The real difference between the 1% and the 99%

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
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As you now know, money is speech. The Supreme Court, and its dearly departed right-wing leader, Antonin Scalia said so, in its notorious “Citizens United” decision.

(This is the same group who decided that corporations are people, but that’s a separate issue.)

If money = speech, how much “speech” did you earn last year? How much “speech” do you spend on rent and food? Did your “speech” pay for your car?

If you are lucky and/or skillful, your earnings of “speech” could increase dramatically some day, in which case you will be entitled to more “speech” than you now are, the rich legally being allowed more “speech” than are the poor.

(And if you’re a corporation, your free speech rights will exceed those of virtually any citizen of America  — but that too, is a separate issue.)

Because money is “speech,” and rich people have more rights to speech than average folk, one would hope rich people, with all their speaking, also would be more truthful about economics than average folk.

Ah, would that it were so.

Today’s Chicago Tribune published an article titled, “Cruz megadonor holding back” which demonstrated the evils of lying money (i.e. false speech):

Ted Cruz, in his outsider’s bid for the white House, has depended heavily on the largesse of just three wealthy donors to establish credibility and stay afloat amid a chaotic nominating process that killed off most of his rivals.

One of the three primary donors, Toby Neugebauer, a private equity manager who recruited the other two top donors, has refrained from spending the vast majority of his $10 million contribution. After Citizens United and other court decisions opened the door to nearly unlimited campaign donations, many donors became frustrated with the control they surrendered to campaign consultants, who blew through millions of dollars on TV ads in a fruitless effort to elect Mitt Romney.

To counter the risk of a repeat of 2012, Neugebauer helped set up three supper PACs last year to support Cruz. The groups, forbidden by law to communicate with the Cruz campaign, planned to divvy up responsibility for aiding his candidacy.

Think about it. Romney’s campaign consultants “blew through millions on TV ads,” and there was no communication with the Romney campaign. Do you believe that?

Why would there be a law against communication? Isn’t this an unconstitutional limitation of free speech? Why can real speech, in the form of actual talking, be limited, but fake speech, in the form of money be unlimited?

Bad law begets more bad law, and our current Supreme Court is a champion of bad law.

Using “Scalialogic,” any limitation on money or speech is unconstitutional. So how did he overlook the few remaining limitations? Too ridiculous, even for him?

We now approach the crux of this post. People do not give millions of dollars to a Presidential candidate, unless they expect something in return.

At minimum, they get access to a President. (When was the last time you had a private discussion with a President of the United States?)

More than just access, they often get special favors, which is why our tax code is so convoluted.  All those special favors baked into the code, make for mind-numbing complexity.  Many laws benefit just one taxpayer — and trust me on this, that one taxpayer is a rich donor.

Ten donors have given a total of $48 million. Many of them made their money in oil and gas, industries that have received strong support from Cruz.

Only the most suspicious among us would believe there is any connection between the rich giving Cruz $10 million, $20 million, $48 million or more of their precious dollars and Cruz supporting “drill, baby drill” everywhere possible.

No, the rich like to deny any selfish reason why they bet all that money on a candidate whom John Boehner referred to as “Lucifer in the flesh.”

Instead, the rich offer high-minded motives, because as everyone knows, the rich are generous, compassionate people, who care only about those less fortunate — which is why the rich want to cut your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

Such cuts are for your own good.

So here it is:

Neugebauer said he and the other donors were not motivated by personal issues or gain. Rather, he said, they are united by a concern for the country’s debt.

“I know its sounds crazy,” he said. “We are anti-establishment, and we all think the country is on the precipice of insolvency.”

You believe this, don’t you: The rich are not motivated by personal issues. The rich are not motivated by personal gain.

And, the rich are anti-establishment? Right, anti the very establishment that has made all their tax savings and corporate wealth possible — which is why they are donating many millions to an establishment Senator.

Makes sense to me.

But what doesn’t make sense to me is how these rich people actually could believe that our Monetarily Sovereign America is “on the precipice of insolvency.”

Is it possible these people are so out of touch with reality, that they truly believe America, which pays all its bills by creating dollars ad hoc, suddenly will lose the ability to create its own sovereign currency?

No.

The phony “insolvency” issue is the rationale for cutting your Social Security and taxing your benefits, cutting your Medicare, cutting your Medicaid, increasing your FICA,  cutting food stamps and other aids to the poor, and lending you (rather than giving you) dollars for college — loans that uniquely cannot be discharged even in bankruptcy.

The very heart of the 1%s efforts to widen the Gap between the rich and the rest is known as the Big Lie, which in its simplest version is: Federal taxes fund federal spending.

Every misstatement about economics, promulgated by the rich (via their bought-and-paid-for media, politicians and economists) evolves from that one simple lie.

While state, county, and city taxes fund state’s, county’s and city’s spending, federal taxes do not fund federal spending. That is the difference between federal financing and all other financing.

And, the real difference between the 1% and the 99%, is this: The 1% tell the Big Lie; the 99% believe the Big Lie.

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 grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.
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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

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Recessions begin an average of 2 years after the blue line first dips below zero. A common phenomenon is for the line briefly to dip below zero, then rise above zero, before falling dramatically below zero. There was a brief dip below zero in 2015, followed by another dip – the familiar pre-recession pattern.
Recessions are cured by a rising red line.

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.

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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..
•No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth.
•Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
•A growing economy requires a growing supply of money (GDP = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
•Deficit spending grows the supply of money
•The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
•The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

•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 the rest..
•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..

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY