Author: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

MBA Northwestern, business turnaround expert, economist

The most economically destructive question: “Who will pay for it?”

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

Mitchell’s laws:
•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.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes..

•Liberals 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 rich and the rest..
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..
============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

Just because its title is “Fact Check,” doesn’t mean it actually is checking facts

AP FACT CHECK: Glossed-over realities in Democratic debate
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR and JOSH BOAK

A look at some of the statements Saturday night and how they compare with the facts:

CLINTON on rising premiums and out-of-pocket costs for the privately insured after enactment of Obama’s health care law: “I would certainly build on the successes of the Affordable Care Act and work to fix some of the glitches.”

THE FACTS: Obama’s law was mainly about expanding coverage for the uninsured, and even former officials of his administration say major work still has to be done on cost control. In other words, rising costs are more than “glitches.”

One of the health care law’s main brakes on costs — a tax on high-value workplace coverage — has been put on hold by the new federal budget deal. Clinton had called for complete repeal of that levy, known as the Cadillac tax. Many economists believe the tax would help keep costs in check by forcing people into leaner insurance plans.

The real facts: “Cost control,” as it currently is used, has little to do with efficiency, productivity, better service, better medical outcome or any other positive feature.

Rather, “cost control” is a euphemism for “Make the public pay more and the federal government pay less.“

The federal government has the unlimited ability to pay, and its payments enrich the economy — two facts never mentioned.

SANDERS on his proposed single-payer health care system: “The average middle-class family will be saving thousands of dollars a year.”

Sanders says his plan for a government-run health care system along the lines of Canada’s and Western Europe’s would save money for families and taxpayers.

But such a major transition would involve winners and losers, as well as new taxes in place of premiums.

When the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office looked at the concept back in the early 1990s, it concluded that a single-payer system had the potential to save money but that wasn’t guaranteed.

Moreover, individuals would have less freedom to choose their insurance packages, a trade-off that not everyone would accept.

The real facts: A true single payer system need not involve any new taxes. Our Monetarily Sovereign government does not need to levy taxes to fund payment.

Federal taxes do not fund federal spending. That is the essence of Monetary Sovereignty.

The purpose of a single-payer system is not to save the government money; the purpose is to save the people money and to provide health care for all.

Trying to save the government money not only is negative for the economy, but leads to a complex, convoluted, Rube Goldbergian system like Obamacare.

Finally, with single payer, individuals do not need “freedom to choose their insurance packages.” The single payer pays for hospitals, doctors and procedures, so no so-called “freedom” is necessary.

SANDERS: “The cost of college education is escalating a lot faster than the cost of inflation. There are a lot of factors involved in that. And that is that we have some colleges and universities that are spending a huge amount of money on fancy dormitories and on giant football stadiums.”

CLINTON: “States have been disinvesting in higher education … So states over a period of decades have put their money elsewhere; into prisons, into highways, into things other than higher education.”

THE FACTS: Clinton comes closest to diagnosing the problem accurately. College expenses are unsustainably high, but luxurious dorms aren’t the big driver that Sanders portrays. Public universities are charging more because they receive less in state government support.

Demos, a left-leaning think tank, said in a May study that the decline in state funding accounted for 79 percent of tuition hikes between 2001 and 2011. Just 6 percent was due to construction costs.

True: College costs have become completely unaffordable for many families, and a life-style sacrifice for most families. And the states are struggling to pay their bills.

So, here is the problem:

Sanders would make up that lost government money by providing free tuition, paid for with a tax on financial transactions.

Clinton would offer federal dollars to encourage states to do more and keep students from having to borrow.

It’s unclear how either plan would control colleges’ costs, though.

In short, both candidates and indeed, both political parties, want to make college affordability an obligation of the private, monetarily non-sovereign sector (states and colleges), while saving dollars for the Monetarily Sovereign entity (the federal government), which has no need to save money.

In government speak, “saving” means increased taxes or cutting benefits to the economy, so long as the federal government spends less.

SANDERS: “Middle class in this country for the last 40 years has been disappearing.”

THE FACTS: It’s no secret that the middle class is struggling. The costs of college, health care and housing continue to rise, while wages have barely budged for two decades.

