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The China Situation. Are Their Politicians As Ignorant As Ours? This Will Be Interesting

China, like the U.S., is Monetarily Sovereign. It never can run short of its own sovereign currency, the renminbi. Keep that fundamental fact in mind as you read excerpts from the following article:

China’s dim prospects turn disastrous By Diane Francis

Russia’s terrible war generates headlines, but China’s growing debt crisis is mostly ignored. And yet, it will have profound negative effects on the global economy.

In just three generations, Beijing built a middle class bigger than America’s entire population. But now Chinese many face ruination.

China’s domestic real estate bubble, due to deregulation, is so gargantuan that much of its middle class has been damaged.

So far, the article refers to private sector debt. The private sector (people, banks, businesses) is not Monetarily Sovereign. Those elements can run short of money. However, the Chinese government has the power to service any private sector debt should it wish to prevent private sector insolvency.

A massive mortgage revolt is underway, and as banks fail, protests grow. Today, 50 million empty or unfinished units bought on “spec” in hundreds of urban areas may never be completed or paid for, equivalent to one-third of all housing units in the United States.

Should China wish to end the mortgage revolt, it simply could pay some percentage of the mortgages — as with Biden’s student loan support. Similarly, China could support or nationalize troubled banks to keep them solvent.

Besides that, Beijing itself is owed $1 trillion by struggling governments around the world that cannot afford to pay back loans for Belt and Road Initiative project,

Being Monetarily Sovereign, China does not need to receive payment on loans made in renminbi. If the loans were made in U.S. dollars or some other currency, China has the power to buy those currencies with renminbis. The problem with that approach is that depending on the size of the exchange, it could create chaos in currency markets.

The result of this domestic and foreign borrowing is that this year China’s debt is expected to reach the equivalent of 275 percent of its GDP due to massive borrowing and economic slowdown. The United States, by comparison, is expected this year to reach a debt level of 98 percent of its GDP.

The debt/GDP ratio is meaningless. Japan’s debt/GDP ratio is 266%, and the nation’s economy is vibrant and is nowhere near collapse.

The result of the property bubble is unusual defiance by Chinese people toward their authoritarian government. Unrest has grown because real estate speculation has been widespread for years, and most Chinese consider property ownership as a way to get ahead and secure an adequate retirement income.

But years of unbridled speculation has led to ever-increasing prices and overbuilding by aggressive developers, and now there is a glut, collapse in prices and widespread social discontent.

There is a glut of housing so housing prices are low. This is a problem for sellers, not buyers, that if it were deemed serious, easily could be solved by the central government. For example, levy a tax on future construction and sales.

Unrest spreads by word of mouth, which is a dangerous development in a country of 1.4 billion people, where putting deposits and owning several condos had become commonplace.

Essentially, China is a debt disaster in terms of foreign and domestic borrowing.

In rare acts of defiance, Chinese gather in public to object to the situation, and millions are refusing to repay loans on their unfinished apartments.This massive mortgage boycott movement began in early July and has now spread to 100 cities, involving 320 massive property development projects and many banks.

Recently, China’s Politburo issued a statement assuring property buyers that the government would help cash-starved developers finish such projects and that $44 billion would be dispensed to prop up their companies and their banks.

But this is a paltry amount, and millions of Chinese buyers need financial relief or else they will be left in the lurch.

And there is a solution to the problem. The Monetarily Sovereign Chinese government has the infinite ability to “prop up” developers, banks, and buyers. A large, Monetarily Sovereign nation has the ability to solve any money-related problem.

“China’s real estate slump has sucked in both banks and provincial governments, threatening a bigger impact on the world’s second-largest economy,” reports Nikkei Asia.

“Defaults have soared over the past 12 months. Real estate has been a key driver of the Chinese economy in the last two decades.

Real estate and related activities now account for around 29 percent of gross domestic product, up from less than 10 percent at the end of the 1990s.”

The first crack appeared when Evergrande Group stopped paying its debts or finishing projects. It had obtained free land from politicians in smaller urban centers and mortgage financing from local banks, then convinced people to snap up multiple units in the belief that demand and prices would never drop.

If it wished, the Chinese government could bail out every borrower and lender.

Now China must bail out lower levels of government because they depended on revenue from these land sales to provide education, health care, retirement benefits and other social services to their communities.

Their hardship means that services will be chopped, which could turn investor calamity into widespread national unrest.

