It takes only two things to keep people in chains:

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 TRUTH:

HUNGER IN AMERICA: 2016 UNITED STATES HUNGER AND POVERTY FACTS

People 65 and older had a supplemental poverty rate of 13.7 percent, equating to 6.5 million people in poverty. Excluding Social Security from income would more than triple the poverty rate for this group, resulting in a poverty rate of 49.7 percent.

THE BIG LIE:

U.S. News & World Report, Nov 18, 2015: “Our system of taxing the young to pay for the old needs reform to reflect 21st century realities.

“America’s principal health and retirement programs for the elderly, Social Security and Medicare, are placing a massive fiscal burden on its youngest generations and crippling the country with debts that cannot be paid.”

THE TRUTH:

First, Social Security places no fiscal burden on anyone. Contrary to popular myth, FICA does not pay for Social Security benefits.  Even if FICA collections were zero, the federal government could continue paying SS benefits, forever.

Second, the country cannot be “crippled by debts that cannot be paid.” Federal financing is not like personal financing.  The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, cannot ever run short of its own sovereign currency, the dollar.  It can pay any size debt instantly.

THE BIG LIE:

While the official national debt sits at a staggering $18 trillion, taking future entitlement spending obligations into account pushes the number beyond the conceivable: $200 trillion.

THE TRUTH:

That $18 trillion is a phony number, designed to impress you. It includes internal debt; the left pocket owes the right pocket.

But more importantly, the so-called “federal debt” actually is nothing more than the total of deposits in T-security accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank.

When you “lend” to the government — i.e. purchase a T-security — you actually open a T-security account at the FRB.  You then transfer dollars from your checking account to that  T-security account.

To pay off its “debt” to you, the government simply transfers your dollars from your T-security account back to your checking account, similar to transferring dollars from your savings account to your checking account. No new dollars needed.

The “debt,” no matter how large, never is a burden on the federal government, and it’s a safe investment for you.

THE BIG LIE:

The Social Security trust fund is projected to reach insolvency in 19 years, and Medicare will be unable to meet its projected obligations in 15 years.

THE TRUTH:

The federal government, being Monetarily sovereign, and therefore unlike state and local governments, cannot be insolvent, nor can any agency of the federal government.

Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, the Army, Social Security,  Medicare and all other thousand agencies of the federal government cannot become insolvent unless Congress and the President wish it.

For that reason, there is no Social Security “trust fund.” It is a bookkeeping fiction. The federal government does not keep funds in trust;  it pays its bills by creating brand new dollars, ad hoc, which it can do endlessly by clicking computer keys.

The purpose of the fictional trust fund is not to save for Social Security benefits. The sole purpose of the fictional trust fund is to make the populace believe (falsely) that benefits must be limited.

Notice there is no trust fund for Congress or the White House.  The politicians don’t want limits on themselves. 

THE BIG LIE:

Young Americans are stuck paying into programs that, absent reform, will only partially be there for their retirements – if they’re around at all.

THE TRUTH:

This is a scare tactic by the politicians and the media who are bribed by the rich. The purpose is to frighten you into unnecessarily accepting lower benefits and higher taxes.

THE BIG LIE:

To cover the ballooning costs of these programs, workers in 2050 would have to pay nearly a third of their hard-earned income just to cover payroll tax obligations – over twice the rate paid today.

This and other taxes would make it impossible for many workers to save for their own retirements.

THE TRUTH:

Contrary to popular belief, FICA actually pays for nothing. Your tax payments to the federal government are destroyed upon receipt. They instantly cease to be part of the money supply.

The article is correct, however, when it says, “This and other taxes would make it impossible for many workers to save for their own retirements.” That is happening now.

THE BIG LIE:

Some seniors believe that they are entitled to their Social Security and Medicare benefits since they paid into these programs throughout their working careers.

THE TRUTH:

FICA does not fund Social Security. All it does is take dollars from your salary.

The federal government pays for Social Security benefits the same way it pays for the President’s salary, an Army tank, or a Supreme Court justice’s robe: The government creates brand new dollars, ad hoc. Tax collections have nothing to do with the bill-paying process.

Seniors, indeed all Americans, have been lied to for 80 years.

THE BIG LIE:

Due to a series of unfunded promises, current Social Security payments do not have the chance to accrue interest, as they are immediately paid out to retirees – our payments are simply too generous.

