Is there anything much more satisfying than a nice, heaping plate of “I told you so”?
The story begins with the world’s greatest businessman and negotiator. I know he is, because he has told me so — many, many times.
Forget his multiple bankruptcies (How does anyone go bankrupt with a gambling casino?) Forget how he has put himself under the thumb of Vladimir Putin, and has been conned by Kim Jong-un.
Forget about that wonderful business, Trump University, for which he was fined $25 million.
And forget about all the indicted and found-guilty incompetents, with whom he has surrounded himself.
The Wisconsin Assembly sent a $3 billion incentive package for Taiwan-based Foxconn to Gov. Scott Walker on Thursday, signing off on a deal to lure the electronics giant to the state with the biggest subsidy to a foreign company in U.S. history.
This deal was handled with the usual Trump braggadocio and self-congratulations, which because he is the greatest businessman in history, guaranteed it would be a failure.
Foxconn never will hire 13,000 people. Not in a year, not in ten years, not ever.
Many of the people it does hire, will come from neighboring Illinois, will shop in Illinois, and will pay taxes to Illinois. The Chicago commercial area is a must larger source of qualified workers than is the entire state of Wisconsin, and it is nicely convenient via road and commuter rail.
Republican pols, upon receiving advance info about which land Foxconn plans to use, will buy it early, making out like bandits. They probably already have begun to acquire options.
Foxconn, having demanded a direct line to a politically leveraged Wisconsin Supreme Court, easily will fend off any challenges to its sweet deal.
Screwed Wisconsin taxpayers, will pay big, and never will see any net benefit.
“Walker joined President Donald Trump in announcing Foxconn’s plans to build in Wisconsin at a White House event in July, heralding it as a game-changer for American manufacturing.”
So there it is. In addition to being a giveaway to big business and to greedy politicians, and a rip-off of the average taxpayer (the Republican standard operating procedure), the Foxconn deal provides endless bragging rights to Trump and Walker for all the non-existent jobs they will claim they brought to Wisconsin.
Trump and Walker will be long gone from office by the time the Wisconsin taxpayers figure out they are enmeshed in this deal, forever.
Well, I was wrong about one thing. Trump still is in office, and still bragging and failing, but already the headlines are rolling in:
Wisconsin is finally facing the reality of Foxconn’s plans
By Tim Culpan, Chicago Tribune, Jan 31, 2019
So Foxconn Technology Group may not make display panels in Wisconsin after all.
Those who’ve been following Foxconn for a long time won’t be surprised. Chairman and founder Terry Gou is as much a salesman as he is a manufacturer, having spent decades honing his pitch not just to clients but also governments.
Then-Gov. Scott Walker, backed by President Donald Trump, loved exactly what he sold: the promise of thousands of jobs to make stuff in the U.S. Walker loved it so much that he pledged as much as $3 billion in sweeteners, a deal that likely cost him his governorship.
Now, according to a Reuters interview with one of Gou’s right-hand men, such plans to manufacture display panels may be scaled back or even shelved.
Foxconn’s Wisconsin-made screens likely would have been put into televisions. Woo this week acknowledged that “in terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S. … We can’t compete.”
It’s simply a matter of economic reality. The same reality that existed when Trump was handing out red truckers’ hats and promising to Make America Great Again.
Foxconn’s U.S. panel project didn’t make sense, evidenced by a comment Gou himself made saying that such plans weren’t a promise but a wish.
Foxconn is now publicly conceding that manufacturing panels in Wisconsin isn’t viable.
In 2018, the first year of the Wisconsin experiment, the company couldn’t hit its employment target. Instead of creating a very modest 260 full-time jobs, Foxconn filled just 178 positions, Reuters reported.
And that, you folks who voted for Trump, is what $3 billion will buy you, if you have the world’s greatest negotiator working the deal and bragging about it, afterward.
I told you so.
Now, about that wall he promised, but never even asked for when he had a Republican Senate and a Republican House . . .
The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:
Those of you who read, “It is 2019, and the phony federal debt “time bomb” still is ticking“, are aware that at least since 1940, and surely before, scaremongers have been calling the federal debt a “ticking time bomb.” Eighty years of being wrong. Still no explosion.
Those of you who read, “More scare nonsense from the CRFB,” know that this organization, funded by rich folks, wants you to believe what simply is not true: That the federal government can run short of its own sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.
It can’t. It created the very first dollar, and continues to create dollars, ad hoc, every time it pays a creditor.
Even if all tax collections totaled $0, the federal government could continue paying its bills, forever.
Now that the latest CRFB (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget) nonsense has been published, I feel obligated to demonstrate that it is . . . well, nonsense. If they keep publishing the lies I’ll keep publishing the truth.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its Budget and Economic Outlook for the next decade this morning, which warned that our debt is headed to uncharted waters (1).
Under current law, CBO projects debt will rise from 78 percent of the economy today to almost 93 percent by 2029 and over 152 percent within 30 years.
Under CBO’s Alternative Fiscal Scenario, which assumes the continuation of current policies, debt would reach 105 percent of the economy by 2029 and exceed record levels set after World War II by 2030 (2).
The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:
“You need to go no further than this report to see the real state of the union – our national debt is rising rapidly, and trillion-dollar deficits are just on the horizon.
Numbers don’t lie, and anyone with a calculator on their phone can see that debt is a problem that can’t be ignored. (3)
“The debt doesn’t just burden future generations, (4) it also stands in the way of economic and political progress today. (5)
With the government now reopened, it is time for the new Congress and the President to work to put the country on more solid fiscal ground. (6)
“CBO’s annual report is a reminder that the situation is getting worse, not better. (7)
Lawmakers should come up with a plan now while the economy is strong to put our debt on a downward path and phase it in to avoid the much more disruptive choices that procrastination will bring. (8)
Look at the CRFB’s comments, point by point.
