How to cut the crime rates in America

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

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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I belong to a country club north of Chicago. The staff, meaning the waiters, cooks, greenskeepers, valets and office personnel, are the sweetest, kindest, friendliest people you can imagine.

And, it isn’t easy.

It isn’t easy meeting the demands of members who are accustomed to having their desires met instantly — members who might complain if the steak is not cooked exactly right, or the car is not delivered within a few seconds or the tee box has too many divots — important stuff like that.

It isn’t easy meeting those demands with a friendly smile, and never objecting to any unreasonable demands.

And it isn’t easy maintaining that sweet, kind, friendly demeanor when your salary is — oh, I don’t know. I never asked. It wasn’t important to me. But I suspect it was well south of $20K per year, far less than 1/10th the typical member’s income.

And it isn’t easy supporting yourself on that income, much less supporting a wife and children.

One day last year, our club was purchased by a large corporation whose business it is to own clubs — more than 200 of them at last count.

And immediately thereafter, all these sweet, kind, friendly, low-paid employees – many of whom had worked for us for many years — were fired.

You see, they were undocumented immigrants, mostly from Central America. And a big corporation cannot afford to risk bending the law by employing undocumented immigrants.

I don’t know what these wonderful former employees now are doing to sustain themselves. Surely, they could not have had money set aside for emergencies.

Are they and their children starving?  Homeless? I don’t know.

Of all those lovely people, there was one who stood out — the sweetest, kindest, friendliest of all, who had worked at the club for many years. He worked hard; he worked well; he was loved by all.

I just heard he was arrested for dealing meth to supplement his income. My heart is broken. This kind, gentle family man will go to jail.

What will become of his family? How will they survive?

I don’t know whether his children are smart or talented, but they probably will not see college, and thereby may be doomed to low level jobs their entire lives — perhaps doomed to crime, themselves.

Poor neighborhoods have more crime, more gangs, more robberies and shootings, than do rich neighborhoods. And we tend to look down on those people. We tend to think of the poor as natural criminals.

We sneer at those receiving welfare benefits, as being lazy. We claim that if we give them assistance, that merely encourages their laziness. We feel superior to them.

But in reality, we do not understand what being poor means —  the minute-by-minute grind of trying to feed your children, pay your rent, fend off creditors and live amid crime —  always, always being short of money and short of pride.

We help cause that crime. When we cut social benefit payments because “they are socialism” or “they encourage laziness” or “they will cause inflation” or “it isn’t fair that they get money for not working,” we push desperate people into crime.

Yes, I know that not all poor people resort to crime.  I get that. But we humans are programmed to survive in the best way we can. And part of our survival involves yielding to temptation. We all do it.

The poor, like everyone else, want their children to live better lives. But as the days and months and years go by, and your children must leave high school for work, and never will go to college, and you know their lives will be hardscrabble — all for lack of money — what do you do?

What would you do?

And when the politicians want you to wait ten years to become a citizen, and meanwhile want to deport you, and they cut your meager benefits, and they don’t want you to have a legal job, and your life has no future — what would you do?

Crime. It isn’t a long-term answer to your poverty, but it can be an immediate solution to your immediate problems. (When you’re poor, virtually all your problems are immediate.)

We dramatically could reduce crime, but not by enacting stricter laws nor by harsher sentences, nor by increasing the size of our police forces.

We  dramatically could reduce gang violence, but not by building basketball courts to “give them something to do” nor by sending them to church to “learn right from wrong.”

We dramatically could reduce crime and gang violence simply by helping the poor financially.

The rich neighborhoods have less crime and violence than do the poor neighborhoods, because the rich have more money.  Period.

The rich are not fundamentally different human beings. It’s just that they can buy the present and they can buy the future, and the poor can do neither. So the poor steal to survive.

Institute the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below) and the crime rate in America, especially street crime, would go down.

Stop claiming that financial aid to the poor makes the poor lazy — and the crime rate would go down.

Stop claiming that the federal government will run out of dollars, or that federal benefits and federal debt are “unsustainable” — and the crime rate would go down.

Stop claiming that federal benefit spending causes inflation — and the crime rate would go down.

We can protect ourselves from crimes after they occur, by adding police and being “tough on crime” and by carrying guns wherever we go.

Or we can prevent crimes before they occur, simply by lifting the poor.

Which do you prefer?