THE TRUTH:

This is one of the most nonsensical statements among a litany of nonsensical statements.

Social Security payments (FICA) cannot accrue interest  Not only are they destroyed upon receipt, but even it they weren’t, who would pay the government interest on its receipts?

And, only the rich think Social Security payments are “too generous.” The elderly, who have no other source of income, and are forced to live on Social Security, will tell you otherwise.

The statement reveals the true goal of the Big Lie: To widen the Gap by starving the “99%.”

THE BIG LIE:

These entitlement programs function not only as wealth transfers from the young to the old, but from the poor to the wealthy.

It is true that Social Security accounts for the majority of cash income for 65 percent of seniors, but this claim ignores the reality that today’s seniors have an average of 47 times the wealth of households headed by adults under the age of 35.

THE TRUTH:

This was a tacit admission that FICA should be eliminated. It serves no purpose. One might as well tell workers to set 6.2% of their wages on fire.

Wealth is not being transferred. It is being destroyed by FICA.

Your leaders want you to believe that the elderly are rich, are taking money from the young, and don’t really need Social Security. In this way, they hope to trick the young into voting for reduced benefits — sort of a “divide and conquer” scheme.

THE BIG LIE:

It should be celebrated that seniors are living longer and accruing more wealth, but a country cannot sustain such a system when only three workers support each retiree, a support that will fail if nothing is done.

THE TRUTH:

The federal government can “sustain” any amount of spending. Workers do not support retirees; the government does.

And this support cannot “fail” unless Congress and the President make it fail (which they might do, if the rich bribe them enough).

THE BIG LIE:

Our entitlement programs, due to demographic changes, have morphed into massive, unfunded promises. It is time for politicians and retirees to stop placing massive fiscal obligations on young Americans.

Old-age health and retirement benefit reform is no longer an option – it is a necessity.

THE TRUTH:

Anytime a politician talks about “reform,” hang on to your wallet, unless you are rich. “Reform” always seems to mean: Take from the poor and give to the rich.

All federal spending is “massively unfunded,” in that the payment dollars do not exist in advance.  This is how the federal government runs deficits (which actually benefit the economy by adding dollars).

The federal government creates dollars by the very process of paying bills.

To pay Social Security benefits, the federal government sends to your bank instructions (not dollars), in the form of a check or a wire, instructing your bank to click a few computer keys to increase the balance in your checking account.

Only when your bank does as instructed are the dollars created to pay your benefits.

Why do the media, the politicians, and economists like Laurence Kotlikoff, an economics professor at Boston University, continually tell the BIG LIE?

They all are paid by the rich to lie.  The primary goal of the rich is to widen the Gap between the rich and the rest. It is the Gap that makes them rich.  Without the Gap, no one would be rich, and the wider the Gap, the richer they are.

(Is a person having $1,000 rich? Yes, if everyone else has only $1.)

So the rich bribe the media (via advertising and ownership), the politicians (via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment), and the university economists (via contributions to the universities), to tell you THE BIG LIE, which briefly is this: Federal taxes fund federal spending.)

To quote Professor Kotlikoff: “Social Security is a big insurance company which has been engaged in fraudulent accounting. They have problems paying people.”

That is 100% false. The federal government is nothing like an insurance company. An insurance company is a monetarily NON-sovereign, private, FOR-profit entity,  which does not have the unlimited ability to create dollars.

Contrary to Kotlikoff, the federal government has no “problems paying people,” none at all. Never has. Never will (unless Congress wills it).

THE BIG LIE:

Here is Kotlikoff’s Social Security plan:

Freeze the system in place. Pay off everything the system owes over time to the people who are in it. It would pay off all their accrued benefits, but no one would accrue any [new] benefits under the old system.

Under (my) proposal, everyone would put 8 percent of their pay into a personal account.

The government would match contributions of low earners, to make things progressive.

And then all these contributions would be invested in a global market weighted index of stocks and bonds and real estate.

So it’s going to be done by a computer, so Wall Street doesn’t touch the money or get a penny out of this system.

THE TRUTH

“No one would accrue any [new] benefits.” Instead, you will give the government a gigantic 8% of your paycheck. Then the government will invest all those trillions into some “weighted index.”

