Author: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

MBA Northwestern, business turnaround expert, economist

–What is the relationship between morality and economics?

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..
============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

What is the relationship between morality and economics? A few thoughts on the subject.

What is morality? How did it evolve? Is it strictly a human function or do animals have moral codes?

Merriam-Webster says morality is:

–beliefs about what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior.
–the degree to which something is right and good: the moral goodness or badness of something.

These definitions beg the questions, “‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ for what purpose?” “‘Good” or ‘bad’ by what standard?”

Think about your answers these questions:

–If murder is immoral, are our hero soldiers immoral? If not, why not? If so, why are they heroes?

–Why is it immoral to kill an enemy civilian?

–Is the death sentence for murder immoral?

–Why is cheating immoral?

–If immorality is related to unfairness, what exactly is unfairness and why might it be immoral?

–If you pray and your God grants your prayers, have you received an unfair advantage? Have you, in essence, cheated?

–Is it unfair that some people have much and some people have little, and if so, are those who have much, immoral?

–Are the rich less moral than the poor? Why or why not?

–Is it unfair that some are born with more intelligence, more athleticism, and greater beauty than others, and if so, does that make them immoral cheaters? If not, why not?

Some murderers taunt their victims before killing them. Some cats play with mice before killing them. Are cats immoral?

What is the purpose of a moral code?

Here is my proposed definition of morality: Any act that provides an evolutionary advantage for the survival of a species is moral.

Or said another way, a moral code is developed as the means to provide a species survival advantage.

In that sense, all social animals, from ants to humans, have created and follow rules, which together constitute their moral code.

Some rules are hardwired into each member’s genes, and some are optional for any individual member. But those, who choose to disobey the rules, are frowned upon and often are punished by the majority members of the species. Such people are felt to be immoral. Their actions threaten species survival.

Judeo-Christian religions have created the “Ten Commandments,” the first four or five of which (depending on the religion) support the religion, while the other Commandments (protect parents and prohibit murder, adultery, stealing, lying and covetousness) are to strengthen the society.

Other religions have codes of conduct, listing different actions as immoral, as do every nonsectarian group, all for the same purpose: To strengthen the group.

Certain acts may be perceived to provide individual, personal advantages. But if these advantages harm the evolutionary interests of the species, they will be seen as immoral; laws will be passed to prevent them; and the perpetrators often will be punished.

Evolutionary advantage is the basis for our legal code, though many laws are created by immoral or ignorant people; these are the laws that damage the evolutionary interests of our species.

Laws that prohibited African Americans from full participation in society were immoral, not only because they were unfair, but because they were antithetical to species survival.

Consider prejudice: Unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, regarding any group. Blanket hatred of blacks, yellows, browns, reds, Jews, Muslims, Christians, aliens or women all can be considered unreasonable — and all are immoral because they damage the evolutionary interests of our species. They make our species less safe.

As a species, our most powerful evolutionary feature is our intelligence. Evolution provided human females and males with equal intelligence. Thus the Muslim world’s suppression of women deprived it of half their population’s brain power, and no doubt is a reason for the dearth of recent scientific contributions by Muslim nations.

Russia’s, Germany’s and much of Europe’s loss of Jews to Israel and America damaged economic growth in those nations. The killing and ongoing suppression of Jews cost our entire species.

One cannot even begin to measure the economic cost of America’s bigotry aimed at people of color. Consider what we must have lost economically, because thousands of potential George Washington Carvers, Neil deGrasse Tysons, and James Wests never received the education necessary to fulfill their latent talents.

Deporting undocumented aliens, only because they did not jump through the Byzantine hoops demanded by immigration law, deprives us of the species survival assets these people would have brought.

Religion did not create morality; morality created religion. Religion persists despite providing no scientific truths, but rather because it is a powerful social builder and enforcer of moral rules.

Sadly, religion also tends to foster prejudices. Religion is like Longfellow’s Jemima: “And when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid.”

We tolerate the prejudices of religion, because its social building and moral enforcement is so beneficial to the survival our species. That is the fundamental purpose of religion.

Similarly, the fundamental purpose of economics is to identify and to advance the means for our species’ survival. That indeed, is the purpose of all sciences, and it provides the connection between religion and science: The same purpose with a different means.

Science misused can be as damaging as religion misused. Bigotry is religion misused. Austerity is economics misused. Any political group that endorses bigotry and/or austerity damages the evolutionary survival of the human species.