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
Monetary Sovereignty

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

Published by Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

MBA Northwestern, business turnaround expert, economist

Published

22 thoughts on “How to cut the crime rates in America”

  1. [1] “I just heard he was arrested for dealing meth to supplement his income. My heart is broken. This kind, gentle family man will go to jail.” ~ RMM

    The “drug war” is a class war. And, to a large extent, a race war.

    [2] “Poor neighborhoods have more crime, more gangs, more robberies and shootings, than do rich neighborhoods. And we tend to look down on those people. We tend to think of the poor as natural criminals.” ~ RMM

    We need poor neighborhoods. As austerity and hate make most Americans poorer, cities are shifting from relying on sales taxes to relying on fines from citations issued for everything from J-walking to playing music too loudly. If you cannot pay the fines, you go to jail, which you must pay for. This phenomenon is now almost universal in areas with a high percentage of non-white people. They support the white suburbs. But remember: they are “takers,” and there is no institutionalized racism.

    [3] “We sneer at those receiving welfare benefits, as being lazy. We claim that if we give them assistance, we merely encourage their laziness. We feel superior to them.” ~ RMM

    Therefore we support austerity, which impoverishes us. Our stupidity is poor people’s revenge.

    [4] “But in reality, we do not understand what being poor means — the minute-by-minute grind of trying to feed your children, pay your rent, fend off creditors and live amid crime — always, always being short of money and short of pride.”

    Poverty is the worst form of violence.

    [5] “We help cause that crime. When we cut social benefit payments because ‘they are socialism’ or “they encourage laziness” or ‘they will cause inflation’ or ‘it isn’t fair that they get money for not working,’ we push desperate people into crime.” ~ RMM

    Typical bleeding heart drivel. Why don’t poor people get (non-existent) jobs?

    [6] “Yes, I know that not all poor people resort to crime. I get that. But we humans are programmed to survive in the best way we can.” ~ RMM

    Nonsense. The poor are cockroaches, programmed to produce more poor cockroaches. Austerity is only protection against them.

    [7] “The poor, like everyone else, want their children to live better lives. But as the days go by, and your children never will go to college, and you know their lives will be hardscrabble — all for lack of money. What do you do? What would YOU do?” ~ RMM

    I would tell my children to go find (non-existent) jobs. I told my own kids to get (non-existent) jobs from the minute they were born. One of the lazy bastards is almost three months old, and he still doesn’t have a job. He’s a taker.

    [8] “We could dramatically reduce crime and gang violence by simply helping the poor financially.” ~ RMM

    But then we would risk making poor people think they are as good as we are. Then I no longer look at them and think, “At least I’m not as worthless as that slob.” That’s why I vote for right-wingers. I do it to keep the poor in their place so I can feel better about my own wretchedness. Yes, I cause crime, but when someone gets shot, I can throw a flower on the murder scene afterward, and pat myself on the back for “caring.”

    [9] “The rich neighborhoods have less crime and violence than do the poor neighborhoods, because the rich have more money. Period.” ~ RMM

    Each crime in poor neighborhoods is perpetrated on one person, or at most a handful of people. However “white collar” crime is perpetrated on millions of people. Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill a million and you are a beloved conqueror. Go figure.

    [10] “The rich are not fundamentally different human beings.” ~ RMM

    Nonsense. They’re rich, aren’t they? What more proof do you need that they are “better”?

    [11] “Institute the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below) and the crime rate in America, especially street crime, would go down.” ~ RMM

    Ugggh! Can you imagine living every day in a love-filled paradise? What would we have to complain about? Give me suffering so I can whine about it, which never becomes boring.

    [12] “We can protect ourselves from crimes after they occur, by adding police and being ‘tough on crime’ and by carrying guns wherever we go. Or we can prevent crimes before they occur, simply by lifting the poor. Which do you prefer?”

    I prefer stomping the poor so I can look down on them, no matter how far down I fall.

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    1. “The “drug war” is a class war. And, to a large extent, a race war.”………… hahaha, to a large extent a race war, is that a joke? the 1st drug war was instituted by Nixon, as part of his Southern Strategy (the DEA was created under Nixon for freak’s sake). it has always been a race war, first and foremost. just like with your understanding of the 2nd amendment. unbelievable…….

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      1. Speaking of the 2nd Amendment:

        Shooting at New Orleans playground wounds 16

        Mayor Mitch Landrieu, speaking in a news conference aired on WWL-TV, called on people who were in the park to come forward with information.

        “At the end of the day it’s really hard to police against a bunch of guys who decide to pull out guns and settle their disputes with 300 people in between them. That’s just not something you can tolerate in the city,” Landrieu said.

