Ignorance or Treachery?

It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
.

The ignorance of the oppressed
and the treachery of their leaders.

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THE WEEK Magazine, January 19, 2018, contained an article titled, The national debt, explained, by The Week Staff. The article is filled with ignorance and treachery.

Here are excerpts and commentary.

The U.S. debt is $20.5 trillion and rising. Should Americans be worried? Here’s everything you need to know:

Why does the U.S. owe so much?

Immediately, we come to the first bit of ignorance: The question, “Why does the U.S. owe so much?”

That question, preceded by the question, “Should Americans be worried,” implies there is something negative about the federal debt.

But the so-called “debt” is nothing more than the total of deposits in T-security accounts, similar to bank savings accounts.

When you supposedly “lend” (misleading word) to the federal government, you instruct your bank to take dollars from your checking account and deposit them in your T-security account. You can do this online with a system called “TreasuryDirect.“

Quoting from the TreasuryDirect website:

In your TreasuryDirect account, you can purchase and hold Treasury bills, notes, bonds, Floating Rate Notes, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), and savings bonds, and it’s available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Contrary to popular wisdom, the federal government does not spend the dollars that are in your T-security account. The dollars stay in your T-security account until your securities mature, at which time your T-account is debited and your checking account is credited.

Thus, your T-security account is not paid off by taxes.

And again, contrary to what you have been told, your grandchildren will not pay the debt. The debt is paid by the dollars that already are in T-security accounts.

Returning to the article:

Apart from a four-year stretch during the economic boom of the late 1990s, the federal government has run a budget deficit every year since 1970. In 2017, the shortfall was $666 billion.

The national debt is now slightly larger than the size of the entire U.S. economy, equal to 106 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

If the author believes there is something wrong with a debt greater than GDP, let’s consider that to be Ignorance.

Years ago, pundits claimed that a Debt/GDP ratio above 100% would spell doom for the economy. Yet here we are.

The debt has nothing to do with GDP. The debt (deposits in T-security accounts) is not paid by GDP. They are two separate, unrelated numbers.

Overall, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects the national debt to surpass $30 trillion by 2028, as Medicare and Social Security costs soar to cover aging baby boomers.

Outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has warned that the country’s growing debt load could eventually become unsustainable. “It’s the type of thing that should keep people awake at night,” she told Congress in November.

This is major Treachery. Surely the Federal Reserve Chair knows better.

Back in 1940, and repeatedly thereafter, the media called the debt a “ticking time bomb.” (See: “From ‘ticking time bomb’ to ‘looming collapse.'”) It was $40 Billion then.

Today, 78 years later it is $15 Trillion — a 37,500% increase — and that “time bomb” still hasn’t exploded.

Janet Yellen should be ashamed.

Why is it a problem?
Like any credit card user, the government must pay interest on its debt. For much of the past decade that hasn’t been a major problem, because of historically low interest rates.

An example of Ignorance.

It hasn’t “been a major problem,” but not because interest rates are low. Rather it’s because the Federal government (unlike state & local governments, businesses, you & me) is Monetarily Sovereign. It is sovereign over the dollar.

When America began, its government created laws from thin air, and some of those laws created the U.S. dollar,  also from thin air. Today, the federal government continues to create laws and dollars from thin air.

To pay an invoice, the federal government sends instructions (not dollars) to the creditor’s bank, instructing the bank to increase the numbers in the creditor’s checking account.

At the moment the bank does as instructed, brand new dollars are created, ad hoc. So long as the government doesn’t run short of instructions, it won’t run short of dollars.

The federal government simply cannot run short of dollars, unless it wants to.

For the government, paying any amount of interest requires nothing more than clicking a computer key.

Net interest payments on the debt represented 6.8 percent of the federal budget in 2017, or $276.2 billion, compared with more than 15 percent in the mid-1990s.

But with the Fed unwinding its post-recession stimulus campaign, interest rates are expected to rise steadily in the coming years.

As a result, the CBO estimates, the cost of servicing the national debt is expected to nearly triple by 2027 — leaving the government paying more on interest payments than on national defense.

Ignorance: Perhaps this is supposed to worry you. But why would you be worried about a government with the unlimited ability to create dollars, paying more in interest than on national defense?

