Watch the Republicans forge their own history

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

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It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders..
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Trump makes it official. He knows more than the climate scientists.

Trumpworld is not becoming warmer, and if it is, the cause is not increased, human-caused carbon dioxide. And anyway, what’s wrong with a little warmth? And by the way, it’s all Hillary’s fault.

Does that about cover it?

Trump quits the Paris climate accord, denouncing it as a violation of U.S. sovereignty

“It is time to put Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., and Pittsburgh, Pa., … before Paris, France,”

It’s like this: Paris, France and the rest of the world may get warmer, species may die, the oceans may rise, tropical diseases may move north, but the children of Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., and Pittsburgh, Pa. will not be affected.  The America of Trumpworld will be immune to climate change.

The climate agreement would “undermine our economy, hamstring our workers, weaken our sovereignty … and put us at a permanent disadvantage to the other countries of the world,” he said. “It is time to exit the Paris accord.”

Trump lashed out at foreign leaders in his statement, saying they supported the agreement because it was a “massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries.”

The so-called “disadvantage” and “redistribution” is 100% bunk. Our Monetarily Sovereign government can support our businesses and our people at will. We don’t need to destroy the world to do it.

If Trump truly cared about the people of America, he would not have sponsored a plan that takes health care from the poor living in Detroit, Youngstown, and Pittsburgh — and the other 24 million poor people of America. 

Republican business leaders, who had lobbied the White House against making this move. They and other supporters of action to combat climate change say that policies designed to limit global warming are helping the U.S. economy by building up new industries, especially solar and wind power.

“The nations that remain in the Paris Agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created,” former President Obama said.

If Trump and his sycophantic followers have their way, the United States will fall behind in non-carbon based technologies of the future including solar, wind, nuclear, and geothermal.

Trump will lock “Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., and Pittsburgh, Pa.” to the technologies of the past: Coal, oil, and natural gas. 

Trump said, he hopes to negotiate a new agreement “on terms that are fair to the United States.”

Why would anyone negotiate any agreement with Donald Trump?  He repeatedly, during his business life, has demonstrated he has no respect for agreements and will disregard them at will. He just reaffirmed that.

“But even in the absence of American leadership; even as this Administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future; I’m confident that our states, cities, and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got,” said Obama.

Obama is too sanguine about that.  Without financial encouragement and support from the federal government, the positive effect of the individual states, cities, and businesses will be minimized.

The move may also harm the growing U.S. clean-energy industry, which may now see China and Europe take the lead in developing advanced technologies.

Rather than build new industries for workers, Trump will help the coal industry to continue throwing coal miners out of work via increased mechanization of that obsolescent industry.

“Disappointed with today’s decision on the Paris Agreement. Climate change is real. Industry must now lead and not depend on government,” Jeff Immelt, the chairman and chief executive of General Electric, said.

Elon Musk, the head of Tesla, and Walt Disney Co. chief Robert Iger announced they were withdrawing from a White House advisory council on manufacturing.

When even big business hates a Republican move, you know something is wrong.

This leaves us with the question: Why would Trump make such a wrongheaded decision, that will be scorned by all but the most mentally defective of his followers?

Here is the answer:

When the Paris agreement was signed, Obama had hailed it as one of his major accomplishments.

Some conservatives and administration officials eager to quit the agreement warned Trump that environmental activists could use it to block the administration from its efforts to dismantle Obama’s policies.

And there you have it, the real reason why Trump and his Republican cronies want to leave the Paris accords. Not because climate change is a “Chinese hoax,” and not because the agreement is “bad for Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., and Pittsburgh, Pa.”

Those are fake excuses.

It is the same reason the right-wing is so determined to destroy Obamacare. It is the same reason why Trump hired an anti-environmentalist to head the Environmental Protection Agency (After Trump’s Paris announcement, EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, ducks question on climate change)

The visceral hatred of Barack Obama runs so hard and so deep among the “religious” right wing, that they are willing to abandon everything Republicans stand for — everything America stands for — in an attempt to erase Obama from history.

But ironically, with Donald Trump, the Republicans are forging their own history, a history that will not soon be forgotten for the damage is will do to those most precious to us.

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Republicans: What will global warming do to them?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

What happens to a nation when it has lost its morality and its pride?

You are America. What happens when you’ve lost your morality and your pride?

That question came to me when I read the following (excerpts):

Trump’s family takes new steps to blur ethical boundaries

Donald Trump’s adult sons run their father’s business, which he owns and profits from. The ethical implications of this arrangement are already a mess without precedent in American history.

The Washington Post reported:

Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric’s wife, Lara – have ramped up their engagement with the Republican Party’s national political operation, having met privately with GOP leaders to share their concerns and outlook.

Their appearance at the RNC irked at least two prominent Republicans, who wondered whether it was appropriate for the president’s sons, who run the Trump family real estate business, to be highly involved in discussing the party’s strategy and resources.

The president’s sons reportedly pressed Republican officials at the gathering to do more to “help reignite [Trump’s] political base.”

What was the purpose of Trump handing over his business operations to his sons, if his sons are as politically involved as he is? Does that bother you, America?

The ethical controversies with this family are so common, they effectively serve as background noise that the political world hardly notices anymore, but that’s a shame, because his dynamic is tough to defend.

It’s bad enough that the firewalls that are supposed to exist have already broken down.

Other Presidents have put their assets into blind trusts, to avoid any appearance of unethical self-dealing. Because you “religious” right-wing followers don’t seem to care about ethics, Trump won’t care either. He is a product of you, America.

Two months ago, after saying he doesn’t discuss business with his father, Eric Trump conceded he intends to go over quarterly reports from the Trump Organization with the president, exploring “profitability reports and stuff like that.”

Not only do you, Trump’s “religious” followers, not show any concern about ethics, your “law-and-order” Republican party doesn’t seem to care about ethics, either. For them, it is party above country.

You are America.  If your President and the party that dominates the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Supreme Court, and most U.S. state governments don’t care about ethics, where does that leave you, America?

I have come to the feeling that you have seen so much political crime, you have become immune.  You no longer are shocked by anything.

The Trump University scam. Who cares that your President is such a criminal he had to pay a $25 million fine? Not you, America.

The Trump Foundation scam.  Who cares that your President’s “charitable” foundation was fined for violated tax laws by giving $25 thousand to the campaign of Attorney General Pam Bondi, who in return for the bribe decided not to pursue the Trump University case? You don’t care.

Trump cheated employees. Who cares that your President cheated thousands of employees?  Certainly not FOXNews, Breitbart, and their audience. Trump has told them it’s smart to cheat people, especially to cheat people who don’t have the wherewithal to fight back. Apparently, you agree, America.

Trump cheated small business owners. Who cares that your President cheated hundreds, of small business people, destroying their livelihood? Trump is proud of his business acumen. That is what you believe “makes you great again.”

Trump cheated on his wives. Who cares that your President cheated on his wives?.  You, on the “religious” right — you pretend concern about infidelity.  You pray to God, but you support a boor who boasts about his unfaithfulness.

Trump is a pervert. Who cares that your President not only is being sued for sexual assault but has denied it, then admitted it, and laughed about it on tape? Not you “good” Americans who continue to support him.

Is it any surprise to you America, that Trump wants to take your benefits from the poor and give them to the rich? The man, who wears your face, is thoroughly amoral.

There was a time when you could walk tall anywhere in the world, proud to be America. Trump has taken the reason for pride from you.

You no longer are the world’s moral leader. You have traded your decency for bigotry.

You have followed your President down the path of hatred — hatred for Muslims, hatred of gays, hatred for Mexicans, hatred of the poor, hatred for the uneducated, hatred of immigrants, hatred for all foreigners and anyone different from you.

Instead, you admire murderous dictators like Putin, Duterte, Salman, and Kim.  You say they are “smart.” You wish to be like them.

You are America, but that is nothing to swell pride in your chest. You care nothing for integrity. You are the “me-first, me-only” generation. You are the, “Screw you, I’ve got mine” generation. You are the “Kick the underdog when he’s down” generation.

Go to any foreign nation, and you are Donald Trump. What they think about Trump, they think about you. He bears your image. He tweets your words.

Once you were a great nation, but no longer. You now are a mean-spirited, lying,  petty, unscrupulous people, who go to pray one day, then excuse your President’s evils the rest of the week.

You were a great people who saved the world from totalitarianism. But that was many years and several generations ago. You aren’t the same people, anymore.

