Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
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Mitchell’s laws:
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
●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.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor.
●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.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap.
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We’ve published much relating to morality. (See: “Strange science: How does one brain justify both cruelty and charity?” and many others.)
We even have been chastised for wandering outside our sphere of expertise, i.e. economics.
But, economics has an overriding social component, and what we consider to be immoral, often is justified on economic grounds. (i.e. torture “works.”)
The difficulty economists have in making prediction, stems from that social component. Cause and effect become blurred when changing and unmeasurable human beliefs, attitudes and emotions have such great importance.
The stock market forecasters known as chartists, who are right half the time and wrong the other half, ignore the human aspect. Their predictions rely on historical numbers repeating in some predictable pattern.
It’s silly, but chartists are paid for that nonsense, so who could blame them?
Are there any economists who successfully have weighed the human variables into equations?
A leader of Modern Monetary Theory, Professor Randy Wray, has a “Center for Full Employment and Price Stability.” It suggests a Jobs Guarantee (JG) plan, which in my opinion, considers humans to be mere cogs in the economic machine. Work; get money; spend. Then work more.
But, just jobs are not what people want. Look in the newspapers and online, and you will see thousands — perhaps millions — of jobs. There is no shortage of jobs. Never has been. Just not the right jobs.
JG assumes, if you are unemployed, you will take a job, no matter the circumstances (any location, any conditions, any pay), and if you don’t select among the jobs offered via a government functionary, you must be a slacker.
Professor Wray already has said the JG guaranteed jobs will pay less than minimum wage, so as not to compete with private industry!! Yikes!
Who needs the “government-as-slave-employer, or government-as-employment-agency”?
People go months, even years, looking for a job and not finding one — because people are not cogs. They have the above-mentioned beliefs, attitudes and emotions.
Professor Wray should change the name to a “Center for Economic Growth and Income Equality” and forget about the JG. But, he won’t, because he is committed to JG, and is a human with his own beliefs, attitudes and emotions.
For him, JG is a sacred foundation for his economic beliefs. We all have sacred foundations, and that’s his.
All of the above is a prelude to a discussion of the following article that appeared in the November 29, 2014 edition of NewScientist Magazine:
Most violence arises from morality, not the lack of it
WHY would anyone hurt you? Why would you hurt or kill someone else?
Contrary to popular perception, people are rarely violent simply because they lose control and fail to think about right and wrong. They rarely commit violence because they lack empathy and fail to see their victims as fully human.
And almost no one is violent because they draw sadistic pleasure from the suffering of others.
Across cultures and history, there is generally one motive for hurting or killing: people are violent because it feels like the right thing to do. They feel morally obliged to do it.
In the comment section of the previous post, you can see an example of this:
How Terrorists Justify Killing 132 Children
The Pakistan Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in revenge for a ferocious army offensive – named Zarb-e-Azb – that has been underway in tribal areas since June.
“We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females,” said Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani. “We want them to feel the pain.”
You kill our children, so we kill yours, more or less.
Violence is not a breakdown of morality – it is motivated by moral emotions and judgments.
If your parents spanked you when you were a child, it was probably because they thought it was good for you. They may have hated to do it, but they did it because they felt they had to, to bring you up correctly. Their parents may have spanked or whipped them in order to raise them as God-fearing, virtuous adults.
Some violent acts are punitive – the execution of a murderer for example, or the bombing of those who bomb us. That’s justice as the perpetrator perceives it.
The foundation of Western legal systems is that people are found guilty and punished for intentionally doing what they know to be wrong. But what happens when people know that what they did was right, according to their internal moral compass?
You may feel (as I do) that past President Bush and his Vice President Cheney are as guilty of crimes against humanity as were the death-camp guards from WWII, but I suspect they all felt the torture and murder of prisoners was the “right thing to do.” As may have the CIA.
Cheney repeatedly says so, though it’s difficult to say whether he really means it.
