Everyday Illusions and Their Relationship to Free Will

In the previous post, “The Fallacy of Free Will,” we discussed the reasons why free will doesn’t actually exist. We explained that it is an illusion created by our brains to help us manage the overwhelming amount of stimuli we encounter every second.

I believe many readers view this argument as sophistry, convinced they possess free will. They experience it directly; they act on their desires and feel that nothing compels their actions.

The reason illusions are powerful is their compelling nature.. Pamela's Animated Gifs - trainairtram

The best-known visual illusions are television and movies.

A television screen displays two-dimensional sequences of flashing colored dots, which your brain interprets as convincing, three-dimensional, continuously moving scenes.

A movie consists of a series of rapidly appearing, still, two-dimensional images. Your brain’s shortcut allows you to “see” a three-dimensional, continuously flowing scene.

Another common illusion is the railroad stop sign, which is composed of two alternately flashing lights.

Although the lights don’t move, the alternating flash gives the strong impression that a light is moving back and forth.

In both cases, your visual system sees every photon, but rather than take the time and the monumental effort to translate each one, your brain uses shortcuts. It translates the stream of individual photons into patterns you believe are motion.

It converts the flow of individual photons into patterns that you perceive as motion. You look at the stop sign, and you experience a moving light. No matter how hard you try, you cannot unsee that image.

Only if you cover one light will you see, or rather not see, motion.

That is how we always see. The brain combines trillions of photons entering the visual system every second into a coherent image we perceive as reality. However, that reality consists only of those trillions of photons. Everything you see is an illusion created by your brain.

Our vision is a miracle of evolution. Plants can sense photons, but they don’t see. They don’t put those photons together into a moving, three-dimensional world.

Visual illusions are common, but all sensory systems rely on shortcuts to illusions—experiences where perception diverges from external reality.

I asked AI to give me examples of other, non-visual illusions. Here is what it came up with.

1. Auditory Illusions

Shepard Tone: A series of tones that sound like they’re endlessly rising in pitch, but actually aren’t. Your brain gets tricked by overlapping frequency layers.

McGurk Effect: If you see a face mouthing “ga” while the audio says “ba,” your brain might hear “da.” The illusion comes from conflicting visual and auditory inputs.

Phantom Words: Repeating a short, meaningless audio loop causes people to start “hearing” actual words or phrases—your brain imposes meaning on ambiguous input.

Auditory Continuity Illusion: A sound briefly interrupted by noise is perceived as continuing through the noise. Your brain fills in the gap.

2. Tactile (Touch) Illusions Thermal Grill Illusion: Interlacing warm and cool bars creates a burning sensation, even though neither is dangerously hot.

Pinocchio Illusion: If you close your eyes, hold your nose, and vibrate your biceps tendon, you may feel your nose stretching. Your brain merges proprioceptive and tactile inputs into a bizarre body image.

Cutaneous Rabbit: Taps delivered rapidly at the wrist and then the elbow make people feel taps hopping up the arm. Your brain “fills in” where no contact occurred.

Phantom Vibration Syndrome: Feeling your phone buzz in your pocket when it didn’t. A culturally recent but neurologically real tactile illusion.

3. Auditory-Tactile Crossovers

Sound-Induced Flash Illusion: Hearing two quick beeps can make you see a single flash as two flashes. Cross-modal illusions show how senses interact and co-create perception.

4. Olfactory (Smell) Illusions

Harder to pin down, but they do occur—often as context effects.

Imagined Smells: People in a “smelly” environment (e.g., told there’s gas or perfume in the air) often report odors even when none are present. Strong suggestion can conjure real olfactory experience.

Flavor Manipulation: Since taste is largely smell, context and expectation can warp it. The same smell labeled as “parmesan” vs. “vomit” will be perceived differently, even if physically identical.

5. Gustatory (Taste) Illusions These are typically context- or suggestion-based.

Miracle Fruit: This berry binds to taste receptors, making sour things taste sweet for a while. Not an illusion in the strictest sense, but the interpretation of taste is warped.

Color Influence on Flavor: The color of a drink (say, red) can make people taste “cherry” or “strawberry” even if it’s lemon-flavored. Visual input overrides chemical reality.

6. Proprioceptive Illusions These involve body position and motion.

Rotating Room Illusion: In a slowly rotating room, people feel as though they are tilting even when stationary. Your internal sense of gravity gets confused.

Out-of-Body Experiences (in lab settings): Through clever VR or mirrored feedback setups, researchers can induce a feeling of disembodiment, where your sense of self floats away from your body.

In summary, what you see, hear, taste, smell, and feel is not reality. Your brain translates photons into images, vibrations into sound, chemicals into taste and smell, and pressure into touch, whether it is light and shiver-inducing or hard and painful.

None of it is reality. It is translations, often faulty and misleading, though even when as accurate as humanly possible, they still are translations, just as the words “ice cream” or a photo of a sundae are not ice cream.

