–How the rich are able to brainwash the populace

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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Readers of this blog, who understand Monetary Sovereignty, are puzzled (disgusted? outraged?) by those who reject the federal spending that benefits the poor and middle income groups.

The repeated calls for less spending and reduced federal deficits seem nonsensical at best, and cruel at worst. After all, the U.S. government never can run short of dollars, and federal taxpayers do not pay for federal spending.

So if helping the poor and middle income groups costs no one anything, why not?

Two problems have been discussed repeatedly in these pages:

1. The rich, who control all sources of information via bribery (of politicians and universities, with contributions and promises of lucrative employment) and ownership (of the media), selfishly wish to reduce social spending, so as to widen the gap between the rich and the rest.

Without the gap, no one would be rich, and the wider the gap, the richer they are.

2. The populace, who are indoctrinated by the above sources of information, accept the lies that: Social spending is unaffordable and paid for by tax money, that government debt is “unsustainable” and “money printing” will cause hyperinflation.

So while this blog disseminates the facts of Monetary Sovereignty and bribery and ownership of information sources, there is in the populace, a deep psychological antipathy to accepting these facts.

One of the most powerful motivations in the psychology of humans (and of many animals, too) is the concept of fairness, which is made complex by three different ideas:

A. Equal: It’s fair when everyone receives the same rewards and the same punishment.

B. Merit: It’s fair when each receives what each deserves, based on some measure, like input or power. (Those who do more should receive more, and those higher up the power structure deserve more.)

C. Need/has: It’s fair when those who have less, receive more, and those who have more, receive less.

Clearly, each description of fairness will result in different outcomes.

In the “Ultimatum Game”, person # “One” determines how to divide a sum of money, and person # “Two” accepts or rejects the division.

Presumably, as a rational person, “Two” would accept any division, even an adverse 99% / 1%, because something is better than nothing.

In actual practice however, the concept of “fairness” is so powerful that person “Two” often rejects divisions more unequal than 66% / 33%, even accepting 0% rather than seeing person “One” receive “too much.” To person “Two”, forcing “One” to receive 0% is more rewarding than receiving an “unfairly” low amount.

This is comparable to person “Two” wanting less unemployment compensation for perceived “slacker, ‘One,'” even though “Two” himself might suffer from the reduced unemployment compensation.

To person “Two,” punishing the “undeserving ‘One'” is more important psychologically than personal reward.

In psychology, however, nothing is simple. If “Two” considers “One” to be deserving in some way, either because of merit (“One” has worked harder; “One” is more important) or because of need (“One” is poor, sick, a child), sympathy and empathy might be even more powerful than fairness, and person “Two” might very well allow an extremely unbalanced division — even 100% – 0%.

This last is the foundation of charity.

Returning to the title of this post, the rich, by owning the sources of information have taught the populace that Monetary Sovereignty does not exist.

But the rich don’t stop with disinformation. They also use the psychology of “fairness.”

Their psychological warfare begins with the fairness notion of “equal” (Idea “A”). They promulgate the belief that everyone should pay the same; the rich should pay no higher a percentage in taxes than do the poor.

This already is true of sales taxes, and the rich want it to be true of income taxes.

They call it “spreading the tax base,” or “tax reform,” and they say the poor should “pay their ‘fair share.'”

Then the rich portray themselves as “makers,” the people who create all the benefits of our economy, while the not-rich are demonized as the “takers,” the people who sit back and accept these benefits, while doing nothing.

The rich propagandize that it isn’t fair for them to produce, while lazy slackers consume. This is the notion of “Merit” (Idea “B”). But it goes further.

They rich convince, even those who are not rich, to resent “takers.” They use the unfairness idea to smear anyone receiving government benefits, so that they deserve no compassion.

Finally, the rich downplay the idea of need (Idea “C”), by saying charity should be personal, and should not be doled out by a powerful, dictatorial “Big Government,” aka the “Leviathan.”

To widen the gap between the rich and the rest, the rich have touched all the bases.

They have combined factual disinformation (taxes pay for federal spending, the federal debt is a danger) with psychological disinformation (“equality,” “makers” vs. “takers” and “Big Government” is a tyrannical Leviathan) to erect a bulletproof fort of deceit.

Yes, to narrow the increased gap between the rich and the rest, requires continual repetition of the economic and financial facts:

–Federal taxes don’t pay for federal spending
–The federal government never will have difficulty paying off its “debts.”
–Deficits are necessary for economic growth

But narrowing the gap also requires continual attention to the psychological facts:

“Equality” is no more applicable to federal taxing and spending than it is to private wealth. If the rich want benefits and taxes to be equal, they should be prepared for wealth and income equality, i.e. a GINI ratio of 0.

