–The irony and the hypocrisy of libertarians — flunkies for the rich

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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.
●The single most important problem in economics is the gap between rich and poor.
●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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Whether of not it claims the title, the entire Republican party has, in fact, turned libertarian.

What is a libertarian? Libertarians preach freedom and liberty. Who could argue against freedom and liberty? But freedom and liberty for whom?

There are many forms of libertarianism, from outright anarchists to more moderate bents. But today’s libertarianism seems to focus on the notion that the federal government — not state and local governments or private industry — the federal government takes away our freedoms and so, is “too big.”

Specifically, what does it mean for the federal government to be “too big”?

According to the Republican/libertarians, “too big” means:
1. The federal government gives too much to the poor and middle income groups.
2. The federal government takes too much from the rich.
3. The federal government makes too many rules.
4. Everything the federal government does can be done better, more honestly and more compassionately by state and local governments and by the private sector.

Consider this headline:

Ted Cruz Demands Federal Money For Texas Floods After Blocking Hurricane Sandy Relief

Ted Cruz’s position is clear. Disaster relief is vital only when it is for his state. Red state need is the only real need that counts.

Is it irony or is it hypocrisy, to deride all federal spending, except when it benefits your own people? (Even more irony and hypocrisy: Cruz opposes expanding Medicaid, which would bring billions to his state.)

Then consider this article”

Do the wealthy pay lower taxes than the middle class?

A new study from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, found that “virtually every state’s tax system is fundamentally unfair, taking a much greater share of income from low- and middle-income families than from wealthy families.”

It added that state and local tax systems are “indirectly contributing to growing income inequality by taxing low- and middle-income households at significantly higher rates than wealthy taxpayers.”

Is it irony or hypocrisy to claim that because the federal government is “too big,” many federal functions should be taken over by state and local governments?

There is zero evidence that state and local governments are more honest, caring, compassionate or efficient than the federal government. In fact, the evidence is quite the other way.

Is your experience similar to mine? I’ve seen a higher percentage of local politicians than federal politicians sent to prison. (And the only reason even more locals weren’t prosecuted is that our states attorney is the daughter of the state’s biggest wheeler/dealer. But that’s another story.)

What about the private sector? Is it too big or too small? Is it honest, caring and effective? To generalize about the private sector is no easier than to generalize about the federal sector.

Some companies are “good” because their CEO’s are good. Some are good because it’s good business to be good. Some are good because the CEOs are afraid that if they aren’t good, the federal government will send them to prison.

I suspect no one would claim the big banks are “good.” And, if all businesses were good, we never would have had the need for unions.

Government and business are made up of people, and people follow essentially the same rule of life: Power corrupts, and the more power, the more corruption.

Federal power, state and local power, business power: They all corrupt.

Consider private businessman Jimmy John Liautaud.

Jimmy John’s CEO under fire in new lawsuit

Liautaud has been criticized for hunting big game, Raw Story reported, and donating funds to an allegedly illegal re-election fund for controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona.

Photos published by Smile Politely show Liautaud posing with two dead elephants and a dead leopard shot and killed while on a safari. Another photo published by the Facebook group “Boycott Jimmy John’s” shows Liautaud posing with a dead bear.

O.K., so maybe this honest, compassionate and private businessman needs to kill endangered animals to provide ingredients for his elephant and leopard pizza. Who knows?

Anyway, that’s not all for private businessman, Jimmy John:

Jimmy John’s Makes Low-Wage Workers Sign ‘Oppressive’ Noncompete Agreements

A Jimmy John’s employment agreement provided to The Huffington Post includes a “non-competition” clause that’s surprising in its breadth.

Noncompete agreements are typically reserved for managers or employees who could clearly exploit a business’s inside information by jumping to a competitor.

But at Jimmy John’s, the agreement apparently applies to low-wage sandwich makers and delivery drivers, too.

The company’s definition of a “competitor” goes far beyond the Subways and Potbellys of the world. It encompasses any business that’s near a Jimmy John’s location and that derives a mere 10 percent of its revenue from sandwiches.

Kathleen Chavez (an attorney handling a suit against Jimmy Johns) said the effective blackout area for a former Jimmy John’s worker would cover 6,000 square miles in 44 states and the District of Columbia. Founded in 1983, the college-town staple now has more than 2,000 locations.

So, for two years, you are prevented from not just driving, but prevented from working, for just about any restaurant in America — even including school cafeterias.

Presumably, Liautaud’s highly paid delivery drivers are privy to so much secret corporate information, it makes sense to bar them from finding another job anywhere in America, for two long years.

Why doesn’t the “big, bad” old federal government, the so-called “leviathan” the right-wing libertarians love to hate, have the same rules?

Why does Jimmy Johns do this? Because they have power over their workers and are answerable to no one. So, having the power, they abuse it.

As HuffPost reported in August, Jimmy John’s workers recently brought two lawsuits accusing the company of engaging in wage theft by forcing employees to work off the clock.

What? A private company forces employees to work off the clock. Have you ever heard of such a thing?

I’ll bet you have.

Anyway, Jimmy Johns may not be the worst place to work in America. Undoubtedly, there are much worse. And that is the point. Given power, people will abuse it, whether they are government bureaucrats or work in private industry.

So it makes absolutely no sense to say the federal government is too big, any more than it is to say that private industry is too big. A sheriff in a town of 1,000 people can be far more corrupt and overbearing than the President of the United States.

It’s power, not size, that fosters corruption and loss of freedom.

So why do the right-wing libertarians claim the federal government is “too big”?

Republicans are pro-business, pro-rich and anti-poor and middle class. If there is one thing the rich hate, it’s government telling them what they can’t do (aka “regulations.”)

The rich want to rule, and those mean old regulators sometimes make onerous demands, like “be fair to your employees” and “be honest with your customers.”

And this is especially galling for those really big companies, whose CEO’s easily can bully individual towns and states, but less easily, the federal government.

When a right-wing libertarian Republican tells you the federal government is “too big,” he really wants to:

–Cut your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits
–Cut benefits to the uneducated, unemployed or otherwise impoverished
–Eliminate regulations that protect you when you buy stock, use a bank, buy pharmaceuticals and buy food
–Stop going after Ponzi schemers and other crooks who try to cheat you.
–Stop building roads and bridges, stop protecting national forests from oil, mining and lumber interests, stop guarding our waterways, and stop protecting America from our enemies.
–Stop growing the economy

Republicans want to allow the private sector industry magnates unfettered ability to do whatever they please because, as the rich want you to believe, the private sector always can be relied upon to protect you and do what’s right.

You may not like some of the things the government does. You also may not like some of the things state and local governments and business do.

But America needs both the private sector and the public sector, and for anyone to claim flatly that “the federal government is too big,” indicates either economic ignorance or a desire to widen the Gap between the rich and the rest — or both.

The federal government exhibits its “bigness” in three ways:
1. By spending, the vast majority of which benefits the economy
2. By taxing, the vast majority of which hurts the economy
3. By regulating, some of which benefits and some of which hurts the economy.

Libertarianism wants to get rid of all three — the “throw the baby out with the bathwater” syndrome — all to increase the power of the rich.

And that is the irony and the hypocrisy of today’s Republicans. They preach freedom and liberty, but in reality, they are flunkies for the rich, who care nothing for your freedom and liberty.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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The 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. Federally funded, 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)

Initiating The Ten Steps sequentially will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
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10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
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