Anyone following the story of Representative Duncan Hunter’s indictment, along with his wife, for epic levels of illegal personal use of campaign funds, is bound to be curious about how people in his San Diego–area 50th congressional district are reacting.
“He’s doing a great job”: Donald Trump
But now SurveyUSA has published a poll it did for the local newspaper and a TV station that was taken entirely after the indictment was released.
It showed Hunter still up among likely voters by eight points, 47 percent to 39 percent, over Democratic nominee Ammar Campa-Najjar.
It also showed 76 percent of respondents were aware that “Hunter and his wife were the subject of a criminal investigation” (not too surprising since the investigation into his campaign spending has been going on since 2016).
And interestingly enough, Hunter’s lead is the same among those who are and who are not “aware” that he’s in deep trouble with the feds.
GOPers believe “law and order” counts only for immigrants, not for white, Republican citizens.
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, pleaded guilty to eight counts of campaign finance violations and tax and bank fraud, admitting he broke the law at the direction of Trump himself.
Cohen said in his guilty plea that he broke federal law at the direction of the candidate he was working for (Trump).
It’s true that crime would be small potatoes compared to proof that Trump personally colluded with Russian agents to win the presidency. But it’s still a federal crime — and Trump’s allies in Congress don’t seem bothered.
Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, was found guilty of eight counts of tax and bank fraud.
“I don’t think he did anything wrong”: Donald Trump
And Republicans in Congress aren’t batting an eye.
The party of “law and order” does not care that Cohen and Manafort are guilty of crimes.
No outrage can be found in Congress or in right-wing media.
And dare we mention noted EB-1, “chain immigrant,” Melania Trump. ( Politico reports that a wealth of evidence suggests that she was, in fact, an undocumented immigrant who worked in this country illegally.)
“He’s an excellent guy”: Donald Trump
But if none of the above illegality stirs the souls of the party of “law and order,” we can look at the man himself, Donald Trump, he of the $25 million scam known as “Trump University. ”
Sadly, no Republican outrage there, either.
And none for the Trump Foundation. (“As our investigation reveals, the Trump Foundation was little more than a checkbook for payments from Mr. Trump or his businesses to nonprofits, regardless of their purpose or legality,” Attorney General Barbara Underwood said.)
“I can turn anyone into a successful real estate investor, including you”: Donald Trump
Despite Trump’s long history of scams, we see no outrage — only support — from the party of “law and order.”
The real GOP outrage is reserved for Mexicans.
You know, those brown-skinned, hard-working people who seek shelter here to make better lives for themselves and their children, and unlike crooked Trump and his crooked acolytes, really have helped make America great.
As for crooked Trump’s crooked acolytes, they are pure white. The only things brown about them are their noses.
And as for the GOP, it doesn’t care a fig for “law and order.” Nor does it care about the illegality of immigrants. GOPers feel the same about legal immigrants.
And surely they care nothing about “making America great. They care only about defending the cult leader and appealing to fellow haters.
“They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists”: Donald Trump
The “law and order” party objects to illegality — but only by brown-skinned people.
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:
We could have begun each answer with the words, “Contrary to popular wisdom . . .” for much of economics differs from what you, the public, are being told.
The federal government uniquely is Monetarily Sovereign. It invented and rules all the laws that create and regulate its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.
Federal financing is substantially different from your personal financing, your business’s financing, and your state’s, county’s, and your city’s financing.
If ever you have attempted to explain (or understand) Monetary Sovereignty, you probably have encountered these 10 questions:
1. “Is federal debt unsustainable? (I.e., can we continue running deficits forever. If you and I need to live within our means, must the federal government live within its means?)
A Monetarily Sovereign government never can run short of its own sovereign currency, so it has no “means” to live within.
Having the unlimited ability to create new dollars, the federal government can pay any obligation denominated in dollars, no matter how large. The federal government doesn’t even need to levy taxes.
The very act of paying its bills is the method by which the government creates new dollars. To pay a creditor, the federal government sends instructions (in the form of a check or a wire) to the creditor’s bank, instructing the creditor to increase the balance in the creditor’s checking account.
