Author: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

MBA Northwestern, business turnaround expert, economist

–Are you a REAL Republican?

There are Republicans and then there are REAL Republicans, those people known as “the base.”

Whoever you think you are, REAL Republicans — the base — determine who will be the candidate for President. If you’re not a REAL Republican, you might as well forget FOX News, candidate debates, and Trump, until a REAL candidate is chosen by the base.

Meanwhile, read the sports pages or log on to Ashley Madison or just chill out. Your opinions count for nothing.

Oh, you don’t know what a REAL Republican is? You’d like to be included in the base? O.K., to be included in the base you have to believe like the base.

Here is what you need to be:

  1. Anti-abortion, even in cases of rape or physical/mental danger to the mother. Embryos are more important than pregnant women.
  2. Anti Planned Parenthood. Deny that the videotapes were faked and that Planned Parenthood focuses on female health.
  3. Anti-gay. No gay marriage; no gays in the military; no gay Boy or Girl Scouts; no gay teachers; no gays anywhere near children; no gay adoptions; because they will make their children gay. Force gays to convert to being straight.
  4. Anti-immigrant. Deport them all, even those whose children are citizens. No amnesty or legal path to citizenship. Brown immigrants are criminals and rapists. Make it more difficult to come to America. Build a wall and force Mexico to pay for it.
  5. Anti-union. They want to be paid for not working. Bosses work hard. Union members don’t work hard.
  6. Anti-Muslim. They all are terrorists. Don’t let any Muslims come to America
  7. Anti-Latino. They are lazy. They come here only to get benefits for not working.
  8. Anti-poor. The poor deserve their poverty. They are lazy.(Anti-welfare, anti-unemployment compensation, anti-food stamps, anti-ACA.) The rich are not lazy.
  9. Anti-aid to the poor. Benefits just make them lazier.
  10. Anti-aged. Cut Social Security benefits, or privatize SS so that Wall Street can make more money.
  11. Anti-universal health care. The insurance companies don’t like it. We can’t afford it. Rich people don’t need it. People should pay for their own health care, especially if they can’t afford it.
  12. Anti-medical marijuana. Deny it helps prevent pain and nausea. Claim that unlike alcohol, marijuana muddles the mind and is a “gateway” to stronger drugs.
  13. Anti-prison instead of the death penalty. The only way to ensure public safety is to kill more criminals. Deny that innocent people have been killed. Increase enforcement of the “War on Drugs,” because it has worked so well.
  14. Anti-tax increases on the rich. They are the “makers” who look after us and have our best interests at heart. Deny that tax increases that affect the poor disproportionately (like a flat tax or national sales tax) are harmful to the poor and to the economy. Favor programs that widen the Gap between the rich and the rest, like privatizing federal offices.
  15. Anti-federal deficit spending. Deny federal deficit spending creates the dollars that grow the economy. Claim the federal government will run short of dollars and deficits will turn us into Zimbabwe. Deny that deficit spending prevents and cures recessions and depressions.
  16. Anti-medical malpractice suits. These mostly are fake and benefit only the middle and lower classes. Doctors and hospitals don’t make horrendous mistakes.
  17. Anti-gun control. Deny background checks could save lives. Believe what the NRA tells you: More guns = a safer America. Gun crimes prove more guns are needed. Support no limits on number or types of guns available to everyone.
  18. Anti-separation of church and state. America is a Christian country. We need Christian prayer in school and in courtrooms. Anti-Jews in America (but Jews in Israel are O.K.) Keep all Muslims out, and closely monitor Muslims who are here.
  19. Anti-evolution. It’s just a theory. The Christian bible is Truth. Other religions’ books are not the Truth. Post the Christian 10 Commandments in all government offices
  20. Anti-climate change. The scientists are lying; the right-wing politicians are telling the truth. CO2 is not an important greenhouse gas and humans aren’t creating it.
  21. Anti-auto and factory emissions controls. Too expensive. Deny pollution is man-made or that pollution is harmful to our children.
  22. Pro oil drilling; anti-environment. The Koch brothers have it right.
  23. Anti-limits to political contributions. Money is free speech. The rich deserve more speech than do the rest of us. Bribery of politicians is good.
  24. Anti-flag burning. Deny flag-burning is free speech.
  25. Anti minority voters. Deny vote fraud seldom exists, and deny voter ID laws are meant to limit participation by poor blacks. Deny gerrymandering is a form of vote fraud. “Those” people shouldn’t vote, anyway.
  26. Anti-research on embryos. Deny this can save millions of human lives. Killing microscopic embryos is murder. Even condoms murder sperm. Sperm are more important than people.
  27. Anti-nuclear agreement with Iran. Better to bomb them and send in our soldiers, as we successfully did with Iraq and Vietnam. Carpet bomb enemies; don’t worry about innocent civilian deaths.
  28. Anti-negotiation with foreign enemies. War is a better problem-solver. Negotiation is for wimps. Tell Putin, “Or else.”
  29. Anti-everything Obama. He’s not an American citizen; he’s a Muslim who wants to destroy America.
  30. Anti “big government.” Claim the federal government and its agencies are insolvent, so all social spending should be cut. But, increase spending for monitoring Muslims, building a wall on our border, deporting immigrants, building prisons and growing the military
  31. Anti-liberal. The bleeding-heart liberals and libtards gave us Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Food Stamp Act and other benefits to the poor and middle classes, all of which should be cut.