        Ah, if only all those 300 people had been packing guns, there would have been no bloodshed.

        What we need is more guns in the hands of more people. That’s the solution.

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          2. “Trump is your dad.” Very true. 🙂 Trump says that 81% of whites are killed by Blacks. That is comical. Trump also says that 97% of blacks are killed by other blacks. The “Reason” blog says (I am paraphrasing): “Yeah, because most people are killed by people they know, since most people, statistically speaking, tend to spend their free time with members of their own race.”

            Aside from all this, there is another dimension that bigots refuse to acknowledge, and that is institutionalized racism. For example, the Social Security Act of 1935 excluded from coverage agricultural and domestic workers, because they tended to be Black and Hispanic. Some people claim that this only happened because it was not feasible to collect FICA taxes from these workers, but that is nonsense, since FICA taxes don’t pay for Social Security.

            During World War II, Black workers tended to be given the dirtiest, most strenuous, and most dangerous jobs. Thus, when the Port Chicago Naval Magazine blew up in Port Chicago, CA (July 17, 1944) all of the 320 sailors and civilians killed (plus 290 wounded) were Black. During the war there were “race riots” (i.e. Black uprisings) across the USA. There was also the Japanese internment experience. There were racial aspects to FHA housing rules, bank lending guidelines, and many other things. There was the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment. There is racial profiling among the police. There are skewed incarceration rates. There was the slavery era. And so forth. I’m just scratching the surface, but my point is this…

            Show me a racist society, and I’ll show you a society whose people who are not only cruel to other races, but cruel to each other.

            Put another way, white people’s hatred for each other increases in direct proportion to their collective hatred of non-whites. Result: everyone suffers.

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    2. to add, I agree with a lot of what you say ms harris, as Ive been an MMTer/MSer for years, but your broad brush, and mindless co-signing of everything Rodger says, suggests you may need to brush up on historical facts, and not just “it’s a class war, the rich are blah blah blah”.

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      1. @Averageblow: Most U.S. prison inmates are incarcerated for petty drug offenses. Once they are trapped by the system, they find it nearly impossible to escape. Statistically these Americans tend to be poor and / or people of color. Therefore the “drug war” is a class war and a race war. It is a siege against the lower classes and the ghettos, waged by people like you..

        As for “mindless co-signing of everything Rodger says,” there are some areas were my opinions and Rodger’s are identical, and other areas where they are different. So what?

        By the way, in attacking me as “mindless,” you carelessly used up your only freebee with me. However, if it make you feel any better, you can leave as many nasty comments as you like on my own blog. I won’t respond to them, but I promise I won’t delete them either. I prefer to let people make fools of themselves in front of everyone.

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          1. “mindless disagreement”? rodger, you do yourself no favors when you devolve to the ‘mindless’, yourself. if you have an argument, make it, don’t lower yourself to insults. what would your country club friends think?

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          2. O.K., now that you have proved you have no sense of humor, let’s move to the facts.

            You said, ” . . . you may need to brush up on historical facts. . . “

            Please list the facts with which you disagree.

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        2. averageblow…. hahaha, nice……..how old are you? how do you define “nasty”? how am I making a “fool of myself”? and I love this, “it is a siege against the lower classes and the ghettos (whatever that is supposed to mean), WAGED BY PEOPLE LIKE ME”. people like me are what exactly?

          you make pronouncements evidencing a profound ignorance of US history, even as you ‘defend’, so called minorities and the poor in your arguments. do you know what the ‘southern strategy’ was? do you know what ‘jim crow’ was all about? can you associate convict lease laws, peonage, post reconstruction with why prison are predominately full of black males?

          please cite when you have disagreed with anything Rodger has said, the mythfighter.com readers wait with bated breath.

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  2. Trump claims that he saw Muslims cheering when the World Trade Center towers fell. He says we need more torture to fight the (US-armed, trained and funded) terrorists. He says “we have to be strong” to counter the brutality (of our own terrorist mercenaries).

    “We have to be tough.”

    I agree. Let’s be so tough that we kick them off our payroll.

    Ben Carson says that as President he will bomb the terrorists wherever they are in the USA and around the world. Bomb everyone. “There’s no such thing as political correctness when we’re fighting terrorists.”

    (Presumably the “terrorists” include Muslims, poor people, “liberals” and other “takers,” wherever they’re hiding.)