The moment the bank does as instructed, brand new dollars are created and added to the money supply called “M1.” No tax dollars are involved.
There are two ways dollars are created and two ways they are destroyed:
Dollars Are Created By:
A. Federal bill paying
B. All forms of dollar lending
Dollars Are Destroyed By:
A. Federal Taxing
B. Repayment of loans
2. “If the federal government doesn’t need tax dollars, why does the federal government levy taxes?”
There are two primary reasons:
A. To control the economy. The government taxes things it wishes to rein in, and cuts taxes on things it wishes to encourage.
B. To fool the public. The very rich, who run the government, want the 99% to believe federal spending must be limited. This discourages the populace from asking for benefits and thereby widens the gap between the rich and the rest.
(The Gap is what makes the rich rich. Without the Gap, no one would be rich; we all would be the same. The wider the Gap, the richer they are.)
3. “If the government doesn’t need to obtain tax dollars in order to pay its bills, why does the government borrow dollars?”
Unlike state and local governments, the federal government doesn’t need to borrow, and indeed, it doesn’t borrow. The misnamed federal “borrowing” and “debt” is the total of deposits into T-security accounts.
When you buy a T-bill (or T-note or T-bond), you instruct your bank to take dollars from your checking account and deposit them into your T-bill account.
Because the federal government has no need for your dollars, it simply leaves your dollars in your account until your T-bill matures. It even adds dollars in the form of interest.
Then it “pays off” your T-bill by sending your dollars back to your checking account. Sending your dollars back to you is no burden on the federal government, and because no tax dollars are used, it is no burden on taxpayers, either.
4. If the federal government doesn’t need to borrow, why does it issue T-bills, T-notes, and T-bonds?
The purpose of T-securities accounts is not to acquire spending money. The purposes are to:
A. Provide a safe place for dollar-users to hold dollars. This safe-haven availability increases the demand for dollars and stabilizes the dollar.
B. To help the Fed control interest rates.
5. “If we just print money won’t we be like Zimbabwe and Argentina?”
Those sick economies not only have dysfunctional governments, but are in the midst of hyper-inflations, which are caused by shortages, most often shortages of food.
In fact, all hyperinflations are caused by shortages. Money “printing” is a wrong-headed government response to hyperinflations, much like pouring gasoline on a car fire.
Government money “printing” is a response to hyper-inflations, not a cause.
Decreases in deficit growth (red line) lead to recessions (vertical, gray bars). Inflation (blue line) does not correlate with deficit spending.
Deficit growth adds dollars to the economy, which increases Gross Domestic Product
GDP = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports
All three of the above variables add dollars to the economy, which is necessary for economic growth.
Not only do decreases in deficit growth lead to recessions, but federal surpluses lead to depressions:
1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began in 1807.
1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began in 1819.
1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began in 1837.
1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began in 1857.
1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began in 1873.
1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began in 1893.
1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began in 1929.
1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began in 2001.
It functionally is impossible to grow an economy while reducing the money supply. This would be like trying to cure anemia by applying leeches.
6. If federal “debt” growth is economically beneficial, why is my state (or county, or city) broke?
Your state (or county, or city) is monetarily non-sovereign. It does not have a sovereign currency. It uses the dollar, which is the sovereign currency of the federal government.
Monetarily non-sovereign entities (like you and me), can run short of dollars and be unable to pay our bills. The federal government cannot run short of dollars, or be unable to pay its bills. Federal finances are different from non-federal finances.
Your state, county, or city are broke because their outgo exceeds their income, and they cannot create dollars at will, the way the federal government can.
7. So why doesn’t the federal government merely give everyone a million dollars and make us all rich?
“The Ten Steps to Prosperity,” recommends that the federal government give more money to Americans (via deficit spending) than it currently does.
There, of course, is a limit.
The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be managed via interest rate control.
Inflation is a reduction in the value of a dollar vs. the value of goods and services. The value of a dollar is: Value = Demand/Supply. So if we increase the Supply, without increasing the Demand enough, the dollar Value goes down, and we have inflation.