Here is how that relates to so-called “free will.”

1. Everything we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel is an illusion created by our brain and body. It is as real as a movie, a film, or a TV show.

2. Like all illusions. It may or may not represent some elements of reality, but we cannot know which. Our brain tries to represent enough reality so we will have heirs and they will have heirs.

3. We are not the result of survival of the fittest; rather, we represent the minimum needed for survival, more accurately described as the survival of just barely enough.

4. When it has excess energy, a life form’s population expands to meet the energy supply. That has been true of the human species, which has expanded because, for certain brief times, it has been more than barely enough. We may be nearing that limit.

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PS. Reader “tetrahedron720″ recently wrote to me saying: “I am free to shout in a library, but I can’t do anything about the sequence of reactions of the people around me who will Shhh me or toss me out.”

He is not free to shout in the library.

His brain has translated trillions upon trillions of stimuli into illusions that prevent him from shouting. No matter what he considers doing, the illusions created in his brain will be responsible.

Why are these experiences considered illusions? Tetrahedron720 relies solely on his unique history of receiving photons and other stimuli, which his brain has organized into his unique memories and beliefs. From these stimuli, he has created a distorted reality that influences his actions.

Had those same photons been received by another brain, they would have had a different effect, and produced a different reality.

He believes he is making a decision, but the decision is being made by his brain. There is no supreme “he” that overrides his brain’s actions.

He does not control his brain. His brain controls him.

And now, a question: (I enjoy posting rebuttals or questions about my own opinions, and I welcome them from you, so long as they aren’t simply, “You’re wrong, goodbye.”)

QUESTION: Everything I see, hear, smell, feel, and taste is nothing more than photons, atoms, and other stimuli translated by my brain. Those photons, etc., are the reality.

I’m conscious of the translations, not of the reality. For me, everything is an illusion, like seeing a movie of Hawaii while I sit in Florida.

Yet, while I live my life in an illusion, I still manage to move from point A to point B. I’m not surprised to awaken in point Z.

My life seems to have logical continuity. If this is all an illusion, who or what is the “script girl” that keeps everything in order?

(The old term “script girl” refers to the person on a movie set responsible for ensuring that details, like a cigarette held in the right hand in one scene, do not suddenly change to a handkerchief in the same hand in a subsequent scene.)

ANSWER: Predictive Coding Theory suggests the brain minimizes surprise by anticipating what’s about to happen.

The brain is not a passive receiver of data. It’s a prediction machine. It constantly compares incoming sensory input with past experience. Then it updates its predictions.

The Hollow Face Illusion A concave face looks convex because your brain expects faces to bulge outward. That expectation overrides the actual depth cues.

The dress (white/gold vs. blue/black): The brain guesses the lighting condition (cool shadow vs. warm light), then reconstructs the colors accordingly. It’s not just perception — it’s interpretation.

Memory

I do not perceive reality; I perceive the interpretation of the present plus the memory of the past. Continuity depends heavily on the consistency of memory.

Memory lets me link this moment to the one before it. Without memory, I’d still have perceptions, but they wouldn’t feel like part of a story. The illusion would shatter into isolated frames.

There are people who suffer from anterograde amnesia, where they can no longer form new short-term memories. They often feel like they’ve just “woken up,” even if it’s the tenth time today.

They may not remember eating, speaking, or being in a room. But their emotions often linger. They might not remember a conversation, but still “feel” trust or fear toward a person based on prior encounters they can’t recall.

Perception without memory is not reality as we know it. It’s a sequence of nows. The “script girl” is gone, and the illusion turns into a slideshow with no story.

Their brain has created a reality as real to them as yours is to you, but it is a reality that lacks continuity.

We each live in a different world, one created uniquely for each of us by our unique brains. My world is as real to me as yours is to you, but they are different worlds.

My beliefs and decisions reflect my perspectives just as yours reflect yours. My illusion is that somehow, my world is the “real” one, but it is upon those unique beliefs that all my decisions are based.

I do not rule my brain. There is no “I” that is apart from my brain. My brain rules me via its interpretations.

Thus, I do not have free will.

Nor do you.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;

MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;

https://www.academia.edu/

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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

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The fallacy of free will

We have discussed “free will” several times: An interesting take on “Free Will vs Will Power”, and ” For those who still believe in free will, and “Read about the strange relationship between opposites: Consciousness and free will,” and “More about non-existent free will.” And elsewhere.

It is a subject that fascinates me. I hope you feel the same.

Here is what CHAT GPT says:

“Free will is generally understood as the ability to make choices that are not determined entirely by prior causes, external forces, or divine intervention.”

In other words, if you have free will, you—as an agent—can choose among alternatives in a way that you could have done otherwise.”

It goes on to give four explanations:

Libertarian Free Will: Belief that you have genuine freedom to choose. Decisions are not entirely caused by prior events or deterministic laws. Often requires that the self or soul initiate choices.

Determinism: Every event, including human decisions, is the inevitable result of preceding events and natural laws. Under strict determinism, free will is an illusion.

Compatibilism: Argues that free will is compatible with determinism. You are “free” if you can act according to your desires and intentions—even if those are caused by past events.

Hard Incompatibilism: Claims that whether determinism is true or not, you still don’t have the kind of free will that justifies moral responsibility.

In the above definitions and descriptions, a mysterious “you” lurks in the background. That always is the problem — the belief that there is an underlying “you” making out-of-body decisions. It’s the fundamental belief in free will.

And that is why free will does not exist; it would require that underlying “you,” a non-physical entity that doesn’t respond to any outside or internal stimuli, but instead is a self-stimulating concept apart from every atom in one’s body, and every field and force.

Though free will requires a self (a “you”) that is not affected by any external or internal stimuli. No such “you” has been found to exist. Everything we think or do is a physical response to some stimulus, external or internal, conscious.

Any process that could supposedly ininitiate “free will” would either arise from prior causes (and be deterministic), or arise from randomness (which isn’t will, just chaos), or require a non-physical self (which violates everything we know about reality).

Consciousness is the response to stimuli. It is not an on-off condition, but rather a continuum, with more reaction to more stimuli being more conscious.

Consciousness is not magical or mystical. It is physics. Not only are our choices caused, but our awarenessof choosing is itself just another response, not the seat of some independent self.

I’m going to propose counterarguments (I love arguing against myself.)

I. If we don’t have free will, why is God so angry at us? Or is that just us making assumptions about a human-like God?

Presumably, God is omniscient, omnipotent, and just. Humans have free will and are judged accordingly. God made us as we are. God knew exactly what we’d do. God is punishing us for doing what he made us do.

This creates a contradiction: A just God cannot righteously punish deterministic beings for actions they were guaranteed to perform.

Conclusions:

God is not omniscient, omnipotent, and just, or
God did not create us, or
God does not exist, or
God created us with free will.

What those four alternatives add up to is that the existence of “free will” is a theological, not a scientific, assertion, which cannot be proved scientifically

II. And if I don’t have free will, why should I be blamed and punished for doing evil or credited and rewarded for doing good?

If we don’t have free will, how can we blame Hitler and praise Mother Teresa?

It’s a matter of convenience and perspective. It is convenient to say Hitler was bad, but the reality is that his actions, i.e., his responses to his life’s stimuli, were bad. Hitler is just a bag of chemicals

Mother Teresa was a bag of similar chemicals. Society dubbed her responses to stimuli “good.” But her chemicals had no moral measure. They are just chemicals.

It is the actions that we judge, and those judgments are social, not physical. Murder is bad except when society deems it necessary. Military generals, who have killed thousands, often are revered.

Infants are neither bad nor good. Later in life, their responses to stimuli are judged by society, which then punishes or rewards those actions. The bag of chemicals is changed by stimuli.

Every second of every day, we experience trillions of stimuli, both internal and external. For our small three-pound brain, processing, analyzing, and responding to all these stimuli is an incredibly challenging task — impossible, really.

Even the most powerful electronic computer doesn’t instantly have to deal with the number and range of stimuli and needed responses that the human brain must.

Your brain and body must consider billions of ever-changing situations, from decoding photons for sight to decoding sound waves and decoding chemicals for taste.

All through your body, stimuli are decoded, so y0u can deal with pathogens, and remain the right temperature, sleep and wake, pump blood, and on and on to a factor of millions.

You must keep functioning from when you weighed 8 pounds, and now you weigh 150 pounds, and you still function, though every cell in your body has been replaced many times. (Imagine repairing a car with new parts every day, while the car is running at 50 mph.)

You must create reality out of sensory input. Response alone wouldn’t survive. You need to anticipate, and that anticipation is what you call “reality.”

One urn or two faces. You can flip them, but if you do, why? What stimulus causes you to take that action?

You see things before you actually “see” them.

This anticipation allows you to mentally “flip” illusions, so the urn alternatively can appear to be two faces.

Pure response, billions of times every second, would be impossible, as well as exhausting. It has to be a mix — anticipation and response– or we always would be a step too slow.

So the brain is forced to take shortcuts. Survival works better with anticipation than with blind response.

The illusion of free will — the belief in effect without cause — is the method by which we create anticipation.

We already know that parts of the brain predict before other parts realize it.

In 1983, Benjamin Libet found that brain activity (the “readiness potential”) begins up to 500 milliseconds before participants report deciding to move their finger. Libet concluded that the brain begins preparing for movement before we become aware of choosing to act.

Soon et al. (2008) – fMRI-based prediction of choices Finding: Using fMRI, researchers could predict with ~60% accuracy which button a subject would press up to 10 seconds before the subject became consciously aware of deciding. “The outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity several seconds before it enters awareness.”