If you subscribe to all of the above, you are a REAL Republican and are part of the REAL Republican base.

But, if you don’t agree, you are a RINO, and no right-wing politician will have the courage to care what you think.

You decide.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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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 afford better health care than 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 AN ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILDE IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) 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 EVERYONEFive 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 benefiting 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 CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-tranferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from 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 corporate taxes would be an 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.
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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

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Recessions begin an average of 2 years after the blue line first dips below zero. A common phenomenon is for the line briefly to dip below zero, then rise above zero, before falling dramatically below zero. There was a brief dip below zero in 2015, followed by another dip – the familiar pre-recession pattern.
 Recessions are cured by a rising red line.

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.

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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..
•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.

•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..

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Hillary Clinton’s Drug Plan for recession

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 poor.
•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..

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Bernie Sanders has advocated a form of Medicare for All. It would be a single payer (i.e. federal government) program, that would protect everyone, and with far fewer loopholes than current Medicare has. You should review the brief description here.

Hillary Clinton’s thinking hasn’t gone as far as Bernie’s, but she has come out with a prescription drug “plan” — well, not so much a plan as an amalgam of talking points.

Here are some comments about a summary published by Bloomberg Politics.

Hillary Clinton Drug Plan Would Cap Consumer Costs, Mandate R&D Spending

A day after a tweet about high drug costs from Hillary Clinton sent pharmaceutical and biotechnology stocks plummeting, the Democratic presidential candidate said that if elected, she’d implement programs to force the industry to concede tens of billions of dollars a year in tax breaks, lower prices and increase research spending.

There is nothing like attacking the evil pharmaceutical industry to get the hoi polloi stomping and cheering.

But really, is impoverishing the guys who create our life-saving medicines the best way to create more affordable, life-saving medicines?

“It is time to deal with skyrocketing out-of-pocket costs and runaway prescription drug prices,” Clinton said. Nobody in America “should have to choose between buying the medicine they need and paying their rent.”

Absolutely true. But which is more likely to increase medical research and development: Cutting pharmaceutical industry profits or federal stimulus spending to increase industry profits?

One proposal would limit how much patients could have to spend out of pocket for drugs to $250 a month, or $3,000 a year. It’s an idea that builds on policy in the Affordable Care Act limiting total out-of-pocket medical spending to $6,600 a year for an individual, and $13,200 for a family.

The idea could squeeze health insurers, as well, which provide drug coverage for patients and typically cover a portion of the costs.

Why even charge people $3,000 a year? Under Medicare for All, the federal government would pay for everything.

Another item would make drugmakers spend a minimum amount on research and development, just as Obamacare forces insurers to spend a minimum percentage of their revenue on medical care.

Clinton would also bar pharmaceutical companies from deducting drug ad spending as a business expense, for tax purposes, which she said in a statement announcing the policies would save the government “billions of dollars over the next decade.”

Visualize the complexity of rules necessary to force drugmakers to “spend a minimum amount on research and development.

–A minimum amount of what? Of profits? How are profits defined? Of sales? Of foreign sales?
–What exactly is “research and development”? Which of the myriad corporate expenses, is considered research and development? Whose salary is included?

Yes, just what we need: More complexity (leading to loopholes) in our ridiculous tax code, and Hillary Clinton micromanaging the pharmaceutical industry.

And then there’s the economics ignorance reveal: “Save the government billions of dollars,” while costing a segment of the economy billions of dollars.

Apparently Mrs. Clinton believes our “poor” federal government can run short of dollars, while the pharmaceutical part of our economy has too many dollars, and that federal taxes stimulate the economy.

Clinton criticized Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, which bought a drug in August and soon after raised its price 50-fold. “Price gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous,” Clinton said.

