–Note to those economists who refuse to tell the truth

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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, and the motive is the gap.
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This is a note to all economists, even to those who do tell the truth about the economy, but not about the politics of the economy.

I mean you Bill, Matthew, Stephanie and Randy of UMKC. I mean you, Warren, founder of MMT. I mean you, James at UT — all of you who are well aware the politicians are lying, but who refuse to say outright that they have been bribed to lie.

OpEd News
Retiring Obama Administration Prosecutor Says the SEC Is Corrupt; Prior Reports Indicate Administration’s Corruption

Bloomberg News reported, on April 8th, that a Securities and Exchange Commission prosecuting attorney, James Kidney, said at his recent retirement party on March 27th, that his prosecutions of Goldman Sachs and other mega-banks had been squelched by top people at the agency, because they “were more focused on getting high-paying jobs after their government service than on bringing difficult cases.”

As we have been saying for months and months, the politicians have been bribed by campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment, later. Perhaps I missed it, but to date, I’ve not seen those words come out of UMKC, UT or MMT.

President Obama personally led in this lying. (He) . . . said: “This bill nearly doubles the FBI’s mortgage and financial fraud program, allowing it to better target fraud in hard-hit areas. That’s why it provides the resources necessary for other law enforcement and federal agencies, from the Department of Justice to the SEC to the Secret Service, to pursue these criminals, bring them to justice, and protect hardworking Americans affected most by these crimes.

“It’s also why it expands DOJ’s authority to prosecute fraud that takes place in many of the private institutions not covered under current federal bank fraud criminal statutes — institutions where more than half of all subprime mortgages came from as recently as four years ago.

“I’m asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis.

“This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.”

That’s what Obama said. This is what he did:

Two years later, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice issued on 13 March 2014 its “Audit of the Department of Justice’s Efforts to Address Mortgage Fraud,” and reported that Obama’s promises to prosecute turned out to be just a lie. DOJ didn’t even try; and they lied even about their efforts.

On 27 March 2009, Obama assembled the top executives of the bailed-out financial firms in a secret meeting at the White House and he assured them that he would cover their backs; he promised “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks“.

So, Bill, Matthew, Stephanie, Randy, Warren, James et al — you who speak out about the need for deficits and lies about “debt,” — why have you been so reluctant to tell America the reason WHY the politicians lie?

“It is not enough in a situation of trust in the commonwealth, that a man means well to his country; it is not enough that in his single person he never did an evil act, but always voted according to his conscience, and even harangued against every design which he apprehended to be prejudicial to the interests of his country.

“This innoxious and ineffectual character, that seems formed upon a plan of apology and disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That duty demands and requires that what is right should not only be made known, but made prevalent; that what is evil should not only be detected, but defeated.

“When the public man omits to put himself in a situation of doing his duty with effect it is an omission that frustrates the purposes of his trust almost as much as if he had formally betrayed it. It is surely no very rational account of a man’s life, that he has always acted right but has taken special care to act in such a manner that his endeavours could not possibly be productive of any consequence.”

Edmund Burke

Why do you MMTers seem to attribute the lies to ignorance rather than to corruption and bribery? It isn’t ignorance. It’s fraud, and you know it. And by not saying it, you participate in the fraud.

If you witness a crime, but excuse it as ignorance, you are culpable.

Everything in economics devolves to motive. What’s yours?

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)

—–

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. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Published by Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

MBA Northwestern, business turnaround expert, economist

Published

45 thoughts on “–Note to those economists who refuse to tell the truth”

  1. “Charles H. Keating Jr., who went to prison and came to symbolize the $150 billion savings-and-loan crisis a generation ago after fleecing thousands of depositors with regulatory help from a group of United States senators known as the Keating Five, has died. He was 90.” (New York Times)

    Charles Keating went to prison because Barack Obama wasn’t President.

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    2. 1. Charles Keating was simply “misguided,” as are all financial criminals.