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/22/donald-trump-bring-back-waterboarding-to-fight-islamic-state/

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  3. This economic system as promoted by the wealthy and privileged, and agreed to across the world, not solely in the USA, what we call neo-liberalism, is a big cause of the terror campaigns of today.
    If we marginalise the young, and we are certainly doing that, the resultant disaffection with society will drive some to extremes. This ought to be obvious, but the PTB’s mindset is to just fight the violence with more violence. So the situation will just carry on until some major fault line opens up, such as a famine, a financial crash, etc. These are in our future anyway. The PTB sow the seeds of their own destruction. Don’t feel schadenfreude at that. They will trash everything.

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  5. Will Trump’s wall keep them here?

    More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to the U.S.

    Net Loss of 140,000 from 2009 to 2014; Family Reunification Top Reason for Return

    BY ANA GONZALEZ-BARRERA

    More Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the U.S. than have migrated here since the end of the Great Recession, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from both countries.

    The same data sources also show the overall flow of Mexican immigrants between the two countries is at its smallest since the 1990s, mostly due to a drop in the number of Mexican immigrants coming to the U.S.

    Donald Trump, America’s Bigot-In-Chief, plans to build a wall to keep Mexicans out. But perhaps we need his dopey wall to lock them in??

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  7. Is America a right-wing paradise, or what?

    [1] Deidre Romine is unemployed and about to lose her apartment. Hungry and desperate, she pulled $2.87 in coins out of a public fountain so she could buy something to eat. A policeman saw her and issued her a summons to appear in court on a charge of theft. Now she faces possible jail.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/unemployed-ohio-woman-charged-2-87-fountain-buy-food-article-1.1488438

    [2] Since 1991, Arnold Abbot (now aged 90) has been feeding the homeless in Fort Lauderdale. Every Wednesday, Mr. Abbot feeds the less fortunate by the beach. Last week Fort Lauderdale passed a new law that bans humanitarian groups from feeding homeless people on the street. It comes with a penalty of up to 60 days in jail. A few days ago, Arnold Abbot and two ministers were arrested for preparing and the serving a meal to the homeless.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/06/1342629/-90-year-old-activist-arrested-again-for-feeding-the-homeless-of-Florida?detail=email

    [3] Corporate crime prosecutions are rare, and they usually skip over top managers. No Wall Street executives were charged for the crimes that caused the 2008 financial crisis. Nonetheless, today House Republicans unveiled legislation (sponsored by the Koch brothers) that will further decriminalize corporate crime. The Koch brothers’ bill is called “criminal justice reform,” and it will excuse white-collar crimes where the damaging acts are “merely” reckless, negligent or grossly negligent. This will make it more difficult for federal authorities to pursue executive wrongdoing, from financial fraud to environmental pollution.

    FBI statistics confirm a dramatic decline in violent crimes since 1991, yet the number of prisoners has doubled over approximately the same period.
    Meanwhile, white-collar prosecutions have been reduced by over a third, and corporate leaders are steadily working toward 100% tolerance for their crimes. (Bernie Madoff was just caught too early, that’s all.)

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-collar-crime-prosecution_564a2336e4b06037734a2f84?fspxpqfr

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  8. GENERAL NOTICE

    Just an FYI…I am very new to Rodger’s blog, but I have read every one of Rodger’s posts going back five years, plus miscellaneous items by Rodger on the Internet. I also bought Rodger’s book “Free Money.” That’s how I learned so much about MS so fast. There are some topics outside the area of Monetary Sovereignty in which my viewpoint differs from Rodger’s, but I stay silent about them, since I do not consider these differences of opinion to be anywhere near as important as Rodger’s main message, which I agree with 100%. Therefore what some people call a “mindless agreement” is actually a focused concentration on the central issues of MS.

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  9. “Laquan McDonald”……… how about, if you want to reduce the crime rate, rogue, racist white cops can start to do their job and not kill black (aka so called minorities) folk indiscriminately, and so called “decent” white folk can act like decent folk. of course, that would assume that “the blacks” are justified to ask for equal treatment under the law. that would assume that “the blacks” didn’t have it coming, because we all know black on black crime is the #1 reason for what happens in black communities (ignoring, of course, that all communities commit the vast majority of their crimes against their own ‘so called’ people)…. and you gotta love the complicity of the twin cities cops in the racist white supremacist shooting on Monday against the ‘Black Lives” folk (Minneapolis) protesting the shackled black man shot in the head. can’t wait to read ms harris and her, “it’s the rich, it’s class, blah blah” argument…….. merry thanksgiving

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