That’s what I think.

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

–Why is this man laughing? What austerity costs you and your family

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..
============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

Here is the face of austerity:


President Obama is now on track to reduce federal deficit to $0.00
By Tim Martyn | September 13, 2015 | 28

President Obama has reduced the annual federal budget deficit by a full seventy percent since he inherited a $1.4 trillion annual shortfall from his successor George W Bush.

And with the race of reduction now accelerating, there is now every reason to believe that Obama can reduce the annual deficit all the way to zero for his final budget before leaving office.

This would make him the first U.S. President to eliminate the federal deficit since Bill Clinton.

Austerity: The federal government takes more dollars out of the economy than it puts in.

By some strange, magical logic, promulgated by the politicians, the media and the university economists — all owned by wealthy donors — taking dollars out of the economy is supposed to make the economy grow (!)

No one knows how that works, except perhaps in an upside-down world where the applying of leeches cures anemia and the starving of children makes them fat.

Not to say austerity accomplishes nothing. Here are some of austerity’s greatest accomplishments:

Medicare rates set to soar
By Stephanie Armour, Anne Tergesen, finance.yahoo.com

Congressional lawmakers so far have failed to agree on a way to stave off an unprecedented premium increase for millions of Medicare recipients for 2016.

About 30% of the roughly 52 million people enrolled in Part B could see a 52% rise in those premiums if Congress and the Obama administration don’t find a way to freeze or reduce the increase.

Pressure on Congress is mounting because many state budgets also would be hard hit. The premium increase would affect about nine million lower-income Medicare beneficiaries whose premiums are paid by state Medicaid programs because they are eligible for both plans.

Rather than eliminating FICA and providing federally paid, comprehensive, no-deductions Medicare for all, our Monetarily Sovereign federal government pretends its finances are like yours and mine.

It pretends it can run short of its own sovereign currency, the dollar. It can’t.

It’s finances are not like yours and mine; it cannot run short of dollars. Austerity has one purpose and one purpose only: It widens the Gap between the rich and the rest.

Here is another austerity result:

Consumer Regulator Considers Student Loan Rules To Fix ‘Widespread Failures’
By Shahien Nasiripour, http://www.huffingtonpost.comView OriginalSeptember 29th, 2015
The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Tuesday it is weighing new rules governing the $1.3 trillion student loan market after releasing a stinging report documenting “widespread failures” in an industry largely overseen by the Obama administration.

The consumer bureau’s report describes student loan servicing, or the business of collecting borrowers’ monthly payments and counseling them on their repayment options, as riddled with unfair and Kafkaesque practices.

Many borrowers are trapped at companies that don’t give them basic information, often mislead them, assess unexpected fees, make it hard for them to correct errors and frequently push them into default, the report says.

With delinquencies and defaults on the rise, the consumer bureau has said increasing levels of distress may hurt economic growth if households are forced to pare back spending and other borrowing, such as for home mortgages or new small businesses.

Many years ago, our leaders understood that educating our young people was necessary to help America grow and to be competitive among nations. So they mandated that every child should receive a free high school education.

In today’s far more technical and sophisticated world, a high school education is not sufficient. Growing America and keeping it competitive requires a much larger percentage of the population to be college educated and beyond.

To achieve that end, our Monetarily Sovereign federal government should provide a free college education to every child, just as our monetarily non-sovereign cities and states provide a free K-12 education.

Instead, in the name of austerity, we have created a Byzantine borrowing system, enslaving large swaths of our population in unpayable debt.

1.5 Million American Families Live on $2 a Day — How the Poorest Get By
By Yves Smith, September 28th, 2015 By Marcus Harrison Green.

If she did not make plasma deposits twice a week at a donation center in Tennessee, Jessica Compton and her family would have no income.

If not for a carton of spoiled milk, Modonna and Brianna Harris’ refrigerator would be barren. The Harris and Compton families’ stories are just two accounts of devastating poverty documented in sociology professors Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer’s book, $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America.”

By Marcus Harrison Green. Originally published at Yes! Magazine. Cross posted from Alternet

Green: Your book documents a 70 percent increase in families living on $2 a day, per person. You talk about the welfare reform of the mid-90s, but what were the additional drivers of this development?

Shaefer: We point to changes in the government safety net, but a big driver of this is the state of the low-wage labor market. The parents of many of the families in our study think of themselves first and foremost as workers, but the jobs that they typically can get pay low wages, offer inadequate and unstable hours, and leave them exposed to unsafe work conditions.