It’s a meaningless comparison (interest vs. defense) and a meaningless concern. The federal government can create unlimited dollars for interest and for defense.

Is everyone worried?
No. Economists point out that debt can be used to fund important investments, such as stimulating the economy during a recession or fighting unavoidable wars.

The nation’s debt is also wildly different from a household’s budget, because the government can print its own money and has a theoretically infinite life span to pay off its obligations.

Some theorists even argue that deficits and the debt are mostly irrelevant. One emerging school of thought, known as Modern Monetary Theory, argues that inflation is the only obstacle standing in the way of the government creating and spending as much money as it wants.

“The national debt is not a national crisis,” says economist Stephanie Kelton, a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders. “The fact that 21 percent of all children in the United States live in poverty — that’s a crisis.”

The above may be the only true paragraphs in the entire article, yet they are buried amidst the deceptions.

Who owns the debt?
About three-quarters is held by investors in the form of Treasury securities sold by the government to raise money.

Ignorance. The federal government, which has the unlimited ability to create its own sovereign currency, the dollar, has no need to “raise money.”

The rest is intragovernmental debt that comes from Washington borrowing against government trust funds, such as Social Security and Medicare.

Ignorance. A “trust fund” involves a grantor and a recipient. The grantor adds money or other assets to the fund, for later payment to the recipient. Once in the fund, the assets no longer belong to the grantor and don’t yet belong to the recipient.

The notion of a “trust fund” established by a Monetarily Sovereign nation, is senseless. Of what purpose is the fund, if the grantor has the unlimited ability to create assets, at any time and in any amount?

And if trust fund assets no longer belong to the grantor or to the recipient, to whom do the funds in a Social Security or Medicare “trust fund” belong?

In fact, there are no Social Security or Medicare trust funds. They are bookkeeping fictions, having zero purpose other than to deceive.

And the federal government has no need to borrow dollars, and indeed, does not borrow. It creates dollars, ad hoc, by paying bills.

Americans own most of the public debt, which means they benefit from the interest paid on it. That includes corporations, state and local governments, and individual investors, many of whom hold Treasury bonds in their retirement funds.

Foreign investors own about 30 percent of the nation’s total debt, or about $6.3 trillion. America’s biggest foreign creditor is China, which holds about 5 percent of the total debt, followed closely by Japan.

This could become a problem if the U.S. ever damaged its credit rating, but for now American debt is still considered one of the world’s safest assets.

This is a combination of Ignorance and Treachery. On August 5, 2011, Standard & Poors (S&P) reduced America’s credit rating from AAA (outstanding) to AA+ (excellent) on August 5, 2011.

Ignorance: Two companies, Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson, have a credit rating of AAA — higher than the American government!

Think of it. The U.S., being Monetarily Sovereign, pays its debts with its own sovereign currency, of which it has the unlimited ability to create.

Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson are monetarily non-sovereign, and though they use dollars to pay their bills, they do not have the unlimited ability to create dollars.

So how can their credit rating be higher than that of the U.S.?

More ignorance: If the U.S ever failed to pay its debts, the dollar would lose value, which would send Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson into financial shock — probably bankruptcy.

So why did S&P lower America’s credit rating? This is where the Treachery comes in. Congress has created the “debt ceiling,” an artificial limit to the amount of money the government can pay for existing obligations.

That limit is based on a lie, the “Big Lie,” that federal taxes pay for federal spending. (While state and local government taxes do pay for state and local government spending, federal taxes do not pay for federal spending.)

Even if all federal tax collections fell to $0, the federal government could continue spending, forever.

Congress is well aware of this, but continues its pretense that dollars are limited, to keep you from asking for benefits. The rich want to limit your benefits so as to widen the Gap between them and you. The wider the Gap, the richer they are.

The debt limit is one of America’s biggest con jobs. Neither prudent nor wise, it’s economically harmful.

Has the U.S. always been in debt?
President Andrew Jackson briefly paid off the national debt in 1835, partly with proceeds from lands seized from Native American tribes.

Treachery: The author hides the fact that this caused a depression.

U.S. depressions tend to come on the heels of federal surpluses.
1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began 1807.
1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819.
1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837.
1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857.
1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873.
1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893.
1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929.
1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began 2001.