Which one? Who knows? Sounds great?

Currently, you unnecessarily pay 6.2%, and you receive a guaranteed, recession-proof payout when you retire.

With the Kitlikoff, “make-the-rich-richer-and-everyone-else-poorer” plan, you pay more into a fund that is guaranteed by nothing and relies on the vagaries of the stock and bond market, so it could tank at any time — just the kind of thing you don’t want for your retirement.

Not so good for you, but it’s  a great plan for the rich, who already hold tons of securities. Imagine what will  happen to those securities on the day the bill is passed and trillions of dollars flood into the markets.

Then, when the rich sell, and the market drops, you’ll be stuck with the losses.

One only can wonder how much the rich pay Kotlikoff for that bit of advice.

AND NOW A FEW QUESTIONS FOR YOU INTELLIGENT READERS:

Have you ever wondered why:

  1. FICA is collected only on salaries, not on other forms of income?
  2. FICA is collected only on the first hundred thousand dollars of those salaries?
  3. The tax rate for salaries is at the highest level, while long term capital gains are taxed much lower?
  4. There are so many tax loopholes available to the rich that are unavailable to the rest?
  5. Social Security benefits are taxed at all?
  6. For tax purposes, borrowing is not considered income, but interest is tax deductible?
  7. Travel to a job is not tax deductible, but travel for a job is?

Those are just a few examples of the rich bribing the politicians to widen the Gap by benefitting the rich while punishing the rest. The tax code was written by the rich.

And, why would anyone choose to believe the lie that Social Security (and Medicare) are running short of dollars — a lie that is harmful to the non-rich who accept it — when the facts show the beneficial truth that the federal government can pay for these programs, forever?

Why would any intelligent person prefer to believe those stories promulgated by the rich, that the sky is falling, the government is collapsing, and horrible things are about to happen to Social Security, when the evidence proves the opposite?

Not only could the government pay for Social Security without FICA, but it could pay higher benefits that begin at a younger age.

Are there people so pessimistic about life, they prefer to believe bad news rather than accepting the truth of good news?

Remember this: It takes only two things to keep people in chains:  The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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

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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the rich and the rest.

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 AN ANNUAL ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) 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 EVERYONEFive 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 CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from 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 corporate 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.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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The Gerrymandering of America

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

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Gerrymander: U.S. Politics. The dividing of a state, county, etc., into election districts so as to give one political party a majority in many districts while concentrating the voting strength of the other party into as few districts as possible.

Visualize a mythical city having exactly ten thousand voting residents, 9,000 of whom consistently vote DRY and only 1,000 consistently vote WET.

The city is divided into ten voting districts, with each district having one vote in the city’s legislature.

The WET politicians have a great idea. Gerrymander the district boundaries so that all 9,000 consistently DRY-voting residents live in just four of the districts, while the other six districts hold all 1,000 consistently WET-voting residents.

Given that version of gerrymandering,  the six consistently WET districts vote to allow four taverns on every corner of the city, even in the DRY districts.

Despite the fact that the massive majority of voters in the mythical city do not want any taverns at all, the tiny minority forces taverns on them.

Sounds unfair, doesn’t it — 1,000 people forcing taverns on 9,000 disenfranchised people.

Any form of  gerrymandering is counter to America’s most fundamental belief in fairness as expressed in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”.

If all men are created equal, each of us should have an equal vote, not just in our district, or in our city, or in our county, or in our state, or in our nation.

The problem with that is  what has been called the “tyranny of the majority.” Much of the law is based on protecting the minority from the majority. The question then becomes, “When should the majority rule and when should the minority rule?”  

As we indicated previously, fairness is the soul of the law.  But fairness depends on perspective.

If you live in a small residential neighborhood, is it fair for a city to allow businesses to build factories in your midst? Is it fair for a county to tell a city what to do? A state to tell a county? The nation to tell a state?

We have federal laws, state laws, county laws and city laws (We even have neighborhood laws in the form of Home Owners Associations) Is it fair for federal laws to prevail over state laws, state laws to prevail over county laws, county laws to prevail over city laws? City laws to prevail over HOA laws? Where does fairness begin and end?

The question comes up all the time. The federal government outlaws marijuana, while the residents of some states want it to be legal.  What is fairest to the residents of the state?

