If you don’t like Medicare for All, read this:

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

……………………………………………………………………………………..

Step #2 of the Ten Steps For Prosperity reads:

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?”

Click the link, read the article, then read this:

National Public Radio: Cuts In Texas Medicaid Hit Rural Kids With Disabilities Especially Hard

Last year, the Texas legislature approved a $350 million cut in Medicaid reimbursement rates to early childhood intervention therapists and providers.

The cuts, made to help balance a billion dollars in property tax relief, affect the most vulnerable Texas children — those born extremely prematurely or with Down syndrome or other genetic conditions that put them at risk for developmental delay.

Medicare for All, funded by the federal government, would pay for everything Texas Medicaid — i.e. the citizens of Texas — now pay. No federal taxes would be needed, and Texas’s citizens could save hundreds of millions in taxes.

The problem is the Libertarian belief that federal government should be small. Why should a huge, wealthy nation have a small government? No real reason. 

Presumably, they believe a small government is preferable to children’s health.

For months, providers of in-home physical, speech and occupational therapies have continued to serve children who have disabilities, despite mounting financial losses.

Now some have had to shut their doors, curtail services or halt their home-visit programs, leaving many children without treatments their parents feel are crucial to the kids’ well-being.

That’s what’s happened to 2-year-old Haylee Crouse, who lives with her three brothers and sisters in the small town of Whitehouse, in East Texas.

When she was just 8 days old, Haylee contracted newborn meningitis. It left her with some mental and physical deficits, and she started having periodic seizures.

But at the age of 9 months, Haylee started getting home visits and treatments from physical, occupational and speech therapists, several days a week.

“They were a lifesaver to her and to our family,” Amanda Crouse, Haylee’s mother said. “They worked her hard. For example, she was not rolling over. They taught her how to roll over. They then taught her how to crawl, pull up on the couch and then, finally, she learned how to walk.”

The state’s cuts to its Texas Medicaid Acute Care Therapy Programs have meant that the one provider of early childhood intervention treatment in Tyler can no longer do so.

And so, that’s it.

On the 2-year-old’s last day of therapy, Crouse said, “her therapist actually cried. Gave her a hug, said goodbye.

Parents and grandparents of children who have disabilities flocked to Austin in March to implore the state Senate not to do this.

Mothers wept in frustration as they testified before the Texas Senate Finance Committee about the vital these early interventions play in their children’s quality of life.

Mrs. Crouse, please tell little Haylee this: Texans can’t afford to help sick Texas children, and the federal government can’t help because it’s too big.

I’m sure Haylee will understand.

Republican Sen. Jane Nelson, who heads the Texas Senate’s finance committee, tried to reassure anguished parents that the state would make sure there would be no interruption of services, whatsoever.

“Every eligible child for these services will continue to receive them. And we’re going to monitor it and we’re going to make sure that happens.”

But that’s been a promise the state has not been able to keep, and it’s in the rural parts of Texas where collapse of service has already begun.

This is how they “Make America Great, Again”: Ignore sick children.

“Sometimes you need to talk to some of the parents before you just decide to cut a program,” said Waymon Stewart, the executive director of the Andrews Center in Tyler.

Stewart predicts that children with profound disabilities will suffer most from the closure of his program and others like it, especially in rural regions.

It’s not uncommon for early childhood intervention therapists to have to drive an hour each way to get to far-flung patients. For children who are prone to seizures, or who have to be connected to machines for daily living, long trips in the car several days a week for treatment in other clinics are simply not going to happen, he says.

The cuts made in the state capital took a $312,000 bite out of his center’s budget, forcing him to terminate 20 employees.

“It really hit us hard,” Stewart said. So we were really digging into reserves to try to make this program last, and we did for a year.”

But after that, he said, “we just decided to give our notice. We couldn’t continue to do it unless the rates were changed.”

In Wichita Falls, 235 miles away, the same thing has transpired at the North Texas Rehabilitation Center, which serves 10 North Texas counties.

Mike Castles, the center’s president, said they hung on for a year, but it cost them more than $200,000 in losses. So, after 30 years of service to thousands of North Texas families, that’s it for them too.

“It’s all about money,” he said. “There’s just so much money to make this all work. We tried to for a year; it got worse instead of better with even more bad news coming for this fiscal year.”

The mark of a great nation is not how many atomic bombs it has, or how many billionaires. The mark of a great nation is how it cares for its most vulnerable.

Medicare for all would cost you taxpayers nothing. But the rich, the Tea Partyers, the Libertarians, and especially the health insurance companies, don’t want you to understand that.

They want “small government” so that only the wealthy and powerful can live the American dream.  The rest of you: Just keep struggling.

And don’t worry about sick kids.  They’re just “takers,” aren’t they?

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 benefiting 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

“That guy is another Trump”

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

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

By any reasonable measure, Donald Trump is among the worst, if not the worst Presidential candidate in American history.

He is a mean-spirited and vindictive bigot and a compulsively endless liar.  He is anti-black, anti-brown, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-science, anti-women, anti-fact and anti-truth.

He is a hate-monger, a fear-monger, and a rumor-monger. He lacks morality and judgment.

He is inexperienced in, and ignorant of, both international and domestic matters, but is so egocentric he seems not to recognize his ignorance — a most dangerous combination.