Alex Arfaei, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets, said Monday he doubts Clinton’s proposal will lead to meaningful price controls. “Pharmaceutical companies are easy targets in presidential politics, and extreme examples provide great talking points.”

If Turing is making an exceptionally high profit on a drug, what is the worst — the very worst — that could happen under Medicare for All?

Either the federal government will pay the price, which will add stimulus dollars to the economy. Or the government will set the price it is willing to pay, and Turing will accede, or be out of the program (similar to current price setting of hospital and doctor bills).

The Democratic front-runner’s ideas do have the power to rattle markets, though, as Monday showed. In the hours after she criticized Turing and said she’d soon issue the proposals, the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index lost more than $40 billion in market value as investors sold drug stocks. It was one of the worst days for the index in about a month.

The private sector lost $40 billion, because candidate Clinton merely proposed a bad plan. Now imagine the damage with President Clintion wielding the power to implement a bad plan.

Other proposals in Clinton’s package have been put forth by Democrats before, and gone nowhere. One of the biggest would give low-income people enrolled in Medicare, the U.S. health program for the elderly and disabled, drug coverage under Medicaid, which covers the poor.

Known as “dual eligibles,” these poor, elderly people don’t have access to Medicaid’s highly discounted drug prices. Switching them to Medicaid drug coverage would save taxpayers $103 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The “dual eligibles” idea is a step toward Medicare for all. Why have two programs — Medicare and Medicaid — when one program would do the job better and more efficiently.

Of course, none of this would “save taxpayers” anything, since federal taxes do not pay for federal spending.

Clinton would also have Medicare negotiate prices, using the government’s purchasing power to get additional discounts. Such a proposal could save billions of dollars, though in the past has struggled to gain traction in Congress because of heavy opposition from Republicans and drug companies.

Whose dollars would be saved? Certainly not the public’s. On the contrary, the economy would lose those billions of dollars. And the federal government itself doesn’t need to “save dollars.” It has the unlimited ability to create dollars, at will.

The “saving” of federal dollars is known as “austerity,” which always depresses an economy.

Other proposals target expensive biologic and specialty drugs. One would lower the sales exclusivity for biotechnology drugs to seven years from 12.

Another would have the government study the effectiveness of drugs, in an attempt to pressure pharmaceutical manufacturers to charge prices based on the value the treatments provide.

In short, virtually all of Mrs. Clinton’s proposals punish private industry, i.e. the economy, and reduce the ability and incentive to create new drugs, while doing nothing to help consumers.

In Clinton-world, the federal government will pull more money out of the economy, via increased taxes and/or decreased spending: A sure prescription for recessions and depressions.

Back to the drawing board, Hillary.

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
Monetary Sovereignty

Recessions come 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

–To Congress: A plague o’ both your houses. Just do your job.

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 poor.
•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..

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

Though a former Republican voter, I now am of the opinion that the Republicans do not offer a single candidate who has the honesty, knowledge, courage or intelligence to be President of the United States.

Not one.

This is the party for which Donald Trump is the perfect symbol, and for which a significant number of candidates:

– –believe money is speech and that the rich should be able to buy elections. (Aside: If money simply is speech, then bribery simply is conversation.)
– –believe climate change science is a myth.
– –believe County Clerk Katie Lang is right to refuse marriage licenses to gays, because her religion is more important than anyone else’s.
– –believe vaccination causes autism, despite what doctors say.
– –believe deporting 11 million people and building a longer, higher wall is an efficient way to protect America.
– –believe Evolution science is a myth, while the bible is scientifically correct.
– –believe austerity works.
– –lie about their job experience.
– –lie about abortion and about Planned Parenthood’s role.
– –believe the words, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,” have absolutely no meaning.
– –believe the poor, the elderly and the unemployed are lazy, and helping them only encourages their laziness.
– –believe children born here to undocumented immigrants should have their citizenship taken away.
– –believe Barack Obama is a foreigner and a Muslim.
– –despise all who are not straight, white, Christian and male.

Which brings us to the Democrats, who sometimes equal Republicans in foolishness and perfidy.

You already have heard way too much about Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi and Emails, two politically overblown “scandals” that remind one of evaluating a restaurant based on the quality of its flatware. (Not that I support Hillary. I don’t. I favor Bernie Sanders.)

So let’s skip the political nonsense, and go to the real nonsense:

Senior Democrat Has A New Plan To Trim Unemployment
Rep. John Conyers wants to force the Federal Reserve to focus more on job growth.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), a senior House progressive, introduced a bill that same day that would make a future rate increase dependent on much lower unemployment than the U.S. is likely to achieve anytime soon.

