It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
The ignorance of the oppressed
and the treachery of their leaders.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

There are two sides to the gun story. One is based on facts and the other is based on fiction.  I’ll let you decide which is which.

June 21, 2017
States with right-to-carry concealed handgun laws experience increases in violent crime, according to Stanford scholar
Stanford Law School Professor John Donohue found that states that adopted right-to-carry laws have experienced a 13 to 15 percent increase in violent crime in the 10 years after enacting those laws.
By Milenko Martinovich

States that have enacted right-to-carry (RTC) concealed handgun laws have experienced higher rates of violent crime than states that did not adopt those laws, according to a Stanford scholar.

Examining decades of crime data, Stanford Law Professor John Donohue’s analysis shows that violent crime in RTC states was estimated to be 13 to 15 percent higher – over a period of 10 years – than it would have been had the state not adopted the law.

The working paper, released this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research, challenges the effectiveness of RTC laws and could have a significant impact on pending litigation between the National Rifle Association and the state of California.

Now comes the NRA story, courtesy of President Donald Trump:

Trump said that new gun laws would have made “no difference”
Good Morning America, Alexander Mallin November 7, 2017

President Trump was asked about his recent comments calling for “extreme vetting” immediately following the New York City terror attack, and whether he would favor similar scrutiny for those looking to purchase firearms.

“If you did what you’re suggesting, there would have been no difference three days ago,” Trump said, before turning to praise the actions of a bystander who engaged the shooter following his rampage. “You might not have had that very brave person who happened to have a gun or a rifle in his truck, go out and shoot him and hit him and neutralize him.”

The president added, “I can only say this. If [the neighbor] didn’t have a gun, instead of 26 dead, you would have had hundreds more dead. So that’s the way I feel about it, not going to help.”

The president was briefed on developments in the shooting while in Japan, and said soon after that it should be credited to a “mental health problem” and not U.S. gun laws.

So there you have two sides of the question regarding gun laws. The law professor’s research says right-to-carry laws result in more violent crime.

President Trump, the gun manufacturers, and the right wing say gun laws don’t make any difference.

Trump urged restraint in jumping to conclusions similar to the reaction following the mass shooting in Las Vegas in October.

The president’s response to the Texas mass shooting has been compared with his reaction to the terror attack in New York City just last Tuesday, where he waited only hours before stating he had directed the Department of Homeland Security to institute strict vetting procedures and called for Congress to change immigration policy.

America has seen repeated mass shootings — i.e. domestic terrorism — for many, many years, but we are urged not to jump to conclusions. President Trump comes to immediate conclusions regarding those rare cases of foreign terrorism.

What does that tell you?

Donohue and his team employed a new statistical technique that creates a “synthetic control,” which attempts to find the best possible comparison for the RTC-adopting state drawn from among other states that had no RTC law at the time.

“All this work is based on statistical models,” Donohue said. “When the models all generate similar estimates, it increases your confidence that you have captured the true effect.”

Donohue had further reasons for that confidence. He was able to study an additional 14 years of crime data and include 11 additional states that adopted RTC laws. He found that RTC laws increase violent crime — estimates showed increases in overall violent crime of 13-15 percent.

“There is not even the slightest hint in the data that RTC laws reduce overall violent crime,” Donohue stated in the paper.

To put the significance of a 15-percent increase in violent crime in perspective, the paper notes that “the average RTC state would have to double its prison population to counteract the RTC-induced increase in violent crime.”

Increased rates of incarceration and hiring of law enforcement personnel were noticed among RTC states.

“This suggested that RTC states were not simply experiencing higher crime because they decided to lock up fewer criminals and hire fewer police,” Donohue said. “The relatively greater increases in incarceration and police in RTC states implies that, if anything, our estimates may be understating the increase in violent crime, which was pretty persuasive to me.”

Donohue said RTC proponents often overlook how often gun-carrying leads to lost and stolen guns, which are then in the hands of criminals.

Moreover, one can incur all of the costs of buying and carrying a gun, only to find that a criminal attack is too sudden to effectively employ the gun defensively.

Donohue cites a 2013 report from the National Crime Victimization Survey that showed in 99.2 percent of the violent attacks in the United States, no gun is ever used defensively – despite the nearly 300 million guns in circulation in the country today.

For most Americans, said Donohue, carrying a gun to avoid a criminal attack is similar to thinking that having a weekly brain scan will save your life, without considering the potential hazardous effects.

“If we gave 300 million people a brain scan, we would save a certain number of lives,” Donohue said. “But you wouldn’t want to advocate that treatment without considering how many lives would be lost by exposing so many to radiation damage.

If more than 300 million guns in America can’t prevent gun murders, is this a clue that a different direction is needed. Or would 600 million guns do the job? A billion guns?

Donohue’s conclusion was based on statistical research. Is it the last word? Perhaps not, though it seems to be a careful attempt at finding the truth.

Nevertheless, it probably will not be believed by those who also do not accept scientific research regarding climate change, immigrant criminality, and the age of the earth.

It surely will not be believed by Trump, Trump’s followers, the gun manufacturers, or those who find guns especially precious.

But, perhaps we can hope that, as it so often as in the past, the truth finally makes it past prejudice and personal interests.

Let’s have more research on that subject as well as on the meaning of the words, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State . . . “

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

THOUGHTS

•All we have are partial solutions; the best we can do is try.

•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 no matter how much it taxes its citizens.

•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.

•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.

•Progressives 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 the rich and the rest.

•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between the rich and the rest.

•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
The ignorance of the oppressed
and the treachery of their leaders.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

In previous posts, More tax BS raining down on your head and Examples of CNBC, Reuters, et al shoveling BS on your head, we told you about the several lies you would hear regarding tax plans, among which are:

Lie #1: Federal taxes fund federal spending.
Lie #2: Federal deficits and debt negatively impact economic growth.
Lie #3. You and your children will have to pay for federal debt.