Otherwise, the U.S. has been in hock for nearly every year of its existence, beginning with the bill for the Revolutionary War.

The debt peaked after World War II, ballooning to 119 percent the size of the GDP in 1946, but it swiftly shrank during the postwar economic boom. The debt load bottomed out at about 24 percent of GDP in 1974, and has been rising ever since.

But it was after the Great Recession in 2007 that the debt really began to explode. Tax revenues cratered while the government spent heavily trying to stave off economic collapse, including George W. Bush’s $700 billion bank bailout, known as TARP, and Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package.

Probably, Ignorance: Apparently, the author doesn’t realize that while debt reduction leads to depressions and recessions, those depressions and recessions are cured by debt increases.

What can be done to pay it off?
Theoretically, paying down the debt is simply a matter of spending less and collecting more in taxes. But voters don’t like spending cuts or tax increases, so politicians who want to be re-elected avoid them.

Give this a Treacherous Ignorance grade.

It is tantamount to asking, “What can be done to completely destroy the U.S. economy?” The debt is $15 Trillion. Does any sane person really want to remove $15 trillion from the American economy?

Does any sane person want to remove even $1 Trillion, or any amount from the American economy? Surely the most stupid idea in this entire article, and that is saying something.

Depending on whether they’re in power or out, both Democrats and Republicans are conveniently inconsistent in their views on the debt. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama chided Bush for “unpatriotic” deficit spending on the Iraq War and tax cuts, which helped increase the total debt by 101 percent during the Bush years.

But Obama increased the debt by 68 percent during his own presidency, arguing that deficit spending was necessary to rescue the economy.

Likewise, Republicans who warned that Obama was spending away the country’s future have now embraced deficits, arguing that their $1.5 trillion tax plan will pay for itself by generating economic growth — a contention that most economists say is unrealistic.

Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) says his party sees the dangers of debt as “a great talking point when you have an administration that’s Democrat-led. It’s a little different now that Republicans have both houses and the administration.”

The above is 100% Treachery. Both parties are well aware that federal deficit spending grows the economy, and federal surpluses shrink the economy.

And if any tax cut were to “pay for itself” by decreasing the federal deficit, that tax cut would cause a recession or a depression.

Other countries’ debt
In sheer dollars, the U.S. is the most indebted country in the world, followed by Japan ($11 trillion) and China ($5 trillion).

But in relation to the size of its economy, Japan’s debt is the biggest in the world by far. Japan’s debt is more than 240 percent the size of its economy, with Greece carrying the world’s second-largest debt load at 180 percent.

Probably Ignorance: The authors fail to mention the difference between a Monetarily Sovereign nation (the U.S., China, Japan) and a monetarily non-sovereign nation (Greece and all other euro-using nations).

While a Monetarily Sovereign government can pay any bill denominated in its sovereign currency, a monetarily non-sovereign government has no sovereign currency, so can run short of whatever currency it uses.

In Summary:

The THIS WEEK article is a damaging blend of Ignorance and Treachery, that serves only to promulgate the Big Lie.

It’s a disgrace, but a typical disgrace, for you will see articles like this every day, from many sources, both right and left.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The 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 (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR 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

 

Treating the 99% like dogs: The “crumb” theory.”

It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
.

The ignorance of the oppressed
and the treachery of their leaders.

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The GOP’s new tax law rewards the 1% mightily, and to appease the voting 99%, it includes a few crumbs for the rest. It’s the “crumb theory” at work

If you are a mean-spirited sadist, you can chain, beat and starve a dog all day, but if in the dog’s final hour, you feed him a few tasty crumbs, he will lick your face in appreciation.

People are much the same.

After decades of chastising the idle, Republicans pushed through a tax bill that specifically advantages rich people who don’t work. But they aren’t applying that standard for poor people.

Republicans also plan to make it easier for states to add work requirements for welfare recipients.

The Senate tax bill gives business owners nearly three times more benefits than workers with wages and salaries, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Adam Looney, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told The New York Times that it will be the first time that “wage earners are substantially penalized” by the tax code.