The formula for the Demand for dollars is: Demand=Reward/Risk. The government increases the Reward for owning dollars by raising interest rates. That is why raising rates is said to “strengthen” the dollar.
In short, the government should give more dollars and dollar-denominated benefits to the people. This would grow the GDP and narrow the Gap, so long as the Fed can control inflation by increasing the Demand for dollars.
8. Which is better for the U.S. economy: Exports or imports?
Imports of goods and services have more value to the U.S. economy than do exports.
Exports of goods and services actually means “importing dollars in exchange for labor and scarce materials.” But because our Monetarily Sovereign nation has the unlimited ability to create dollars, importing dollars has no value to the nation as a whole.
Imports of goods and services (i.e. “exports” of goods and services) add valuable and scarce assets to the economy while requiring less labor and scarce materials than would products and services created here.
The question can be restated: Which is better: Importing something that we have the unlimited ability to create and at no cost (i.e. dollars), or exporting something that costs effort and valuable raw materials (i.e. goods and services) to create?
9. Are illegal aliens a danger to, and a burden on, America?
This question usually devolves to several concerns, none of which have anything to do with the legalstatus of immigrants.
Concern 1. Illegal aliens cause crime. This repeatedly has been shown to be false. The crime rate for illegal aliens is lower than the crime rate for citizens.The reasons probably relate to the fear of being apprehended and deported, and to the reasons why desperate people elect dangerous illegal immigration.
Concern 2. Illegal aliens don’t work and don’t pay taxes, but use our benefits. This too has been shown to be questionable.These people made the hazardous trip to the U.S. in order to create better lives for their children and themselves. Though the federal government doesn’t need tax dollars, illegal immigrants tend to be hard-working, tax-paying people, who often are precluded from using most social services.
Concern 3. Illegal aliens bring drugs. The vast majority of drug smuggling is not done by illegal aliens. Drugs come in through legal entrances, via boats, trains, trucks, buses, and cars, rather than via the piddling amounts mothers and children could sneak through.
On balance, illegal aliens provide a huge benefit to the U.S., by being highly motivated to succeed, and by purchasing products and services from American businesses.
10. Even if the federal government never can run short of dollars, and can afford Medicare for All, won’t we run out of resources, like doctors, hospitals, and medicines?
A. Every major change, from cars, to phones, to planes, and to high-rise buildings leads to shortages of labor and materials that previously were not used. Medicare itself created a shortage of medical personnel, so today hospitals all over the country have been expanding to provide more services.
B. Personnel shortages lead to higher pay which draws more people into the profession.
In summary, everyone has strong intuitions about economics, though economics realities are not intuitive. The reason is: Our federal government is Monetarily Sovereign, which is very unlike the personal experiences of the populace.
The people have been given the mistaken belief that federal finances are like personal, state, and local finances.
The above questions illustrate the common misunderstandings about our nation’s economy.
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:
Trump: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
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McCain: “The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate. But it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake.
“President Trump proved not only unable, but unwilling to stand up to Putin. He and Putin seemed to be speaking from the same script as the president made a conscious choice to defend a tyrant against the fair questions of a free press, and to grant Putin an uncontested platform to spew propaganda and lies to the world.”
It’s our little secret. Don’t tell the people we don’t need their tax dollars.
Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”
Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”
St. Louis Federal Reserve: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e.,unable to pay its bills.
What is there about economics that every doofus sitting on a bar stool, thinks he is an expert, and entitled to voice loudly his doofus opinions about federal financing?
And why does every said doofus, whose interest in economics has not progressed beyond buying the daily Lotto scratch-off, think he understands the effects of federal trade deficits and federal budget deficits. (Attention all doofusi: They are different.)
And why does an equally uninformed columnist, whose professed forte is political philosophy and baseball (yes baseball), and definitely not the science of economics, continue to confound himself and his readers, by conflating federal finances with personal finances?
Here, for instance, are excerpts from an article by the above-described George Will:
Do economic expansions die of old age (the current one began in June 2009), or are they slain by big events or bad policies?
What is known is that all expansions end. God, a wit has warned, is going to come down and pull civilization over for speeding.