Couple that with the instability in their family lives and it leads to what we see in the book.

There’s an affordable housing crisis in this country and it doesn’t just affect the $2-a-day poor. But housing instability seems to be both a cause and a consequence of extreme poverty.

Green: The poor are often demonized in this country, with politicians and others saying their problems are their own fault.

Shaefer: People make the assumption that low-income families don’t work or don’t want to work. And that’s just not true.

The norm among families with children is a parent who works or has worked recently. But I don’t think people fully grasp the conditions of jobs in the bottom rungs of the labor market.

Green: Your research showed that about half of families living on $2 a day are white. This may come as a surprise to some readers who remember the image of a “welfare queen” bandied about to vilify poverty programs in the 80s and 90s.

Poverty hurts America. It hurts not only the poor, but the entire nation. Poverty creates crime. Poverty creates illiteracy. Poverty creates disease. Poverty reduces a nation’s economic growth.

Being part of America, you are affected by poverty, whether or not you yourself are poor.

For reasons discussed in an earlier post, I do not suggest providing jobs to the poor. I propose we simply give a monthly Economic Bonus (EB) to every man, woman and child in America, regardless of any other income or wealth they may have. You would receive the same EB as I receive and as Bill Gates receives.

No need to go through the convoluted steps our gigantic tax code demands, to determine what is income, and what kind of income it is, and when you received it and how you received it, etc., etc. If you live in America, and you’re alive, you receive your monthly EB.

Remember, the federal government can afford it, and it costs you nothing.

But the austerity beat goes on, with penalties for the nation:

After S.C. floods, Lindsey Graham reverses course on disaster aid
10/06/15 By Steve Benen

When Congress considered federal disaster assistance in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) voted against it.

Two years later, when it was his state that was hammered by flooding, Cotton reversed course, requesting and receiving emergency aid.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also voted against the Sandy-relief bill, though three years later, the Republican senator fought for federal funding for Texas in the wake of flooding.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) “is asking for federal aid for his home state of South Carolina as it battles raging floods, but he voted to oppose similar help for New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2013,” CNN reports.

In each case, the austerity lie was the reason for not spending money where it would have been helpful to the American economy (though when disaster is close to home, minds change.)

Bottom line: Austerity (i.e. deficit reduction) is the single worst economic plan history. Austerity never has worked for any Monetarily Sovereign nation. Austerity always leads to recessions and depressions.

Austerity has but one result: It impoverishes the 99% while widening the Gap between the rich and the rest.

So why is Obama laughing? Because when he retires he will be part of the wealthy 1%.

He and his wife will make millions by giving speeches. His daughters will receive lucrative jobs from rich companies. They all will travel the world, and hobnob with the rich and the powerful, while a library extols their virtues.

Meanwhile, America will fall into the recession or depression his austerity will create, as austeries invariably do.

Actually, this is these are the faces of austerity:

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

–How much money would you take to risk your children’s and grandchildren’s lives?

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..
============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

It’s just a question of comparative risk.

How much money would you take to risk your children’s lives? How much would someone have to pay you for you to let your kids run across a busy, high-speed highway, or to take illegal drugs or to swim during a lighting storm?

After all, there is no proof they would be hit by a speeding truck, no evidence that everyone is harmed by drugs, and statistically, the odds are against being hit by lightning.

It’s just a question of risk. So, how much money would you take to put your children at risk?

That is the question the conservatives ask you.

About zero reputable climatologists deny that human activity is causing the earth’s climates to warm, and that this warming will have adverse effects on our lives.

According to the vast majority of climatologists, the science that supports global warming is settled, with the only questions being: How bad will it get and how soon? The answer to both questions is: It has begun, and it will get very bad, unless we do something about it, now.

Most politicians are dishonest. We put up with their dishonesty, because honest people won’t run for office, or if they do, they then become dishonest.

But intentionally destroying future life on our planet, so you can remain in office, falls way below mere dishonesty. It is dishonesty flavored with a dollop of stupidity and a dash of criminal intent.

Here are some of the dishonest and stupid with criminal intent:

Donald Trump: “This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice.”

“Scientist” Trump has determined the real scientists are wrong, and there is no risk to your children and grandchildren. Is that good enough for you?

Ben Carson: The climate change debate is “irrelevant.” Temperature change is cyclical. “There’s always going to be either cooling or warming going on.”