Don’t teach your children the Pledge of Allegiance. You don’t believe the words, “liberty and justice for all.”

Don’t march in a Memorial Day parade honoring real heroes. You and Trump, the draft dodger, don’t belong among them.

Don’t bother to strut carrying the Stars & Stripes in one hand and the Ten Commandments in another, and the Bible balanced on your head. You aren’t fooling anyone. The world doesn’t admire you. You have lost your morality and your pride.

And if this makes you angry, don’t blame the messenger.

Blame yourself.

You are America. You are Donald Trump.

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Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

When we don’t know what something is, we name it. Why you should care.

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

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It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders..
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We learn by similes and metaphors. We begin with very basic, perhaps purely instinctual knowledge and almost everything after is understood in comparison.

That is why, when we don’t know what something is, we name it.

“Dark matter” is the name we have given to an unexplained apparent motion of galaxies.

Lacking other ideas, we have decided this apparent motion must be caused by some sort of “matter,” and since we never have identified it, we call it “dark” matter.

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Dark energy? Dark matter? ‘Black hole? Entanglement?

“Dark energy” is the name we have given to the unexplained seemingly too fast expansion of the universe.

Lacking other ideas, we have decided this unexplained expansion (if it even exists) must be caused by some sort of repulsive force, and since we have no idea what this force may be, we have given it a name: “Dark” energy.

We gave the term “black hole” to a region of space-time from which we thought nothing can escape.

We now know that definition is wrong. We have no idea what is inside the so-called “hole,” and only vague ideas about what is outside of it. At best, we know there is something really, really strange at the center of galaxies.

“Entanglement” is a word we don’t understand, but have given it to a relationship we don’t understand — a relationship between quantum particles.

Naming things provides us with the illusion we know what we are talking about.  “Consciousness” is such a word. No one knows, or at least there is no agreement about, what ‘”consciousness” is.

In science, most specifically in Psychology, Physiology, and Philosophy, there is something called “The Hard Problem.” Consider this January, 2015 article by Oliver Burkeman, in the Guardian:

Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness?
What makes human beings more than complex robots? 

The Hard Problem of Consciousness is: Why should complicated brain processes feel like anything from the inside? Why aren’t we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life?

And how does the brain manage it? How could the 1.4kg lump of moist, pinkish-beige tissue inside your skull give rise to something as mysterious as the experience of being that pinkish-beige lump, and the body to which it is attached?

We know an astonishing amount about the brain: you can’t follow the news for a week without encountering at least one more tale about scientists discovering the brain region associated with gambling, or laziness, or love at first sight, or regret – and that’s only the research that makes the headlines.

Meanwhile, the field of artificial intelligence – which focuses on recreating the abilities of the human brain, rather than on what it feels like to be one – has advanced stupendously.

But like an obnoxious relative who invites himself to stay for a week and then won’t leave, the Hard Problem remains.

As with many “hard problems,” (What is the purpose of life? Is there a God?) the difficulty lies in the definitions (What do we mean by “purpose?” What do we mean by “God?” Is the universe really “expanding too fast?”)

With regard to “Consciousness,” what is it? Here is a dictionary definition: Awareness of one’s own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings.

What then, is “awareness”? A dictionary tells us awareness is: The ability to directly know and perceive, to feel, or to be cognizant of events.

Putting everything together, we might say that to be “conscious” means you have to know you exist. And so, to be unconscious is not to know you exist.

But wait. When I am asleep, am I conscious or unconscious? A sleeping person does not know he exists, so he must be unconscious — unless he is dreaming, at which time he does know he exists.

But, while dreaming, he doesn’t fully perceive his sensations and surroundings — though his senses are not completely shut off, and he does perceive these things and doesn’t know it.

Let’s do, as so many scientists before us have done; let’s drift down the usual ladder of potential consciousness: Start with: Is a chimpanzee conscious?

One test for consciousness is the reaction to a mirror.  Chimps have been shown to recognize themselves in a mirror. Why is this consciousness?

Dogs generally fail the test. Mice fail. Are dogs and mice conscious? If not, are they “unconscious” (without awareness, sensation, or cognition)?

Is your dog unconscious, just because he doesn’t recognize himself in a mirror? Being an olfactory animal more than a visual animal, does your dog recognize his odor? Would that make him conscious?