There is no need to “chop services” for lack of money. The Chinese government could provide the needed money.

Clearly, China’s living standards have already suffered, given that one-quarter of its economy and more than 70 percent of household wealth is tied up in real estate that has dropped in value.

A Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined “Xi Tries to Ride a Real-Estate Tiger, and We All May Get Mauled” concluded that this “places the entire Chinese economic miracle model at risk” and cautions that “global financial markets, central banks and democratic leaders should brace for turbulence.”

Not only does China have the unlimited ability to create its money, but it also has the unlimited ability to create its money rules. In “The Genius of the Board Game, Monopoly,” we described how money-making and rule-making ability can affect the game. Players can change the game at will. They can begin the game by giving each player any amount of Monopoly money they choose. This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-10.png When any players are on the verge of bankruptcy, the other players can lengthen the game by changing the rules to provide money to the troubled players. The players arbitrarily can change the price of properties, houses, and hotels. They can increase or decrease taxes. They can change the traditional “$200 for passing ‘Go'” to any number they choose. They can charge for property sales. They can do anything. The Chinese government has the same powers. It can bail out anyone, reward anyone, and penalize anyone. Like Monopoly players, the Chinese are omnipotent when dealing with domestic financial matters.

Then there is the Belt and Road Initiative debacle. Bloomberg reported that 19 emerging economies (such as Sri Lanka, Lebanon, El Salvador and Pakistan) are virtually bust due to huge indebtedness to China as a result of unaffordable, ambitious infrastructure projects.

These loans were granted without concern for credit ratings or the ability to repay and accused of being politically motivated “debt traps.”

But these have become China’s “debt traps,” and now protests and pushbacks take place in these countries against Beijing. China must forgive loans, restructure them or walk away and let more Sri Lankan-style collapses occur.

China forgiving loans would cost China nothing. It has infinite renminbi. Forgiving those loans might be a brilliant foreign policy strategy.

China’s immediate past has been truly impressive. It has lifted itself out of abject poverty.

But given Xi’s economic mismanagement, combined with his loyalty to Putin, who is the sworn enemy of all his Western customers, China’s future looks not only dim but potentially disastrous.

These are all money problems. China’s future might look “dim” and “disastrous” if it were not Monetarily Sovereign. But it has absolute, total control of its money. One is reminded of the bleating and moaning about Social Security’s and Medicare’s fake impending insolvency, and insolvency that easily could be prevented by U.S. federal money creation.

Diane Francis is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington at its Eurasia Center. She is editor at large at National Post in Canada, a columnist with Kyiv Post, author of 10 books and specializes in geopolitics, white-collar crime, technology and business. She writes a newsletter about America twice weekly on Substack.

If Diane Francis understood Monetary Sovereignty, she would have written a much different article. Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Ludicrous. The Fed Chair is clueless or lying. Stagflation, here we come.

This is what happens when the Fed Chair is clueless or lying:

It took only a 10-minute speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Friday to clarify that monetary policy would be relentlessly tightened in the months ahead. Investors dumped stocks, sending the S&P 500 Index down 3.4% following two days of gains.

And it all was based on two Big Lies that the federal government can run short of dollars, and that federal deficits cause inflation.

Both Big Lies are so obvious, so easily debunked, that it’s hard to believe they are accidental or based on ignorance. Lies that big and easily seen simply must be intentional.

Powell: Fed’s inflation fight could bring ‘pain,’ job losses
By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER
August 26, 2022

JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivered a stark warning Friday about the Fed’s determination to fight inflation with more sharp interest rate hikes:It will likely cause pain for Americans in the form of a weaker economy and job losses.

Powell believes the way to fight inflation is to cause a recession (aka a weaker economy and job losses).

But inflation is not the opposite of recession. The opposite of inflation is deflation. We can have inflation and recession at the same time. It’s called “stagflation,” a problem for which the Fed knows no cure (though there is one).

The message landed with a thud on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 1,000 points for the day.

“These are the unfortunate costs of reducing inflation,” Powell said in a high-profile speech at the Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole. “But a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain.”

The pain is wholly unnecessary. Inflation is not a problem. It is the symptom of a problem, the shortage of crucial goods and services.

Today’s inflation is caused by shortages of oil, food, shipping, lumber, paper, computer chips, many chemicals, labor and a long list of other goods and services. Most of those shortages resulted from COVID.