      2. This retired SEC attorney James Kidney needs to be careful. In Washington, most whistle-blowers are imprisoned as traitors (unless they flee into exile like Edward Snowden). To expose the crimes of politicians and rich people is to be a “terrorist” who “threatens national security.”

      3. Rodger writes, “If you witness a crime, but excuse it as ignorance, you are culpable.”

      Indeed, since without your cooperation the criminals could not commit their crimes. You are a co-conspirator. Examples include deficit doves like Paul Krugman who say we must have austerity, only not right now. Their half-truths are worse than lies, since they snare people who might otherwise not believe the Big Lie.

      Warren Mosler refers to the Big Lie as an “innocent fraud.” Stephanie Kelton calls herself a “deficit owl,” as opposed to a deficit dove or hawk. I call her a deficit monkey. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

      In fact, here’s a picture of Kelton, Mosler, and Wray reacting to a student’s question about human motives in economics…

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  2. Roger, they are absolutely ignorant of the fact.

    It was recognized in Athens and Sparta ten centuries before the birth of Christ that oneof the most vital prerogatives of the State was the sole right to issue money. How curious thatthe unique quality of this prerogative is only now being re-discovered.

    The” money-power ” which has been able to overshadow ostensibly responsible government, is not the power of the merely ultrarich,but is nothing more nor less than a new technique designed to create and destroy moneyby adding and withdrawing figures in bank ledgers, without the slightest concern for the interests of the community or the real role that money ought to perform therein.The more profound students of money and, more recently, a very few historians have realized the enormous significance of this money power or technique, and its key position in shaping thecourse of world events through the ages. In this book the mode of approach and the philosophyof money is expounded in the light of a group of new doctrines…

    It is concerned less with the details of particular schemes of monetary reform that have been advocated than with the general principles to which, in the author’s opinion, every monetary system must at long last conform, if it is to fulfill its proper role as the distributive mechanism of society. To allow it to become a source of revenue to private issuers is to create, first, a secret and illicit arm of the government and, last, a rival power strong enough ultimately to overthrow all other forms of government.”

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        2. You’re not advocating his removal from office by some means other than an election, are you? If you think the NSA is bad, try pissing off the Secret Service.

          Anyway, I didn’t say to wait for an election, I said it was too late. You had your chance and you blew it. There is nothing of substance in this post that you didn’t know in 2012.

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        3. golfer

          I admire your imagination. When I say “do something about it,” you immediately translate that into some sort of illegal action against the President.” Says quite a bit about you, doesn’t it?

          “Do something about it,” means try to influence the dialog: Write letters; make calls; start blogs; join groups,” and puleeeeze, not the violence you may be thinking of.

          November 2012 gave you nothing but Hobson’s choices.

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        4. Seems to me there is already plenty of talk, and way too much anger. Talking, blogging, etc. is not “doing”. You suggested doing something. I said that the “something” to do is voting. You said voting is ineffective, so what is it that you want Jeff to “do”, besides fill the blogoshpere with anger? Don’t answer, that’s a rhetorical question.

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        6. @golfer, since my name came up, I have an excuse to chime in. Your question is a good one: what can I (we) do? I have to agree with Rodger that voting is ineffective and has recently become more so under the current landscape. As I’ve said many times, it comes down to Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dumber (starting to get tired of that saw). I still vote though, since it’s the only game in town (ref: previous story about gambling miner).

          Exchanging ideas on this blog is a BIT like going to church might be for me, insofar as I can sing with the choir (except for None/Bapoy/whomeversheis – she’s always off key, singing a different tune 🙂 But I don’t think we’re doing anything on this blog that will dramatically produce positive outcomes, at least not directly. To even find the blog, one has to have some interest in the topic, and most folk have none. I must add that this blog has also been a tremendous aid in understanding the nascent ideas in my head.