When non-violent African American protesters were hosed and beaten during the civil rights movement, it did not evoke guilt in the majority of white American southerners, but it did elicit the sympathy of the northern states and the international community, and as a result the American South was shamed and pressured into tolerating integration.
But what happens when an entire religion supports the torture and murder of “heretics,” as has happened many times in history? Who is to cast shame?
What happens when an entire political party, the new majority party of the U.S. Congress, countenances the torture of prisoners? From where will come the pressure to change?
We have a long way to go, but we have the power to stop violence by making it immoral.
Yes, a long way to go. How many Americans believe that making someone angry, or committing a burglary, are reasonable justifications for killing someone?
‘Stand your ground’ laws: Two cases may suggest limits to their protections
By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer MAY 1, 2014Two recent cases in Montana and Minnesota where homeowners appeared to set traps before fatally shooting teenage intruders suggest that US society may be drawing some limits on the controversial “stand your ground” defense at the heart of major recent court cases, including the shooting of Trayvon Martin.
A jury convicted Byron Smith of Minnesota on Tuesday for premeditating the 2012 murders of two teenage cousins who broke into his home.
And Markus Kaarma of Montana is now facing homicide charges after he allegedly fired a shotgun four times through his garage door on Sunday, when a German exchange student tripped an alarm. The student, named Diren Dede, was killed.
No U.S. court would command the death penalty for burglary, but do you believe the teenage cousins and Diren Dede “had it coming“? Do you believe the death penalty is the appropriate response, if you simply feel threatened?
Is the protection of property more important than human life?
Nations think so. That is the basis for most wars — the protection of property — and wars kill people.
Wars also are the single most important historical cause in the cause-and-effect paradigm of economics.
Yes, morality is an issue for economists, and unless morality is part of the “science,” it’s not a science at all.
While we each have a different take on “morality,” I suggest that giving the populace more reason and more opportunity for hurting people, is immoral.
By that definition, “Stand Your Ground” is immoral. Guns are immoral. Mass deportations are immoral. Bullying minorities is immoral. The death penalty is immoral. Torture is immoral. Slavery is immoral. Causing starvation is immoral. The growing Gap between the rich and the rest is immoral.
And if you look back in history, you will find that immorality is self-destructive, both for individuals and for nations. It’s the “what-goes-around,-comes around” syndrome.
You can’t study economics without studying morality, and you can’t pontificate realistically on economics without exploring morality.
Everything in economics devolves to morality, which devolves to motive, the starting point for economics.
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. (Refer to this.)
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.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.
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
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
Sorry RMM but this line is clearly false:
“There is no shortage of jobs. Never has been. Just not the right jobs.”
“Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey
December 09, 2014
There were 4.8 million job openings on the last business day of October, little changed from September. Hires (5.1 million) and separations (4.8 million) steady in October. More…
(HTML) (PDF)”
http://www.bls.gov/jlt/#news
There are more than 18 million who want to work or who are part-time and would like full time work
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
So you’re wrong even with very conservative estimates for the numbers of unemployed.
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Its your position that is the indefensible one. You continue to mislead about the JG, “Govt as slave-employer” Yikes, that line is so dishonest it could have come straight out of the mouth of any tea party idiot. There are a millions of worthwhile things for JG program workers to do. And its much better to have a buffer stock of employed JG workers (with a residual number of unemployed people that arent interested in taking a JG program job) than to have a buffer stock of unemployed people.
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“There are a millions of worthwhile things for JG program workers to do.”
Specifically, how will JG deliver those “millions of things” if the private sector can’t?
And all this talk about “buffer stock” is exactly what the post discusses, but the post calls them “cogs.” Economists to refer to humans as “buffer stock.” Would you like to be “buffer stock.”
Get real. There is no plan of execution for JG. It’s just a statement: Jobs Guarantee.
There is no plan to provide jobs with the right pay, the right location, the right type of work, the right skills necessary, the right hours, the right working conditions, etc., etc., etc.