When He, or something, decides that today’s expansion, in its 111th month (approaching twice the 58-month average length of post-1945 expansions), has gone on long enough, the contraction probably will begin with the annual budget deficit exceeding $1 trillion.
How prescient. “All expansions end, and “God or something” will do it. Did you know that? Are you stunned by these brilliant words?
And when the expansion ends, what does that have to do with the deficit exceeding $1 trillion? Nothing.
Equally meaningless: The expansion also will end with a U.S. population above 330 million and with the rich even richer than they are now. So?
The president’s Office of Management and Budget projects that the deficit for fiscal 2019, which begins in six weeks, will be $1.085 trillion. This is while the economy is, according to the economic historian in the Oval Office, “as good as it’s ever been, ever.”
Wow, the deficit will be $1,085 trillion, and the economy is “as good as it’s ever been, ever.” What does that tell us about the deficit?
The deficit (red line) has gone up and up, especially to cure recessions (vertical bars), while the economy (GDP) has grown and grown, too.
What is the connection between federal deficit spending and the economy? Doofuses don’t realize that federal deficit spending adds growth dollars to the economy, which is why the government increases deficit spending to get us out of recessions.
Federal deficit spending is stimulative.
Doofuses also don’t know this formula: GDP = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports. Federal deficit spending increases the first two of the three right-side terms of the equation.
Continuing with George Will’s article:
Another hardy perennial among economic debates concerns the point at which the ratio of debt to GDP suppresses growth: Within a decade, the national debt probably will be 100 percent of GDP and rising.
As Irwin Stelzer of the Hudson Institute says, “If unlimited borrowing, financed by printing money, were a path to prosperity, then Venezuela and Zimbabwe would be top of the growth tables.”
Here’s the scary part:
“Irwin Stelzer is a Senior Fellow and Director of Hudson Institute’s Economic Policy Studies Group. Prior to joining Hudson Institute in 1998, Stelzer was Resident Scholar and Director of Regulatory Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
He also is the U.S. economic and political columnist for The Sunday Times (London), a contributing editor of The Weekly Standard, and a member of the Advisory Board of The American Antitrust Institute.”
This guy, with all his background, is hopelessly clueless about how a Monetarily Sovereign nation, with a functioning government, operates.
He thinks the U.S. borrows (it doesn’t), and that the federal government finances this non-existent borrowing by printing money (it doesn’t), and finally that the U.S. is in any way similar to Venezuela and Zimbabwe (it isn’t).
The word “borrow” refers to obtaining money in order to spend or save. When you borrow, you do that to spendor save the money you borrow.
But, the U.S. creates money, ad hoc,by spending. And it does not save money. Having the unlimited ability to create dollars, it has no need to save dollars.
The misnamed federal “debt” isn’t money the Monetarily Sovereign federal government needs or uses. It is dollars that are deposited by investors (and never touched) into T-security accounts. To pay off those accounts, the government merely sends those dollars back to the account owners.
And, when Seltzer mentions Venezuela and Zimbabwe, he is talking about hyperinflation, which is not caused by money “printing.”
All hyperinflations are caused by extreme shortages, usually shortages of food, and only after the hyperinflations have begun do countries respond with money creation. That is what happened to Venezuela and Zimbabwe, et al.
In all our history, through wars, recessions, depressions, a multitude of Presidents, and economic misrepresentations about deficits and debt, the U.S. never has had a hyperinflation. But still, the doofuses compare us with Zimbabwe.
Our federal “debt” went from $40 billion in 1940 to $16 trillion today — a 40,000% increase — and inflation remains near the Fed’s annual goal of 2.5%.
Blue line: Federal “debt.” Red line: Consumer price index. Where’s the hyperinflation?
Having learned nothing from history or economics, the Henny Pennys continue running in circles, shouting, “Unsustainable.”
In short, a columnist who doesn’t understand economics quotes someone else who doesn’t understand economics. The result: A steamy brown pile of bull excrement.
Jay Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, says fiscal policy is on an “unsustainable path.”
Click the link and you’ll read the 78 years of false claims that our federal deficit and debt will destroy the U.S. as we know it.
