budget aims for economic growth over cuts to erase deficit
Sarah Boesveld – March 21, 2013OTTAWA — The Conservative government tabled a budget Thursday that relies largely on projected growth instead of new cuts to erase the deficit and balance the budget by the 2015 election.
The budget increases (spending) by less than 1%, “the smallest increase in discretionary spending in nearly 20 years,” according to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. It closes tax loopholes.
“We will not back away from our steadfast commitment to fiscal responsibility,” Mr. Flaherty said in his budget speech. “We will not balance the budget on the backs of hardworking Canadian families or those in need. But we will balance the budget. And we will do it in 2015.”
Translation: “We will cut spending for social services and we will balance the budget on the backs of hardworking Canadian families and those in need. We can get away with this because we have brainwashed you Canadians into wrongly believing the central government is running short of dollars, and that its finances are just like your personal finances.”
Meanwhile Canadians, you have your underwear all in knots, because a radio station burned a few thousand dollars that “could have gone to charity.” But you applaud a government that unnecessarily cuts billions from its budget — billions that could have gone to the needy.
The penalty for ignorance is slavery. Can it get more ignorant than that?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
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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. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
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)
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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
As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.
#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
Yet in spite of all you fail to see, the vast majority, the MMT’ers, MS’ers, and most of your readership continue to believe that a few tweaks here and there made within the current system will provide the fix we need. You all, amazingly, still believe our government and the capitalist system are A-OK. With those tweaks things will get better. Just keep on providing the money to support economic growth. No matter which sectors the growth occurs within. As long as money is not removed from the economy, is not destroyed by taxing (though I’ve yet to see solid proof that it is indeed not just a circular flow) we’ll grow our way to prosperity. Whether or not public purpose is served or not served. Have a read of this commentary:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/25_years_after_exxon_valdez_the_hidden_culprit_was_bp_2014023?mc_cid=a6787843f3&mc_eid=8bde8af3e2et
This is your government working for you. This is BP showing their appreciation for massive tax breaks and subsidies. But they do keep the wheels turning, right.
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Money is what feeds economic growth. Money can be used for good or evil, but without it, the economy, and the people in it, will suffer.
What is your solution?
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umm, i dont believe the vast majority of mmt/ms’ers believe that the path to fixing the problems in this country are as easy as a few tweaks. considering the massive ignorance at the heart of the problem, i would think we all agree it to be a monumental task. we cant even begin to discuss the govt/capitalist system because the people are so intransigent, so stuck on stupid. without the people, the voters, nothing happens, unless of course we resort to rebellion. which, i truly believe, is the only way. europe will lead this fight….
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Depends what you consider to be a “tweak.”
The “Nine Steps to Prosperity,” listed at the end of each post, would go a long way toward economic prosperity while narrowing the gap between the rich and the rest.
For Europe, abandoning the euro, and becoming Monetarily Sovereign would be a giant step forward.
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@chasfa, if you limit economic growth to consumerism, you may have a point. I believe there can be sustainable economic growth that supports human needs without supporting human greed.
PS – the link you reference is broken.
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The entire world is corrupt and the social elites own everything and everyone in all countries. The big business, politics, education, finance, NGO people are all different branches of the Illuminati New World Order. They are the true masters in charge behind the scenes.
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@RL, so what’s your solution? Shall we all just blame these terrible conspiracies?
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I don’t know what the solution to world corruption and conspiracies are. It is too deep and far reaching as the tentacles go everywhere and into everyone. Even the Occupy and Idle No More protests were considered to be a plant. It is a shadow game in the dark, playing both sides from the middle to achieve the big world domination goal. Think about Chancellor/Emperor Palpatine playing the Separatists and Galactic Republic against each other to become dictator in Star Wars. It’s that kind of Machiavellian game. Your friends and enemies could be the same person or groups.
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I agree that massive and successful corruption relies on Machiavellian principles. But by only structuring our world view around the fantasies, such as Star Wars, and reinforcing that world view by pursuing conspiracies down the rabbit-hole to crazy, we solve nothing.
In a nutshell, here’s my current ideas re: corruption:
> corruption is driven by greed;
> greed is driven by scarcity;
> scarcity is driven by the financial aristocracy;
> the financial aristocracy is invested in maintaining the status quo.
Ergo, to reduce corruption, change the status quo. Understanding Monetary Sovereignty and applying it’s principles, or similar ones, is probably the best way to change the status quo.
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Jeff,
If greed were driven by scarcity, wouldn’t poor people be greedier and more corrupt than rich people?
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A challenging question, Rodger.
To parse the question:
Poor people have a legitimate sense of scarcity if their physical and security needs are not met (Maslow again). Are they greedy? I’d say they are, and rightfully so. They want and need more.
Are they more corrupt? Not necessarily, because they are seldom in a position to BE corrupted. But given the opportunity, I believe they would be as corrupt as those who are not poor; e.g., California State Senator Leland Yee. So corruption must be accompanied by opportunity, as well as driven by a sense of scarcity – needing more; and opportunities are more predominate the higher up the power structure one moves.
A sense of scarcity pervades our history and our culture. I believe it is only recently (c. 1970) that humanity has shifted from scarcity to abundance: in the sense of our ability to provide physical and security needs for all humans. Most of us still have a mindset of scarcity, so it’s not unusual for people to be “greedy” – to want more. In support of this hypothesis, I ask how many people would refuse a serendipitous increase in material wealth? I propose very few. One exception is my grandmother-in-law who sent her Social Security checks back, claiming she didn’t need them.
Greed becomes pathological when the scarcity-driven need for more isn’t satisfied by the recognition that “we have enough”: when money, wealth and material resources become the inappropriate means for meeting the higher level human needs of love, belonging, and esteem. At this point, the moral structure breaks down and the means beget the ends: corruption is ok, if you can get away with it. All in service of “getting more”; ergo, scarcity based.
This is why I believe that concepts such as MS and MMT can be of great service. They can help change the paradigm of scarcity, and lead us to a sense of abundance. There is enough to meet all of our physical and security needs. Humans are at a transition point in their evolution. Unless we recognize that we can now provide for all, and restructure the economy to reflect such abundance, we will, at best, be doomed to a couple more centuries of Dark Ages, and at worst (?) extinction.
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Thanks for the recognition, Rodger. The same people who are against the burning of money are also against the “creation of money out of thin air”.
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