States may punish undocumented immigrants, while the residents of some cities wish to protect those immigrants, and have made themselves “sanctuary” cities. What is fairest to residents of the cities?

Some counties and even villages voted to be “dry” (alcohol-free), while all their neighbors voted “wet.” Would it be fair to force the “dry’s” to be “wet”?

Some states mandate that all villages provide “affordable” housing to a certain percentage of residents. But what about villages in which every dwelling is a home valued at $10 million or more? Should they be forced to provide “affordable” housing? How would that work?

Chicago has a horrible gang problem, with gun killings on almost a daily basis. The mayor and city council would like to institute stronger gun control laws, as they were years ago. But federal law has been interpreted to allow almost anyone to own a gun. Is this fair to the citizens of Chicago, who must “duck and cover” every time they leave the house, and who desperately want more control over guns?

Or would gun control laws be unfair to the gun-owners who themselves “duck and cover” when they leave the house, so they feel they need guns to protect themselves?

And now we come to the United States as a nation, the ultimate example of gerrymandering. Donald Trump lost the popular vote, but won the election in more states.  Particularly, he won in “battleground” states.  Was this fair to the citizens of other states?

Is it fair to the millions of voters in California, Illinois, Texas, New York and the other consistently “red” and “blue” states?

If you are a resident of a bright red or bright blue state, your Presidential vote functionally means nothing. Candidates hardly pay attention to you.

If you are among the millions of voters living in Texas or California, your vote has zero influence on who your President will be. Is this fair, no matter which side you’re on?

In fact, the vast majority of American voters had no impact on the Presidency. They were gerrymandered.  If you are among the small minority of Americans who live in Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and to a lesser extent, Pennsylvania and Virginia, it was you who decided who would be the President of the entire United States.

The majority had no say at all. Is this fair?

Is it fair that small states are granted more electors per capita, than are large states.

The average electoral vote represents 436,000 people, but that number rises and falls per state depending on that state’s population over 18 years of age.

The states with the fewest people per electoral vote, and therefore the highest “vote power,” are Wyoming, Vermont, and North Dakota.

In Wyoming, there are 143,000 people for each of its three electoral votes. The states with the weakest votes are New York, Florida, and California. These states each have around 500,000 people for each electoral vote.

In other words, one Wyoming voter has roughly the same vote power as four New York voters.

Is that fair?

It gets worse.  Each state choses how to allocate its electors.

If a state wished, it could allocate according to votes. That is, if  2/3 of a state’s voters selected Candidate “A,” the state could opt to allocate 2/3 of its electoral votes to Candidate “A” and 1/3 to Candidate “B.”

But, to give themselves greater importance in the election process, each state (except Nebraska and Maine) arbitrarily has opted to give all their electoral votes to the winning candidate — “winner-take-all.”

Donald Trump lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote, because he won several populous states by tiny margins, while losing other populous states by large margins. The margins meant nothing.

The U.S. uniquely has an electoral college, that is designed for gerrymandering. It was invented by people who did not trust the wisdom (or ignorance) of the common people, so “wiser” people were granted the right to select the President.

In practice, it has not evolved that way.

The political parties select the electoral college electors, not on wisdom, but on loyalty or length of service, and it is quite rare for an elector to deviate from what the party wants.

In fact, 26 states mandate by law, that the electoral college elector cast his vote for a specific candidate. So the electors’ supposed “wisdom” is a mirage.

As we said, fairness depends on perspective. The electoral college intentionally was designed to be unfair to national majorities, while being unfair to local minorities.

Can anything be done about this? Should anything be done?

“Can”? Of course. We could do away with the electoral college and merely have national popular voting. This would require  a Constitutional amendment, which would require the majority of states to vote against their own best interests. Unlikely.

There is a way to narrow the clearly unfair voting power that small state residents have over large state residents: Legislate elimination of the “winner-take-all” state selection of electors and require every state to select in proportion to votes, thus not disenfranchising the minority. 

In the 2016 Presidential election, not only were the majority of American voters disenfranchised, but the minorities in each state also were disenfranchised by gerrymandering.

This brings us to Congress, which is gerrymandered in different ways. The United States was created out of an agreement among 13 sovereign nations, each of which wanted influence in the resultant central government.

But they also understood that fairness required some approximation of population representation.