“Climatologist” Carson isn’t worried about your children and grandchildren. Their safety is “irrelevant.” Do you trust him on that?

Marco Rubio: “We’re not going to make America a harder place to create jobs in order to pursue policies that will do absolutely nothing, nothing to change our climate. America is a lot of things, the greatest country in the world, absolutely. But America is not a planet.”

Climate “expert” Rubio believes there is nothing we can do to save our children’s lives, and anyway, it’s too expensive to try. Do you agree?

Ted Cruz: “If you look at satellite data for the last 18 years, there’s been zero recorded warming. The satellite says it ain’t happening. I’m saying that data and facts don’t support it.”

Well, that settles it. “Meteorologist,” Ted Cruz says the scientists are wrong; there is no danger. Do you feel safe with him determining the fate of your children and grandchildren?

Carly Fiorina: “Every one of the scientists that tell us that climate change is real and being caused by man-made activity also tells us that a single nation acting alone can make no difference at all.”

Blase Fiorina says there is no reason even to try to protect your children’s futures. Kids will run in the streets, smoke cigarettes or swim at dangerous times, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them. So why try? Don’t you agree?

Jeb Bush: “The climate is changing but I don’t think the science is clear on what percentage is man-made and…what percentage is natural. It’s convoluted. And for the people to say the science is decided on this is just really arrogant.”

Yes Jeb, when kids run into the street, it isn’t clear what percentage of the deaths are the kids’ fault and what percentage are the drivers’ fault. It’s really arrogant to prevent kids from running into the street.

Mike Huckabee: “Now we’re told that we’re all burning up. Science is not as settled on that as it is on some things.”

Rand Paul: “The earth goes through periods of time when the climate changes, but (I’m) not sure anybody exactly knows why. “

You see, it’s like this. Given the bare possibility that 97% of climatologists are wrong when they say the world will suffer because of global warming, we conservatives recommend you ignore their warnings and endanger your children and grandchildren, rather than taking precautions.

After all, safety for your kids costs money, and our wealthy donors don’t like it.

The rejection of science and the lack of concern about your children’s future seems to be in proportion to how conservative one is. The more conservative, the less concerned about your children.

monetary sovereignty

66% of ALL REGISTERED VOTERS understand global warming is happening, but only 44% of Republicans think so.

A majority of liberal and moderate Republicans understand climate change is happening, but only 29% of Tea Party conservatives agree.

Politicians deny climate change because they are paid to deny. But, why would voters intentionally elect a candidate who will risk their grandchildren’s lives just to garner votes?

If the climate-change deniers are right, all we risk is reducing CO2 at an unnecessary financial cost.

But, if the deniers are wrong, we risk not reducing CO2 at the unnecessary cost of our children’s and grandchildren’s lives.

Which risk are you more willing to accept? What are your kids’ futures worth to you?

Bottom line: Either these conservative politicians care more about money than about your children and grandchildren, or they are just plain addled.

Either way, why would you support them?

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

–Microevolution, macroevolution, and the stupid party

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..
============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

We are in the year 2015, an enlightened year of science and technology, as contrasted with the Dark Ages, supposedly ruled by superstition and ignorance.

Yet, in this enlightened year:

A major survey of US opinions has revealed that huge numbers of people reject Darwinian evolution, consider GM foods unsafe to eat, and doubt that human activity is warming the planet.

monetary sovereignty

On January 24, 2013, Bobby Jindal, in one of his rare lucid moments said:

“We’ve got to stop being the stupid party. It’s time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults. We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments. I’m here to say we’ve had enough of that.”

To be criticized by Bobby Jindal for being stupid is akin to being criticized by a bear for being furry.

Still, in it’s never-ending efforts to replace science with myth, the religious right continues to promulgate ignorance:

Republican candidate, Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon and living embodiment of mental compartmentalization (i.e., smart in one area; stupid in others), denies Darwinian evolution.

When faced with enormous evidence, Carson backtracked and said: “Microevolution versus macroevolution are two different things.”

What did he mean by that?

Microevolution occurs within a species. For example, arctic bears evolved to be white to blend with the snow, while other bears evolved to be dark to blend with the forest. But they still are bears. They didn’t evolve to become bats.

Carson acknowledges that microevolution happens (though many evolution deniers don’t.) Carson, however, continues to deny that one species can evolve into another species (macroevolution).

The main problem with Carson’s desperate attempt replace science with biblical lore is that “species” is an artificial construct, created by people in an attempt to categorize living creatures. (Humans love to categorize.)