The rich, with all their tax breaks and sloth, are the real “takers,” while the poor and middle, who work America’s roads and factories, while struggling to support their families and educate their children — they are the real “makers.”

Federal support for such social benefits as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education and various poverty aids are not indicative of a tyrannical “big government,” but rather of a true friend, who gives freely and requires nothing in return.

To fight the lies, illogic and psychological a warfare of the rich, we must use not only the truth and logic about Monetary Sovereignty and wealthy bribery, but also the psychology of sympathy, empathy and compassion inherent in all of us.

We need to tell the full story.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Ten 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. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (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

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

10 thoughts on “–How the rich are able to brainwash the populace

    1. Where do dollars come from in the first place? From the private sector (via taxation) or the federal government? Of course, the federal government. Dollars have to put into the economy by the federal government first so that we can use them. Most people think that the only way for the federal government to get dollars is from the extraction of dollars from the private sector via bond sales or borrowing, fees or taxation. The concept that the federal government can create dollars for us to use at will and at no cost to the citizenry is totally alien and intellectually incomprehensible to them.

      Like

      1. You are exactly correct.

        And what is the process the government uses to create dollars?

        When paying an invoice, it sends instructions (not dollars) in the form of a check or wire to a creditor’s bank, telling the bank to increase the balance in the creditor’s checking account.

        At the instant the bank obeys those instruction, dollars are created.

        Of course, being Monetarily Sovereign, the government never can run short of instructions.

        And why is the concept “totally alien and intellectually incomprehensible to most people?

        Because every source of information — politicians, media and economists — have been paid by the rich to tell the BIG LIE.

        Why? Because federal spending benefits the lower income / wealth groups more than it benefits the rich, thereby narrowing the gap.

        And it is the gap that the rich treasure more than anything else, for without the gap, no one would be rich.

        Like

        1. Another issue that people have a hard time understanding: Do dollars have to be “backed” or supported by something physical, like gold?

          What’s wrong with just “the full faith and credit of the U.S.”?

          They do not understand what causes and effects inflation or hyperinflation. Our growing economy needs more dollars now, not less
          .

          Like

      2. “The concept that the federal government can create dollars for us to use at will and at no cost to the citizenry is totally alien and intellectually incomprehensible to them.”

        Amazing, isn’t it? The mass refusal to acknowledge the obvious is the reason why there is so much poverty and unemployment in the USA.

        Actually there are four ways that dollars are created.

        1. The federal government creates dollars by crediting bank accounts
        2. Banks create dollars by making loans (which again consists of crediting bank accounts).
        3. Banks create dollars when they pay interest on certain types of investments (e.g. the Fed creates dollars to pay interest on T-securities)
        4. A foreign trade surplus (which does not apply to the USA, since we have a trade deficit).

        When we have fiscal austerity, and the banks will not (or cannot) lend, we have a depression. For the USA, all depressions and recessions since 1913 have been deliberate and gratuitous. When the business cycle is down, the government can create more money in order to compensate. If politicians refuse to create more money, then the resulting depression is gratuitous.

        The purpose of austerity and depressions is to further widen the gap between the rich and the rest.

        There is nothing “misguided” or “wrong-headed” about this. It is not a “failed policy” nor “flawed theory.”

        It is deliberate and intentional.

        Like

      3. Where do goods and services which are bought with those dollars come from?

        The thrill of something from nothing- the casino syndrome- will destroy the US.

        A true friend? More like a true extorter……

        Like

        1. So let me get this straight.

          Given that people have to work first before getting dollars issued by the government, does that mean people are working for free, or am I missing something- Rodger?

          Where are you getting this free lunch thing?

          Like

  1. kbar325,

    Right again. You have joined a very small club: People who understand Monetary Sovereignty

    Interestingly, even when dollars ostensibly were backed by gold, in fact they were backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S.

    At that time, the U.S. full faith and credit said in effect, “We will hold the exchange rate for dollars as X dollars = Y grams of gold.

    People had to accept the government’s word (i.e. full faith and credit) that gold and dollars would be exchanged in that ratio.

    I could tell you I will give you $3,000 for an ounce of gold, but would you trust me to do it? Answer: That depends on how much my full faith and credit is worth.

    The U.S. frequently has changed the dollar/gold exchange rate. So was the dollar really backed by gold, or was it backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government?

    Bottom line: All sovereign currency is based on the full faith and credit of the sovereign issuer, whether or not there is a gold standard, a silver standard or a chicken feathers standard.

    Gold bugs don’t understand that.

    For the same reason, all forms of money are, and always have been, “fiat” money. Their value and very existence depend on government fiat.

    Like

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