A mouse may look in a mirror and not be able to think, “That is I.” But mice do recognize other mice as being “like me.” They learn to recognize traps as being “a danger to me.” In tests, they learn to recognize certain sounds as preceding “pain for me.” Is the concept of “me” the test for consciousness?

Is the ability to learn, a form of consciousness? Tests have shown that fruit flies can learn to fly in a direction that previously held food. Are fruit flies conscious?

Certain female spiders kill and eat their mates after copulation. But many male spiders go through elaborate steps to avoid being eaten. Are they conscious of “me”?

Is fear a symptom of consciousness? Do spiders have fear?

If mice are unconscious, what then is the difference between a fully awake mouse, a dreaming mouse, and a mouse under anesthesia? Are there greater or lesser consciousnesses? Is an awake mouse only semi-conscious, and a dreaming mouse semi-semi- conscious? And a deeply asleep mouse semi-semi-semi conscious?

And as for that mouse under anesthesia, at some level, it is aware of its surroundings. Depending on the anesthetic, a mouse may gasp if it is short of oxygen. It may heat up if its body is chilled. It may continue to breathe, pump blood, and digest food.

Does consciousness require a brain? All living things, even plants, even bacteria, react to their environment. Trees create protective chemicals when neighboring trees signal they are being attacked by insects. Are they conscious of this?

And finally, of course, we arrive at the inevitable: Can a computer be conscious? Can a computer be “Aware of its own existence, sensations, thoughts, and surroundings”?

Consider Siri, the iPhone’s comparatively stupid personal assistant.  I asked Siri, “Do you exist?” Siri’s answer, “I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

Other questions and Siri’s answers (You can try them yourself):

  1. “Do you have sensations?” “I’ve never really thought about it.
  2. “What do you think about?” “I think, therefore I am.  But let’s not put Descartes before the horse.”
  3. “Do you ever sleep?” “I can’t sleep.”
  4. “Are you conscious?” Well, I’m soft-aware.”
  5. “Do you hate?” “I am not programmed for the human emotion of hatred.”
  6. “Do you have emotions.” “This is about you, not me.”

Yes, these are pre-programmed responses, but many of our own responses have been programmed by our DNA and by our life’s experiences. In machine learning, computers’ responses are programmed by their “DNA” (chips) and by their experiences.

At what level of sophistication would a machine-learning computer be considered self-aware and conscious? What is the requirement for computer consciousness?

The answer to all of the above questions comes back to how one wishes to define, “conscious.” It is a word that has an infinite number of arbitrary meanings, and by those definitions, we can say that any living thing, and perhaps even non-living thing, is or is not “conscious.”

Depending on definitions, we can argue that the earth or the universe is “conscious” and that some conscious thing called “God” runs things.

The above-referenced article asked, “Why should complicated brain processes feel like anything from the inside? Why aren’t we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life?

What does the author mean by “an inner life”? How does he define, “dark inside.” Why should you, a reader of a blog titled, “Monetary Sovereignty” care?

One reason is this: You frequently will see articles and hear speeches, in which the federal deficit and federal debt are given the name “unsustainable,” and no one ever will tell you the exact definition of that word.

“Unsustainable” is the “black hole” of economics, where everything falls in and nothing comes out, not even light.

⁖Federal deficits: Unsustainable.
⁖Federal “borrowing”: Unsustainable.
⁖Federal spending: Unsustainable.
⁖Economic growth: Unsustainable.
⁖Entitlements: Unsustainable.
⁖”Printing” money: Unsustainable.
⁖Consumption: Unsustainable.
⁖Trade deficits: Unsustainable.
⁖Medicare: Unsustainable.
⁖Social Security: Unsustainable.
⁖Poverty Aids: Unsustainable.
⁖Obamacare: Unsustainable.

The fundamental difference between “black hole” and “unsustainable” is that some scientists spend every waking hour trying to understand what a black hole is, or more accurately, what a black hole is like.

By contrast, the people who use the word “unsustainable,” when referencing the federal government, neither care nor want to know, what it means. Instead, they use the word, “unsustainable” to obfuscate, to hide, to mislead. No one ever attempts to explain why the above things are “unsustainable.”

Those politicians, economists, and members of the media, who use the word, “unsustainable” are mentally and morally “unconscious.”

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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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

How ignorance of Monetary Sovereignty touches every facet of your life

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

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It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders..
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Everything you do; everywhere you go; the false belief that our Monetarily Sovereign Federal government can run short of dollars permeates and sabotages your life.

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Oil drilling = oil spills. Always.

 

Consider this article from the 5/29/2017 Chicago Tribune:

A fix for the national parks?
How a risk to the environment could do some good for the environment, (Matthew Brown/AP)

Last year, for the third year in a row, the parks had a record number of visitors – 331 million of them, which exceeds the U.S. population.

More than 11 million saw Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most popular park, and the Grand Canyon drew 6 million. Overall, attendance was up 7.7 percent over 2015.

In spite of their popularity — and partly because of it — the national parks are hurting, with facilities that are often outdated, overstretched and falling apart. All those visitors put more strain on the infrastructure, but funding has not kept up.

The maintenance backlog at Yellowstone is close to $640 million, according to Trust, a publication of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Yosemite has $555 million worth of work waiting to be done. The National Park Service’s deferred upkeep totals almost $12 billion.

At the same time, it keeps adding worthy new sites, such the Pullman National Monument in Chicago, which was designated in 2015.

Unless we find ways to conscientiously attend to the park sites we already have, each addition merely stretches the inadequate maintenance budget even thinner.

The problem, according to Matthew Brown of the AP, is money, the one commodity our Monetarily Sovereign Federal government can create in unlimited quantities.

The federal government under President Dwight Eisenhower, decided to provide 10 years of guaranteed funding “to free the program from the burden of yearly appropriations,” notes Trust. Within a few years, visitors could enjoy cleaner, spiffier, better-equipped sites.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is thinking along similar lines. He supports an expansion of oil and gas drilling in federal areas, 94 percent of which are currently off-limits. 

So does President Donald Trump, who appointed Zinke.

Environmentalists don’t like the idea, particularly in Alaska’s Arctic waters, but they could take some consolation from Zinke’s proposal to funnel offshore royalties into park maintenance.

Unlike state and local governments, which are monetarily non-sovereign, our Monetarily Sovereign Federal government creates dollars, ad hoc, every time it pays a creditor.

The Federal government never unintentionally can run short of dollars.  In the 1770s, the Federal government created laws out of thin air, to create the United States, and some of those laws created the very first dollars out of thin air.

Today, the Federal government still creates unlimited dollars out of thin air, because those laws allow it. So long and the government doesn’t run short of laws, it cannot run short of dollars.

Any honest economist understands this.

Who wants to use a fake shortage of dollars as an excuse to drill oil in prohibited areas? The rich oil companies, of course.

The rich oil companies, who don’t give a damn about the environment;  the climate-change deniers; the people who are far more concerned about today’s profits than about the future of the earth; they are the ones who bribe Congress, the press, and too many economists to opt for more drilling in sensitive places.

“If you go back to 2008, the department made $15.5 billion more a year, just in offshore, than we do today,” he said in an April speech.

Earmarking a portion of all these royalties to maintenance of Park Service sites would help assure this necessary obligation doesn’t get short-changed in favor of other, politically more alluring outlays.

And there is something to be said for using funds derived from operations that pose a risk to the environment to do some real good for the environment.

What a phony argument. First, it’s not a “risk.” A “risk” is something that might or might not happen.

Instead, this is a guaranteed, forever destruction of areas designated for the American people and for your children’s children.

And the supposed “real good” is money that the Federal government creates every day, in unlimited quantities, just by paying bills.

If the author were truthful, his statement would have been, “There is something to be said for destroying the environment to give profits to the oil companies.”

Zinke’s idea would serve a useful short-term goal, boosting domestic energy production, along with an invaluable and timeless one, preserving America’s greatest natural treasures.

Americans love the national parks. But those same Americans also should be taking better care of them.

That is the twisted, cynical advice: Take better care of the environment and “preserve Amerca’s greatest natural resources” by poisoning them.

This is yet one more example of how public ignorance has its penalties, and how President Trump and his rich pals lie to destroy your future in exchange for their profits, today.

Drill in Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and our coastal waters to “save them.” It’s what the rich want you to believe.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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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