Total, 100% BS

Federal taxes do not fund anything; they are destroyed upon receipt. Federal deficits are the private sector’s surplus, and so they stimulate economic growth.

And no one ever will pay for federal debt, because it isn’t debt as you know it; it’s deposits in T-security accounts.

But, believing the American public will continue to fall for the lies, the liars continue spreading the manure:

The Trump Tax Plan Is Government as Usual
Nick Gillespie & Todd Krainin | November 1, 2017
Despite big promises, it fails in its primary mission: paying for the actual cost of government Reason.com

Immediately, in the subtitle, you see the first dollop of excrement. Federal taxes do not pay for the actual cost of government.

The U.S. federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, needs or uses no income. To pay a creditor, the federal government sends instructions (not dollars) to the creditor’s bank, instructing the bank to increase the balance in the creditor’s checking account.

When the bank does as instructed, new dollars are created. When those instructions are processed, they automatically are cleared by the Fed. No deductions from tax dollars are involved. That is why the federal government has the unlimited ability to pay its bills.

(You too pay your bills by sending instructions — in the form of a check or credit card notation — but the Fed clears your instructions by making a deduction from your checking account. That is why you do not have the unlimited ability to pay your bills.)

The hallmark of a good tax code is that it doesn’t attempt social engineering via revenue collection.

It’s our money and the government shouldn’t be telling us how to spend it or what to spend it on. And yet our tax code is larded up with all sorts of incentives for certain types of purchases—such as the mortgage-interest deduction, which is defended on the grounds that owning a home is morally and culturally superior to renting.

It’s not by the way, and the result is market distortions that saddle families that would be better off renting with mortgage debt. Trump’s tax plan keeps the mortgage interest rate deduction–and the one for charitable giving, which is another example of social engineering.

Federal tax deductions are not “distortions.” They merely allow you to keep more of the money you have earned. All federal tax deductions benefit the private sector, and do not, in any way, harm the federal government or federal taxpayers.

New York and California, being monetarily non-sovereign, do levy taxes to pay for goods and services that benefit taxpayers.  There is no scenario under which taxing state and local taxes benefits the national economy.

The most important principle for tax reform is that revenue should cover the actual costs of government so that citizens can actually make an informed decision about what services they’re willing to pay for.

The authors don’t differentiate between state/local taxes vs. federal taxes. The former does pay for state/local government costs; the latter does not pay for anything.

And the notion that citizens can make “an informed decision about what services they’re willing to pay for” is ludicrous.

Total BS. If you paid $10,000 in federal taxes last year, what services did that cover? You have no idea. No one does. “Informed decision” is hogwash.

Trump’s plan would take even more people off the tax rolls. There are already over 40 million households that pay no federal income tax at all and the president brags that his plan would add another 31 million to that total.

As Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute writes, “taking more people off the tax rolls is not a good way to keep the government limited. If something is ‘free,’ people will demand more of it.”

The authors, Nick Gillespie & Todd Krainin, want you to believe that not being taxed for social benefits, will turn you into a lazy slug.

Thus, the only people who should receive federal benefits are the rich, since they pay taxes. The poor, who pay little or no taxes, should receive little or no benefits, according to the authors.

That is what the rich and their toadies, Gillespie and Krainin, want you to believe, and that is why the GOP tax “reform” bill is so heavily skewed toward benefits for the rich. Being rich, they say they “deserve” more than you do.

And the problem is much bigger than that. For decades now, the feds have been spending far more in any given year than they take in via taxes.

Last year, for instance, the government spent 20 percent more than it took in and between 2009 and 2013, it spent 33 percent more than it brought in.

And why is this a problem for a Monetarily Sovereign government?  Gillespie and Krainin never say. It’s been, as they say, going on “for decades.”  Starting in 1940, the federal debt has risen from $40 Billion to $14 Trillion (!), and what disaster has this caused? None.

Inflation has averaged close to the Fed’s target of 2.5%. Cutting deficits has led to recessions, which are cured by increased deficits. So exactly what is the problem?

Hence annual deficits and ballooning national debt. This is like government by Groupon: Every year, we’re getting such a great deal, of course we want more and more stuff. We’d be stupid not to.

Yes indeed, we would be stupid not to want more and more stuff. So Messrs., why don’t you want more and more stuff?

Every tax reform promises to either be revenue neutral or to increase the government’s haul.

Gillespie and Krainin want to take more dollars out of your private sector pockets, and give them to the federal government, which being Monetarily Sovereign, doesn’t need or use them.

After years of accumulating debt we need to focus on government spending first and foremost. In 2016, the feds took in about $3 trillion in taxes. That should be the absolute spending limit—instead of the nearly $4 trillion Congress is talking about.

Translation: “After years of accepting deposits in T-security accounts, the federal government needs to cut spending on benefits to the private sector.”

Accepting deposits requires spending cuts??  This makes no sense at all.

Taxes aren’t the price we pay for civilization—they’re the price we pay for government. And until we bind the two together, we’ll be spending more and more money that we don’t have on things we almost certainly wouldn’t want if we had to pay full price for them.

Actually, taxes are the price we pay for monetarily non-sovereign (state and local) government. Taxes do not pay for Monetarily Sovereign (federal) government. 

Gillespie and Krainin don’t understand the difference.

This entire article is devoted to the Big Lie, the lie that federal taxes pay for federal spending. It is a lie promulgated by the rich, to reduce the benefits you receive and/or to justify charging you more taxes.

The tax BS just keeps on a’comin.’ There will be more, but at least now, you’ll know what to look and listen for.

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

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The 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