Thus became the Senate, which dramatically was gerrymandered in favor of the least populous states (two Senators per state), and the House, which also was gerrymandered in favor of smaller states, but less so.

The purpose of favoring less-populated states was to prevent the larger populations of urban areas to dominate the tiny towns and rural areas, i.e “fairness” to farmers but “unfairness” to city dwellers.

The Senate is outrageously gerrymandered, with two people representing the 39 million Democratic majority in California having equal voices with the two people representing the 590 thousand Republican majority in Wyoming — 66 to 1.

Add that unfairness to each Senator’s ability to filibuster, and you have the U.S. Senate as the “home of unfairness” to the nth degree, a harmful anachronism of the original 13 colonies.

Even our courts are gerrymandered, with judges selected by the dominant political parties and with grossly unfair money bail favoring the wealthy over the rest.

In summary, though Americans like to believe that we live in a democracy, or at least something resembling a democracy, we don’t.

We also don’t live in a republic, which, at minimum, requires that we choose our representatives. The vast majority of us don’t even choose our President.

Finally, the U.S. Supeme Court determined money is free speech, so the rich are entitled to more free speech than the rest. That, and by trashing voting equality laws, the Supreme Court  helped elect a billionaire to be President.

The most accurate description of America is “plutocracy,” a government run by the rich. Enjoy your servitude.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

………………………………………………………………………

The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the rich and the rest.

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 AN ANNUAL ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) 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 EVERYONEFive 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 CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from 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 corporate 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

If Donald Trump wants to fire Janet Yellen, I’m with him

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

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

Warren Mosler was a founder of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), a cousin of Monetary Sovereignty (MS).

Recently, Warren posted some remarkable comments by Janet Yellen, Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Here are a few excerpts:

“The long-run deficit probably needs to be kept in mind. With the debt-to-GDP ratio at around 77 percent there is not a lot of fiscal space should a shock to the economy occur, an adverse shock that did require fiscal stimulus.”

The federal deficit is the difference between tax collections and spending. The federal debt is the total of deposits in T-security accounts.  The two are unrelated.

The federal government could run deficits without accepting deposits in T-security accounts, and it could offer T-security accounts without running deficits.

More importantly, the debt/GDP ratio is nonsense math, a completely meaningless fraction. Despite what you may have been told, GDP does not in any way help service federal debt.

The federal government could pay off the entire “debt” tomorrow, simply by transferring existing dollars from all T-security accounts back to the account holders’ checking accounts.  No new dollars needed.

Short of that, the Federal Reserve Bank simply could buy back the T-securities, which is exactly what the Fed does when it engages in Quantitative Easing (QE).

The federal “debt” does not limit any financial action the Fed or Congress might wish to make.

Apparently, Ms. Yellen has forgotten that Japan exceeded the “magic” 77% level years ago, and today, with the ratio above 225% and growing, still has no difficulty deficit spending or servicing its debt.

Here are a few more “Yellenisms”:

“Importantly, that rise in debt over the long term could mean that policymakers would have more limited options in needing to stimulate the economy if it fell into another deep recession.”

“I also worry that if we were to again be hit by an adverse shock, that there’s not much scope to use fiscal policy. It was used in the early years after the financial crisis — we ran large deficits — but in the course of doing that, the debt-to-GDP ratio rose.”

“And were another negative shock to come along, it’s questionable how much scope we would now have to put in place even on a temporary multiyear basis expansionary fiscal policy, and I think it’s important to deal with these issues — for the Congress to do so.”

“Lawmakers should not get complacent about debt stabilizing over the next few years as it could become a greater problem beyond then.”

“It is crucial that the federal budget be put on a sustainable long-run trajectory. A failure to put in place a credible plan to address our long-run budget imbalance would expose the United States to serious economic costs and risks in the long term and possibly sooner.”

Allow me to describe Ms. Yellen’s comments in the kindest, gentlest, most accurate manner possible: They are 100% bullsh*t.

Does that about do it?

Not only are they 100% bullsh*t, but surely the Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System knows it.

So why does she say it?

The only reason I can imagine (perhaps you can think of others) is that she is a paid toady for the very rich, who want to widen the Gap between the rich and the rest of us.

The Gap is what makes them rich. Without the Gap, no one would be rich (We all would be the same), and the wider the Gap, the richer they are.