(1) Actually, these waters have been “charted” — by Japan, whose Debt to Gross Domestic Product ratio is above 250% — and there’s no sign it is “a problem that can’t be ignored.”
The waters also have been “charted” by the U.S. after WWII, and the chart shows the U.S. economy has grown quite well since WWII:
Federal debt has been “sustainable” since WWII, and has not been a “problem” (3), has not burdened any generations (4), and has not stood in the way of economic and political progress. (5).
Federal debt has been “sustainable” since WWII, and has not been a “problem.” Numbers don’t lie, but liars lie about numbers (3). Federal debt and GDP have grown together, which would not be the case if the debt were “a problem.”
Federal debt cannot “burden future generations” (4), because taxes do not fund the debt. The federal government pays off the debt every day, simply by returning the dollars that reside in those T-security accounts.
It is the lack of federal deficits that burdens generations:
Recessions come from deficit growth decline, and deficits are cured by deficit growth increases. The reason: Economic growth requires money growth, and deficits pump money into the economy.
Growing debt and has not stood in the way of economic and political progress. (5). We aren’t sure what “political progress” the CRFB means, but the relationship between debt growth and economic growth is clear.
The country is on “solid fiscal ground” (6) when deficits are growing, because deficits pump more dollars into the economy.
The country is on shaky fiscal ground when deficits are reduced, because a growing economy requires a growing supply of money.
All depressions have been introduced by reductions in federal debt, and most recessions have been introduced by reductions in deficit growth.
Depressions and recessions have been cured by debt growth.
(7) “The situation” is getting better because deficits are increasing, which means the federal government is pumping more dollars into the economy.
Putting federal debt on a downward path repeatedly has proven to cause depressions, by taking dollars out of the economy.
There is no reason to do this, however. The federal government is not like state and local governments, and not like you and me. It uniquely is Monetarily Sovereign.
Unlike state and local governments, and unlike you and me, the federal government cannot run short of its own sovereign currency.
Unlike us, the federal government does not have to “save up” to pay its bills. It does not need to wait for the economy to be strong. The U.S. federal government has the unlimited power to pay all its bills, whether the economy is growing, shrinking, or standing still.
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.”
Greenspan: “The CRFB tells people we’re running short of dollars.” Bernanke: “And people fall for it!”
Alan Greenspan: “Central banks can issue currency, a non-interest-bearing claim on the government, effectively without limit. A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”
St. Louis Federal Reserve: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.
As always, the CRFB functions mostly as a shill for the very rich, to convince you your federal benefits — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, aids to poverty, aids to education, etc. — are unaffordable and must be reduced.
If you’re tired of the lies, don’t stand for them. Tell your national representatives that you know the facts.
You know: the government cannot run short of dollars
You know that growing deficits are necessary to grow the economy
You know that the federal debt is not real debt, but rather is the total of deposits into T-security accounts, similar to savings accounts or bank CDs.
You know the federal government easily can afford comprehensive Medicare-for-All
You know the federal government could provide free education for everyone
In short, you know the federal government can afford the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below).
Tell them to cut the crap rather than cutting budgets, because you know the truth and you’re not going to stand for their lies any longer.
The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:
The foundation of American democracy is our free and honest elections. Without them, the America you know and love simply would not exist.
The Russians attacked America by interfering in our Presidential election, just as surely as if they had dropped a bomb on an American city. America’s security depends on this interference being thoroughly investigated, and Russia and the perpetrators being punished.
Now for the questions, all of which have the same answer:
What is the word for an American who attempts to impede the investigation of an American enemy’s interference in our Presidential election? _______________
What is the word for an American who despite all evidence, and the testimony of all our intelligence organizations, denies that our enemy, Russia, interfered in our elections? ______________
What is the word for an American who attempts to impair an American Presidential election with materials stolen from an American political party by our Russian enemies? _______________
What is the word for an American who refuses to be interviewed by the investigator of Russian interference in an American Presidential election? _______________
What is the word for an American who tells witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation of Russian interference, denounces cooperating witnesses as “rats,” and threatens cooperating witnesses and their families? _______________
What is the word for an American who dangles pardons in front of non-cooperators who are convicted of helping to impede the investigation of Russian interference? _______________
What is the word for an American who praises and professes love for America’s dictatorial enemies, Putin and Kim, while insulting our allies? _______________
What is the word for an American who attempts to sabotage the organization (NATO) that helps protect America and its allies from our enemies? _______________
What is the word for an American who engages in secret meetings with a dictatorial enemy, then destroys all records of those meetings? _______________
What is the word for an American who conspires to benefit America’s primary enemy, in exchange for permission to execute a personally profitable project? _______________
What is the word for an American who appoints to head vital government agencies, incompetents and criminals who oppose the very purpose of those agencies? _______________
What is the word for an American who denigrates an American war hero, while lying to avoid his own military service? _______________
What is the word for an American who bribes women, for the purpose of affecting the outcome of a Presidential election? _______________
What is the word for an American who denies science to knowingly aid and abet the pollution of America’s air and water?
What is the word for an American who knowingly surrounds himself with criminal traitors? _______________
What is the word for an American who lies about innocent men, women, and children, to prevent them from becoming valuable American citizens? _______________
What is the word for an American who intentionally and cruelly destroys the livelihoods of millions of fellow Americans, for political purposes? ______________
What is the word for a political party that for the sake of politics, protects a traitor to America? ______________
What is the word for an American politician, who is a member of a political party, that protects a traitor to America? _______________
What is the word for an American who, despite massive evidence, knowingly votes for a traitor to America? _______________
The word, is “traitor.”
By now, all but the most bigoted and mule-headed among us knew the answer.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 