Haynes Lab and Others (2010s) – Unconscious determinants of thought

Later studies replicated and extended Soon et al.’s work, showing that even abstract decisions, like whether to add or subtract numbers, could be predicted seconds in advance from brain scans.

Consciousness is not a live feed but a carefully delayed and smoothed reconstruction. A classic example: the “flash-lag effect.” See video

And if you enjoy videos, try this one: 30 Best Illusions. We all have seen illusions, and these are good ones. They demonstrate one simple fact.

Our brains invent what we believe is reality. Seeing is not in the eye, or even in the optical system. It is in the prediction.

We cannot act on reality because we don’t know what reality is. It is an illusion created by our brains and other parts of the body. See: Phantom limb pain. See also, “Psychosomatic.”

This undermines the idea of free will— that conscious intent causes behavior. Just as our perception of the world is an illusion, “free will is a functional illusion — a survival mechanism.

It arises from the brain’s need to anticipate complex outcomes and simulate future actions—giving the system a predictive edge. The illusion of free will improves our survival through anticipation.

Camouflage works because of the brain’s shortcuts. Some of these examples exist to fool even simple brains, not just your complex brain.

All living creatures invent their version of reality.

Evolution selects for illusion. So we don’t experience free will because it’s real—we experience it because it’s useful. Free will is not a physical reality, but an evolved illusion. It’s a product of the brain’s need to predict, simulate, and integrate stimuli rapidly for survival.

While consciousness is the ultimate response to stimuli, the free will illusion evolved to deal with the massive number of stimuli, translations of those stimuli, and responses that life survival uniquely demands.

The illusion of free will emerges from the anticipatory architecture of the human brain, which evolved not to reflect absolute truth, but to stay one step ahead of chaos.

Consider AI, to date. It is the product of some very smart people, and is very smart in a narrow range.But no one yet has been smart enough to create even a tiny fruit fly, because a fruit fly is faced with far more complex tasks than any AI.

The fruit fly must live, procreate (a massively complex function in itself), find food, eliminate, avoid predators, gauge the wind, follow odors, sleep, wake, deal with bacteria and viruses, receive stimuli, translate stimuli, and respond to stimuli.

Nature created that fruitfly with more trials and failures than we are capable of running — at least so far.

While consciousness is the response to stimuli, free will is an illusion that emerges from the predictive needs of the human brain, which evolved not to reflect absolute truth, but to stay ahead of chaos.

Every minute, the human body receives trillions of stimuli—from the photons striking our retinas, waves of sound, airborne chemicals decoded as scent, fluctuations in temperature, blood chemistry, and pressure.

Internally, our cells generate, destroy, and communicate. We are bags of chemicals shaped by evolution, complex hierarchies of input processing.

Imagine a United Nations interpreter translating speeches from trillions of people, all speaking different languages at the same time. Your brain faces an even greater challenge. It must translate, edit, and respond simultaneously.

If your response to this chaos were merely reflexive, we would die quickly. Reaction alone is too slow. To survive, organisms must anticipate. Anticipation buys time. It enables strategic action before events unfold.

This predictive capacity forms the scaffold for what we subjectively experience as “free will.”

The classical notion of free will—uncaused, sovereign choice—is incompatible with a deterministic universe. Any genuine “freedom” would require a self that acts independently of all internal and external causes, which no system (biological or otherwise) has ever demonstrated.

Yet, we experience something that feels like choice.

This experience isn’t evidence of freedom. It is a cognitive simulation that arises from the way the brain forecasts possible futures based on pattern recognition, memory, and context.

Like a chess computer searching its decision tree, the brain projects outcomes and generates readiness. Consciousness narrates these projections after the neural action has already begun.

Anticipation is not a luxury—it is a necessity. Brains evolved to “see before seeing,” to integrate probabilities and partial data in real time. Consider the experienced baseball batter: he must begin his swings before the pitch has arrived.

He reads the pitcher’s micro-signals, subconsciously aggregates prior experience, and initiates a swing before any conscious explanation exists.

When asked afterward how he knew a curveball was coming, he might say, “I could just tell.” This is not mysticism; it’s high-speed, subconscious prediction. Free will is the feeling generated when such predictions are fed into the brain’s narrative center and explained retroactively.

Consciousness does not serve as the decision-maker; instead, it acts as a narrator. It recounts the story of what the organism is currently doing, what it has done, or what it may do next.

Consciousness creates coherence in the flow of behavior, but it operates on a delay—the decisions it describes have often already been initiated by unconscious brain activity.

This does not make the experience of choice meaningless. It makes it strategic. The illusion of free will enables humans to reflect on past outcomes, simulate future options, and socially justify actions.

These are evolutionarily valuable functions, not signs of uncaused agency.