          I feel SLIGHTLY more accomplished when I discuss monetary sovereignty and MMT on other blogs. But the best I can hope for is to plant a seed of curiosity about money and how it works/doesn’t work. I have yet to come across other folk who understand or support what I’m talking about, and few who will even tolerate such radical thoughts. Perhaps this is validation for quatloosx’s perspective that it’s not possible to convince others; too far gone (hope I’m close to correct on that, quatloosx).

          I’ve considered taking the message on the road, but believe the audience would be smaller than on the Internet, and I don’t have sufficient confidence in my own effectiveness. Also can’t ignore what happened to Howard Beale in the movie Network.

          For any effective progress, I believe there needs to be a “movement”. In addition to the intellectual and theoretical background, such “movement” has to have:
          – a clear, understandable (for the “layperson”) message;
          – actionable items with definable and very specific outcomes;
          – effective use of technology;
          – an effective market plan; and
          – a strong, participative organization.

          IMO, It will take a strong, reasonably well financed organization.
          Anyone personally know a well heeled individual person or organization that wants to save the world? I believe the issue is that serious.

          I’ve often wondered if all similar monetary reform movements could find common enough ground to work together. So far what I’ve perceived is internecine squabbling over theoretical matters. And I’m not talking about just this blog. It brings to mind the routine by the 1980’s comedian, Imo Phillips on religious belief. See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2y_kI_-x1Q

          So I continue to read, think, and comment in the public space. But maybe the only effective thing TO do is encourage others to do SOMETHING. Whadda’ ya think?

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        7. “For whom do you plan to vote? Which candidate will grow the economy while narrowing the wealth/income gap?”

          In 2012, I voted for the one who wanted to cut taxes 20% across the board, rejecting the one who said raising taxes would be good for the economy. I was a “one-issue” voter in that one.

          In 2014, I think the major issue for me is going to be Obamacare. It’s doing much harm and very little good outside the specific provisions that the R’s agree with. One I would support that they don’t is expanding Medicaid. I’m most upset about the way the House passed the law, and the unconstitutional ways in which it has been implemented, or ignored. I’m probably throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but I think we need to respect the law, and a statement to that effect is necessary. If a Democrat advocated fixing the problems with it, I would consider her. I don’t think 2014 will make a whole lot of difference, so I’ll probably vote straight Libertarian, even in close races. Even if the Rs take the Senate, the filibuster and the veto will make the next 2 years just like the last 4.

          In 2016, there are no candidates yet, but no way would I vote for Hillary. She’s a proven liar and has no helpful economic policy proposals. We have two years to advance an MMT candidate. I’m not optimistic, but hope springs eternal.

          I like “ask then vote”, but we need a platform to ask from. I submitted questions to the Channel 5 reporter who got to interview Obama for about 22 seconds, and she ignored them. Without the proper questions, we can only listen to their answers and inspect their records: cut taxes, or raise them?

          Jeff, there are economists on network TV: Krugman, Reich, and others. We need an MMT guy in some of those positions. UMKC MMTers declare huge successes (“we’re winning!!”) when they get a few minutes exposure on CNBC shows watched by nobody and hosted by unabashed Progressives, who are treated like poison by liberal politicians. It’s almost unintentional self-parody.

          MMT needs a bigger megaphone. Somebody on the networks every night who can laugh out loud every time a politician says something silly about money. And a reporter who gets to ask questions at the White House Press conference. Lacking either of those, there is little we can do except vote for a candidate who says he wants to cut taxes.

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        8. Qupte from comment on…http://ellenbrown.com/2014/04/13/the-global-banking-game-is-rigged-and-the-fdic-is-suing/?replytocom=64744#respond

          There are three women that would make a better president than Hillary Clinton. They have stood up to the banks, advocated for the American consumer, and been beaten down by Wall Street Democrat henchmen like Rubin and Summers, without a peep from Bill Clinton or Obama. They are Brooksley Born, Sheila Bair, and Elizabeth Warren. They fought for derivative regulation, making big banks pay for their mistakes, and protecting consumers from the Wall Street vultures. And they never have gotten any credit for it from the people they worked for.