Conyers’ proposed Full Employment Federal Reserve Act would obligate the Fed to define full employment as a maximum unemployment rate of 4 percent and “a labor market in which median wages are rising with worker productivity, job seekers can find work, and involuntary part-time work is at a minimum.”

Short of meeting those criteria, the Fed would be unable to raise its influential interest rates.

The Fed has a dual mandate to enact monetary policy that promotes both full employment and stable prices. The two-pronged mission, established by Congress in 1977, does not specify how the central bank should define those goals.

Critics of the Fed, mostly liberal, have said top Fed officials have used this discretion in recent decades to prioritize concerns about excessive inflation over maximizing employment.

The choice is essentially zero sum: When the Fed increases interest rates to limit inflation, it does so by deliberately reducing economic demand, which reduces potential job growth.

Enough! Enough! I can’t handle any more BS.

First, the “dual mandate” is utter idiocy. The Fed does not control employment. Congress controls employment via its taxing and spending policies.

Increase business taxes and hiring goes down. Increase personal taxes and buying goes down, which impacts business, forcing employment down.

Decrease federal spending and businesses sell less to the government, so hiring goes down. Increase federal spending and more money flows into the economy, which stimulates hiring.

The “dual mandate” is Congress’s way of avoiding its own responsibility for anything negative, while taking credit when times are good.

Second, when the Fed increases interest rates two main things happen:
–The dollar strengthens, which reduces the cost of imports (i.e. anti-inflation)
–The federal government pays more interest on T-securities, which adds stimulus dollars to the economy.

The Fed does not “deliberately reduce economic demand” in order to cut interest rates. It controls rates by fiat and by its open market operations.

Further, despite myths to the contrary, raising interest rates does not negatively impact Gross Domestic Product (See: The low interest rate/GDP growth fallacy )

So we have the spectacle of economically ignorant Democrats (John Conyers, Frederica S. Wilson, Marcy Kaptur, Keith Ellison, Sheila Jackson Lee, Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr., and Donald Payne, Jr.), trying to tie the hands of the Fed in the execution of its primary economic task: Controlling inflation.

Visualize the hospital cleaning crew telling the surgeon what he is and is not allowed to do, and you have a reasonable analogy.

It would be far better for the cleaning crew to do a better job cleaning and let the surgeon operate to the best of his ability.

In short, it would be far better for Congress to do a better job growing our economy and reducing unemployment, and let the Fed control inflation to the best of its ability.

To Congress: A plague o’ both your houses. Just do your job.

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
Monetary Sovereignty

Recessions come 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

–Medicare for All: Where do we go from here?

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 poor.
•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..

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Medicare is a wonderful — a liberal — program that never would have been passed by a conservative President and Congress.

Medicare has helped to prevent millions of seniors from falling into the wretched poverty medical bills can cause.

But Medicare has its weaknesses:

1. It covers only the aged.

2. It pays only a percentage of bills. The uncovered percentage can be financially debilitating, thus requiring private Medicare Supplement expenses.

3. It doesn’t cover pharmaceuticals (i.e. Part D) which also can be financially debilitating, dental, some eye and other examinations and treatments.

4. It doesn’t cover long-term care, psychiatric, substance abuse and many other medical and related treatments and equipment.

5. In the name of Medicare (and Social Security), the poor and middle classes pay a high and unnecessary FICA tax, which is taken from salaries.

So why not a Medicare that:
A. Covers every man, woman and child in America?
B. Covers all hospital, all doctor and all pharmaceutical bills?
C. Covers every form of medical diagnosis and treatment?
D. Covers long-term care>
E. Pays 100% of the bill?

In the June, 2013 post, How one of the best bills in history — H.R. 676, Medicare for All — is spoiled, we discussed a bill before Congress that would accomplish all of the above:

It is H.R. 676, Medicare for All:
“To provide for comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United States residents, improved health care delivery, and for other purposes.”

Some features of the bill:

All individuals residing in the United States (including any territory of the United States) are covered under the Medicare For All Program entitling them to a universal, best quality standard of care

The health care benefits under this Act cover all medically necessary services, including at least the following:
(1) Primary care and prevention.
(2) Approved dietary and nutritional therapies.
(3) Inpatient care.
(4) Outpatient care.
(5) Emergency care.
(6) Prescription drugs.
(7) Durable medical equipment.
(8) Long-term care.
(9) Palliative care.
(10) Mental health services.
(11) The full scope of dental services, services, including periodontics, oral surgery, and endodontics, but not including cosmetic dentistry.
(12) Substance abuse treatment services.
(13) Chiropractic services, not including electrical stimulation.
(14) Basic vision care and vision correction (other than laser vision correction for cosmetic purposes).
(15) Hearing services, including coverage of hearing aids.
(16) Podiatric care.