Wrong for 78 years; wrong today; wrong tomorrow. But the Henny Pennys, having no shame, still are at it.
A recent International Monetary Fund analysis noted that among advanced economies “only the United States expects an increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio over the next five years.”
The IMF seems to be telling us that the U.S. will have the worst economy among advanced economies, over the next five years. Do you believe that?
The debt/GDP ratio is absolutely, positively, 100% meaningless. Zero, zip, zilch. The size of my underwear has more economic meaning than does that ratio.
The debt/GDP ratio does not indicate the federal government’s (unlimited) ability to pay its bills.
The debt/GDP ratio does not indicate future recessions, depressions or stagflations.
The debt/GDP ratio does not indicate future inflations or deflations.
The debt/GDP ratio does not indicate stock market advances or regressions.
The debt/GDP ratio does not indicate a damn thing. Period.
The federal government could pay off all its T-bills, T-notes, and T-bonds tomorrow, if it chose, simply by returning the dollars that then currently exist in those T-bill, T-note, and T-bond accounts.
Oh, did I mention that, contrary to Will’s article, the U.S. ratio already is above 100%.
Seemingly, George Will didn’t realize that. He also didn’t realize Japan’s ratio is above 250%. By Mr. Will’s reckoning, Japan should have become Venezuela and Zimbabwe, long ago.
One would hope that a nationally published columnist and a professional economist, would at least look at the facts, rather than just writing intuitive nonsense.
Publicly held U.S. government debt has tripled in a decade.
From left to right, (the politicians have) had a permanent incentive to run enormous deficits — to charge, through taxation, current voters significantly less than the cost of the government goods and services they consume, and saddling future voters with the cost of servicing the resulting debt after the current crop of politicians have left the scene.
The line, “charge, through taxation, current voters significantly less than the cost of the government goods and services they consume” is a demonstration of consummate ignorance.
Unlike state and local taxation, federal taxation does not fund government goods and services. The federal government funds government goods and services by creating its sovereign currency, ad hoc — a currency of which it never can run short.
Even if the federal government didn’t collect a single penny in taxes, it has the power to continue spending, forever.
Compare the U.S.’s Monetarily Sovereign situation with that of monetarily non-sovereign Greece:
Greece’s exit from eight years of international bailout programmes on August 20 will be a defining moment in its emergence from the depths of austerity. But government and business acknowledge that this is just a milestone.
The end of the bailout does not end Greece’s commitments to its international creditors.
One of the most significant is that, in exchange for a major debt relief deal in June, the country needs to sustain a primary surplus — a measure of its budget balance that excludes debt payments — of 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product a year until 2022.
Failure would bring the risk that some debt relief could be withdrawn.
When the government runs a surplus, guess who runs a deficit. Right. The public. This is just another way of describing the austerity that already has destroyed Greece’s economy.
Government surpluses lead to depressions and recessions, by taking money out of the private sector:
1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began 1807.
1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819.
1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837.
1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857.
1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873.
1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893.
1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929.
1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began 2001.
The above article contained this graph:
Euro nations’ citizens are excessively taxed because the euro nations are monetarily non-sovereign. They do not have a sovereign currency. They cannot stimulate economic growth except by going deeper and deeper into debt. Debt is a burden on monetarily non-sovereign governments and their citizens.
Not only are euro citizens overly-taxed but:
The government is speeding up foreclosures and auctions of repossessed property.
Bankers still expect the process to take as much as a decade. One said: “We are hitting our current targets on reducing non-performing loans but there is still a long way to go.”
Excessive taxation. Austerity. Foreclosures. Repossessed property. For as much as a decade. This is what the people of the euro can look foreward to, and this is exactly what our American economics doofuses wish you to suffer.
The crooked bankers get rich, while the taxpayers suffer.
There are penalties for ignorance, and those who do not wish to understand Monetary Sovereignty will pay those penalties, just as the euro nation people are.
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.
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.
Economic Policy Studies Group. Prior to joining Hudson Institute in 1998, Stelzer was Resident Scholar and Director of Regulatory Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 