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      2. as I’ve stated previously, I sometimes go on so called “left leaning” sites (salon, atlantic, nymag, nytimes) and comment whenever there is an article about the economy (or even when it’s not about the economy, per se). the ignorance and arrogance never ceases to amaze, and this is when you remove the conservative trolls. inevitably, it devolves to statements like this, which I received yesterday, “Monetary sovereignty is nothing more than a state being in control of its own money (i.e. supply, interest rates, etc). Anyone who’s taken an intro econ class knows this. You seem to believe it equates to some magical power that defies the basic principles of economics and frees that state from any reliance on tax revenue.”….. and this is after I have explained in detail where they have it wrong, after I have explained their contradictions. I do not have hope, because for the system to change, the people must be open to ideas, and this country has been on a slow intellectual death for decades……

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        1. I suspect it’s similar to trying to convince a 17th Century Catholic Bishop that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Long lived paradigms are difficult to change. I have similar problems on blogs I post on re: monetary sovereignty. I’m recently trying to make headway by asking questions such as, “Where does money comes from?” Lecturing or arguing seems to be counter productive, and has, on occasion, elicited name calling and insults. I don’t tolerate that.

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        1. No, I’m registered independent, but haven’t voted for very many Democrats. When I want to “make a statement” I usually vote for the Libertarian, but have also gone for Ralph Nader, who is very close to the Libertarian position on many issues.

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        2. Jeff asks, “Anyone personally know a well heeled individual person or organization that wants to save the world? I believe the issue is that serious.”

          At one time, I thought the “Occupy” movement might do it. I contacted them several times (See the various “Occupy” links on this blog.)

          But, they resist having a clear-cut direction, do not understand Monetary Sovereignty and have no desire to learn.

          They are against a multitude of things, but offer no solutions and have no arguments to counter “The country can’t afford it.”

          So they flop around, protesting this and protesting that, with very few real accomplishments.

          It’s a pity, because with all that energy and manpower, they could make a big difference, if only . . . . yes, if only.

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        4. I like to think of myself as a small “l” libertarian. I don’t know if I’ve said this here before, but I see politics as a circle rather than a line. Liberal on the left (9:00), conservative on the right (3:00), totalitarian at 6:00 and libertarian at 12:00. Mainstream Republicans are at 4:00, mainstream Democrats at 8:00.

          Bernie Sanders or Ralph Nader at 11:30 and Rand Paul at 12:30 are a lot closer to each other than to most members of the two parties that would support them, in a 2-person race.

          I’m not sure where to put the Tea Party. They’re a little bit schizophrenic. Fundamentalist Christians are at 5:30, but they seem to like Rand Paul a lot. Not sure what they’d do if he were elected and announced that laws against recreational drug use would not be enforced until 2017, along with the employer mandate.

          BTW, I see nothing in any of the popular American (or European) political species that is at all in conflict with MMT. (It would be difficult for a real totalitarian to push for full employment.) I think almost all American politicians, regardless of their politics, could support MMT if they could just learn about it. The only question in politics that has to do with economics is about the size of government, and MMT doesn’t specify a size of government, it can be done either way. The reason politicians support particular economic policies is related to their politics, not to their understanding or support of any particular theory of economics. Most of them couldn’t articulate any theory of economics.

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  4. For the same reason that you facilitate the rigged, fraudulent and largely criminal enterprise that is Wall Street and the mafia corporations that comprise it. For the same reason that you support a system which is not democratic, has no concern for public purpose, is exploitative, and destroys the environment; while robbing your children’s and grand children’s future and the future of all life that exists on what could be this exquisite place.

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  5. == Off topic ==

    THE BIG LIE IS GLOBAL

    As I keep saying, rich people in China use austerity and the Big Lie to widen the gap between themselves and the peasants. Hence the Chinese government is imposing austerity and neo-liberal “reforms” with a vengeance. Mass privatization, cuts in social programs, manipulation of the financial markets, stashing loot offshore, propaganda about the “national debt crisis” – it’s all there.