To economists, people are just cogs, to be inserted into any job (“They should be happy to get work”) without consideration of reality.
Where will these jobs come from? Will brand new jobs be created? How? Or will jobs be taken from current workers?
JG is an ill-conceived, pie-in-the-sky quasi “idea.” Clearly, the dreamers never have run a real business.
I’ve owned several businesses, and from what I can see, there is no business idea in JG.
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there is a ‘business idea in JG’, and it involves the infrastructure of the US. that has been argued for years, what have you been reading?
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Elucidate.
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the argument has been offered by MMT folks, if not by the ‘major stars’, that because of the crumbling infrastructure, there is much work to be done. obviously, not everyone has the capability to rebuild bridges, repave roads, but, as the argument goes, there is a wide variety of ‘stuff’ that needs fixing. this is not an endorsement of the argument, just what I have read and heard.
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Exactly. As we said, there is no shortage of jobs. There is a shortage of the right jobs.
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there is no “exactly”. your argument was that the “JG” folk were pie in the sky, and I have clearly articulated their point. this may surprise you, but not everyone is suited for every job. that is the nature of business, or did you not learn that in your “several businesses” that you have owned?
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Right.
1. There is no “exactly”
2. There is no clear articulation
3. Not everyone is suited for every job
Thank you for making my points.
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There are many outlines for JG plans. There is no legislation. you have no serious plan for MS either. Your 10 steps to prosperity are nothing but simple outlines also. You are simply being hypocritical. I’ve provided links to JG outlines before, but of course your sacred foundation is the belief that giving people employment is a bad thing.
Your 10 steps are a pie in the sky idea. There is no evidence that increasing interest rates has ever stopped a high inflation. There is no possible scenario under which almost all federal taxes can be eliminated and Govt spending increased without significant inflation problems. So clearly you have no business proposing macroeconomic policy.
Do you see how fast things can degenerate when you are not being consistent intellectually. Almost any of the faux criticisms your anti-jobs agenda causes you to point out, can just as easily be laid back at your own feet.
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“Your 10 steps to prosperity are nothing but simple outlines also.”
Really? Let’s start with the first three (I’ve suggested implementing them in numerical order.) Are the first three “nothing but simple outlines,” or would you not know how to implement them?
If you wouldn’t know how to implement any, just ask me, and I’ll tell you — probably in one short sentence.
As for JG, tell me:
1. Would the people be federal employees or private industry employees?
2. Who would do the job search, hiring, firing, training, evaluating and supervising?
3. Who would find the jobs and what would the criteria be?
4. Where geographically would all these jobs be?
5. What would the salary be and who pays it?
6.. What happens to employees who themselves are not competent?
7. What happens when an employees output is poor?
I discuss all this, again and again. See:Here,/u>
And then we come to: ” There is no evidence that increasing interest rates has ever stopped a high inflation.” No evidence? Are you sure? Please don’t tell that to Paul Volcker.
How do you think the Fed controls inflation? Interest rates.
“There is no possible scenario under which almost all federal taxes can be eliminated and Govt spending increased without significant inflation problems.”
I’d agree if you claim I said that all should happen at one time. But I didn’t. I’ve opted for sequential implementation.
Meanwhile, deficits already have gone up significantly, while interest rates are near 0, and inflation has been quite low. With greater deficit spending, higher interest rates (above 0) would control inflation.
Anyhow, I’m anxious to see your answers to the above 7 questions. That should demonstrate the existence of a “serious plan.”
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“By that definition, “Stand Your Ground” is immoral. Guns are immoral. Mass deportations are immoral. Bullying minorities is immoral. The death penalty is immoral. Torture is immoral. Slavery is immoral. Causing starvation is immoral. The growing Gap between the rich and the rest is immoral.” RMM
I disagree that standing your ground and guns are immoral – you are having a knee jerk reaction just like all liberals. There is NO thinking behind this comment.
