How to build a more educated, more successful America.

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

Mitchell’s laws:
●Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.

●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.
===================================================================================

Step #4 in the “10 Steps to Prosperity is “Free education (including post grad) for everyone.” This step is discussed at: Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans Thursday, May 16 2013, which I urge you to read as an introduction to today’s post.

Recently, I read a relevant article in Scientific American Magazine. Here are some excerpts:

Why Community Colleges Should Be Free
To bolster the nation’s high-tech labor pool, some higher education should come without a tuition bill Aug 19, 2014
Ross MacDonald

In May, Republican governor Bill Haslam signed a bill that will make Tennessee’s two-year community colleges and technical schools free to any high school graduate starting in 2015.

Community colleges are pillars of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education. They train technicians for jobs in leading-edge industries and grant associate’s degrees that let students finish the last half of their higher education at a four-year institution.

While the gap in economic well-being between college graduates and those with only a high school diploma grows ever wider, community colleges serve as gateways for the underrepresented and the working class.

Nationwide, 40 percent of community college students are in the first generation of their families to attend college, more than 55 percent of Hispanics in college are enrolled in community colleges, and 40 percent of community college students hold down full-time jobs.

Tennessee is taking a baby step in the right direction, by funding two-year community colleges. Unfortunately, being monetarily non-sovereign, Tennessee must rely on its taxpayers to support this initiative.

By contrast, the Federal government is Monetarily Sovereign. It never can run short of its sovereign currency, the dollar.

So while the cash-strapped states pay for grades K-12, and Tennessee proposes going even further, the federal government steps back and tells America’s students to support grades 13-16 and beyond.

Well, there are small exceptions: For instance:

The National Science Foundation devotes more than $60 million annually to its Advanced Technological Education program, which develops curricula to immerse students, for instance, in the nuances of cell cultures and standard deviations.

Graduates of these courses go on to careers in the laboratories of Genentech and the command centers of nuclear power plants.

(Actually, according to its own web site, “The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 ‘to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…’

“With an annual budget of $7.2 billion (FY 2014), we are the funding source for approximately 24 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America’s colleges and universities.”)

O.K., that’s another baby step — supporting research by college and universities. But it’s not enough, not anywhere near enough, as witness the massive student loan problem.

Continuing with the Scientific American article:

The Tennessee law will enable students to attend the state’s 13 community colleges and 27 technical schools tuition-free in hopes of raising the number of college graduates in the state from 32 to 55 percent by 2025. (The national average is now 42 percent.)

The program will be funded largely by lottery money and will also somewhat reduce scholarships at the state’s four-year institutions.

If a trade-off has to be made, this one may be worth it to upgrade a workforce judged in one survey to be of low quality. Other states—and the private sector—are watching closely.

Oregon has plans to make community college free, and Mississippi may try again after the death of a bill this year.

These efforts should be viewed as models for other states to emulate.

No, these efforts should be viewed as models for the federal government — the one institution having the unlimited ability to pay for college — to emulate.

Two-year college students face an obstacle course of personal and academic challenges on the path to a diploma.

Many must hold down a job or two while attending courses.

This speaks to Step #5 in the 10 Steps to Prosperity: Salary for Attending School.

Years ago, America realized that high school education was important for America. So the states and cities took it upon themselves to provide free K-12 to everyone.

Now, to remain competitive in today’s ever more sophisticated world, America needs our youth to be college educated. A high school education simply is not enough.

Yet the federal government helps discourage college education with its student loan program — a program that effectively has impoverished millions of young people.

And, partly because K-12 is funded by monetarily non-sovereign governments, that usually are short of cash, our K-12 education is lacking:

Global grade: How do U.S. students compare?
By Marian Wilde

In a recent (2006) comparison of academic performance in 57 countries, students in the United States performed near the middle of the pack. On average 16 other industrialized countries scored above the United States in science, and 23 scored above us in math.

In summary:
1. Education is the key to success in economic growth and global competition
2. American education needlessly is underfunded. The federal government should not require cities and states to pay for K-12 education, but rather should take on this responsibility.
3. The underfunding results in underpaying teachers at all levels, which in turn, discourages many of our “best and brightest” from becoming teachers.
4. The underfunding also catalyzes aggressiveness by teachers’ unions, which encourage teachers to shift their focus from education to protection and compensation. Thus good teachers can’t be rewarded and bad teachers can’t be fired.
5. The federal government should eliminate the student loan program, and replace it with full payment for college and beyond.
6. The government also should pay students’ salaries for attending school. Many young people do not finish high school, let alone attend college, simply because their families need them in the work force.

Educated young people are necessary for America’s success. We must do everything possible to encourage education.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
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. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

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

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