To cure a problem one must cure the causes. Low interest rates did not cause inflation, so raising interest rates will not cure inflation.

GRAPH I:

There is no relationship between low interest rates (red) and inflation (blue). Raising rates leads to recessions (vertical gray bars).

The U.S. had extremely low interest rates for more than a decade, beginning 2009, and inflation remained low. Clearly, low rates were no a cause of inflation, so raising rates will not cure inflation.

As the above graph shows, however, raising interest rates leads to recessions.

Further, there is no relationship between inflation and federal deficit spending, so increasing federal spending will not cause inflation:

GRAPH II:

There is no relationship between federal deficit spending (green) and inflation (blue). Reduced spending growth leads to recessions (vertical gray bars).

Therefore, the Fed is promoting two activities — raising interes rates and reduced federal deficit spending — neither of which willconomy, even as the unemployment rate has fallen to a half-century low of 3.5%.

It has also created political risks for President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats in this fall’s elections, with Republicans denouncing Biden’s $1.9 trillion financial support package, approved last year, as having fueled inflation.

The $1.9 trillion financial package did not fuel inflation, but it did help hold off a recession. For political purposes, the GOP wants to see inflation and recession come during the Biden administration, so they denounce federal deficit spending.

And here comes the ridiculous part:

Some on Wall Street expect the economy to fall into recession later this year or early next year, after which they expect the Fed to reverse itself and reduce rates.

Wall Street is correct. That is exactly what will happen. If the Fed continues it interest rate increases, and the federal government doesn’t increase its deficit spending, we will have a recession.

Then the Fed will cut interest rates, which again will accomplish nothing. But the Fed will picture itself as struggling mightily and bravely against inflation and recession.

Any failures will be “beyond their control,” and any successes will “result from their actions.” They can’t lose.

Powell reminds me of a child sitting in the back seat with a toy steering wheel. Whenever the car turns, he turns his wheel. He thinks he is driving the car but he is only going through motions.

A number of Fed officials, though, have pushed back against that notion. Powell’s remarks suggested that the Fed is aiming to raise its benchmark rate — to about 3.75% to 4% by next year — yet not so high as to tank the economy, in hopes of slowing growth long enough to conquer high inflation.

Graph I showed that interest rate increases lead to recessions. Graph III shows that raising interest rates will will have an adverse effect on real Gross Domestic Product growth. (GDP is shown as negative growth).

GRAPH III:

GDP (purple) is shown as negative growth which matches the peaks and valleys of interest rates (red).

After raising its key short-term rate by a steep three-quarters of a point at each of its past two meetings — part of the Fed’s fastest series of hikes since the early 1980s — Powell said the Fed might ease up on that pace “at some point,” suggesting that any such slowing isn’t near.

Powell said the size of the Fed’s rate increase at its next meeting in late September — whether one-half or three-quarters of a percentage point — will depend on inflation and jobs data.

An increase of either size, though, would exceed the Fed’s traditional quarter-point hike, a reflection of how severe inflation has become.

The Fed chair said that while lower inflation readings that have been reported for July have been “welcome,” he added that, “a single month’s improvement falls far short of what (Fed policymakers) will need to see before we are confident that inflation is moving down.”

Nothing the Fed has done, to date, has reduced inflation. Any inflation reductions have come from reduced shortages of oil and other commodities. The car turned, and Powell sitting in the back seat thinks he turned it.

“The historical record cautions strongly against prematurely” lowering interest rates, he said. “We must keep at it until the job is done.”

Yes, Chairman Powell, you keep turning your toy steering wheel, and after we go through a stagflation, which will end with increased federal deficit spending to cure shortages, you can claim credit.

(The Fed’s interest rate) hikes have led to higher costs for mortgages, car loans and other consumer and business borrowing.

Home sales have been plunging since the Fed first signaled it would raise borrowing costs.

Translation: The Fed already has begun to cause a painful recession while inflation continues.

Powell is betting that he can engineer a high-risk outcome: Slow the economy enough to ease inflation pressures yet not so much as to trigger a recession.

The little boy in the back seat furiously spins his steering wheel.

At last year’s Jackson Hole symposium, Powell listed five reasons why he thought inflation would be “transitory.” Yet instead it has persisted, and many economists have noted that those remarks haven’t aged well.

