Here is an article that I may or may not have decided to write, but it will affect you in ways over which you have no control.
The “butterfly effect” is an allusion to the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in one country can cause or influence a tornado in another country.
The idea, by Edward Lorenz, refers to a feature of chaos theory, in which a small change in initial conditions can create a large change in later results.
It began this way. Lorenz had been running a computerized weather prediction system:
“At one point I decided to repeat some of the computations. I stopped the computer, typed in a line of numbers that it had printed out a while earlier, and set it running again.
“After the computer had simulated about two months of weather, the numbers being printed were nothing like the old ones.
“The new values at first repeated the old ones, but soon afterward differed by one and then several units in the last decimal place, and then began to differ in the next to the last place and then in the place before that.
“In fact, the differences doubled every four days or so, until all resemblance with the original output disappeared somewhere in the second month.
“What had happened: the numbers that I had typed in were not the exact original numbers, but were the rounded-off values that had appeared in the original printout.
“The initial round-off errors were the culprits; they were steadily amplifying until they dominated the solution.”
Though chaos theory describes small perturbations resulting in large, often unpredictable, changes, the butterfly effect can have an even deeper inference: Philosopher Johann Fichte said:
“In every moment of her duration Nature is one connected whole; in every moment each individual part must be what it is, because all the others are what they are; and you could not remove a single grain of sand from its place, without thereby, although perhaps imperceptibly to you, altering something throughout all parts of the immeasurable whole.”
Think of the implications: You are much bigger than a butterfly, so you create greater disruptions to your environment than does a butterfly’s wing or a grain of sand. Everywhere you go and everything you do causes a ripple effect that spreads.
Other philosophies assert that, like a stone dropped into a large pond, the spreading ripples continuously damp down, until they disappear, so that the butterfly doesn’t affect the tornado.
The four laws of thermodynamics would seem to side with Fichte, in that nature is one connected whole and nothing disappears.
The “butterfly’s wings” analogy might seem to be a violation in that the small energy of the flapping wing would have to affect the massive energy of the tornado — unless the tornado had arrived at a tipping point, in which case a minuscule application of energy changed its dynamics.
Anything you touch will react to that touch, and that reaction will touch off another reaction, and the whole effect will spread.
While, like the dampening ripples, the effect may moderate by being repeatedly divided, still it will cause a widening, non-zero effect that never can end.
If, as currently suspected, the “big bang” creation of the universe began with something approximating a singularity, then at that time everything indeed did directly affect everything, and the effect of that “touching” still may be felt.
More to the point of this article, however, is the fact that in human psychology, which is a large part of economics, chaos is everywhere. A mere thought, at the atomic level, can cause a nation to go to war.
Economics, being based on human psychology as well as on all manner of natural occurrences, may be more subject to chaos — more subject to the “butterfly’s wing” than other sciences.
Not only is economic prediction often difficult-to-impossible, but working backward from effect to determine cause, may equally be difficult-to-impossible.
This brings us to an article in the May 26, edition of ScienceNews magazine:
How close people sit and whether they dodge or move chairs blocking aisles reveals whether their cultural roots go back to rice farming in southern China or wheat farming in northern China, researchers report.
As many as 9,000 years of neighboring families working together to cultivate rice paddies in southern China has encouraged a lasting focus on others over self, even among that region’s city folk today, say psychologist Thomas Talhelm and colleagues.
That dynamic plays out in coffee shops. Middle-class city dwellers in southern China who have never farmed rice often sit with others and show deference by walking around chairs blocking aisles, Talhelm’s group says.
In northern cities, people more often sit alone and move offending chairs out of the way. A long history of more individualistic wheat and millet farming in the north has promoted a focus on self over others, the scientists propose.
People in a self-oriented culture often try to change a situation to their advantage, whereas people in an others-oriented culture typically change themselves to fit the situation, other research suggests.
Consistent with that pattern, only about 6 percent of Chinese people in southern rice regions moved Starbucks chairs out of the way rather than squeezing through them, versus about 16 percent of the caffeine crowd in northern wheat regions.
Economics is not just the science of money flow. More importantly, economics is a psychology science of attitudes and what people do about money, labor, saving, charity, power, obligations, etc.
A psychologist could create an endless list of attitudes and actions, all related to economics.
If you had asked me to list the specific factors affecting people’s actions and attitudes about squeezing between chairs vs. moving them aside, growing rice vs. growing wheat would not have made the top ten thousand.