No deductibles, copayments, coinsurance, or other cost-sharing shall be imposed with respect to covered benefits.

The Program shall pay physicians, dentists, doctors of osteopathy, pharmacists, psychologists, chiropractors, doctors of optometry, nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, physicians’ assistants, and other advanced practice clinicians.

What would you say is the main reason the federal government doesn’t offer such a program?

Yes, there are a couple minor reasons — excuses really:
—Government bureaucrats, not doctors, would make life-or-death decisions about coverages. (The same way Medicare and private insurances are handled now and always have been handled.)

—Private health insurance companies would be put out of business and their employees would lose their jobs. (Right. They would go the way of blacksmiths, small farmers, typewriter, folding map, photo film, public pay phone and buggy whip manufacturers. It’s called “progress and obsolescence.”)

The major (not the real) reason given is that such coverage would cost too much. Under the current system, the private sector (you and me) is forced to spend money we may not have, to pay for our medical care.

Instead, with Medicare for All, our Monetarily Sovereign federal government, which never can run short of dollars would pay for it.

Hmmm . . . . Let’s see. Is it preferable for people to be impoverished by medical bills, rather than having the federal government, which never can be impoverished, pay those bills?

You might believe Congress and the President think so, because they cobbled together the Affordable Care Act, otherwise knowns as “Obamacare,” a Rube Goldbergian, complex, convoluted mess, that to a small degree pretends at what Free Medicare for All could accomplish easily, simply and efficiently.

Obamacare unnecessarily makes the populace pay for medical care.

The real reason we don’t have Free Medicare for All: The rich don’t want it.

Free Medicare for all not only would cut into the lucrative insurance businesses, but more importantly, it would narrow the Gap between the rich and the rest.

As you’ve read many times on this blog, the Gap is the only thing that makes the rich and powerful rich and powerful. If there were no Gap, no one would be rich, and the wider the Gap, the richer the rich are.

So narrowing the Gap is the last thing the rich want.

So where do we go from here? Liberal Monetary Sovereignty.

Liberalism, by its very nature, narrows the Gap by giving money to the lower income/wealth/power groups. The problem with liberals, as represented by the Democrats, is that they have bought into the “tax-and-spend” philosophy (while the conservatives believe in the “don’t-tax-and-don’t-spend” idea).

Both ideas suffer from the same myth, that the federal government needs to collect tax dollars in order to spend. Monetary Sovereignty demonstrates the falsity of that myth.

Even if federal tax collections fell to $0, the federal government could continue spending, forever. (There are other reasons for federal tax collections, but paying bills isn’t one of them. All these years, you have been conned about this, by the rich-owned politicians, media and economists.)

So again, where do we go from here?

We need a liberal government that acknowledges Monetary Sovereignty (MS).

Forget the Republicans. They are the party of hatreds, despising blacks, browns, gays, women, foreigners and foreign nations, the poor and the middle classes, while loving only guns, fetuses and above all, the rich.

Forget Hillary Clinton. She has no fundamental beliefs other than being elected, perhaps so she can get rid of Bill and make the same millions he’s made, on her own.

Which brings us to Bernie Sanders, who claims to be a socialist, but isn’t. He’s a liberal, who doesn’t understand Monetary Sovereignty — or at least, that’s the way it seems.

But I was amazed and heartened that he hired Stephanie Kelton to be his economics advisor.

Stephanie Kelton understands Monetary Sovereignty. She heads the economics department at UMKC (the University of Missouri, Kansas City). It’s the one school in America (the world?) that teaches MMT (Modern Monetary Theory), the sister to MS.

While individual professors around the world also teach MMT, here is an entire economics department devoted to the subject. Take that, University of Chicago, Harvard, Stanford et al. You teach myths while UMKC teaches truths.

So the very fact that Bernie Sanders would hire the chair of UMKC’s economics department says this: He soon will, or already does, understand Monetary Sovereignty.

Will Sanders have the courage to tell us Americans we should benefit from Free Medicare for All? And if so, will we Americans have the intelligence to believe him?

If the first answer is “Yes,” Bernie has my vote. He should have yours, too.

Hey, which would you prefer: To conservatively deport 11 million people and carry a semi-automatic weapon, or liberally for you and your loved ones to have free medical care for life?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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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.
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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
Monetary Sovereignty

Recessions come 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