America asked the man who said inflation was “transitory,” now asks the same man to cure inflation. Powell neither has the know-how nor the tools.

He doesn’t understand was causes inflation (shortages) nor how to cure it (spend to cure the shortages). He is applying leeches to cure anemia, hoping that won’t make the anemia worse.

Stagflation, here we come. Ludicrous.

In summary:

  1. Raising interest rates does not cure the causes of inflation, which are shortages of key goods and services.
  2. Reducing federal deficit spending does not cure the causes of inflation, but does lead to recessions.
  3. Increasing interest rates does not cure the causes of inflation, but does lead to recessions.

Conclusion: The Fed actions will not cure inflation but will cause a recession. Increased federal deficit spending to cure shortages will prevent a recession, and will not cause inflation.

Biden cuts student loans. The rich panic — and the right-wing lies about it.

Any service the federal government provides to help the average people runs into two major objections from the right:

  1. COST: The cost is unaffordable; it will cause inflation; it will burden taxpayers.
  2. FAIRNESS: It’s unfair to those  people who pay or have paid for the service

Objection #1, “Cost,” consists entirely of economic ignorance.

First, the federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, never can run short of its own sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar. It can create infinite dollars at the touch of a computer key.

Former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”

Former Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”

Thus, no federal expenditure or federal debt is “unaffordable,” an cost never should be an issue. The only issue should be, will the project benefit the American people?

Second, inflation always is caused by shortages of key goods and services, most often energy and/or food, never by federal spending.

There is no historical relationship between federal deficit spending (red) and inflations (blue).

Third, federal finances are different from state/local government, business, and personal finances. Uniquely, the federal government does not rely on any form of income when paying its obligations. State/local governments, etc., are monetarily non-sovereign, and so, can run short of dollars.

In fact, all federal tax dollars are destroyed upon receipt by the Treasury. Taxes are paid from checking accounts, the contents of which are part of the M1 money supply measure.

Upon reaching the Treasury, they become part of no money supply measure, effectively disappearing.

The federal government has the infinite ability to create dollars. There is no answer to the question, “How much money does the federal government have? Effectively, it has infinite dollars. Adding tax dollars to infinity does not change infinity.

Objection #2, “Fairness,” when taken to its illogical conclusion means the federal government never should initiate any new spending, because earlier, some people did not receive that aid, and today, some people will not receive that aid.

It’s the “If-I-didn’t-get-it,-they-shouldn’t-get-it” proposition, an appeal to selfishness and envy, but not to logical economics.

Here begins the explanation of right-wing logic from Reason.com:

Forgiving Student Debt Without Abolishing the Federal Loan Program Is Morally Wrong
Biden’s debt forgiveness will do absolutely nothing to change the incentive system that created this doom spiral in the first place.
Robby Soave | 8.24.2022 

President Biden formally unveiled his student loan debt forgiveness plan on Wednesday, and will use his executive authority to cancel up to $20,000 of debt for borrowers who make less than $125,000 per year.

“When I campaigned for president, I made a commitment that I would provide student debt relief,” said Biden. “I am honoring that commitment today.”

Biden will cancel $10,000 of federally held student loan debt for all borrowers who make less than $125,000 a year, and $20,000 for recipients of Pell Grants, which are need-based.

Biden’s action is nothing more than what government was formed to do, and has been doing, since its inception: Financially supporting people.

Social Security is based on that concept. So is every form of poverty aid. So is Medicare. So is free elementary and high school.

For example, Medicare first was signed into law in 1965, so the right-wing could claim it is  “unfair” to all those people who were sick before 1965.

Also, most of those dollars help people who have reached a certain age, so according to right-wing logic, it is “unfair” to those who are younger. The dollars also aid people who have certain medical conditions, so if you don’t have those conditions, Medicare suppoedly is “unfair” to you.

The policy will impact up to 43 million people and cost the government at least $300 billion (in all likelihood, it will cost much more than that).

Ultimately, U.S. taxpayers—many of whom did not take out loans to pay for school—will be on the hook for the money. A very conservative estimate of the cost per taxpayer is $2,100.

That is a statement of the Big Lie that federal taxes fund federal spending. The reality is that not one tax dollar you ever have paid, or ever will pay, funds any federal expenditure. Not one.