Even after reading the article, I have doubts, but there is a more important point to be made. Rice growing is as distant from chair moving as butterflies are from tornadoes. Yet, there can be a logical connection.
And if there truly is a connection between rice growing and chair moving, who is to say there also isn’t a connection between any action and any effect?
The hypothesis of the “big bang” holds that at the very beginning, everything was connected to everything in one infinitesimal, which then exploded and separated into the universe we experience.
If that hypothesis is true, what is there to say that the connections disappeared rather than merely being stretched? Quantum mechanics uses the word “entanglement” to describe two particles connected in a way that an operation on one affects the other, no matter how far apart they are.
Your body is composed of star stuff, material created in numerous supernovas, so there surely could be atoms in you, in your brain, entangled with atoms millions of light years distant.
So, if you have a thought, which changes a property of an atom in your brain, that thought also could change a property of an entangled atom in a star, tipping the star into supernova status.
That would be the ultimate “butterfly/tornado” scenario, in which your mere thought precipitated the destruction of an entire solar system.
If everything is connected, then nothing is unimportant, and everything you do, even everything you think, has consequences. You shake the universe just by existing.
And that, in turn, would mean everything you think is caused by other connections, going all the way back to the big bang.
Drop two bottles, side by side, into the ocean, and they will drift apart, landing at distant shores. Their movements are chaotic but not random. The bottles do not go where they wish to go, but rather drift where the swirling wind and the thrashing water molecules take them.
Your entire body, including your brain, is composed of molecules, down to atoms, down to electrons and quarks, all obeying quantum laws. Your every thought is an arrangement of those molecules, atoms, electrons, and quarks.
Is there a point at which you control those arrangements?
That is, do you have free will, or is the future foreordained? Are you just a grain of sand in a shaking sandbox, being tossed about, or do you think you create your decisions from nothing?
Is it possible to create something from nothing? Or more intuitively, does everything have a precedent, and must that precedent have a precedent?
In summary, if the universe began in the big bang, every motion by every molecule, atom, and quark began. Nothing changes without a changer.
Your thoughts control your actions. But, I can think of no way in which you intentionally, starting from zero, can control the molecules, atoms, and quarks that constitute your thoughts.
Today, you and everything else in the universe is the result of an unbroken chain of events and information that originated with the big bang.
I wrote this, and you are reading it, not because you and I have control, but rather because something happened 13 billion years ago, and the sandbox continues to shake us grains of sand.
Why should you care? Aside from the fact that the headline claims we are hitting our own allies, with Trump as president, we really don’t have allies anymore, do we?
And the rest of the headline is: “Mexico, EU, and Canada vow to retaliate.” Well, that “retaliate” word doesn’t sound very good. It sounds like war.
But Trump has assured you that, “When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win.“
Thus, you are faced with four questions:
Are you actually paying for Trump’s tariffs?
Do tariffs help domestic industries grow?
Is the U.S. losing many billions of dollars on trade?
Are trade wars good and easy to win?
The CNN article tells us:
President Trump is imposing steep tariffs on steel and aluminum from three of America’s biggest trading partners — Canada, Mexico and the European Union.
The trade penalties, 25% on imported steel and 10% on imported aluminum, take effect at midnight, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told reporters Thursday.
Who will pay for those tariffs? It’s a trade war, and in any war, you assume your government is shooting at the enemy.
In this case, the “enemy” is Canada, Mexico, and the European Union.
Shoot at your own people
So you may assume that Canada, Mexico, and the EU will pay those tariffs, right? Wrong.
Are you actually paying for Trump’s tariffs?
A trade war is not like any war you ever have known.
In a trade war, your government shoots at you, because it is you who pays the tariffs. Canada, Mexico, and the EU will not pay one cent.
When the imported products arrive in America, they arrive with their usual price.
Then the U.S. government adds a tariff to that price, and that increased price is what you pay.
Steel and aluminum are used widely: Cars, planes, appliances of every type. Are you thinking of buying a car, house, a refrigerator, a TV, a computer, a phone, any canned good?
Even your gas and oil will cost more because the oil industry and energy utilities use steel and aluminum extensively.
Steel and aluminum prices affect almost every product and service you buy, so prepare to pay more here, more there, more everywhere.
2. Do tariffs help domestic industries?
Existing American factories cannot supply U.S. needs. So new factories would have to be built and/or old factories be re-opened.
But consider the realities. Trump changes his mind, minute-by-minute. Would you invest millions or billions of dollars, and years of effort, to build a new factory, or to re-open old ones, when tomorrow Trump might decide that, “No, there won’t be tariff increases”?
At best, current factories might be able to ramp up production somewhat, which will increase profits but have a negligible effect on employment. More likely, they simply will raise prices, because they won’t have to compete with foreigners.
Meanwhile, U.S. manufacturers who use aluminum and steel will have to keep importing and paying the duties. That will require them to cut profits or raise prices, both of which will negatively affect Americans.
Even if an American manufacturer buys from domestic steel mills or aluminum smelters, those companies would raise their prices because they wouldn’t have to worry about competition from low-priced imports.
Under any circumstances, you would pay more, while the federal government takes dollars out of the private sector. No matter what happens, there would be scant benefit from a trade war and substantial punishment to the American economy.
3. Is the U.S. losing many billions of dollars on trade?
When Trump says “the U.S. is losing many billions of dollars on trade,” he means the U.S. is running a “trade deficit.” But a trade deficit is not the same as “losing” dollars.
The man receives money; the woman receives food. The woman is running a “trade deficit,” but neither one is “losing.”
When you shop at your local grocery store, you give them dollars and they give you goods and services.
In reality, you run a trade deficit with that store, but do you consider that to be “losing money”?
When you buy shoes that were made China, you run a trade deficit with China, but are you “losing money”?
Would you prefer not to run a trade deficit with your grocery store, and instead grow or manufacture all your groceries, yourself?
The vast majority of Americans would answer “No,” to both questions. We buy from foreign nations because the things we buy there either are better or cheaper, or both.
It benefits us to buy better and cheaper goods and services.
Further, when dollars flow out of the U.S., this is no problem for our Monetarily Sovereign government, which has the unlimited ability to create dollars.
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.”
Sending dollars to Canada, Mexico, the EU, China, et al, does not make the U.S. even one cent poorer. It merely strengthens the dollar’s position as the world’s go-to currency.
That is why, for many years, the U.S. has been able to run billions of dollars in trade deficits, with no adverse effect on our economy. In fact, our economy has grown massively.
Being Monetarily Sovereign, we can continue to run trade deficits forever, and the only result will be that we will receive better, and/or less expensive, products and services than we can produce domestically.
4. Are trade wars good and easy to win?
For the U.S., a trade war is stupid. There is no better way to say it. Stupid.
The Democrats know it. The Republicans know it. Our foreign friends know it. Our foreign enemies know it. The vast majority of economists knows it. Only Trump seems not to know it.
He likes conflict, especially when he can bully others, so he has begun an “I-can-cut-off-America’s-nose-faster-than-you-can” trade war.
Contrary to Trump’s statement, trade wars are not good, and no one wins.
Imagine, for instance, that Trump “triumphs” over China, and China agrees to reduce its deficit with the U.S. It can accomplish this in two ways: It can sell less to us and/or it can buy more from us.
If it sells less to us, we either will have to buy elsewhere (which makes no change in our trade deficit) or we can make the goods ourselves. But if we were able to make those goods better, or at a better price, we already would be doing so.
We either will have to settle for higher prices or for lower quality.
If China buys more from us, that means China will send us more dollars than it previously had.
But the U.S. does not need more dollars from China. Being Monetarily Sovereign, we already can create unlimited dollars.
The irony is that the GOP wants China to send us more dollars by purchasing goods and services, but does not want China to send us more dollars by “lending dollars” to us.
The GOP worries about the federal “debt” to China, which is nothing more than China converting yuan to dollars, then depositing those dollars into U.S. Treasury-security accounts.
If China were to increase its purchases from us, that would increase the U.S. dollar supply in the same way that federal deficit spending does. But the GOP worries (wrongly, as it turns out) about increases in the U.S. dollar supply causing inflation.
So, in actual effect, the Trump/GOP debt hawks support the same thing they oppose: An increase in the U.S. money supply.
In summary:
1. Trump’s tariffs will cost you money.
2. Trump’s tariffs will not help domestic employment or businesses.
3. The U.S. is running a trade deficit, but it is not “losing many billions of dollars on trade.”
4. Trade wars not good and not easy to win. No one wins a trade war.
5. In the unlikely event a trade war is “successful,” i.e. adds dollars to the U.S. economy, it does nothing the federal government can’t do without costing Americans higher prices and a poorer selection of products.
After failing to destroy health care for the poor and middle income groups, and failing to make Mexico pay for his wall, Trump is desperate to claim an accomplishment that people care about.
Unfortunately, all he will accomplish is inflation, a poorer availability of products, and job loss.
Now you understand why American banks no longer will deal with Donald Trump, and before he became president, he and his family were forced to go overseas for business funds. He is not trusted by anyone.
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:
Ten Steps To Prosperity: 1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA ) Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons: *FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and *The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare. 2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All ) This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Guaranteed Income)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:
Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap. 8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.
The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.
James Bullard, President & CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”
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.”
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.”
Thomas Edison: If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. . . . It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency.
Do you believe Social Security is running short of dollars and, without a tax increase or benefits decrease, in the future will be unable to continue paying benefits?
If so that is exactly what the very rich, who direct American politics, want you to believe.
The very rich want you to accept the notion that Social Security is going bankrupt, the Social Security “trust fund” is running short of dollars, and your benefits must be reduced to “save” the program.
Why do they want you to believe that? Because of Gap Psychology.
Gap Psychology is the desire to distance oneself from those “below” you on any arbitrary measure, and to approach those above you. You wish to disassociate with the poorer and less powerful than you, and to associate with those wealthier and more powerful.
Gap Psychology at work
Gap Psychology is an evolutionary attempt to increase one’s relative power and thus, safety.
The “associate/disassociate” concept can relate to income, wealth, power, housing, clothing, neighborhood, college attendance, choice of restaurant, mode of travel — anything that confers relative prestige on the user.
Driving an expensive car is an attempt to associate with the rich and to disassociate from those who cannot afford an expensive car. Like everything associated with the Gap, “expensive” is a relative term. A car you might consider expensive, would not be expensive for a billionaire.
The word “relative” is key. “Rich,” “powerful,” “influential,” etc. are not absolutes. They are comparatives.
If you had $1 thousand, while everyone else had $10, you would be rich. But if you had that same $1 thousand, while everyone else had $1 million, you would be poor.
The U.S. government is Monetarily Sovereign. It has the unlimited money-creation capabilities described (above) by Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, and the St. Louis Federal Reserve.
Thomas Edison: If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. . . . It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency.
Thus,the U.S. government can be viewed as infinitely rich. It can create infinite dollars. It’s purchasing ability is infinite. It has the infinite ability to fund its agencies, which functionally makes U.S. agencies as rich as Congress and the President wish them to be.
If such federal agencies as Social Security, Medicare, the Army, the Supreme Court, et al were to run short of dollars, the reason would not be that the U.S. government has run short of money (which is impossible).
The reason would be that Congress and the President arbitrarily had chosen to provide insufficient dollars to these agencies.
FICA is the tax incorrectly said to fund Social Security and Medicare. But they are federal agencies, so even if FICA collections were $ zero, the federal government could continue to pay Social Security and Medicare benefits, forever.
FICA is irrelevant to the real financial well-being of Social Security and Medicare. FICA is an excuse for cutting benefits.
Congress and the President, at the behest of rich donors, who are influenced by Gap Psychology, pretend Social Security and Medicare can run short of dollars. It all is a charade for the benefit of the rich.
In that vein, here are excerpts from a recent, online article in Money & Career CheatSheet, titled:
9 Lies You’ve Been Told About Social Security
By Megan Elliott May 28, 2018
(Megan is a Money & Career, Health & Fitness, and Culture Writer at The Cheat Sheet. She has a bachelor’s degree in cultural studies from Macalester College and a master’s degree in media studies from the New School University. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of Financial Planning and other publications.)
Social Security is the linchpin of the American retirement system. Nearly 40 million retired Americans receive an average of $1,335 a month from the program. For 64% of retirees, the check they receive makes up more than half of their total income. Without this retirement benefit, many of the oldest Americans would be destitute.
Yet for all its importance, Social Security remains a program that is shrouded in confusion and mystery. When Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company quizzed people in 2015 on some basic facts about Social Security, only 28% received a passing grade.
Being misinformed about how Social Security works is costing retirees. “Americans who lack the proper knowledge and information about Social Security may be putting their retirement planning in jeopardy,” Phil Michalowski, the vice president at U.S. Insurance Group, MassMutual, said in a statement.
“In fact, many may be leaving Social Security retirement benefits they’re entitled to on the table, or incorrectly assuming what benefits may be available in retirement.”
Michalowski was referring to ignorance about Social Security law costing retirees. But there is a deeper, more important ignorance about Social Security, that costs Americans much more.
Unlike state and local governments, and unlike business and individual people, all of which are monetarily non-sovereign, the U.S. government is Monetarily Sovereign. It never can run short of dollars.
Sadly, the American public has been brainwashed by the rich into believing the “Big Lie,” that the U.S. federal government can run short of dollars. The rich bribe three main information sources to promulgate the Big Lie:
The media, who are bribed via advertising revenues and media ownership
The politicians, who are bribed via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later
The economists, who are bribed via university contributions and employment in “think tanks.”
Continuing with excerpts from Ms. Elliott’s article:
Confusion about how benefits are earned, how much you can get, and the best time to retire abounds. Politicians and the media add to the confusion when they make dramatic — and sometimes false — statements about the future health of Social Security. In some cases, believing the lies you hear about Social Security could cause you to make planning mistakes that jeopardize your future financial security.
Here are nine of the biggest whoppers you’ll hear about Social Security.
1. You have a personal Social Security “account”
Roughly one-third of Americans think the money they pay into Social goes into a personal account. Instead, the money goes into a general trust fund, and is then used to pay benefits to current and future retirees.
When you retire, the money you receive will come from contributions of those currently working.
“Social Security isn’t like a 401(k) or even a traditional funded pension plan. Your contributions are immediately paid out to current beneficiaries,” Erik Carter of Financial Finesse explained in an article for Forbes.
This is completely false. There is no “general trust fund.” It is an accounting fiction. Think about it: Why would a Monetarily Sovereign entity, that has the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency, in any amount at any time — why would that entity have any use for a “trust fund.”
The concept makes no sense.
When your FICA tax dollars are received by the federal government, they cease to be part of any money supply measure. In actual effect, your dollars are destroyed upon receipt.
Then, when the federal government pays benefits, it sends instructions to you (via a check) or to your bank (via a wire). Those instructions tell the bank to increase the balance in your checking account.
At the instant the bank obeys those instructions, brand new dollars are created and added to the money supply (called “M1”).
Our Monetarily Sovereign government, having the unlimited ability to create dollars, neither needs nor uses tax dollars for any purpose. (Review the statements by Greenspan, Bernanke, and the St. Louis Fed.)
2. Private accounts are a better alternative to the current Social Security system
Privatizing Social Security is periodically floated as a way to save what some see as a failing system. Former President George W. Bush was a big supporter of such a plan.
Bush’s proposal was controversial and ultimately didn’t go anywhere. But some still argue that letting people invest all or a portion of their Social Security would increase people’s savings and lead to a more secure retirement.
Others argue that such a strategy is just too risky given stock market volatility and how bad many Americans are at managing money.
The proposal is based on the Big Lie that the federal government cannot afford to fund Social Security and that it must take dollars from the public in order to pay for benefits. Absolutely untrue.
3. Younger workers won’t get a dime
Doomsayers sometimes claim Social Security is on the verge of going broke. Younger workers may never get their benefits, they warn, and future retirees could see their checks cut off. But the future of Social Security, while not exactly rosy-looking, isn’t quite so dire.
“The idea that the program is going to ‘run out of money’ or is ‘going broke’ is a zombie lie, one that deserves to have its head lopped off with a quick slice of Michonne’s katana,” Paul Waldman of The American Prospect wrote in The Washington Post.
So far, #3 is spot on. But then, the wrongheadedness returns:
It’s true current workers are paying less into the Social Security trust fund than is being paid out to retirees. By 2035, the reserves in the trust fund are projected to run dry.
At that point, Social Security could pay about 77% of projected benefits to retirees from the income it receives from people currently working. Obviously, that’s not a great situation, but future retirees will still get some money — just as not as much as they were promised.
So-called “trust fund” reserves are completely irrelevant. The federal government needs no “trust fund” to pay the President’s expenses, Congress’s expenses, or the Supreme Court’s expenses. Why would it need a trust fund to pay for Social Security?
President Roosevelt, the founder of Social Security knew this. But he insisted on collecting FICA taxes so as to give recipients a “moral right” to benefits, that Congress could not take away.
It hasn’t worked, however, as benefits have been decreased, for no reason at all. Social Security does not pay benefits from income. Period.
4. You have to be a citizen to get benefits
Provided you’ve worked for at least 10 years, are lawfully in the U.S., and meet all the other requirements, you can claim Social Security benefits when you retire, whether you’re a citizen or not. Even non-working spouses of non-citizens may be able to get benefits.
Correct. Since non-workers don’t pay FICA, there goes the Big Lie that FICA funds Social Security.
5. The retirement age is 65
For people born in 1937 or earlier, full retirement age is 65. If you were born between 1938 and 1959, full retirement age varies between 65 and 2 months and 66 and 10 months. For everyone born after 1960, full retirement is at 67.
No matter when you were born, you can start claiming early benefits at age 62. But if you claim early, your monthly benefit is reduced by 20% to 30%. If you wait until age 70 to claim Social Security, you could increase your monthly benefit by more than 30%.
This entire rigamarole is based on the myth that FICA funds SS. Without that myth, there would be no reason ever to reduce benefits.
6. You can’t get benefits if you’ve never worked
Even if you’ve never worked a day in your life, you may still be able to get benefits from Social Security. Non-working spouses may receive up to 50% of their husband or wife’s benefit amount.
In 2010, the Social Security Administration (SSA) estimated only 4% of people between 62 and 84 would never receive benefits.
Point #6, once again, demonstrates that people don’t pay for Social Security. The federal government merely makes up rules to suit its Big Lie.
Imagine if a life insurance company told its insureds, “We’re going to cut your benefits because we want to pay people who never bought insurance.”
7. You should claim Social Security as soon as you can
If you can afford to delay taking benefits until 65 or even 70, you’ll get a bigger check every month. Given that people are generally living longer, holding off on requesting benefits is often a wise move.
It would be a “wise move” only if the federal government needed to ration dollars. Otherwise, forcing people to guess how long they will live is a terrible idea.
8. You can work and collect full Social Security benefits
You may not get your full benefit if you’re drawing a paycheck. “If you are younger than full retirement age and make more than the yearly earnings limit, we will reduce your benefit,” the SSA explained.
Reducing benefits is absolutely unnecessary.
9. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme
You’ll sometimes hear people dismiss Social Security as a Ponzi scheme. They’re comparing the program to the famous investment fraud perpetrated by Charles Ponzi in 1920.
In a ponzi scheme, investors are lured in with promises of big returns with little risk. In reality, no investment exists.
Instead, the first group of investors are paid with money gathered from a second group of investors, and so on down the line.
Once the pool of investors dries up, the scheme collapses.
On the surface, Social Security does share some resemblance with a Ponzi scheme, since the earnings of today’s workers are used to pay benefits to those who are already retired.
But there are important differences between the two. For one, no one is in the dark about the nature of Social Security. The program is transparent about the way it is funded and the state of its finances.
A Ponzi scheme depends on the ignorance of investors to survive.
Plus, as long as the government can require people to pay taxes, there will still be a source of new income, though it may not be enough to meet the promised payouts.With a Ponzi scheme, people will eventually wise up and stop investing, which causes everything to fall apart.
“What makes a Ponzi scheme a Ponzi scheme is that it’s a giant fraud. People think they’re investing in postal stamps. Their money is actually being invested in nothing. In Social Security, conversely, it’s perfectly clear what is going on,” Ezra Klein wrote in an article for the Washington Post.
If we were to believe the Big Lie about the government’s supposed inability to pay benefits, Social Security would, in fact, be a Ponzi scheme.
Here are some classic symptoms of the Social Security “Ponzi scheme”:
Payouts arbitrarily can and have been reduced.
The operator provides fabricated reports claiming there are dollars in a “trust fund.”
The operator says the benefits it pays to older members from new members.
The money is invested in nothing.
The scheme depends on the ignorance of the investors regarding exactly how benefits are calculated.
If Bernard Madoff had legally been allowed to cut benefits whenever he wished, he still would be in business.
However, Social Security is not a true Ponzi scheme: Unlike the usual Ponzi scheme, the operator — the U.S. government — never can run short of dollars to pay benefits.
In Summary:
The FICA tax, being an unnecessary and regressive imposition on the middle and lower income groups, should be eliminated (See Step #1 of the Ten Steps to Prosperity).
The federal government can and should provide Social Security payments to every man, woman, and child in America. (See Step #3 of the Ten Steps to Prosperity)
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:
Ten Steps To Prosperity: 1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA ) Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons: *FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and *The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare. 2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All ) This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Guaranteed Income)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:
Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap. 8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.
The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.
It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
The ignorance of the oppressed
And the treachery of their leaders
========================================================================
Some economists, perhaps feeling pangs of inferiority about economics as a science, try to make it seem more “scientific,” and for them, that requires mathematics.
The belief is: Include a bunch of formulas, then claim these formulas prove economics is a “real science,” like astronomy and physics.
That is why economics papers usually include so much math. It’s part of the desperate hope this pseudo-specificity will justify the WAGs (Wild-Ass Guesses) that too many economics papers include.
That desperate need for mathematical justification is one reason why the Debt/Gross Domestic Product ratio was created — that plus the efforts by the rich to “prove” that social programs are unaffordable and “unsustainable” (a favorite word for debt guerillas).
The Federal Debt/GDP ratio is absolutely meaningless, a useless, designed-to-be-misleading number that has been foisted on an innocent public.
The so-called “Federal Debt” isn’t even “debt” in the usual sense. It is the word describing the current total of open deposits — similar to bank savings deposits — into Treasury security accounts, made for the past 30 years.
By contrast, GDP is the total of Spending and Net Exportsthis year. Putting these two, unrelated measures into one fraction yields a classic apples/oranges ratio, measuring nothing.
It’s akin to creating a ratio of Chicago Cubs hits in yesterdays game vs. the number of games the Cubs won last year. Meaningless.
If, instead of misnaming it “debt,” we called it “deposits in T-security accounts,” the entire misunderstanding might disappear.
Here are a few things the Debt/GDP ratio doesnot indicate:
It does not indicate the federal government’s ability to pay its obligations
It does not indicate the likelihood of inflation
There is no relationship between Debt/GDP growth (blue line) and inflation (red line).
It does not indicate the health of the economy
There is no relationship between Debt/GDP growth (blue line) and GDP growth (red line).
Those are the facts. They are easily obtainable. Yet here is an example of the disinformation that continually has been spread, to brainwash the public:
When central bankers, macroeconomists, and politicians talk about the national debt, they often express it as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP) which is a measure of the total value of all goods produced in a country each year.
The idea is to compare how much a country owes to how much it earns (since GDP can also be thought of as national income). The problem with this idea is that it is wrong.
The government does not have access to all the national income, only the share it collects in taxes.
The 1st paragraph is correct. The 2nd paragraph is misleading in that our Monetarily Sovereign government’s access to dollars is not taxes but rather its unlimited ability to create dollars (See the statements by Greenspan, Bernanke, and the Federal Reserve, above).
Even if all federal tax collections were zero, the federal government could not unintentionally run short of its own sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.
Then the article goes completely off the rails:
Looked at properly, the debt problem is much worse.
I collected national debt, GDP, and tax revenue data for thirty-four OECD countries (roughly, the developed countries worldwide) for 2010.
The data are a bit old, but that is actually the last year available for government tax revenue numbers. The debt figures are for central government debt held by the public (so the debt we owe to the Social Security Trust Fund does not count) but the central government tax revenue includes any social security taxes.
Some people hate the notion of comparing a country’s financial situation to a family, but I think it is useful in many cases with this being one of them.
For a family, debt that exceeds three times your annual earnings is starting to become quite worrisome. To picture this, just take your home mortgage plus any auto, student loan, or credit card debt, then divide by how much you earn.
First, he properly reveals that “some people” (i.e. people who understandMonetary Sovereignty) hate improperly comparing federal finance to personal finances.
Then he proceeded to make that improper comparison. What he failed to recognize is:
A family can run short of dollars. A state or local government can run short of dollars. A business can run short of dollars. You and I can run short of dollars. We all are monetarily non-sovereign.
The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, cannot unintentionally run short of dollars.
Economists and central bankers know this is not the same as the family debt to income concept, which is why they warn of danger at the level of 100, 90, or even 70 percent depending on which economist you talk to or exactly how you define the total amount of debt.
Yes, knowledgeable economists and central bankers (like Bernanke and Greenspan, above) know federal finances are not the same as family finances, but ignorant economists warn of “danger at 100, 90, or even 70 per cent.”
The article was written four years ago, when the ignorant economists were, in fact, delivering that warning to an innocent public. Today, the ratio is about 106% and we are entering our 9th year of economic growth, with low inflation.
The reason for the different standard is that the government cannot claim all your income as taxes or we would all quit working (or emigrate).
No, the reason for the different standard is that Monetary Sovereignty is different from monetary non-sovereignty.
The article continues spreading disinformation:
A better comparison is to examine each country’s debt to government tax revenue, since that is the government’s income.
This also offers a better comparison because different countries have very different levels of taxation.
A country with high taxes can afford more debt than a low tax country. Debt to GDP ignores this difference. Comparing debt to tax revenue reveals a much truer picture of the burden of each country’s debt on its government’s finances.
All of the above is completely false. The federal government neither needs nor uses federal tax dollars. It creates dollars, ad hoc, each time it pays an obligation.
Tax dollars cease to be part of any money supply measure, the instant they are received. In short, tax dollars are destroyed upon receipt.
The federal government collects taxes, not to provide spending funds, but rather to exert control over the economy and over the voting public.
Federal “debt” (deposits) are not paid back with tax dollars, but rather with dollars that already exist in T-security accounts.
The article’s nonsense continues:
When I compute those figures, Japan is still #1, with a debt as a percentage of tax revenue of about 900 percent and Greece is still in second place at about 475 percent.
The big change is the U.S. jumps up to third place, with a debt to income measure of 408 percent. If the U.S. were a family, it would be deep into the financial danger zone.
Yes, if the U.S. were a family . . . but that is the whole point. The U.S. is not a family. It is the creator of the U.S. dollar by, as Bernanke said, the electronic equivalent of a printing press.
If a family created dollars with its own printing press, it too could pay all its bills, and it would have no need for, nor use of, income.
To add a bit more perspective, the countries in fourth, fifth, and sixth place are Iceland, Portugal, and Italy, all between 300 and 310 percent. In other words, these three are starting to see a flashing yellow warning light, but only three developed countries in the world are in the red zone for national debt to income.
The U.S. is one of those three.
You can see a list of nations according to their tax revenue to GDP ratio here.
Near the bottom of the list are nations with what the author considers to be the “best” ratio, among which are Lybia, Burma, Nigeria, Iran, Haiti, Panama, and similar. Consider what you know about the strength of those economies.
Take a moment to glance at the list, and you’ll see that there is zero relationship between the ratio and any measure of economic success, inflation or any other success criterion.
In short, just like the Debt/GDP ratio, the Tax Revenue/GDP ratio is completely useless, partly because it does not differentiate between Monetarily Sovereign vs. monetarily non-sovereign nations. (Nor does it differentiate between degrees of socialism, which would increase the ratio.)
This does not factor the several trillion dollars owed to Social Security, yet it includes the Social Security taxes collected. If Social Security taxes are not counted, the U.S.’s debt to income ratio rises to 688 percent (still in third place).
This tells you something about the likelihood of increasing Social Security taxes in conjunction with declining Social Security benefits.
Unfortunately, it is true that Social Security taxes will be increased, though not because tax dollars are needed or used.
Rather, FICA, the most regressive tax in America, will be increased because the rich, who control the politicians, want to foster the belief that the federal government “can’t afford” to pay Social Security benefits.
Finally, we come to the misleading summary of a misleading article:
Without quick and significant action on the federal budget, as soon as interest rates begin to rise toward normal the burden of the national debt on the federal budget will become heavy indeed. Something will have to give.
Somebody needs to drag the President and Congress to a credit counselor quick to begin repairs on the government finances. Otherwise, one day sooner than we think, the creditors will be knocking on the door.
What does that goofy phrase, “the creditors will be knocking on the door” mean? Does it mean creditors will want to be paid?
I have news for the author: Creditors always want to be paid, and the U.S. federal government never has failed to pay a creditor. And it never will fail.
The federal government “prints” all the dollars it needs, just as Bernanke, Greenspan and the Federal Reserve said.
I should mention that the article, and its dire warnings, was published back in 2014, and today, while our economy continues to grow, I had hoped the author has learned from reality, and no longer claims the sky is falling.
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:
Ten Steps To Prosperity: 1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA ) Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons: *FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and *The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare. 2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All ) This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Guaranteed Income)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:
Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap. 8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.
The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 