    One Chinese girl has now become the world’s youngest billionaire at age 24. Perenna Kei, a graduate from the University of London, lives in Hong Kong, and has a net worth of $1.3 billion, which she got by inheriting a real estate company built by her father, Ji Haipeng, who is a billionaire tycoon himself.

    Hong Kong now has 45 billionaires, while the city’s other seven million people struggle to get by.

    China overall has the second largest number of billionaires after the USA, and is fast catching up via austerity and the Big Lie. Meanwhile poverty for 1.3 billion regular Chinese people is exploding.

    Actually there are no more “Chinese” people or Russians or Americans or Africans or Polynesians. There are only the rich and the rest. And the gap between them grows wider every day, mainly because of the Big Lie, which is now global.

    http://main.omanobserver.om/?p=62157

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    1. it’s not a financial crisis it’s a wealth heist. It’s not a “Big Lie”, it’s what the parasitic capitalist system feeds on. So what, besides reiterating the words of RMM how about expending your energy seeking and working towards an alternative system? The stench emanating from the financial system is a product of the decay of the entire profit system. That system must be replaced by a higher socioeconomic order in which the vast wealth created by the collective labor of the world working class is deployed to meet human need. The expropriation of the banks and finance houses, placing them under public ownership and democratic control, is the first step in implementing such a program.

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  7. == Off topic ==

    Previously I said that Venezuela has high inflation because the country has cash from its oil sales, but rich people are engineering shortages of consumer goods in order turn the masses against the government. This causes spikes in prices, i.e. inflation.

    Here’s an example…

    Venezuela’s largest privately held company, Empresas Polar, controls most of the country’s food processing and packaging. Its head, Lorenzo Mendoza Giménez, was groomed at Fordham University in New York City, and at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

    Mr. Mendoza is a billionaire oligarch (one of the world’s richest) and therefore opposes Venezuela’s populist government. Except for the years when Hugo Chavez was President, someone from Mendoza’s family has always occupied key positions in Venezuela’s government (e.g. Minister of Agriculture) that allowed them to further enrich themselves at the expense of the masses.

    Mr. Mendoza engineers shortages in consumer goods, and he goes around the country giving speeches against the government, telling the masses that, “What we need to focus on is not politics, but economics.” That is, Mendoza tells the masses to focus on the hunger and the violent crime that Mendoza surreptitiously causes via the shortages.

    Whenever Mendoza gives a public speech at a given place, the local grocery stores fill up with food for the following week or two. Food they get from the companies owned by Mendoza.

    Mendoza does this because he and the US government know that the masses do not respond to political rhetoric as much as they respond to food and hunger. You can crush and enslave the masses, but they will usually not revolt until they cannot find food. (This is why the USA had Food Stamps.) The “Arab spring” (before the West hijacked it) was triggered in all cases by food shortages and rising food prices. And now, rich Venezuelans are trying to trigger a “Latin spring” that will allow them to once more enslave the peasants.

    Mr. Mendoza is especially powerful because Venezuela’s dependence on oil revenues has made the country non-self-sufficient in food production. Venezuela must import most of its raw food stuffs, which Mr. Mendoza processes, packages, and sells to the peasants. Mendoza controls the means of production. Therefore he can legally kill thousands by simply not hiring them, or can legally make a million go hungry by just raising prices or cutting production. Such economic power is far greater than mere political power. Mendoza could engineer a famine that would kill far more people than could any normal army.

    President Maduro calls this an “economic war,” but these tactics are routine for the rich. Their campaign is eternal. Monopolies, engineered shortages, playing with prices — these are all integral parts of capitalism itself. And because President Maduro is prohibited by Venezuela’s constitution from nationalizing everything en mass, Mr. Mendoza has the upper hand.