The federal government creates new dollars, ad hoc, to pay all its financial obligations. Federal taxes have only three   purposes:

    • To help the government control the economy by taxing what it doesn’t like and by giving tax breaks to what it wishes to encourage.
    • To assure demand for the U.S. dollar by requiring taxes to be paid in dollars.
    • To make you believe federal spending is funded by taxes, so you won’t ask for benefits.

This last purpose is an invention of the very rich, who can grow richer only by widening the income/wealth/power Gap.

“An entire generation is now saddled with unsustainable debt in exchange for an attempt, at least, at a college degree,” said Biden.

“The burden is so heavy that even if you graduate, you may not have access to the middle-class life that the college degree once provided.”

Millions of students cannot contribute to America’s strength because they are hamstrung by excessive debt. Millions more won’t even attend college for fear of falling into debt.

The problem for all of us is that America does not benefit from the brainpower of so many millions of our young people.

What is the right-wing solution? It has none other than to stop helping students. It is the same right-wing solution to all federal spending. Stop helping those who need help. Raise taxes on the poor. Reduce benefits for the poor.

In short, the conservative solution to the non-existent “problem” of federal spending is to stop helping the poor and middle classes (but to continue to give the rich tax breaks).

This is quite an indictment of the federal student loan program, so one might have expected that Biden’s generous debt forgiveness plan would be accompanied by serious reforms to the underlying system that produced such inequities.

After all, the government is conceding that its loan program has scammed millions of desperate people. Their situation is so dire, their prospects of repayment so dim, that Biden is requiring everyone else to pitch in and help them.

“Serious reforms” never are explained. But when you begin with the premise that the federal government can’t afford to help, combined with the reality that many people can’t afford college, no “serious reforms” are possible.

In essence, right-wing has created its version of an impossible perpetual motion machine and then challenges the left-wing to create one.

And no, not a single taxpayer will be “required to pitch in.” Federal spending costs federal taxpayers nothing.

Biden’s debt forgiveness plan will do nothing—absolutely nothing—to fundamentally change the incentive system that created the doom spiral in the first place.

Degree-seekers will continue to borrow large amounts of money to buy useless educations; indeed, they might feel even more to do so now that this precedent has been set.

The term “useless educations” tells you all you need to know about the right-wing attitude toward a college education which is: Rich kids should get them; the poor shouldn’t.

It is true that paying off student debts disincentivizes universities from financial efficiency. But there is a solution, and ironically, it is already in use.

I call it the “Medicare solution.” Medicare and its supplements pay doctors. So one might claim that doctors would raise rates to take advantage. But they don’t for a very simple reason. Medicare won’t let them. Medicare sets limits.

Have these limits hurt medical care? Well, yes, to some degree, mostly because the limits are too low, which is why we now have concierge doctors — doctors who charge a fixed, annual payment in addition to what they receive from Medicare.

And yes, these doctors are able, by dint of having fewer patients, to offer better, more personal care. But no one is left without healthcare, so long as they qualify for Medicare.

And therein lies the problem. Younger people generally don’t qualify. There is no reason why the federal government cannot fund Medicare for every man, woman, and child in America.

Similarly, there is no reason why the federal government cannot fund a college education for everyone who wants one.

Meanwhile, colleges and universities will have even less incentive to lower costs.

Economic researchers have often found that the government’s subsidized student loans cause educational institutions to jack up their prices for obvious reasons: If the feds cover the cost on the front end, no matter what it is, universities have every incentive to raise the sticker price.

Forgiving student loan debt exacerbates this problem since it encourages more reckless borrowing. Indeed, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates the cumulative student debt level will return to current levels in just a few years.

Doctors and hospitals also have no incentive to lower cost other than the fact that Medicare won’t pay them if they try to raise prices.

A “College For All Who Want It” program could operate in the same way. Federal dollars could go only to those colleges that charge a federally agreed-upon tuition.

There are structural incentives that push students to borrow money that they can never hope to pay back, and the fact that so many people have fallen into crippling debt is a compelling reason to change these incentives.

No rule says the federal government must lure people down a path that leads to financial ruin with some frequency. Congress can sharply limit, or even end, this practice.

Right, Congress could eliminate student debt by paying for colleges, rather than lending money to students. There is not a single financial reason why the federal government lends to anyone. It does not need repayment of the dollars it has the infinite ability to create.

A one-off cancelation of some level of debt held by borrowers who happen to be in dire straits at this specific moment does nothing to fix the underlying problems; on the contrary, it exacerbates them. It is a slap in the face to everyone who either paid down their college debt or made different educational choices to avoid accruing it.

