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.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money.
•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.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..
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The President is both a window and a mirror.
Lately, I’ve been quite critical of the Republican Presidential candidates. I see an aggregation of men (and woman), whose primary qualification seems to be hatred: Hatred of the poor and middle classes, hatred of the gay, hatred of the immigrant, the non-Christian, the uneducated, the non-English speaking and ironically, hatred of the government.
Hatred is not an acceptable basis for governmental leadership, as hatred of others begets hatred of self. Such a divided nation cannot survive.
There are, to my thinking, three primary qualifications for being President.
1. Political experience and talent with which to drag an often reluctant Congress forward.
2. Experience with, and an understanding of, domestic and world economics.
3. The communication skills to educate the public and to gain public support.
1. Political experience and talent: If you wished to hire someone to do a difficult job, you would look for experience and talent. You wouldn’t hire someone having no experience to be a dentist, a dietician or a database administrator.
But among the Republican leaders are Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, each of whom has zero political experience.
Two have business experience, but business is not at all like the U.S. government.
The CEO of a business is a dictator, who issues commands and expects obedience. By contrast, we are a democracy. Our President (who has perhaps the world’s hardest job) must negotiate, cajole and promise, in order to move Congress and the public.
In my lifetime, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson probably were the most effective Presidents, because they knew how to work Congress. Their political experience and talent resulted in the passage of major forward advances of America.
Opting for a President with scant political experience is like opting for a doctor who never went to school.
2. Experience with, and an understanding of, domestic and world economics: Ultimately, the President is credited with a nation’s economic growth and faulted when growth lags.
He must understand what is needed to increase employment, reduce unemployment, narrow the Gap between the rich and the rest, feed the hungry, house the homeless, educate the uneducated and strengthen the nation’s economic and military competitiveness.
In today’s modern, technological world, we need a President who has, if not an understanding of, at least an appreciation for research, development and science.
Our President must support scientific achievements like atomic energy and other energy sources, spaceflight, medical advances and quantum mechanics and computing.
Scientific research and development ask our government to absorb the financial risks and long-term goals that are beyond the abilities and short-term views of financially constrained private organizations.
Yet, the vast majority of Republicans have voted to: Cut federal deficit spending, cut social benefits, starve the poor, impoverish the middle, deport immigrants and force America to default on its debts, all of which weaken America’s economy.
The likes of Carson, Santorum, Huckabee and the religious right deny science, and specifically economics, in favor of pious superstition. They offer Dark Ages thinking that will return us to 3rd world tribalism.
3. Communication skills: The President must communicate not only facts, not only ideas, but attitudes. As the leader, he helps us know who we are and who we wish to be.
Are Americans a people of love and tolerance or of hatred? Are we a people of courage or of fear? A people of joy or of melancholy? Of strength or weakness? A generous or a selfish people? A people of darkness or of light?
Who are we and who do we wish to be?
Our leader will help determine our national personality.
The Republican candidates received a few minutes of “hard” questions in the most recent debate. They haven’t stopped whining. Hillary Clinton endured 11 hours of hostile questioning, and she never flinched, cried or complained.
In the Republican candidates, I see weakness. I see intolerance and hatred. I see cowardice and the fear of an intolerant base. I see dark misery and selfishness. I see all the basest forms of the human psyche. With such leadership, I see an America that radiates no joy to the world nor back to itself.
Democrats Roosevelt and Kennedy and Republican Reagan gave us feelings of hope and optimism. But Democrat Carter gave us a dour “crisis of confidence.” And today’s Republicans give us anger.
The President is a window, who lets the world see us, and a mirror who helps us see ourselves.
Who are we and who shall we be?
In a year, we will choose.
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 Click here
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.
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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. Recessions come after the blue line drops below zero and when deficit growth declines.
As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recessions, each of which has been cured only when the growth lines rose.
Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.
#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
1. “Business is not at all like the U.S. government.” ~ RMM
Correct. For one thing the U.S. government can create money out of thin air, and not as loans. For another thing the U.S. government can pass laws to regulate businesses. (Wal Mart cannot regulate Exxon.)
Right-wingers imagine that the U.S. government is (or should be) a business run strictly for profit. This delusion makes them think that Trump, Carson and Fiorina are good candidates precisely because they have no political experience.