The diverging treatment comes from how the tax bill treats the businesses that are structured so that profits are taxed as individual income. Republicans portray these businesses, which are known as “pass-throughs,” as “ma and pa bakeries and family-owned salons.”

In reality, most pass-through income goes to people in the top 1 percent—including the Trump family.

Pass-through owners only automatically pay the 25 percent rate when someone else runs their business. In other words, the wealthiest Americans are rewarded for not working.

The 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.Image result for begging dog

So you might expect the voting 99% to object when the GOP pushes them further down the income scale.

But then we meet the “crumb theory” — Give the beggers a crumb and they will lick your face in appreciation. 

Consider this squib:

Corporate American workers continue to reap the benefits stemming from a recent corporate tax cut.

Disney, American Airlines, Boeing, AT&T, Wells Fargo, Comcast, Bank of America and Walmart are just some of the companies that have announced one-off payments to employees late last year and early this year, while dozens of other firms have followed suit.

Apple recently said it will give $2,500 worth of restricted stock units to most of its employees. But why give bonuses rather than simply salary raises?

The Washington Post explains that salary bumps drive up fixed costs for companies; how workers are compensated is also changing, with discretionary bonuses becoming an increasing share of compensation.

Get it? “Reap the benefits” is happy-talk for “accept a few crumbs.”

To mollify any negative feelings you may have, about the 1% amassing endless billions from the new, lower tax rates, some of you will be given small, one-time bonuses.

And there will be other crumbs.

In the two right-hand columns, you will see the tax savings for each income level. If you earn up to $30,000, you’ll save virtually nothing. You may even pay more. At $30,000, the savings begin, but the crumbs truly are small.

A person making $1 million a year receives annual tax savings of 1.5% or $15,000.  But if you make $50,000 a year, your tax rate will be reduced by only 1% or about $500 on average — a crumb to keep you quiet.

While some may justify the rich receiving a higher tax saving because they pay more taxes, there simply is no justification for the rich receiving a higher percentage tax saving. Yet you are expected to thank the GOP for giving you the crumbs.

But the crumb theory doesn’t end there. What little the GOP gives with one hand, it more than takes back with the other.

The exists a block grant called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).  But the number of poor people receiving federal cash assistance has plummeted, along with the monthly benefits.

The budget for the program has remained unchanged at $16 billion since 1996; inflation has reduced its actual value by a third since then.

And then there’s this article from the 1/24/18 issue of the Chicago Tribune:

Is a Medicaid work requirement fair?
Earlier this month, Kentucky made Medicaid history: It will now require some of its Medicaid recipients to work or risk losing benefits.

Critics say this 20-hours-per-week rule is a draconian plan to toss people off the rolls.

Kentucky’s plan is flexible: Recipients could meet the requirement through volunteer work, job training, searching for a job, taking classes, or caring for someone elderly or disabled. Pregnant women, full-time students, the medically frail, the homeless and people who aren’t healthy enough to work will be exempt.

About a dozen other states, including Indiana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Maine, have submitted similar proposals to the federal government.

Imposing a work requirement wouldn’t knock the neediest off the rolls. But it could prompt many to get jobs — and thus health coverage via employers.

The work requirement is based on the fiction that the poor are congenitally lazy, and unless forced to labor, they will just loll about in their miserable hovels, waiting to receive crumbs from the federal government.

Therefore they cannot be allowed to receive free money. They must labor for the rich or be punished.

The rich, by contrast, are felt to be entitled to loll about in luxury, supported by the government, because . . . . well, because they’re rich.

And while we’re on the subject of the GOP giving crumbs with one hand, while punishing with the other:

Ryan says Republicans to target welfare, Medicare, Medicaid spending in 2018

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said Wednesday that congressional Republicans will aim next year to reduce spending on both federal health care and anti-poverty programs, citing the need to reduce America’s deficit.

“We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” Ryan said. “Frankly, it’s the healthcare entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements — because that’s really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.”

Ignore, for a moment, the fact that the so-called federal “debt” isn’t really a “debt” and never will be a burden on the federal government or on taxpayers. Ignore, for a moment, that federal deficit spending grows the economy, and benefits everyone, even the rich.

Instead, focus on this reality: After forcing through a tax law that adds $1.5 trillion to the debt, and also massively increased military spending, and demanding billions more to finish a useless border wall, the GOP now has “discovered” that Medicare and Social Security, which primarily benefit the 99%, need to be reduced.

So they will try to cut these valuable programs that aid the 99% and cost the 1% nothing, though these programs do help narrow the Gap between the rich and the rest — something the rich do not want.

In summary, the GOP believes that you can mistreat the 99% “dogs,” but if you toss them a few crumbs, they will lick your face in the elections.

Is the 99% really that stupid? We’ll know this year.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The 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 (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR 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.

Progressives think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

 

A visit to the Holocaust museum through the golden door.

Sen. Joseph McCarthy

It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
.

The ignorance of the oppressed
and the treachery of their leaders.

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There are about 100 holocaust museums in the United States, alone. There probably is one a convenient driving distance from you. Many more are in nations around the world.

The largest one is in Washington DC and there is one in Skokie, IL. I’ve visited both.

The museums publish a magazine titled, “Memory & Action, the fall, 2017 edition of which contained an article titled, “History speaks to us for a reason.” It describes the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, VA and the dangers of accommodating such loathsome and unAmerican attitudes.

A key sentence in the article was:

“The holocaust teaches us the dangers of unchecked hatred and that while it may start with the targeting of one group, it always spreads.”

Remember those words, “unchecked hatred” and “targeting of one group.” Some may feel safe with the hatred of blacks, browns, immigrants, gays, Muslims, or Jews. Some may even join in the hatred if they themselves are not part of the scapegoated group.

But it always spreads.  When hatred is officially approved it knows no boundaries.

Another article in the magazine was titled “Why I Went to Auschwitz.” It was written by former all-star pro basketball player, Ray Allen, Jr. It was one of the most moving articles I ever have read.

It included these passages:

Why do we learn about the Holocaust? Is it just so we can make sure nothing like this ever happens again? Is it because six million people died? Yes, but there’s a bigger reason, I think.

The Holocaust was about how human beings — real, normal people like you and me — treat each other.

We shouldn’t label people as this thing or that thing. Because by doing so, you create these preconceived notions, which is how we get into these horrible situations in the first place.

Ray Allen recognizes the danger of people like you and me labeling other people as this thing or that thing. Today, the label is “illegals.” It is the label by which we justify hatred.

When a nation’s political leader labels Mexicans as criminals and rapists, and labels Muslims as terrorists, and claims Nazis and white supremacists are no worse than liberals, and labels Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) children as criminals and murderers, it marks the beginnings of that nation’s moral fall.

In yet another article, this one titled, “An Act of Faith,” we read these lines:

“The Nazis’ persecution of Jews and other minorities is inconsistent with the Christian commandment to love one’s neighbor,” said Father Charles Callagher.

“And yet radical church leaders like Father Charles Coughlin were able to sway vast numbers of Catholics toward antisemitism.”

How did people of faith reconcile their beliefs with a political ideology of hatred?

How indeed, could the “religious” excuse the words and actions of a philandering, lying, hate-mongering politician, and still call themselves righteous?

The right-wing, online publication, Breitbart, published on January 19th, 2018, an article titled, Live Updates – Schumer Amnesty Shutdown: Washington on Edge as Cliff Approaches.

It is typically is one-sided, including such lines as:

“Senate Democrats barrel the United States of America toward a government shutdown at midnight.”

The Democrats are pushing for this shutdown because they are hellbent on getting amnesty for a significant population of illegal aliens who were recipients of the unlawful Barack Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive amnesty program.

The White House and congressional Republicans have been more than willing to offer a deal and proposal to handle this problem, but the Democrats have been unwilling to give up chain migration, the visa lottery, and funding for President Trump’s planned border wall.

The Schumer Shutdown is already proving to be very politically painful for Senate Democrats.

“Instead of voting to support our military and to ensure vulnerable children have access to health insurance, Baldwin went along with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to pick Washington over Wisconsin,” Alec Zimmerman, spokesman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said

The article goes on and on and on, devoting more than 15,000 words (!) to saying just two things:

  1. The DACA children are illegal aliens who deserve no protection, and
  2. The shutdown is all the Democrats’ fault.

Because the DACA children have been stigmatized as “illegal” and “alien,” they are perceived as non-human, foreign beings, to be shunned, deported, or worse.

In response to this shameful article, I wrote this comment:

Have you folks ever visited a Holocaust museum? There’s a big one in DC, a smaller one in Skokie, IL, and many others around the country. You should visit.

In these museums, you will see what cruelty does.

You will be amazed at how similar the Nazi’s hatred of the Jews is to some American’s hatred of undocumented immigrants. The same words are used to describe the scapegoats.

The German government falsely accused the Jews of all sorts of crimes; the purpose of these accusations was to justify the cruelty.

Now Trump accuses the immigrants of crimes to justify the incredible cruelty of deporting these men, women, and children.

Shall we kick down their doors, cram them into boxcars and ship them to misery and death. Has that become the American way, now?

Is that who we now are — today’s Nazis?

The similarities between Trump and Hitler are chilling — the boastful hatred of a group, the hatred of media who dare to criticize, the never-ending lies, the appeals to base instincts.

Equally chilling are the similarities between the German people who believed Hitler and the American people who believe and follow Trump. The same sarcasm, the same anger, the same false claims, the same rabid defense of the leader. The same cruelty masquerading as “defense of country.”

Some people say it can’t happen here, but it is happening already. It is happening. The most cruel and selfish among us are leading us now.

I pray we wake up before we become Nazi German, Nazi Poland, Nazi Romania, Nazi Austria and all of WWII Europe.

America, the America that makes us proud, is disappearing, and being replaced by a dark, shameful America. Don’t let this happen to you.

The response was typical, predictable, and inadvertently proved exactly what I said. Here are some word-for-word examples:

“If by ‘living among us’ you mean displacing US workers, lowering wages, and sponging off of our tax dollars. If you were under employed or unemployed by these illegals then maybe you too would see them as ‘MONSTERS’, (your word). Let them go back to their shΐthole countries and eat garbage. I DON’T CARE.”

“We have to be relentless in hanging this on Chuck Schumer and the DEMONRATS and their RINO comrades. NO DACA! BUILD THE WALL! DRAIN THE SWAMP!”

“Shut it down AND ensure that welfare bums get no checks. The leftist scum will be calling their congressman on their Obama phones and crying LOUD!
Bring on the shutdown leftist scum!!!”

“This Democrat shutdown is over AMNESTY. Democrats demand our President DROP TO HIS KNEES and kiss their arses to SCREW THE AMERICAN PEOPLE and give amnesty to illegal aliens. NO MORE AMNESTY. F__ Amnesty and F__ Democrat Liars and F__ MSM “journalists”. To HELL with the DC Shithole. Bring on November!”

“If they don’t fund the government by 10PM, then Republican Senators should end the filibuster, deport them all, and fund the wall.”

“Pelosi snuck out to the dog park to have a big DogShyte Sundae…Two scoops for Nasty !! #releasethememo !”

“He’s the delusion idiot. #1 these aholes are not citizens are was the Jews. #2 An ethnic group is not being targeted even if the majority of them are #3 It’s only about enforcing laws, not ethnic cleansing. Bu then you lame ass lefties love the distortion and hyperbole of propaganda and slinging analogies that don’t fit. You and your whole ilk are pathetic losers!”

Image result for russian flagSome of the above may come from Russian bots. Reportedly, their online comments are more numerous than real comments, so it’s hard to know which are which.

But, if ever you go to Breitbart, or any other extreme, right-wing site, you will see essentially the same language. You will see the “unchecked hatred” and the “targeting of one group” the Holocaust Museum warns us about.

You will see the labeling and the preconceived notions Ray Allen lamented about.

While any nation always has latent bigotry and xenophobia lurking in the background, there have been only a few times in recent American history where this has come to the fore.

Democrat Franklin Roosevelt’s wartime mass detention of Japanese American citizens is a permanent stain on our history.  It was caused by war hysteria beginning with the Pearl Harbor bombing.

Roosevelt offered no proof that American citizens of Japanese descent offered any danger to America, but his words appealed to a frightened populace, all-too-ready to hate an “enemy.”

Shortly after the war, during Democrat Harry Truman’s administration, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy gained power and notoriety for labeling his enemies as “communists,” and to a lesser degree, as “homosexuals.”

He had no proof of these claims, but he had a loud megaphone, and his words appealed to the weak-minded who wished to blame someone, anyone, for their own failings.

The rampant xenophobia McCarthy created cost many of his victims their jobs; they both personally and financially often were ruined.

Today, it is happening here again: A politician gains followers and political power by railing against supposed “aliens,” or “enemies of the state.” Those who protest against the lies and unfairness are themselves labeled as “soft on crime, “soft on aliens,” or soft on whatever the politician wishes to stigmatize.

In every case, innocent men, women, and children are injured unfairly by the politician’s lust for greater power. In every case, America is damaged, not only by the loss of good people, but by the loss of reputation.

We Americans like to think of ourselves as the model for all other nations, the place where the rest of the world aspires to be. But with each McCarthy wannabe, that reputation is damaged.

As a result, never since the beginning of World War II, has America been held in such low esteem.  We have become pariahs on the international stage.

And the fault is our own. No excuses. No lies. We did this, and we continue to do this to ourselves.

It’s time to take down the Statue of Liberty as a meaningless sham.  We have lost what it once stood for.

America no longer is the brave “golden door.” We are bigots and cowards now.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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 “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The monster conspiracy of deceit in Washinton. What you can do.

Freedom

.
It takes only two things to keep people in chains:
.

The ignorance of the oppressed
and the treachery of their leaders.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

There is a monster fraud, a conspiracy of deceit, being perpetrated in Washington. It is a conspiracy among the politicians, the university economists, and the media.

The conspiracy is known as the “shutdown,” and you are the target and the victim. Like all conspiracies, the “shutdown” is based on a lie. In this case, the Big Lie. It has been pumped into your head for decades.

The Big Lie is: “Your federal taxes pay for federal spending.”

That is 100% false. The politicians know it is false. The media know it is false. The economists know it is false.

The facts are:

  1. The federal government, unlike state & local governments, and unlike you and me, is Monetarily Sovereign. It is sovereign over its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.
  2. Being Monetarily Sovereign, the U.S. government created from thin air, all the laws concerning the creation, the destruction, and the value of the dollar. It can modify and enforce those laws in any way it wishes. The dollar is 100% a product of laws controlled 100% by the federal government.
  3. The federal government has the unlimited ability to create laws from thin air, and even these current laws give the government the unlimited ability to create unlimited dollars from thin air. Thus, our Monetarily Sovereign U.S. government never unintentionally can run short of dollars. 
  4. Having the unlimited ability to create dollars, the federal government has no need for taxes, and indeed, the government does not use tax dollars for anything. Once received, tax dollars cease to be part of any money-supply measure — not M1, not M2, not M3, not L. In short,  federal tax dollars are destroyed upon receipt. (State and local governments, not being Monetarily Sovereign, do not destroy their tax dollars.)
  5. The federal “debt” is unlike all other forms of debt. The federal debt is the total of deposits into Treasury security accounts, which are similar to bank savings accounts. These deposits are paid off upon maturity by transferring the dollars that exist in those accounts back to the checking accounts of the account holders. The (misnamed) federal “debt” will not be paid off by your taxes. It will not be paid off by your grandchildren. Even if all federal tax collections were $0, the federal government could continue to spend and pay all its debt, forever.
  6. Finally, being absolutely sovereign over the U.S. dollar, the federal government has the unlimited ability to set the value of the dollar at any level it wishes. This means it has the unlimited ability to set inflation at any value it wishes.

The public has been told none of these facts. Instead, we are given a steady diet of lies, as in the following article:

Shutdown? Terrible, say GOP, Dems. But both threatened it
Associated Press, Laurie Kellman, January 19, 2018

Threatening to shutter the federal government unless demands are met — who would do that?
canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm” data-reactid=”16″>Members of both parties, it turns out. And both sides have complained loudly when the other resorted to a shutdown threat:

  1. President Donald Trump in May griped via Twitter that Congress’ negotiating process was frustrating his drive to enact his agenda. Looming ahead was the budget fight.

Our country needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September to fix mess!” he tweeted.

On Thursday, Trump appeared to feel differently about the impact of a government shutdown.

“A government shutdown will be devastating to our military … something the Dems care very little about!” he tweeted.

2. As an Indiana congressman, Mike Pence, now Trump’s vice president, said he would be willing to shut the government down over reducing government spending and over his amendment to defund Planned Parenthood. In either case, he said, a government shutdown would be the Democrats’ fault.

“If liberals in the Senate would rather play political games and shut down the government instead of making a small down payment on fiscal discipline and reform, I say: Shut it down,” he said at a March 31, 2011, rally as Tea Partyers around him shouted, “Cut it or shut it!”

Asked a few days later whether he’d be willing to close the government if he didn’t get his amendment to defund Planned Parenthood, Pence replied, “Of course I would.”

3. In 2013, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, contemplating a run for president, vowed to speak on the Senate floor against President Barack Obama’s health care law until he was “no longer able to stand.” Cruz’s move forced a 16-day government shutdown. Democratic leaders criticized his strategy.

4. Earlier that same year, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D- N.Y., called Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina and other House conservatives “fanatics.”

“No matter how strongly one feels about an issue, you shouldn’t hold millions of people hostage. That’s what the other side is doing. That’s wrong and we can’t give in to that,” he said in The New York Observer.

A few days later, on ABC’s “This Week,” Schumer said the technique produces negotiations held “with a gun held to your head. And you just can’t do it.”

5. Ahead of a 2013 shutdown, Meadows argued that the founding fathers intended for government funding to be leverage in policy debate. Meadows urged Republicans to use the budget to try to repeal the Obama-era health care law.

All of this is a lie. Trump knows it’s a lie. Pence knows it’s a lie. Cruz knows it’s a lie. Schumer knows it’s a lie. Meadows knows it’s a lie.  And Laurie Kellman and the Associated Press know it’s a lie.

They all know the federal government can pay any bill of any size at any time, and do it without collecting a dime in taxes.

FICA doesn’t pay for Social Security, Medicare, or Obamacare. Federal income taxes don’t pay for the military or for Planned Parenthood or for any federal agency or initiative. The federal government creates dollars, ad hoc, by paying bills. That is the federal government’s method for creating dollars.

Why the politicians, the media, and the economists lie: 

They lie because they are bribed by the richest among us to lie.

–The politicians are bribed by campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment when they leave office.

–The media are bribed by advertising dollars and by wealthy media ownership.

–The university economists are bribed by contributions to their universities and by lucrative jobs at “think tanks.”

Why the rich pay the politicians, the media, and the economists to lie:

“Rich” is a comparative word.  If you have $1,000 and everyone else has $10, you are rich. But if you have $1000 and everyone else has $10,000 you are poor.

The Gap between you and others determines whether you are rich and by how much.  The rich want the Gap below them to be wide, for the wider the Gap, the richer they are.

But the rich believe you, the American public, are stupid. The rich fear that if you “stupid” people knew the federal government cannot run short of dollars, and has no need for your tax dollars, you would demand things.

You would demand the best health care, top education, good food, and decent lodging — all of which the rich have and the federal government could afford to give you.

But if the government gave you things, not only would the Gap narrow, making the rich less rich, but you wouldn’t be under their thumbs.  You wouldn’t struggle in a bad job for bad wages and accept bad conditions. In short, you wouldn’t be a slave to the rich.

I do not believe Americans are stupid; I believe you have misinformed (i.e. lied to) by the rich. I believe that, given the honest facts, the American public would understand what the government can and cannot do, and what the government should and should not do.

The politicians are not smarter than you. They just don’t want to give up the power and the money given to them by the rich. So they do as they are told, and we see the current spectacle in Washington.

What is the cure?

You hold the cure in your hands. First, you must understand and accept the truth. This can be difficult. Because you have been brainwashed with the Big Lie, by so many people for so many years, you have acquired an intuition against the real facts of our economy.

Then, contact your politicians. Tell them you know they are lying, and you will give your vote to the politician who tells them the truth.

Image result for teacher
The truth will set you free

Additionally, you should make specific demands. My suggestion is to demand the sequential implementation of the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below).

Enough is enough. You are being enslaved by lies, but as the maxim goes, “The truth will set you free.”

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The 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 (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR 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