    Will the oligarchs succeed? I suspect yes, because President Maduro focuses too much on Venezuela’s crime rate, and not enough on the causes of the crime, which is the engineered shortages.

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    1. Wow…..

      That’s the only thing I can say. I stopped reading after the first sentence.

      The rich are holding back on selling things (which makes them money) so that they can take out the government – because……..???

      You think the rich care whether the government is communist or socialist or capitalist? Good or bad? So long as they make money – they don’t give a damn. What’s happening in Venezuela is not being caused by the rich. The rich are actually leaving the country. You are well read and educated – try again with the truth this time….

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    2. Also,

      It’s amazing how one man, singled handed-ly controls a nation of 30 million, without an army, without a vast number of government officials covering his back.

      Yet you think anyone opposing the US government is a terrorist?

      What a crock of sh*t…

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    3. and as I stated a few weeks ago, this is called the “Venezuelan Strategic Plan”, put into effect by the US govt, ex prez of Colombia Uribe, elites in Venezuela, etc. etc……

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  8. When the rich engineer shortages, their profits shoot up along with the prices of consumer goods. (Duh.)

    And no, little clown, the rich are NOT leaving the country. They freely shuttle back and forth between Venezuela and Miami Florida. Have you ever been to Venezuela? Do you speak Spanish? I have, and I do. The rich have been battling the government since Chavez became president in Feb 1999. And when Chavez died on 5 March 2013, the rich saw their chance to finally regain power. That’s when Venezuela’s inflation problems began.

    And no, I do not think that anyone who opposes the US government is a terrorist. I don’t know and don’t care where you get your delusions.

    Anyway, thank you for your (rude and childish) comment.

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    1. Really – profits shoot up?

      I’ll take a gamble and say you have no understanding of economics at all. Shortages may shoot up profits in the VERY, VERY, VERY near term (a week or two?). In the short term, there will be massive losses – including bankruptcy. Say a rich person decided to engineer a shortage – what would stop another rich person from taking advantage of that stupidity to take over market share and put the other rich person out of business? (duh…)

      Unless of course – the government only allowed that other rich guy operate in that country. I’ll let you talk about that (double duh…).

      Here’s a better understanding of what happened in Venezuela:

      1) As you said, Chavez took power in 1999
      2) Chavez seized assets from businesses (oil contractors)
      3) Chavez nationalized businesses (oil rigs)
      4) Venezuela’s output began to drop
      5) Venezuela’s currency was devalued to counter the drop in output (trying to force business to eat the losses)
      6) Venezuela implemented currency controls to counter the outflow due to #1-5
      7) Venezuela’s army seized goods
      8) As a consequence of 1-7, imports dried up (who imports at a loss – you?)
      9) Maduro and the other communists know very well the causes of the issues, but it’s easier to blame it the “bourgeois” or whatever it is they call it.
      10) Venezuela’s youth riot and will continue to riot until there is a major conflict that frees them of their misery and slavery

      I have never visited Venezuela and don’t intend to as long as their leaders continue to be communist fanatics. I grew up in a Latin American country, speak Spanish but can’t understand the envy and hate some of these people have towards the US. Thankfully, my home land has not turned to a cesspool like Venezuela and Cuba – but nonetheless it has turned to the left.

      Sadly, various people have all turned to communism or socialism – weird given that the US has proven that capitalism is the best path to prosperity.

      My comment was not meant to be childish – but it’s not easy to read such nonsense when you know that the writer knows full well the difference between the lies and the truth but chooses to slap a lie in everyone’s face. Shame on you if you are American.

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      1. The rich can and do make money off of engineered shortages all the time – recall Adam Smith:

        People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

        There are plenty of businesses that have become monopolistic, oligopolistic, with free entry into it difficult and a matter of far more than a few weeks, and thus Smithian free trade is much less of a remedy nowadays than he thought then and you think. Whatever the cause – price rigging can cause irreparable damage very quickly.