Before you get into stand your ground and guns, you need to answer whether letting someone take YOUR life or the live of someone you care about. Is it moral to hand that responsibility to someone else? Do you feel safe doing so? Are we useless sacks of meats that can’t even put up a fight?
Who is the only one that can protect their own life? You? Police? Obama?
When you are getting your head slashed (like the ISIS folks are doing), who will defend you if not a gun? Why is it that they have done these things in major countries, like Australia, but haven’t dared to do it in the US. I bet the fact that people have guns matters?
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And the voice of the gun-nut is heard in our land. Yes, do carry a gun in case ISIS attacks. Who could argue with such logic.
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…letting someone take YOUR life or the live (sic) of someone…
After 3 years this “person” is still chomping at the bit to kill someone. After 3 years this “person” is still broad stroking all liberals.
After 3 years this “person” still does not understand MS or sovereign currency operations.
After 3 years, this caricature’s tired, pain inducing story has NEVER changed.
When the record is broken, I simply toss it. You?
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Understood. There is a benefit to publishing foolish comments. They demonstrate the foolish thinking that has become so pervasive. It’s all too easy to forget how off kilter the public can be.
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My take on the job shortage is this. It’s one thing to go “get a job” or provide millions and millions of jobs so we can say “look at all the employment! wow what a successful policy we have.” But it’s quite another to have all that AND be able to keep up with the Joneses, the cost of living, dignity, etc.
I’d be willing to bet you could get far more people to take on work of ANY kind IF it paid well beyond minimum wage. Who wants $7.50/hr. to spin their wheels going nowhere and be depressed to boot, but oh… I got me a job!
This is why I whole heartedly agree to the scenario of a guaranteed national income for everyone of working age provided by the MS federal sector, and not a reluctant, chintzy, profit, me-me oriented private sector.
The private sector can’t/won’t provide this without inflating the price of whatever they’re selling. They aren’t MS! Fed is MS! Fed issues and doesn’t need money; the private sector uses & NEEDs $$. In fact, the Fed could “gradually” relieve the private sector (take over the income) of all wage responsibility and overhead. Do you think the private sector would like that? I do. Talk about stimulating the economy w/o inflation!!
This leads directly into the morality part of economics and motive. The vast majority of crime–a Big social expense– is related directly or subtly or indirectly to money– or rather lack of it. Our biggest immorality is governance by virtue of traditional acceptance of the scarcity model, i.e., not enough to go around, you or me but not both, so war, torture, stand your ground, get yer gun, make more guns!
In fact there is enough to go around, literally (recycling) and also monetarily (MS).
All that remains is the hard part, educating everyone and putting it into a system. The stage is set; the actors are all in place. All we need is “action.”
The impossibility of this is only due to mass ignorance of our potential knowhow and massively ignorant, subconsciously conditioned reflexes passed on from one generation to the next as fundamental “truth.” In fact, funda-mental lies.
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http://missoulian.com/news/local/markus-kaarma-verdict-guilty/article_18660484-56d2-5b60-80d5-6b4f81ad4e15.html
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Looks like guns DO kill.
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Good article:
Of course torture doesn’t work. The sacred Church proved that when virtually everyone it tortured admitted to being an agent of Satan.
But what if people in power enjoy torturing? What if torturing provides them with a quasi-erotic, sensual pleasure?
Consider former Vice President Cheney, who alternately denies there was torture, then claims the torture that didn’t happen, works — an evil man who countenances crimes against humanity.
Clearly, he is one of the least moral “humans” ever to hold that office — a traitor to America and a disgrace to humanity.
Yet, half of America — mostly, but not exclusively, the right wing — agrees with him. (See: Just over half of Americans say they believe the interrogation methods the CIA used against terrorism suspects in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were justified.)
Torture is justified? What does that tell us about ourselves?