Their delusion is sustained by misleading phrases such as “the government saved money,” and “the government turned a profit” and “the government has a debt crisis.” Even the phrase “federal budget” is a misnomer, since the U.S. government does not need to budget its spending.
2. “The Republican candidates received a few minutes of ‘hard’ questions in the most recent debate. They haven’t stopped whining. Hillary Clinton endured eleven hours of hostile questioning, and she never flinched, cried or complained.” ~ RMM
Yes, that is one reason why I suspect that Hillary will be the next person that Wall Street and corporate America install in the White House.
In order to be installed, you must be able to please your rich owners, and also be able to say what average people want to hear as they are fleeced y the rich. Once you are installed, you can do an about-face and betray the public.
3. “In the Republican candidates, I see weakness. I see intolerance and hatred. I see cowardice and the fear of an intolerant base. I see dark misery and selfishness. I see all the basest forms of the human psyche. With such leadership, I see an America that radiates no joy to the world nor back to itself.”~ RMM
Nicely phrased. We also see desperate lies. Ben Carson, for example, never applied to West Point, nor was he accepted by West Point. Nor did he receive a “scholarship” to West Point, since cadets do not receive “scholarships.” (West Point is free to people who are accepted.)
Aside from that, I ask what has any Republican candidate offered except more wars, more walls to keep out refugees, and more cuts to social programs?
As Rodger asks, Where is the joy?
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WHEN THE BIG LIE WENT GLOBAL
The G20 (Group of Twenty) is an international forum for the heads of governments and central banks of 20 nations.
The G20 have a summit meeting at least once a year. Their next summit meeting will be this coming weekend (November 15th and 16th) at a swank resort in Antalya, a Turkish city on the Mediterranean coast.
I mention this because global austerity mania was born at the Toronto G20 summit on June 26th and 27th 2010. There, British PM David Cameron convinced many other world leaders (those in the West, anyway) that instead of worrying about the financial crash of 2008, they should use the “too big to fail” lie to push for more and more decriminalization of banking and finance.
Just as evil, Cameron at the G20 (who had only been the British PM for a month and a half) convinced many other world leaders that they could demand gratuitous austerity by using the Big Lie that MS governments are always “broke,” and social programs are always “insolvent.”
Thus, June 2010 was when the Big Lie went global, and became a part of every politician’s lies. Before that, everything was “war on terror,” “war on drugs,” “war on crime,” and so on. Today everything is: “We must destroy Social Security to save it!”
Obama declined to go along at first, since he was still waiting for his “stimulus” spending to ease the recession (cf. the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which Obama signed into law on February 17, 2009.)
However the money-powers ordered Obama to “stop that Keynesian nonsense” and get with the program, using the Big Lie to widen the gap between the rich and the rest. Therefore in early 2011, Obama switched from supporting stimulus for the real economy to supporting stimulus for the Wall Street casinos in the form of quantitative easing. Obama also began touting a big push for gratuitous austerity, which he called his “grand bargain.” He would agree to more austerity in the form of cutting social programs, if conservatives would agree to more austerity in the form of higher taxes. Either way the Gap would widen between the rich and the rest.
What will come out of this weekend’s G20? Nothing new. Western leaders will vilify Russian and Chinese “aggression,” and will call for increased austerity in their own nations. France and Italy will call for an end to austerity, while they defend the euro currency that dooms them to austerity. Obama will tout the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as a means for corporate sovereignty to replace national sovereignty and popular sovereignty. Protesters will be shot with rubber bullets and high-tech sound canons, and will be accused of being members of “ISIS.” Local jails will fill up. Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz has booked an entire hotel for himself at a cost of $18 million. He will close many public beaches so that he can have them to himself, as he did during his visit to the Cote d’Azur in France.
Everyone will call for action on climate change, but no one will take any action. (The twenty countries in the G20 have 60 percent of the world’s population, and emit 75 percent of all carbon emissions. Hence their actions would be critical in assuaging climate change.) The USA will condemn Indonesia for its slash-and-burn policies (so that forest land can be used for livestock, or for making palm oil). Indonesia will respond by saying, “Clean renewable energy? Fine. Give us the money or the debt relief to do it.” But the money won’t come.
And the Big Lie will continue. It has always been with us, but it reached maturity in June 2010.