The Pew Research Center reported earlier this month that the majority of Americans are no longer “middle income.”

“The closer look at the shift out of the middle reveals that a deeper polarization is under way in the American economy,” Pew concluded.

Every new benefit to the economy is required to answer the question, “Who will pay for it?” meaning that all benefits to the people must be paid for by the people, i.e. there would be no federal benefits.

When the middle classes and the poor need help, then the middle classes and the poor will have to pay for that help. Don’t ask the federal government to do anything.

Convincing the public to save money for the federal government (which needs no financial protection), rather than to protect the private sector (which is desperate for financial help), has been the great triumph of the rich over the rest — the great triumph of senselessness over logic — the great triumph of fiction over fact:

The most economically destructive question: “Who will pay for it?”

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually Click here
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Recessions come only after the blue line drops below zero.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

Student loans and the unforgivable debt

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:

•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.

•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes..

•Liberals 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 rich and the rest..

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

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

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

============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

I know of no undertaking more important to the growth, success and survival of America than the education of our people.

Our forefathers knew it:

Historical Timeline of Public Education in the US

1647: The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony decrees that every town of fifty families should have an elementary school and that every town of 100 families should have a Latin school.

1790: Pennsylvania state constitution calls for free public education but only for poor children. It is expected that rich people will pay for their children’s schooling.

1817: A petition presented in the Boston Town Meeting calls for establishing of a system of free public primary schools. Main support comes from local merchants, businessmen and wealthier artisans. Many wage earners oppose it, because they don’t want to pay the taxes.

1820: First public high school in the U.S., Boston English, opens.

1827: Massachusetts passes a law making all grades of public school open to all pupils free of charge.

1851: State of Massachusetts passes first its compulsory education law.

Today, free education, grades K – 12, is available to virtually all Americans, and mostly mandatory for those 18 and under. This education is paid for by monetarily non-sovereign governments: State, county, city, village — i.e., it is paid for by taxpayers.

Through time, mechanization and technology have made America’s competitiveness and success dependent on education beyond grade 12.

1945: At the end of World War 2, the G.I. Bill of Rights gives thousands of working class men college scholarships for the first time in U.S. history.

The “Ten Steps to Prosperity” (below) contains two steps directly addressing education:

4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here

5. Salary for attending school (Click here)

The November 30th issue of Time Magazine contains an article titled, “But can America afford this approach to solving the student debt,” by Haley Sweetland Edwards:

“I’m a correspondent at TIME. Previously, I was an editor at the Washington Monthly, where I wrote about policy and regulation. I studied philosophy and history at Yale and journalism and politics at Columbia.”

Some thoughts from Ms. Edwards’s article:

Tens of millions of Americans collectively owe $1.3 trillion in student debt.

In the past eight years, the federal government has quietly, almost imperceptibly, changed the rules of the loan game. It has made itself the primary bank for students and put in place an expansive new safety net.

Rather than owing for-profit lenders, students will owe dollars to the federal government, which being Monetarily Sovereign, has no need to collect dollars from students.

A key provision allows all federal borrowers to cap their monthly payments at 10% or 15% of their discretionary income and wipes any remaining balance off the books after 20 or 25 years.

The great “improvement” is that students will not be in debt for life; they will be in debt “only” for their first 20-25 years after college, the prime family-building times of their lives.

Paying this debt effectively will require their children to apply for school debt, and so the cycle will continue.

Bush and Rubio have advanced higher-education plans that would overhaul the accreditation process to clear the wary for new, online institutions offering cut-rate degrees.

The thought of online institutions offering cut-rate degrees to the masses, makes one shiver.

It is the perfect right-wing solution, guaranteed to widen the gap between the rich (who can afford the best brick-and-mortar universities), and the rest (who will be “educated” by cut-rate, online schools.)

Hillary Clinton offers a smorgasbord approach, including cutting loan-interest rates, expanding existing grant programs and offering rewards to colleges that keep their tuition low.

In short, she offers the typical left-wing, complex, convoluted Obamacare-esque sort of, not quite, pretend solution to two problems that need real solutions: Eliminating onerous student debt and educating our population.