There are two ways to widen the Gap: Give the rich more and/or give the rest of us less, the latter being the inevitable effect of reductions in deficit spending (aka “austerity.”)

The federal government can “sustain” any amount of debt. There are no functional limits. But false worries about the size of the debt are what lead to:

  • Cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits
  • Claims that universal healthcare is unaffordable
  • Unnecessary taxes like FICA and income taxes
  • The insufficient funding of programs to aid low income people
  • The suffocating student debt
  • Insufficient funding of Research & Development, infrastructure upgrades, climate change prevention, food & drug inspection
  • And cuts to numerous other federal initiatives that improve our lives.

The rich do not want our lives improved. They want the Gap between their lives and our lives widened.

(If we were well-fed, well-housed, well-educated, and well endowed for the future, where would the rich find their servants? Who could the rich look down upon?)

The Chairs of the Fed are hired by the Presidents of the United States, most (all?) of whom have demonstrated unyielding fealty to the rich. Apparently, Janet understands the source of her paycheck, and will do just as the rich ask. If there is one thing the rich appreciate, it’s obedience and obsequiousness.

Though she is America’s #1 banker, the boss of banking, I’ve not heard of her demanding jail time for the rich bankers who caused America’s Great Recession, and who still cheat America’s homeowners and depositors. (Correct me if I’m wrong on this).

So, for disseminating the Big Lie (the lie that federal taxes fund federal spending), Ms. Yellen should be fired, and if Mr. Trump does it, I’m with him. (Unless he replaces her with someone equally duplicitous.)

Just say it, Donald, as you did on TV: “You’re fired.”

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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

The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the rich and the rest.

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 AN ANNUAL ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) 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 EVERYONEFive 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 CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from 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 corporate 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

Bill Black’s take on why the Dems lost

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

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

I respect and admire Professor Bill Black, which is why I am pleased by his recent article paralleling much of November 12th’s post: The one, very simple reason why Hillary lost.

Unfortunately, Black’s article misses one important point, which I will discuss.

Here are some excerpts from Black’s article:

Hillary Clinton, during the closing 40 days of her campaign, showcased repeatedly her promise to assault the working class with continuous austerity.

The assault on the working class via austerity was such a core belief of the New Democrats that their candidate highlighted that assault even as the polls showed massive, intense rejection of her candidacy by the white working class.

These were the people who enthusiastically crowded Trump’s speeches. As we said on November 12,

“They were the Democratic base, though they didn’t realize it, and Trump was telling them what they wanted to hear.”

Black continued:

It is morally wrong, economically illiterate, and politically suicidal for the New Democrats to continue to assault the working class via austerity, “free trade” (sic) deals, and financial deregulation.

The only thing worse is to then insult the working class for reacting “badly” to being pummeled for decades by the Party that once defined itself as the party of working people.

We’ll never know how differently the politics would have played if Obama, instead of systematically echoing and giving credibility to all the arguments of the people who want to destroy him, had actually stood up for a different economic philosophy.

But we do know how his actual strategy has worked, and it hasn’t been a success.

We had said:

“The new Democrats forgot about their base. The Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton Democrats were not Democrats at all. They were Republicans in Democratic clothing.

“They were conservatives.

“They were the Bill Clinton who ran a federal surplus, thereby guaranteeing a recession that cost his base their jobs, and afterward asked for, and received $200,000 per speech.

“They were the Barack Obama who wanted a “Grand Bargain,” which included cuts to Social Security and Medicare and cuts to the overall budget, all of which would impact the working class far more than the idle rich, thereby widening the Gap between the rich and the rest.

“They were the Barack Obama who refused to prosecute, and still refuses to prosecute, any of the wealthy banksters who caused the Great Recession that took the homes, jobs, and savings from the Democratic base.”

The Democratic liberal base, composed of ordinary, working class, compassionate Americans, is far, far larger than is the Republican conservative base of the rich, the bigots, and the religious extremists.

This massive majority would have voted for an “LBJ” Hillary, but instead were offered an “Obama” Hillary

Bill Black said:

Ever since the birth of the New Democrats, their adherents have embraced austerity.

This act of mutual economic and political self-destruction has become so core to their identity that Hillary unhesitatingly made it one her most important closing pitches during the last 40 days of her campaign against Trump.