If the human brain were only a responder, we’d always be one step too slow. Our perceptual systems constantly forecast: we hallucinate continuity in flickering stimuli; we flip ambiguous images (faces or urns) with our minds. These are not errors—they are demonstrations of a system primed to guess forward.

Reality, as we perceive it, is not built from raw sensory data alone. It is constructed from expectation + input. This is why the “reality” we create feels stable—it is our prediction engine smoothing the chaos.

Free will, as a physical phenomenon, does not exist. Instead, a system has evolved to survive through prediction. The experience of choosing is a necessary illusion—a signal that our anticipatory machinery is working.

In that sense, we are not truly free, but we are equipped to feel free, just in time to stay alive.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;

MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;

https://www.academia.edu/

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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

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Debt nonsense from The Week Magazine

You must wonder why something so simple and obvious is so widely and regularly misunderstood. I’m talking about the federal debt, which simultaneously is two things:

The total of deposits into Treasury bill, note, and bond accounts.
The net total of all past federal deficits, i.e. the difference between federal spending and federal taxing.

Here is an article from page 17 of The Week’s June 6, 2025 issue.

National debt: Why Congress no longer cares

Rising interest rates, tariffs and Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ bill could sent the national debt soaring

Immediately, you may be reminded of our post titled “Historical bullshit about federal “debt.” From Sept. 26 to May 30, 2025.” where we give examples, beginning 1940, of smart people saying dumb things about the federal debt.

“Now would be a very good time for Washington to bring back its debt obsession,” said Rogé Karma in The Atlantic. That’s because the perfect storm for turning the federal deficit into a “genuine crisis” has arrived.

The above-referenced “Historic bullshit . . .” article was based on the warning, “ticking time bomb.” Now, we must face not a bomb but a “genuine crisis.” Same idea. Same bullshit.

In recent years, the Federal Reserve has “raised interest rates dramatically in an effort to tame inflation.” Since that means the federal government has to pay higher interest on its bonds, “government payments on debt interest soared to $881 billion in 2024.” That’s more than the U.S. spent last year on national defense.

For reasons unknown, the frightening comparison of the federal debt vs. the amount spent on national defense has become de rigueur for debt freaks these days.

Gone are the days when the debt was compared to the cost of 200 airliners or something equally meaningless.

At the same time, President Trump’s tariff policies have led “almost every credible” forecast this year to anticipate slowed economic growth.

When the tariffs take effect, money will be taken out of the economy and sent to the federal government. Taking money out of the economy is recessionary.

Then there’s Trump’s “big, beautiful,” and bloated budget bill, which would add “more than $3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.”

Translation: Then there’s Trump’s “big, beautiful,” and bloated budget bill, which would add “more than 3 trillion growth dollars to the economy over the next decade.”

(It’s not clear whether the author meant “debt” or “deficit” because deficits usually are calculated annually, and not over 10-year periods. Either way, the shrieking is meaningless. Both deficits and their resultant debt are necessary for economic growth.)

Trump’s bill is a horrible bill, for many reasons, but one of those reasons is not its contribution to the deficit or debt.

According to the formula for economic growth—Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Imports—it is clear that deficit spending boosts both Federal Spending and Nonfederal Spending.

There is only one way for the federal government to avoid a deficit, and that is by running a surplus.

All U.S. depressions have come on the heels of federal surpluses.

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 warning signals are flashing red, and if Washington continues to ignore them, “very bad things can happen,” from 1970s-style stagflation to a panicked flight from U.S. Treasuries and a global financial meltdown.

“Stagflation” is a combination of stagnation (or, more troubling, a recession) and inflation. Recessions are caused by reduced (not increased) deficits and are cured by increased (not reduced) deficits.

**When debt growth (red line) is reduced, we have recessions (vertical gray bars), which are cured by increased debt growth**

As for “panicked flight from U.S. Treasuries,” there are three responses:

The federal government always can pay interest on its obligations simply by creating dollars.
When the U.S. economy is in trouble, there is a “panicked flight” to U.S. Treasuries, because they are the safest investment from a principal standpoint.
Who cares? The federal government does not need to offer Treasuries. Even if the public deposited $0 dollars into T-Security accounts, the government could continue to pay its bills forever.

Back to stagflation, the cause of inflation never has been federal spending but rather the lack of federal spending. Inflations are caused by shortages of crucial goods and services — most often oil and food — and cured by increased federal spending to reduce those shortages.

Lastly, there is concern about a potential “global financial meltdown.” It is unclear what type of “meltdown” the author means. Is he talking about a recession, which would be caused by reduced deficit growth? Or is he talking about a COVID-style recession that would be caused by shortages of virtually everything, and cured by federal deficit spending?

Or is he talking about the federal government being unable to pay its bills, which never has happened and cannot happen to a Monetarily Sovereign government.