And now, for the inevitable Big Lie:

But this new federal safety net contains serious flaws. The Brookings Institution estimated that it could cost taxpayers $250 billion over the next 10 years.

Wrong, of course. Taxpayers do not fund federal spending. That is the basis for Monetary Sovereignty, and is the fundamental difference between the Monetarily Sovereign federal government and the monetarily non-sovereign state and local governments.

And here, Ms. Edwards repeats the Big Lie:

It allows (students) to run up vast debts . . . and to leave future taxpayers holding the bag.

Oh, well, it is ever thus. Anyway, she gets down to the rest of the problem:

Perhaps most damning, while the program takes the pressure off students, it does nothing to control the actual price of tuition, which has risen like crazy for years.

It also arguably makes it more likely that tuition will rise even more quickly in the future, as students’ ability to pay becomes a moot point.

First, it won’t really be a “moot point,” because student still will pay. The rich ones will pay out of their own checkbooks, and the rest again will take out loans. The loan payments merely will be capped.

But let’s get beyond the details and explore the theory, which is: Federal support makes ability to pay moot, so prices will rise. Is this a justifiable concern and is it a real problem?

The closest parallel I can think of is Medicare. It pays most of the doctors’ bills. And if you ever review those bills to see what Medicare pays doctors, you will find that far from being out of control, they are so “in control,” that most doctors are underpaid.

With but few exceptions, doctors net less today than they did in the pre-Medicare days. Medicare actually has held down fees. So much for the effects of the “moot point.”

Though health care costs have risen, most of that rise can be attributed to more sophisticated and expensive tests with more sophisticated and expensive machines and better hospital facilities. (Are you old enough to remember when nearly all hospital rooms were “doubles,” “triples” or “wards”?)

But, let’s say, for argument sake, that university tuitions do rise dramatically, because of the “moot point” effect, and that the federal government pays a great deal more, and schools and teachers get rich. Here’s what would happen:

–The government would pump more dollars into the economy, which would grow the economy.

–The public schools would receive more dollars, requiring less state taxes to support them.

–Some private schools would expand and improve their facilities while others simply would get rich

–Teachers’ pay would increase, resulting in more people and better people wanting to be teachers.

–Students wouldn’t have to shop around for scholarships, some of which require free labor (Think: Athletic scholarships)

–Schools wouldn’t have to shop around for donors, many of whom come with “strings” (Think: Koch brothers dictating curriculums)

Frankly, I can’t imagine a single reason why rising, federally funded tuitions would be harmful, and if there are any, surely the benefits would outweigh them.

Ms. Edwards’s article includes many interesting points, and I advise you to read it in the Time Magazine issue. But all her points have to do with loan capping, scholarships and grants, and none really levels the playing field between the rich and the rest, and none eliminates the financial penalty for attending college.

So we are left with two questions:

1. Is it in America’s best interests for all those who want a college education to be able to afford it?

2. Should the federal government fund what is in the nation’s best interests?

At the end of World War II, our answer to both questions was, “Yes.” Sadly, we have drifted away from sense and into the Big Lie. We have made it more difficult to earn a college education, when we should be making it easier.

Bottom line: The entire student loan program is unforgivable, in every sense of that word.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================

Ten Steps to Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)

2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)

3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.

4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here

5. Salary for attending school (Click here)

6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)

7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually Click here

8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)

9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)

10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)

1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..

2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.

3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.

4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.

5. Cut financial assistance to the states.

6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.

7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.

8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.

9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.

10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.

1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)

2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars

3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.

4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Recessions come only after the blue line drops below zero.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

Ignorant or dishonest? You decide

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

Mitchell’s laws:
•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.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes..

•Liberals 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 rich and the rest..
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..
============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

IMPROVEMENTS IN ECONOMY NOT ENOUGH TO CURE BUDGET WOES

WASHINGTON, DC – Maya MacGuineas, Executive Director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, released the following statement today in response to the Office of Management and Budget’s Mid-Session Review, which is now estimating a deficit of $445 billion.

“The good news is that the numbers moved in our favor. The bad news is that we still face a tremendously challenging situation.

“We cannot continue to allow this burden to multiply for our children and our children’s children.”