In that sense, nature does not create “species.” People do. And, there is no agreement about exactly what a “species” is.

One common, but sometimes difficult, question is how best to decide which species an organism belongs to, because reproductively isolated groups may not be readily recognizable.

This means that according to one popular definition, “species” refers to sexual reproduction, wherein the dividing line is: One species cannot impregnate another species.

Another common problem is how to define reproductive isolation, because some separately evolving groups may continue to interbreed to some extent, and it can be a difficult matter to discover whether this hybridization affects the long-term genetic make-up of the groups.

So when Carson denies macroevolution exists, he denies not only the tons and tons of scientific evidence, but he doesn’t even know what he is denying. There is no agreement on exactly what a “species” is.

And all of this begs the question, “From where did homo sapiens (that’s us) come?” “Homo” is the species, and presumably it had a beginning. Carson, and others of similar leanings, apparently claim that homo at some point sprang fully formed, as in “So God created man in His own image.”

It’s difficult to do justice to the full range of Carson’s scientific ignorance, but here are some excerpts:

Ben Carson: Evolution Is An Absurd Myth, ‘Give Me A Break’

“They (scientists) are so smart that if they can’t explain how God did something, then it didn’t happen which, of course means that they’re God. You don’t need a God if you consider yourself capable of explaining everything.”

The irony is that it is the religionists like Carson, who claim they can explain everything with the simple declaration: “God did it.”

By contrast, science is based on the admission that we don’t know everything, and the very purpose of science is to discover what we don’t know, and to verify what we may believe.

He claimed that “no one has the knowledge” of the age of the earth “based on the Bible,” adding that “carbon dating and all of these things really don’t mean anything to a God who has the ability to create anything at any point in time.”

Note that his statement has nothing to do with the validity of carbon dating. He merely rejects science in favor of religious faith.

(Carson) said evolution is unable to explain the development of an eyeball: “Give me a break. According to their scheme, it had to occur overnight, it had to be there. I instead say, if you have an intelligent creator, what he does is give his creatures the ability to adapt to the environment so he doesn’t have to start over every fifty years creating all over again.”

The “eyeball” objection has been used by evolution deniers for many years. It is completely untrue, and is a demonstration of Carson’s remarkable ignorance:

Scientists have traced the evolution of the eyeball from a “simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature (that) gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator.

Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight.

In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species. The existence of this range of less complex light-sensitive structures supports scientists’ hypotheses about how complex eyes like ours could evolve.

The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist’s calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch.

One well could wonder how a medical doctor could fail to know this. Don’t medical doctors take biology classes? Don’t they have to pass biology exams?

Oh, but it gets better (i.e. worse):

Ben Carson Forgets Baltic States Are in NATO, Dates Islam to Before Christ

and

But just when it seemed Carson couldn’t move any further from reality, he sat down with TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network and came up with a brand new fantasy.

Carson said Putin shares a deep historical tie with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, suggesting he became acquainted with them during their college days in Moscow when Putin was a young KGB operative.

The Christian Broadcasting Network’s report referred to this as a “little known historical fact.” The trouble is, it’s little known because it’s not a historical fact.

There’s literally no evidence to suggest Khamenei ever studied in the former Soviet Union. And since he and Abbas are several years older than Putin, the timeline doesn’t even make sense – Putin would have been a 16-year-old high school student at the time.

All together, Carson’s abysmal ignorance about evolution, geopolitics, climate change (“There’s always going to be either cooling or warming going on” “It’s ‘irrelevant.’”), gun control (“In case of an invasion by foreign power, the people will be able to aid the military. And also, if we have a time when we have the wrong people in office and they want to dominate the people, the people will be able to defend themselves.”), homosexuality (“It’s a choice.”), poverty (Create a regressive flat tax and eliminate policies sheltering the poor from having to pay taxes.), religious freedom (A Muslim should only be president if he or she “renounces the tenets of Islam.”) and other ideas of similar malodor, make Carson a perfect Republican — a perfect representative of Jindal’s “stupid party.”

The fact that Carson currently ranks #2 (to Donald Trump) says little about Carson and Trump, and much about the Republican electorate.

But then again, what choices do they have? The Republicans have created rules about what constitutes a REAL Republican, and to follow those rules, a candidate first must join the “stupid party.”

For once in his life, Bobby Jindal was right on target

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.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

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