So far, bond markets are showing concern but not panic, said Victoria Guida in Politico. The credit rating firm Moody’s slightly downgraded the safety of U.S. bonds, and investor unease pushed interest rates on those bonds above 5%.

That was Moody’s “performance” downgrade. No knowledgeable person believes the Federal government will be unable to pay interest on the securities. As for the principal, it’s locked safely away, never touched by anyone but the depositors.

The government could pay off all the so-called (misnamed) “debt” today, simply by crediting all the depositors’ checking accounts. A few computer keystrokes should do it.

Still, if Congress doesn’t heed these warnings and “shift the trajectory” of the budget bill—which would add trillions of dollars in tax cuts “without also making politically painful spending cuts”—”something more painful” than a mild Moody’s downgrade could occur.
Don’t bet on lawmakers acting responsibly, said Clive Crook in Bloomberg. The 2008 bank bail-outs and Covid-related spending under both Democrats and Republicans ballooned the national debt to previously unimaginable levels—it’s now $36.2 trillion.

Oooh, “unimaginable.” Is that worse than a “ticking time bomb,” “a perfect storm,” or a “genuine crisis”? Or is that closer to, “I have no idea what I’m talking about, so I’ll use scare words to pretend I do.”

Rather than confront debt of that magnitude, all but a few remaining deficit hawks “just stopped thinking about it.” Facing it would mean huge spending cuts and major tax increases, both of which are very unpopular.

Uh, perhaps it’s because “huge spending cuts and major tax increases” would cause a depression, like they always have.

Here, the author proves they don’t understand the fundamental differences between a Monetarily Sovereign entity like the U.S. government, and monetarily non-sovereign entities like state & local governments, businesses, euro governments, and individuals.

The U.S. has absolute control over the supply and value of its sovereign currency, the dollar. That is what “sovereignty” means. The non-sovereigns do not use a sovereign currency. They spend some other sovereign’s currency, so they have little, if any, control.

State and local governments use the dollar, over which the U.S. government is sovereign. You, I, and American businesses also use the dollar. We, too, are not sovereign, so we all can run short of dollars.

By contrast, euro nations use the euro over which the European Union is sovereign. So France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, et al can and do run short of euros.

Canada, Australia, the UK, and Japan are Monetarily Sovereign, so they cannot run short of dollars. It’s a reason why Japan has no difficulty supporting a so-called “debt” that is massively greater than the size of its economy. If the U.S. debt is a ticking time bomb, Japan’s debt would be an atomic bomb — but somehow, it isn’t.

One wonders how the debt nuts explain it.

Instead, Republicans are now trying to hide the bill’s “unfathomable cost” from voters, said Jessica Riedl in MSNBC.com. But it’s the voters who will suffer as a result.

“Unfathomable cost” — is that ever worse than “unimaginable,” “a ticking time bomb,” “a perfect storm,” and a “genuine crisis”?

I’d prefer “a pseudo-crisis invented by those who either are ignorant about Monetary Sovereignty, or want you to be ignorant so you don’t demand services from the government.”

That way, they have a “good” excuse to cut your Social Security, cut your Medicare, cut you Medicaid, and to deny you all the benefits the government easily could provide. The purpose: To widen the income/wealth/power Gap between you and the very rich political contributors.

The rapidly growing debt and massive interest payments create “economic drag,” diverting wealth “away from the investments that would start businesses, create jobs, and raise incomes.”

The massive interest payments go FROM the government TO the economy, where the added dollars allow for “the investments that would start businesses, create jobs, and raise incomes.”

As Washington continues to take an ostrich-like approach to the national debt, something large and unpleasant is bearing down on all of us.

Yes, that time bomb has been ticking for at least 85 years. It’s still ticking and still “bearing down.” If you can’t learn from 85 years of experience . . . Wow.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell; MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell; https://www.academia.edu/

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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

There are lies, damned lies and then there is . . .

There are lies, damned lies, and then there is the federal budget.

Here is an article that appeared in the 6/19/2025 Florida Sun Sentinel:

Trump’s spending bill threatens democracy and federal deficit

By Steve Corbin, The Fulcrum

As a lifelong marketer and Consumer Behavior professor, it’s interesting to observe how people’s opinions change as details of an issue become more apparent.

That’s what we refer to as “learning,” Mr. Corbin.

Behavioral change – once information and knowledge increase – is common among people who are open-minded, educated, and critical thinker.

The author, Steve Corbin, clearly identifies himself as one of those individuals who values open-mindedness, education, and critical thinking. I believe he thinks that those who agree with him embody these same qualities as well. This sentiment is likely shared by many others.

It’s called “human nature.”

But I wonder how he feels about those who view much of his article as nonsense.

Here are additional excerpts from his article, along with my thoughts on the implication that the disapproval rating of the “Big Beautiful Bill” increased as citizens became more informed about its contents.

I consider that to be mostly nonsensical. The disapproval rating increased because Elon Musk and many economists criticized it. The masses followed where the leaders directed them.

Conduct your own survey by asking the next person you meet, “Do you like the bill? Why or why not?” You will likely receive vague responses such as, “It increases the debt,” or “It’s bad for the poor.”

These general statements only loosely relate to the specifics of the bill and are often more reflective of the individual’s feelings toward Trump than an informed understanding of the bill itself.

Besides the megabill projecting to increase America’s budget deficit by $2.4 trillion, citizens’ top 10 concerns are noted below.
The most disconcerting aspect of the omnibus bill is listed last, as it undermines the checks and balances system that ensures separation of powers between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches Americans have revered for the past 250 years.

“Increasing the budget deficit by $2.4 trillion is more properly stated,” “Increases the federal government’s support for economic growth by $2.4 trillion.”

Without federal deficit spending, the economy would enter a recession, and even more likely, a depression.

In either case, recession or depression, the ONLY cure would be massive federal deficit spending.

Corbin fails to challenge the common myth about deficits, and his mention of it as a concern only spreads misinformation.

1) Medicaid: At least $600 billion will be cut from Medicaid, which will strip health care coverage from an estimated 10-15 million low-income Americans and close down over 300 rural hospitals (CHOPR).

True, the bill mandates it, but Corbin implies that it is necessary. Without collecting a penny in taxes, the federal government could fund comprehensive, generous Medicare (not just Medicaid) for everyone in America.

Congress and the President could achieve this simply by voting. Two votes, one from the Senate and one from the House, followed by the President’s signature, and the necessary funds would be available.

2) Taxes: The measure has a reverse-Robin Hood scenario that extends and expands tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, while lower-income earners would see reduced benefits or a net income loss; the estimated cost is around $3.8-$4.3 trillion during the 2025-2034 time period.

Mr. Corbin neglects to mention that while federal taxes can be a burden on the economy, they do not fund federal spending. The primary purposes of federal taxes are:

To control the economy by penalizing what Congress and the President want to discourage, and by rewarding those they want to help. No federal tax dollars are used for spending. In fact, they are destroyed the instant they are received at the Treasury.
To assure demand for the U.S. dollar by requiring that taxes be paid in dollars.

The major function of federal taxes today is to widen the income/power/Gap between the rich donors and the rest of us. Let me put this in bold, all-caps, so there will be no misunderstanding.”

FEDERAL TAXES DO NOT FUND FEDERAL SPENDING

State and local taxes fund state and local government spending, so Mr. Corbin is either unaware of this fact or dishonest. There are no other possibilities.

3) SNAP: Spending on SNAP, America’s food assistance program for low-income earners and the disabled, will be slashed by $267 billion, affecting the food security of 7.4 million people (Center on Budget and Policy).

In this context, we discuss morality. Many individuals who do not rely on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) tend to lack concern for low-income workers. Those who are better off often view those in need as lazy or irresponsible, thinking they seek free handouts to spend on drugs and weapons.

Too many people who identify as Christians are CINOs (Christians In Name Only). They often contradict Jesus’s teachings and misquote the Bible to justify selfishness, harshness, and bigotry.

If it cost you nothing, would you help a starving, poor child? SNAP is a program that costs you and your fellow taxpayers nothing and helps millions of the starving poor. Mr. Corbin never mentions that.

4) Estate Taxes: The estate tax exemption would be raised and indexed for inflation, allowing wealthy families to pass on up to $30 million tax-free to their heirs, resulting in $200 billion in lost revenue to the U.S. Treasury.

The estate tax is a woefully inadequate, poorly designed, quasi-attempt to mollify the masses by pretending to punish the rich.

It mostly doesn’t work, but in the few cases it does work, it punishes the private sector by removing dollars from the economy.

Instead of making insincere efforts to penalize the wealthy, a more effective approach would be to support those who are less fortunate. Funding initiatives like Medicare for All, Education for All, Food for All, and Housing for All can ultimately improve the lives of everyone.

That, after all, is the purpose of government — the reason why we voluntarily submit ourselves to the government’s rule-making.

5) Clean Energy:The elimination of tax incentives for solar, wind, and electric vehicles ($561 billion) will affect approximately 250,000 Americans working in these sectors (CNBC).

The government is utilizing tax laws as intended: to regulate the economy. Unfortunately, the oil and coal industries contribute more money in bribes to Congress, leading Congress to favor fossil fuels over renewable energy sources, which exacerbates global warming.

To make their position more acceptable to the general public, right-wing individuals often deny the existence of global warming. If they do admit that it exists, they argue that humans are not responsible for it. Even if they acknowledge human responsibility, they claim that there is nothing we can do to address the issue due to the actions of China.

And anyway, the election was stolen.

6) Private Education: A new tax credit for donations to private school voucher programs expands federal support for private education. FYI: The majority of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, support increasing funding for public schools over private school vouchers (Center for American Progress).