Hope as we might, we will not be able to grow our way out of the nation’s fiscal problems. “While improvements in the economy are always welcome, the higher receipts should not be viewed as license to spend more, but rather as an opportunity to take steps toward eliminating the deficit,” said MacGuineas.

Maya MacGuineas spoke of our “tremendously challenging situation” way back in 2004.

Then in 2007:  

The New America Foundation co-hosted a forum entitled The Unavoidable Challenge: Confronting Our Nation’s Fiscal Crisis with the Heritage Foundation and the Public Policy Institute.

Maya MacGuineas, director of the Fiscal Policy Program at New America and president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, kicked off the conference by emphasizing the size and inevitability of the problem and asserting the need for specific solutions.

She pointed to three options:

1. Do nothing and watch the problem metastasize;
2. Increase revenues, but taxes are already above historical levels, and, assuming no cuts in spending, would have to grow to more than 30% of GDP to handle the coming growth in entitlements in the short term, which would cripple economic growth; or
3. Cut spending, which must include entitlements.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) argued that time is running out, and that currently scheduled benefits are unsustainable.

Note how tax increases (which the rich hate) “would cripple economic growth,” but spending cuts (which have the same effect on the economy as tax increases, but punish the middle and poor) are recommended.

That was in 2007, when Maya MacGuineas’s “tremendously challenging situation” morphed to her “fiscal crisis.” Her solution: Cut benefits to the middle classes and the poor.

Graham used the favorite right-wing word, “unsustainable,” a word which never is explained. Why are federal “deficits” and “debt” “unsustainable”? No one knows. (They mean “bad,” but “unsustainable” sounds so much more perspicacious.)

Let’s jump ahead three years:

Mid-Session Review Shows Unsustainable Path
July 23, 2010

“A trillion-dollar-plus deficit is manageable this year if, and only if, there is a plan to bring the debt back down to a manageable level over the decade.

This, however, is a recipe for fiscal disaster,” said CRFB president Maya MacGuineas. “We have got to do something about the coming tide of red ink before our creditors force us to make changes under their terms, instead of under our own.

“How many more terrible budget projections do we need before we decide enough is enough?”

“Our creditors” are T-security account depositors at the Federal Reserve Bank. The FRB pays them off by the simple expedient of returning their existing dollars, exactly the same way your bank pays you your savings account deposited dollars. No problem at all.

Somehow we survived MacGuineas’s $445 billion “challenging situation” back in 2004, and we survived Graham’s “unsustainable fiscal crisis” of 2007, and now, in 2010, we are faced with a trillion-dollar-plus “fiscal disaster.”

Can we sustain? Let’s jump ahead to 2012:

Our country’s debt trajectory is unsustainable.

Historically, debt held by the public has averaged less than 40 percent of GDP since 1970. Today’s debt is roughly 70 percent of GDP and rising fast, particularly due to the retirement</b. of the baby boom population and rapid health care cost growth.

The United States is currently at a crossroads, where fundamental but thoughtful changes can be made now, or else far more painful ones can be forced upon us down the road.

Well, years have passed and our “unsustainable fiscal crisis” still is “unsustainable,” and remains at “a crossroads” — a remarkably slow, unsustainable crossroads.

As always, the problem is “retirement” (Social Security) and “health care” (Medicare), and the solution, as usual, is to cut both programs — programs benefit the middle and lower income groups.

And now we arrive at 2015. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) continues its usual rant about federal (misnamed) “debt” and (misnamed) “deficits.”

More properly, the “federal debt” should be called “deposits” and “federal deficits” should be called “economic surpluses.”

The (misnamed) “federal debt,” actually is the total of interest-paying deposits in T-security accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank. Think: Savings accounts at your local bank.

The (misnamed) “deficits” are the surplus of federal dollars entering the economy via federal spending, vs. the dollars leaving the economy via federal taxes.

When was the last time your local bank’s debt increased? Answer: Every time someone like you made a deposit.

As you deposited dollars to your savings or checking account, did you say to yourself, “I’m putting my bank deeper into an unsustainable debt?”

That’s what the CRFB would say.

And when our federal government cuts taxes and/or increases spending, this is a surplus for our economy. That’s a good thing, folks, even though MacGuineas thinks it’s a deficit “crisis.”