A one-off cancelation of some level of debt helps borrowers. It is easier to service a smaller debt than a larger one.

But it is true that it doesn’t fix the underlying problem which is: The federal government never should lend. It only should give.

And now, Mr. Soave finishes with one final statement of The Big Lie:

If Biden wanted to make the strongest conceivable case for forgiving some college debt, this course of action needed to be paired with serious changes to the entire higher education system. Otherwise, he is simply engaged in a vast transfer of wealth, taking hard-earned money from those who did not fall prey to the federal government’s scam and awarding it to those who did.

There is no transfer of wealth; there is no transfer of money from those who did not receive student loans. The money comes from the federal government which created it out of thin air.

As Ben Bernanke told Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes: “It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.”

ROBBY SOAVE is a senior editor at Reason.

Pitiful that while a “senior editor” does not understand basic economics, he writes about economics. No wonder the public is confused.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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

The strange connection between Elvis Pressly and the GOP’s Ron DeSantis

A friend convinced me to see the movie “Elvis.” First reluctantly, and then surprisingly, I saw an excellent flick that put a  human spin on what I previously had considered to be nothing more than a drugged-up entertainment idol. 1956 Picture of Elvis Presley on Stage Performing Singing Dancing King of Rock | eBay

A critical part of the film was the reaction of politicians to the pelvis-pumping entertainer.

They faked so much outrage at Pressly’s gyrations that they arrested him and threatened him with lengthy jail terms.

There is nothing like the demented shock a politician can exude when trying to prove his own strict morality.

According to the movie, Pressly had to join the U.S. army to escape that phony outrage and vengeful punishment for wriggling onstage.

And that is the Ron DeSantis connection.

DeSantis is of the same ilk as the oh-so-pure Pressly badgers. He feigns anger at those who would remind us of dark corners in American life.

Yes, this shining city on a hill has warts. Plenty of them.

We have bigots. To deny that fact is to deny the roundness of the world.

And yes, white Americans held black Americans as slaves. And even today, the traffic stop of a black driver sometimes escalates into the driver’s death.

And gay Americans have been, and still are, persecuted. As are emotionally troubled Americans. As are pregnant women.

But rather than exposing a disease as a step toward curing it, DeSantis wants to pretend it doesn’t exist. Not only pretend, he wants to punish anyone who tells the truth. This is how he demonstrates his self-proclaimed moral superiority to naive Trumpers.

Thus, the so-called “don’t say gay” bill makes the tacit, outrageous claim that Americans should pretend perfection, hide imperfections, and punish those who wish to shed light on the darkness. Prohibition history: How the ban on booze produced the modern American right.

America has nothing to fear from the truth. We are a great nation, but we are not without flaws.

Facing and acknowledging those imperfections demonstrates strength. Hiding them reveals cowardice and malevolence.

Just as pretending we had no COVID encouraged COVID, pretending we have no criminals encourages criminals.

Pretending we have no bigotry encourages bigotry.

Pretending our elections were rigged encourages anti-voting laws that really do rig elections.

Hiding the truth encourages the lie.

Every decade has its phony “holier than thou” extremist blue-noses. All religions suffer from them.

You saw them smashing liquor bottles during the Prohibition years. You see Sunday “blue laws.”

DeSantis’s denial of bigotry encourages the bigots. His denial of fact encourages the liars.

His denial of logic encourages the nuts. When Puritanical adults outlawed Elvis Pressly’s stage wriggles, they turned him into an idol.Gov. Ron DeSantis signs school safety bill, 3 months after approval

DeSantis gives parents the right to sue teachers and school boards for disclosing uncomfortable truths.

Each parent’s unique personal discomfort provides the basis for punishment.

DeSantis claims that uneducated parents are better able to teach children than are degreed teachers.

If so, why do we have public schools, and why do we educate teachers? Why not simply save money and tell parents to teach their own kids?

Shall we be guided by the lowest common denominator?

If this is the new America, the uncomfortable truth is that we have turned the asylum over to the inmates. The GOP sides with the coup plotters. The Supreme Court sides with gerrymanderers.

DeSantis, indeed the entire GOP, is a mean-spirited, hate-filled, Trumpist bully, sucking up to right-wing bigots with phony moral outrage.

America, you get what you vote for.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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