Most funding for education comes from sources that do not have monetary sovereignty, such as states, counties, cities, villages, businesses, and private individuals. As a result, funding is limited, which, not coincidentally, contributes to the growing gaps in income, wealth, and power between the rich and others.

As though that Gap were not wide enough, there is another Gap-widening effort. The Christion-right’s continual attempts to widen the Gap between them and everyone else, even those not among the Christian-right.

Let Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, agnostics, and even non-fundamentalist Christians beware.

The money solution lies in the source of money, the federal government. Federal financial support for all education — Pre-K through advanced degrees.

America’s current system creates dramatically underpaid teachers and administrators, which results in excellent schooling for the wealthiest few, and terrible schooling for the rest. That, of course, is all part of the Gap-widening plan.

7) State and Local Tax (SALT):The tax deduction cap would be raised to $40,000, benefiting wealthier households in high-taxed states for $916 billion (Reuters).

Federal taxes should be reduced, but increasing tax deductions for the wealthy is not the solution. Instead, the federal government should make direct payments to all.

Consider it this way: If a wealthy individual falls into the 36% tax bracket, they effectively “benefit” from 36% of the $40,000 SALT deduction, which amounts to about $14,000. Instead of giving each affluent family $14,000, the government should provide every family with $14,000, tax-free.

8) Post-Secondary Education:Federal subsidized loans for college students will be eliminated and Pell Grant eligibility tightened, making post-secondary education less accessible for many, especially for students from low- and middle-income families (Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

Education is essential for the future of Americans, which is why the founders of this nation established free primary education for most citizens, a practice that continues today.

However, the current world needs our nation to provide more than primary and even secondary education.

The rich don’t need the loans. The poor can’t pay them back.

The federal government has infinite dollars and destroys all the dollars it receives. Paying the government back does nothing for the government, but it impoverishes millions of Americans.

Instead of doing the right thing — i.e. cancel all the debt and fund college for every student — the government does exactly the wrong thing. It continues to collect on the loans, but cancels future financial support.

Why? Because the current administration is more focused on widening the Gap between the rich and the rest than any in history. And Mr. Corbin goes along with the Lie.

Is it ignorance of malevolence? You decide.

9) Environment:The proposal expands leasing of public lands for drilling, mining, and logging and authorizes the sale of public lands, reversing environmental protectionssupported by the majority of Americans.

Hey, who cares about our environment when there’s money to be made? Mr. Corbin is correct to mention this disaster.

10) Judicial Oversight (Section 70302): This provision, described in a single paragraph buried about halfway through the act, restricts judges’ ability to enforce court orders and weakens judicial authority over the executive branch.
The impact on democracy of the 10th identified component of Trump’s legislation justifies further explanation.

This provision restricts the ability of federal courts to enforce their rulings against the government and impose contempt of court citations.

This is significant because this clause means judges would have a much more difficult time holding Trump and his appointees, as well as future presidencies, in contempt for defying preliminary injunctions or temporary restraining orders, thereby severely impacting the rule of law.

I’m not sure why Mr. Corbin is so shocked about this. The Supreme Court already has opened that barn door by ruling that Trump can do any damn thing he wants so long as he can claim it’s part of his job.

Arrest a Congressperson? No problem. Handcuff a mayoral candidate? OK, so long as the candidate is a Democrat. Lie, cheat steal, violate the Emoluments clause and make billions from the Presidency? Who cares?

We already have a convicted felon for a President, so why does Mr. Corbin think contempt of Congress would be a deterrent, or even possible with this Congress and SCOTUS?

Legal experts warn that this provision significantly undermines judicial authority and renders many existing and future court orders unenforceable. This stipulation undermines America’s checks and balances between the three branches of government, a cornerstone of the U.S. Constitution.

“Checks and balances”? Mr. Corbin must be kidding.

Section 70302 alone in the measure says that democracy is in jeopardy for you, your children, and your grandchildren. If the bill passes with section 70302 intact, an authoritarian, totalitarian, and fascist-oriented America is almost assured in perpetuity.

You get what you vote for. Trump made no secret about who and what he is. And still he won the election. CAPITAL IDEAS: What, Me Worry? - The Berkshire Edge

Are people going to complain about “authoritarianism, totalitarianism, fascism,” and the misinformation surrounding Medicare, Medicaid, student loans, Social Security, the environment, global warming, and countless other problems that a wise government could address?

Nah. As long as we, the people, can stand by while ICE kicks in doors to deport innocent, valuable immigrants, and we, the people, bar anyone who isn’t a white Christian, why should we worry about unimportant issues like facts and voting?

Right, Steve?

Steve Corbin is a Professor Emeritus of Marketing, University of Northern Iowa, and a non-paid freelance opinion editor and guest columnist contributor to 246 news agencies and 48 social media platforms in 45 states.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell; MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell; https://www.academia.edu/

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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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