It puts dollars into the pockets of “our children and our children’s children.”

Bottom line: For more than 10 years, MacGuineas and her accomplices, have told you the federal deficit and debt are unsustainable crises, with catastrophe imminent. The were wrong in 2004, still wrong in 2007, wrong again in 2010 and 2012 — and every year in between — and continue to be wrong today.

We continue to sustain, our economy grows and our children have not been asked to pay the government’s debt (a legally impossible request).

The right wing “solution” to this non-problem inevitably is to cut benefits to the middle and lower income groups, which is their real goal.

So the question is: Are they ignorant or dishonest and well-paid tools of the very rich?

You decide.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually Click here
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Recessions come only after the blue line drops below zero.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

America’s #1 gun myth exposed: Part II

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

Mitchell’s laws:
•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.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes..

•Liberals 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 rich and the rest..
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..
============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

Because the NRA has been so successful with its propaganda, you may not realize that:

Top Constitutional Lawyers Explain What the Second Amendment Really Says About Gun Control

For almost 200 years after it was adopted, the Second Amendment was interpreted to protect the right for militias to bear arms, but not individuals.

In 1939, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Miller that restricting access to shotguns or machine guns by citizens outside the military was permissible.

“The right to bear arms was thought to ensure well-regulated state militias,” Harvard constitutional law professor Richard J. Fallon told Mic. “Regulation of firearms was permissible as long as it did not interfere with state militias.”

Historically, conservatives actually tended to support gun control, seeing it as a way to stop crime.

That changed in the 1970s, when conservatives began to make the argument that the Second Amendments protects individuals, rather than just the military.

The current, right-wing interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, with the belief that the “militia” phrase has no meaning whatsoever, is a recent phenomenon.

The most important recent Supreme Court decision dealing with gun regulation came in 2008, when the court ruled in the case District of Columbia v. Heller.

At issue was the constitutionality of the District’s ban on handguns, which at the time was one of the most restrictive in the country.

In a 5-4 decision, the court struck down the ban, claiming it infringed on an individual right, namely “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

However, the court also explicitly stated that while owning handguns is protected as an individual right, possession of “dangerous and unusual weapons” is not.

Get it? Even the right wing court ruled that banning guns is constitutional, with the only question being, “Which guns can be banned.?”

Two weeks ago, 49 Republican senators voted against a failed bill that would have expanded background checks and closed the so-called gun show loophole, with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio stating that such an expansion “would impede the Second Amendment right of a large number of Americans.”

What these politicians get wrong: Those absolutist positions were never supported by the Supreme Court’s Heller ruling, which was intentionally narrow.

By broadcasting the same lie repeatedly, the politicians, well-paid by the NRA and gun manufacturers, have implanted the notion that any restrictions on gun ownership are unconstitutional.

Absolutely false. That wasn’t true when the 2nd Amendment was written, and it never has been true, since.

“Heller set out sort of a bare-bones holding that there is a constitutionally protected right to bear arms, but most of the hard questions have not yet been considered by the Supreme Court,” Fallon told Mic. “Although the Supreme Court has recognized a Second Amendment right to bear arms, it has not recognized an absolute right of everybody to bear arms, of all kinds, at all places, in all circumstances.”

Other constitutional lawyers go even further, saying that although conservatives may not want to admit it, Heller actually paved the way for more gun control restrictions.

“I believe ‘assault weapons’ are indeed what the court had in mind when it wrote in Heller about ‘dangerous and unusual weapons,” Harvard Law professor and renowned legal scholar Laurence Tribe told Mic. “I believe military-style assault weapons will never be protected by the court in the name of the Second Amendment.”

The only question is whether a bribed and cowardly Congress will pass more restrictive laws, and/or whether local and state governments have the will to challenge restrictions to a right-wing Supreme Court, known for ignoring the “militia” rule.

Tribe told Mic. “The Second Amendment and the Constitution as a whole are abused by those who treat them as a sick suicide pact.”

And now, I await the informative comments from those who have more guns than teeth, and fewer brains than either.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually Click here
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Recessions come only after the blue line drops below zero.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY