Absolute proof that H.L. Mencken was right — in 3 articles.

Here are three related articles showing absolute proof that H.L. Mencken was right:

1. Air pollution is the single largest environmental health risk in Europe,” says the EEA.
NewScientist, By Andy Coghlan

Air pollution kills 7 million people a year, worldwide. In the US, the figure is about 200,000. Most of us will die earlier from the toll it takes on our health.

Filthy air killed half a million people in Europe prematurely in 2014. So says a report on air quality from the European Environment Agency.

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Reuters: Air pollution linked to asthma in children and teens

Nitrogen dioxide, mostly from vehicle exhausts, cut short an estimated 78,000 lives across the same 41 countries.

Heart disease and stroke are the most common reasons for premature death attributable to air pollution, and are responsible for 80 percent of cases,” the report says.

Air pollution also contributes to other respiratory diseases and cancer, and has non-lethal impacts on diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, pregnancy and brain development in children.

The UK saw many premature deaths from exposure to nitrogen dioxide: about 14,000. This was compounded by widespread use of diesel fuel in vehicles.

Summary: Air pollution sickens and kills, adults and children.

2. Trump could move this week to end California’s clean-car authority
By: David R. Baker, a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

For automakers, it could create years of uncertainty over which standards their cars must meet.

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From 9/1/17, new cars must pass stricter emissions tests before they can be driven on European roads.

“These were issues that were resolved 9 years ago, and it’s almost like picking at a scab that healed long ago and reopening it, only to cause the automakers a lot of bleeding,” said Simon Mui, a senior scientist and clean vehicles specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

The administration will propose stopping planned increases in fuel efficiency after 2020 and challenging California’s unique ability to set its own auto air pollution standards.

Thirteen other states and the District of Columbia also follow California’s emission standards.

Since 1970, California has had under the federal Clean Air Act the ability to set air pollution standards that are more stringent than the federal government’s. Although the state initially used that power to regulate smog-causing pollutants, it has become a key weapon in the state’s fight against climate change.

President Barack Obama took California’s standards nationwide. So California’s standards are now in sync with the federal government’s. Trump has made rolling back Obama’s environmental and climate programs a high priority.

An annual report issued this month by the California Air Resources Board found that California has already met its 2020 goal for cutting greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels. State law now calls for slashing emissions another 40 percent by 2030.

“In California, transportation has been the only sector where emissions have been flat or even going up, so this is very important,” said Daniel Sperling, a member of the Air Resources Board and founding director of UC Davis’ Institute of Transportation Studies. “By simple math, if we don’t get the substantial reductions from vehicles, we’ll have to get them from industry or some other way.”

The administration’s actions could place automakers in a bind.

Shortly after President Trump’s election, an auto industry lobbying group sent him a letter asking for more flexibility in the fuel-mileage program. But the prospect of an across-the-board freeze — and another protracted fight between California and the federal government — appears to have unnerved the industry. Top executives of Ford, for example, spoke out this spring against a rollback.

And a long legal fight between the state and federal governments could make it difficult for the automakers to plan, since the process of designing, engineering and introducing a new car typically takes more than three years.

Summary: Trump wants to end anti-pollution efforts because they are an Obama initiative, supposedly they are a burden on automakers, and climate change isn’t happening.

But, the automakers don’t want Trump’s plan to end anti-pollution efforts.

3. Donald Trump’s Approval Rating Inches Higher, Buoyed by Republican Support
In the latest WSJ/NBC News poll, the president’s job approval rose to 45%
By Michael C. Bender, Updated July 22, 2018 10:15 p.m. ET

Mr. Trump’s job approval rating rose to 45% in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the highest mark of his presidency and up 1 percentage point from June.Related image

The survey was taken over a four-day period that started July 15, a day before Mr. Trump’s news conference with Mr. Putin in which he questioned the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.

Underpinning Mr. Trump’s job approval was support from 88% of Republican voters. Of the four previous White House occupants, only George W. Bush, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had a higher approval rating within his own party at the same point in his presidency.

Summary: Trump opposes efforts to cut the pollution that kills adults and children, and causes damaging climate change. Forty-five percent of Americans and 88% of Republicans, think he is doing a good job.

Mencken was right:

“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
H. L. Mencken

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

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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 (Guaranteed Income)) 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
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

2 thoughts on “Absolute proof that H.L. Mencken was right — in 3 articles.

  1. Climate change has turned science into a bullshit factory.

    The Radiative Greenhouse Effect Theory

    Premise 1:
    The earth is 33 C warmer with an atmosphere than without. (288 K – 255 K = 33 C)
    So, just how does that work?

    Premise 2:
    There is an up/down/”back” radiative CO2/GHG LWIR energy loop between the surface and the atmosphere that “traps” and recirculates energy through molecular level QED processes warming both the atmosphere and the surface.
    And what powers that energy loop?

    Premise 3:
    The surface radiates as a 288 K ideal black body with an emission of 390 W/m^2 (K-T 289 K & 396 W/m^2)

    Premises 1, 2 & 3 are demonstrably false.

    No 33 C warmer + No up/down/”back” radiation loop + No BB radiation = Carbon dioxide and mankind play ZERO role in the behavior of the climate.

    Premise 1:
    http://writerbeat.com/articles/15582-To-be-33C-or-not-to-be-33C
    Premise 2:
    http://writerbeat.com/articles/14306-Greenhouse—We-don-t-need-no-stinkin-greenhouse-Warning-science-ahead-
    Premise 3:
    http://www.writerbeat.com/articles/21036-S-B-amp-GHG-amp-LWIR-amp-RGHE-amp-CAGW
    https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6394226874976919552

    Like

  2. Point and counterpoint:

    THE WEEK Magazine:

    1. White House: North Korea returns remains of U.S. soldiers

    The White House said a U.S. Air Force jet carrying the remains of 55 Americans killed in the Korean War arrived at Osan Air Base in South Korea early Friday.

    “Today’s actions represent a significant first step to recommence the repatriation of remains from North Korea and to resume field operations in North Korea to search for the estimated 5,300 Americans who have not yet returned home.”

    2. More than 700 children remain separated from migrant parents

    Government lawyers said 711 children could not be immediately returned to their families.

    Of those, 431 were children of parents already deported. The parents of 120 waived reunification, although the ACLU filed court documents saying that many of those parents didn’t understand the forms they signed due to language barriers or illiteracy.

    The families, some caught trying to cross the border illegally and others seeking asylum at border crossings, were separated under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on illegal immigration.

    Like

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