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Off topic, but every once in a while you read something in the news that makes sense: This is about TARP, from Vox Media (Washington Post).
http://www.vox.com/2014/12/19/7421359/tarp-profit
“Since the United States government has the ability to manufacture dollars in arbitrary quantities, it is also able to borrow dollars at a lower cost than anyone else. This borrowing ability makes it trivially easy for the federal government to make profitable investments. Issuing Treasury bonds to buy stock-market index funds, for example, would be a surefire profit-maker. But, again, the United States government has the ability to manufacture dollars in arbitrary quantities so there is no reason for it to worry about making profitable investments.”
I wonder if after publishing this article, author Matthew Yglesias was warned to keep quiet. Everything we hear on the news is how the USG wastes taxpayer dollars. But as the author states, there is no reason to worry about the USG making profitable investments.
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What he didn’t say, but should have said, is something we repeatedly have said: When the federal government makes a profit, the economy takes a loss. Period.
So those $15 billion in TARP profits were $15 billion deducted from the economy. This is something to boast about???
The author said, “The fact that the multi-billion dollar bailout program for banks and others ultimately cost the taxpayers less than $0 is an important reminder that many of TARP’s fiercest critics were offering over-the-top and inaccurate complaints.”
TARP didn’t “cost taxpayers” anything, only because the federal government does not use taxes to pay its bills. Even if federal taxes fell to $0, the government could keep spending, forever.
But the strangest comment was: “Since the United States government has the ability to manufacture dollars in arbitrary quantities, it is also able to borrow dollars at a lower cost than anyone else. “
But, since the government has that arbitrary ability, why would it need to borrow at all?
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The problem with your last question is that no one will bother to answer it…. Crickets. As soon as you hit on the heart of the difference between MS and econ 101 you get silence. The cross examination is the killer. If you have a good answer that makes sense it will be heard. Otherwise, people who do not understand MS are left speechless. Nothing to say and nothing to be heard.
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Is the inflation spike in Russia a validation of the view that interest rate adjustments alone will not be enough to control inflation?
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Is one crust of bread alone enough to prevent starvation?
The interest rate hike needs to match the seriousness of the situation.
Russia is in deep, deep financial trouble. No one trusts their ruble. What rate of interest would be sufficient for you to want to own rubles?
It might take an interest rate of 30%, 40% or more, to get anyone to accept rubles.
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He would have been hung by the Nuremberg Court. He’s lucky he’s an American citizen, not a Nazi, though he thinks like a Nazi.
If Cheney doesn’t shame you, nothing will.
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Good article:
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I’m not sure any of this has much of a future. Our civilization is at a credit fuelled consumption boom decadent stage. An energy cliff is up ahead and we are already deflating IMO sliding inexorably towards this cliff.
Can we find a way to continue our civilization while deflating when there seems to be no monetary paradigm that is not based on growth? Cheap energy will soon be over, then what?
Collapse is mathematically unavoidable. Our time is nearly up.
Morality is going to take a back seat.
Is it immoral to have no plans to manage a deflation?
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It looks like cheap energy will not “soon be over.” In fact, technology keeps:
1. Finding more cheap energy, and
2. Finding ways of reducing energy needs.
So, as the old joke goes, “The hardest thing to predict is the future.” Malthusian “world ending” predictions consistently have been wrong.
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It appears to me the only growth we’ll have is efficiency, unemployment and life span, as they’re all related. After a certain amount of time gigantic becomes shrinking, faster/more powerful and/or eventually invisible. You can see this from the evolution of the vacuum tube, computers, autos, building structures/components, medical and optical equipment. The energy cliff belongs to nuclear and fossil fuels. Good riddance.
We’re obviously evolving toward almost complete automation, self maintenance and the eventual freeing of humanity from redundancy and physical labor. Education, research and leisure are going to be the biggest industries. The real challenge is going to be how to make the transition from the scarcity model to plenitude, that is, from fiction to reality.
Whether or not the .1% know it, their extremely fearful/insecure/selfish thinking is really an attempt to stop Evolution…exactly as futile as the little Dutch boy with his thumb in the dike. It’s going to be all of us or none of us.
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