What if Trump had won

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Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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In a post dated January 26, 2015, long before Donald Trump became a candidate for president, we described how the Tea/Republican Party had become the party of hatred.

It encouraged its followers to despise:

–The poor and middle income
–The unemployed
–The elderly
–Those wanting to save the environment
–Science and scientists
–Gays
–Immigrants
–Blacks, browns, yellows, reds
–Women
–Non-Christians
–The “establishment”

Trump is the logical outcome of the hatreds instilled in conservatives by Republican leaders. You only can shake your head in wonder at the “shock” those leaders now feign at Trump’s rise.

Like someone who wanted a vicious dog, the conservatives created and nurtured Trump and all his hatreds. Now that he has come back to bite them, they complain about the very thing they asked for.

In a post dated July 11, 2015, we made the first of our many comparisons of Trump with Adolf Hitler.

Just as Hitler did, Trump appeals to the lowest instincts of humanity. He appeals to hatred and xenophobia.

His unapologetic “birther” campaign against President Obama, was a disguised appeal to haters of blacks.

Trump is our modern-day Hitler, and you will see that haters will be his core constituency, just as the haters were Hitler’s.

Most dictators have gained power via hatred of some group. It happened in Hitler’s Germany. It happened in Stalin’s Russia (Jews and Bolsheviks). It happened in Mao’s China (the rich, the educated, the clergy).

Always, there was some group at which hatred was directed — some group falsely blamed. And the result always has been disaster, for that is where hatred always leads.

As Trump’s popularity rises, it is happening here. He is forcing us onto a well-traveled path.

Though other nations were already at war, World War II is generally is considered to have begun when Germany invaded Poland in 1939.

At that time, Germany was relatively modest in size — about 80 million people — and still was recovering, not just from the Great Depression, but also by the onerous conditions the Allies had exacted as a result of World War I (War Guilt Clause of the Treaty of Versailles).

Germany’s military and wealth had been greatly reduced, but:

(Wikipedia): After the Nazi takeover of power in January 1933, the Nazis pursued a greatly enlarged and more aggressive version of rearmament.

During its struggle for power, the National Socialist party promised to recover Germany’s lost national pride.

Dictators often recruit followers on the basis of restoring the nation’s power (i. e. “Make America great, again.”)

By 1941, “little, weak” Germany conquered most of continental Europe. Hitler ruled Europe in just two years of warfare, but later lost only because he “knew more than the generals.” (Does this sound familiar?)

Ignoring the warnings from those generals, he over-estimated his army’s ability to defeat Russia and the United States.

Until Hitler was defeated, his ruthless rampage cost the world fifty million lives and unimaginable  devastation and human suffering.

Now consider what might have happened had Hitler clone, Donald Trump, won the Presidential election. He would have had, at his command, a huge nation, 330 million strong, and the mightiest military the world has ever known.

Trump’s xenophobia and willingness to employ atomic weapons would have unleashed a human extinction event, leaving the world poisoned for centuries.

Just this past September, we published, “Astounding similarities: Of whom does this remind you? It’s happening now.”

If you read it, you will see that the parallels between Hitler and Trump cannot be denied. The evil of one is mirrored in the other.

Fortunately for America and the world, we have escaped what could have been the greatest disaster in human history — an apocalyptic war and a permanent dictatorship over what was left of the world.

We were lucky this time, for clearly the closeness of the election shows that Americans have not learned from history.

Far too many of us still are willing to follow a Hitlerian leader, whose power is based on hatred.

There have been many predictions about what will end human life as we know it — global warming, a huge meteor, an unstoppable virus, an invasion by aliens.

I suspect the most likely event will be the rise of another Hitlerian/Trumpian dictator in a powerful nation like America.

It could have happened. It almost happened.

Unless we learn from history, it will happen.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the rich and the rest.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich afford better health care than the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE AN ANNUAL ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONEFive reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefiting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and corporate taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY