Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
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It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders..
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The desire to distance ourselves from the poor while approaching the rich is a common human affliction. It is “Gap Psychology.”
Thus. the very rich — the upper .1% — wish to widen the Gap between them and you. Without the Gap, no one would be rich — we all would be the same — and the wider the Gap, the richer they are.
“Rich” is a comparative. If you had $1 million, and everyone else also had $1 million, you would not be rich. But if you had $1 hundred, and everyone else had $1, you would be rich.
There are two ways for the rich to widen the Gap, that is, to make themselves richer: Add to their wealth or subtract from yours.
Giving tax breaks to the rich is an example of adding to the wealth of the rich. Consider payroll taxes:
If your annual salary is $127K or less, you pay more than 12% of your salary ostensibly for Social Security. (Yes, your employer pays half, but he counts this as part of your salary when calculating his costs).
If your annual salary is $500K you pay only 3%. If your income is composed of dividends, interest, or business profits, you pay no payroll tax at all. Now that is a tax break.
As for income taxes, this post doesn’t have room to describe the many special breaks the rich receive for offshore and onshore deals.
Perhaps the most insidious method the rich use for widening the Gap, is to enlist you in their efforts, that is, to make you believe the Gap should be widened. This belief protects the politicians who vote for the enrichment of the rich and for the impoverishment of the rest.
The federal government’s budget is heavily swayed toward anti-poverty spending. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social programs, together account for the vast majority of federal spending.
So the rich want you to believe that social spending should be cut, and they do this in two ways:
- Tell you that the federal government is “too big,” that federal debt and deficits are “unsustainable,” and that social programs, being “unaffordable,” must be reduced, eliminated or privatized.
- . Tell you that those receiving social benefits are morally reprehensible “takers,” or “lazy and unmotivated.”
The notion that the federal government is “too big,” has become one of the more ludicrous mantras of the Tea Party/Libertarian/GOP. It is an idea based not on fact, but on emotional symbolism.
One Libertarian website refers to the federal government as “Leviathan,” to draw a picture in your mind of some great primeval monster gobbling up your freedoms.
Consider this article:
If the correct words were used, the public would not be deceived. One doubts whether there would be a demand to reduce “deposits” (in the Federal Reserve Bank) or cut “investments” (in T-securities). And why would anyone want to stop economic “input”?
Bottom line: The rich run America by bribing politicians (via campaign contributions), the media (via ownership and advertising), and the economists (via university endowments and “think tanks.”)
The rich want to widen the gap between the rich and the rest. They do this partly by convincing the American voter that the poor are undeserving and can be helped only by denying them benefits (while the rich continue to reap benefits).
The fact that the electorate has voted for a Republican Congress, a Republican President, and many Republican state governors and legislatures, proves the scheme has worked.
The people, believing the euphemisms, have voted against themselves, and they will fight you if you try to tell them the truth.
The power of euphemisms is greater than the power of facts.
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 have-mores and the have-less.
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 can afford better health care than can 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 A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Economic Bonus)) 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 EVERYONE Five 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 benefitting 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 FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce 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 business 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
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
Chicago Tribune, May 24, 2017:
As usual, the Party of the Rich takes from the poor, gives to the rich, and uses the Big Lie (that federal taxes fund federal spending) to justify everything.
Amazing that the poor continue to fall for the same, old scam.
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