At the very moment when her pollsters were warning her that she could lose due to working class hostility, she chose to showcase her hostility to the working class by promising to inflict eight more years of austerity on them.

Despite intense criticism from progressives of her austerity threats, Paul Krugman never urged her publicly to promise to end austerity’s assault on the working class.

Similarly, no one on her official campaign team had the courage and strength to tell her to stop and reverse her position.

A November 14, 2016 Krugman column revealed the hold his past dogmas still had on him.

Eight years ago, as the world was plunging into financial crisis, I argued that we’d entered an economic realm in which “virtue is vice, caution is risky, and prudence is folly.”

Specifically, we’d stumbled into a situation in which bigger deficits and higher inflation were good things, not bad. And we’re still in that situation — not as strongly as we were, but we could still very much use more deficit spending.

Many economists have known this all along. But they have been ignored, partly because much of the political establishment has been obsessed with the evils of debt, partly because Republicans have been against anything the Obama administration proposes.

Krugman still does not understand sovereign money. A budget deficit for a government with a sovereign currency is not a moral issue. Budget surpluses are not a “virtue” and deficits are not a “vice.”

The economic issue is strictly pragmatic – what size budget deficit or surplus is best for the overall economy?

Bernie Sanders’ economic stimulus proposals were far superior to (Clinton’s) proposals.

The 2009 fiscal stimulus was far too small; the federal government had made a dire mistake in moving toward austerity in 2010 rather than increasing substantially the size of the stimulus package.

Krugman was out to defeat Bernie’s candidacy for the nomination. Had Bernie won that nomination he would now be President-elect.

Sanders was the one candidate for the nomination that embodied what Krugman said the Democratic Party desperately needed – ending the hold of “the political establishment obsessed with the evils of debt.”

Krugman has been unable yet to summon the integrity and courage to admit how badly he served the Nation and the millions of Americans that rejected that “political establishment.”

Amen, brother.

Except . . .  Except, let’s not be too naive about Sanders. He didn’t tell the truth, either. In fact, he broadcast The Big Lie.

His signature “Medicare for All” proposal was to be “paid for” by taxes. He campaigned on the “the success of the Affordable Care Act,” that Rube Goldbergian plan that forces some Americans to pay the medical bills of other Americans.

Despite having Professor Stephanie Kelton on his team, and therefore understanding the truth, Sanders did not have the courage to explain why federal deficits are absolutely necessary for economic growth.

Nor did he have the courage to explain why federal taxes do not fund federal spending. He said:

GETTING HEALTH CARE SPENDING UNDER CONTROL
We outspend all other countries on the planet and our medical spending continues to grow faster than the rate of inflation. Creating a single, public insurance system will go a long way towards getting health care spending under control.

Bernie tacitly claimed that spending was a problem, that need to get “under control,” when in fact, more federal deficit spending benefits the entire economy.

When dollars are pumped into the economy (by paying doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies) the economy is stimulated. Businesses that serve doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies prosper and hire more employees, whose increased income and spending benefits other businesses and employees.

That is how economies grow.

Sanders did not have the courage to say it.  Instead, he perpetuated the myth of “unsustainable” deficits just as much as the Republicans did.

See for yourself.  This was what Sanders said about his Medicare for All plan:

THE PLAN WOULD BE FULLY PAID FOR BY:

  • A 6.2 percent income-based health care premium paid by employers.
  • A 2.2 percent income-based premium paid by households.
  • Progressive income tax rates.
  • Taxing capital gains and dividends the same as income from work.
  • Limit tax deductions for rich.
  • The Responsible Estate Tax.
  • Savings from health tax expenditures.

No, Bernie. The plan would not be “paid for” by taxes. Federal taxes do not fund federal spending. Stephanie Kelton knows that. And you know that, because Stephanie surely must have told you.

So despite Bill Black’s kind words, Sanders did not “end the hold of ‘the political establishment obsessed with the evils of debt.'” Sanders didn’t even try.

In fact, he strengthened that “hold” by incorporating it into his own plan.

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children
shout,
But there is no joy in the middle class; mighty Sanders has struck out.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the rich and the rest.

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 AN ANNUAL ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) 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 EVERYONEFive 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 CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from 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 corporate 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.