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COULD IT HAPPEN HERE?
The Big Lie seems invincible, but society can sometimes surprise us. Timing is a factor.
For example, in 2010 an orca killed three people at Sea World San Diego. When I investigated why this happened, I learned that orcas are highly intelligent predators that are tortured and traumatized by their trainers. The captive orcas sometimes “wig out” because of this mistreatment.
However no one cared about this until 2013 when a ninety-minute documentary movie titled “Blackfish” began circulating online, and showed how orcas are mistreated.
Because of that one movie, crowd attendance plummeted at Sea World San Diego, and with it, profits. Initially the company (Sea World Entertainment) lashed out at “Blackfish,” falsely claiming that the film was all lies, and implying that Americans were stupid for believing the lies. This caused company profits to fall even more. It also angered California regulators (the California Coastal Commission), who responded by denying Sea World San Diego permission to breed orcas. The more arrogant the company became, the more its profits evaporated, and the more its stock took a hit.
Finally the company admitted defeat, and today announced that there would be no more orca shows at its San Diego property (although the orca torture will continue at the company’s amusement parks in San Antonio TX and Orlando FL).
Sometimes a single movie can change society. Could a well-made movie, combined with lucky timing, dethrone the Big Lie about U.S. government finances? It seems unlikely, but it is possible. I would produce such a movie myself if I had the money to do it. Rodger could be the director. 🙂
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Elizabeth: Top 10 Crowdfunding Sites For Fundraising
You are a wonderful and intelligent writer and reader. You may wish to produce a script, and thereby, save the world..
Just a thought.
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That’s quite a compliment, coming from my own mentor. My husband has no interest in these matters. I’m thinking about writing a fiction novel that will incorporate the facts of MS. Maybe a kind of “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” thing. Or maybe like the 1993 movie “Dave” in which a guy stands in for the U.S. President and, through sheer simplicity, cleans up a lot of Washington. Remember the Peter sellers movie “Being There” (1979)? Or “Forest Gump” (1994), or “Tucker: The Man and His Dream” (1988)? There are many directions that such a story could go in. It might be fun to write.
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Right wing crazy never ends:
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FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE
Former Labor secretary Robert Reich examines why some right-wing voters have their values and beliefs. His conclusion might be important for our efforts to fight the Big Lie. http://robertreich.org/post/132819483625
During a book tour in the central USA, Reich learned that – contrary to his expectations — average “red state” people…
[1] Oppose “crony capitalism,” in which government is for sale to the highest briber
[2] Oppose “free trade” scams
[3] Oppose the growth of mega-monopolies.
[4] Think the “Citizens United” ruling was shameful
[5] Admit that Wall Street and rich people have all the power, and that “too big to fail” banks should be broken up, and that deregulation has been disastrous (e.g. the repeal of Glass-Steagall).
Reich says these don’t oppose government per se. On the contrary, over half of average Republican voters favor additional spending on Social Security, Medicare, education, and infrastructure. Rather, they see government as the vehicle for big corporations and Wall Street to crush the little guy.
They like Donald Trump because they think he is too rich to be bought. They think Trump as President would protect Social Security, and would tax hedge-fund managers, and would impose tariffs on American companies that send manufacturing overseas. (I think they are deluded in this, but no matter.)
So what does this mean for us? It means that when we try to explain the facts of Monetary Sovereignty to ignorant people, we might consider punctuating our discourse with people’s favorite buzzwords. We might explain that austerity is a scam to destroy Social Security, enhance “crony capitalism,” and strengthen “big government” in the form of corporate control.
It may sound wacky, but in doing this we would fight fire with fire. Politicians throw out buzzwords and hot-button issues, and they twist the buzzwords to serve the rich. Perhaps, instead of relying on facts and logic, we should twist the same buzzwords so that they promote truth, justice, and equality.
The rich and their politician-stooges know that the public is much more swayed by emotion than by reason. Remember that three-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi who drowned in the sea off Turkey, and washed ashore on Sep 2nd 2015? The photos of him lying dead on the beach did far more to awaken everyone to the plight of refugees than did logic and facts.
Our rulers understand that most people are irrational. So should we. When we communicate, we should remember that people don’t want logic. People want to be moved emotionally.
Just a thought.
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