        And unfortunately the elites are not solely interested in money. They are interested even more in power – what is money worth if you can buy anything else you want? – and part of that power can be making everybody else poorer, desperate, dependent. Increasing what Rodger calls the Gap. Which they have successfully done in the USA for the past 4 decades.

        (1) – (10) don’t describe what happened very well in Venezuela. Chavez, who was of course not perfect did make life much better for the average Venezuelan – far more successfully than the USA during the same time period, which relentlessly tried to thwart Venezuela’s and many other country’s economic development, and as usual, uses elites more loyal to feudalistic, not really capitalistic principles. Loyal to the ultimate sovereign Uncle Sam, rather than their own country.

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  9. quatloosx and None;

    Look at your ideas from the standpoint of the income/power gap between the very rich and the rest. The very rich are perfectly happy to see their income fall, so long as the gap grows (income falls more for the rest.)

    The gap is the key motive in economics. No economics discussion should omit consideration of the gap.

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    1. Exactly correct. A genuinely populist government seeks to narrow the gap. This is not acceptable to the rich, for whom the goal is not profits, per se, but power, i.e. a widened gap.

      Incidentally, a pathetic little xxxxxxxx on this thread claims that Venezuela’s current leaders are “communist fanatics.”

      First of all, Venezuela has a small communist party, and they oppose the current government. They also hated Chavez. Reason: they want power for themselves.

      Second, Venezuela’s constitution, established by Hugo Chavez himself in 1999, forbids the government from going fully socialist, or otherwise violating the “sanctity of private property.”

      I don’t expect the little xxxxxxxxxxx to know any of this, but if the xxxxxxxxxxx wants to malign me, then the xxxxxxxxxxx should include some web links (other than Fox News) to justify his excrement.

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      1. The 10 items I listed above are excellent ways of showing how both Chavez and Maduro respect the “sanctity of private property”. Well, actually I can see how easy that is to overcome. Just re-define what “sanctity of private property” means and voila – you can take anything from anybody. Just like they have done so far.

        I rather be a moron than a liar.

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      2. Hi quatloosx. As usual, thanks for your supplement input. The “pathetic little xxxxxxxx” is already well known to this blog. Key words: beards!, socialists, communists. (The pattern never deviates.) Her tactics are set in stone. First she changes her handle. Second she begins by asking innocuous questions hoping to gain a certain level of respectability/acceptability. Then almost immediately, as she just can’t help herself , she begins tactless slams and assaults. She continually proclaims everyone, be it sovereign nations, our own federal government, or the readers and especially the PUBLISHER of this blog, to be socialists, communists or other such figments of her delusional mind. Personally, I’ve always enjoyed the comic relief. Economics can be so stodgy.

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        2. All my comments (ALL of them) are based on one single point: we suffer to the extent that we hate one another. We thrive to the extent that we love and help one another.

          The Big Lie itself is founded on hate. It is hate that I deride when my comments turn harsh. It is hate that Rodger expunges when he dismisses bigots.

          There are many forms of “stupidity,” but the only real stupidity is that which manifests a spirit of hate. The problem with hate is that it causes suffering. And boy, have I seen a lot of suffering in this world. (I have long dreamed of establishing an orphanage in India where I lived for 2.5 years, or a special clinic for the disabled.)

          All humanists here know what I am talking about, e.g. Rodger, Steve, Tetrahedron, and several others.

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  10. Jeff asks, “Anyone personally know a well heeled individual person or organization that wants to save the world? I believe the issue is that serious.”

    At one time, I thought the “Occupy” movement might do it. I contacted them several times (See the various “Occupy” links on this blog.)

    But, they resist having a clear-cut direction, do not understand Monetary Sovereignty and have no desire to learn.

    They are against a multitude of things, but offer no solutions and have no arguments to counter “The country can’t afford it.”

    So they flop around, protesting this and protesting that, with very few real accomplishments.

    It’s a pity, because with all that energy and manpower, they could make a big difference, if only . . . . yes, if only.

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