He claims personal superiority in all areas, from war knowledge superior to that of trained generals, to tax knowledge superior to that of all previous Presidents, to physical fitness superior all previous candidates, to athletic ability superior to everyone living in New York, to superior business ability — despite ample evidence he actually is inferior in all these  areas.

Yet despite his obvious failings, he has a massive and passionate following.

One hint to this seeming anomaly might be found in an article from the November 2016, issue of Scientific American Magazine. Here are a few excerpts:

Why Political Pessimism Trumps Optimism
The psychology of political pessimism
By Michael Shermer

“If you had to choose a moment in time to be born, any time in human history, and you didn’t know ahead of time what nationality you were or what gender or what your economic status might be,” what time would you choose? Paleolithic? Neolithic? Ancient Greece or Rome? Medieval times? Elizabethan England? Colonial America? The 1950s?

“You’d choose today,” answered the man who posed this question in an April 2016 speech, President Barack Obama.

“We are fortunate to be living in the most peaceful, most prosperous, most progressive era in human history,” he opined, adding that “it’s been decades since the last war between major powers.

More people live in democracies. We’re wealthier and healthier and better educated, with a global economy that has lifted up more than a billion people from extreme poverty.”

If these facts are true—and they are —then why the doom and gloom heaped on us by politicians and pundits on both sides of the political aisle?

First, news media outlets are far more likely to report bad news than good. Another day in Turkey without a coup goes unreported, but just try and take over a country without the world’s media covering it.

Second, as psychologist Roy F. Baumeister explained, “bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good.

Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones.” Why?

One answer, I suggest, is in the psychology of loss aversion, in which, on average, losses hurt twice as much as gains feel good.

To get someone to take a gamble, the potential payoff must be about twice the potential loss. Why? Because of the endowment effect, which is the tendency to value what we own more than what we do not own.

Why is our psychology wired this way? Evolution. According to Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker, in our evolutionary past there was an asymmetry of payoffs in which the fitness cost of overreacting to a threat was less than the fitness cost of underreacting.

The world was more dangerous in our evolutionary past, so it paid to be risk-averse and highly sensitive to threats.

All of which helps to explain much political pessimism.

That is part of it — pessimism is stronger than optimism, and is widely considered to be wiser. The optimist often thought naive and innocent, while the pessimist is wrongly believed to be a realist.

A second factor is what we described in earlier posts, and what the philosopher, Eric Hoffer, calls the “true believers.” These are people who passionately follow a leader or a faith. Religious fundamentalists and group fanatics are true believers.

One of the characteristics of a true believer is certainty despite contrary fact, especially the certainty that the past was good, the present is bad, but the Leader can make the future good again.

When Donald Trump says, “Political correctness is killing us;” “Free trade is killing us;” “Globalization is killing us;” “China is killing us;” “Mexico is killing us;” he is speaking to true believers, who long for a mythical future and a beautiful past that never really existed.

Trump’s slogan, “Make America great, again,” is a paean to that belief.

Despite Obama’s optimism and factual statement of how things are better today, many people have things worse, or think they do, or are afraid they will in the future.

Trump speaks to those of the middle and low income/wealth/power groups, who have seen the Gap widen between them and the rich, and they are resentful and need someone to blame. 

True believers need a devil to blame, generally someone from a competing ideology (a different religion or nationality). Trump’s Mexicans, Muslims, gays, Chinese, etc. fit perfectly (though ironically, the real devils are the American rich who, like Trump, create and benefit from policies that widen the Gap).

Third, there is a characteristic commonly known as “charisma,” a hard to define quality that many people find attractive and convincing.  Barach Obama and Bill Clinton have it in the eyes of many. Hillary Clinton seems to lack it. Donald Trump has it.

If we combine general need of threat avoidance, the specific needs of true believers, plus charisma,  we have a leader. If we add to the mix, a frightening lack of job qualifications and morality, we have Donald Trump.

It is quite likely that, no matter the election outcome, Donald Trump’s name will live on as the epithet: “That guy is another Trump.”

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 afford better health care than 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 benefiting 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

How America becomes Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia

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

…………………………………………………………………………………

This is Turkey:

TURKEY detains opposition paper’s editor and columnists, Chicago Tribune, 11/1/61

ISTANBUL — Turkish police detained the chief editor and at least 11 senior staff of Turkey’s opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper on Monday, a move that signals a widening crackdown on dissenting voices.

Editor-in-Chief Murat Sabuncu, cartoonist Musa Kart, the newspaper’s lawyer and several columnists were detained, some following raids at their homes, Cumhuriyet reported. Police had warrants for the detentions of 16 staff members, according to the left-leaning and pro-secular paper.

The detentions involving Cumhuriyet — one of Turkey’s oldest newspapers — come amid accusations by opposition parties and human rights groups that Turkey’s government is using the state of emergency imposed after a failed military coup to clamp down not only on alleged coup plotters but on all government critics.

And this is America:

America: Washington Post: 2/26/16
Donald Trump vowed to ‘open up’ libel laws to make suing the media easier. Can he do that?

Once elected president, Donald Trump promised, he will “open up” federal libel laws to make it easier to sue news outlets like The Washington Post and New York Times.

Trump on the media: “I’m gonna open up the libel laws so that … when they write hit pieces, we can sue them, and they can lose money.”

Trump could simply use the bully pulpit to promote a culture of frivolous libel suits that ultimately wouldn’t go anywhere but would force media companies to spend precious resources on defending themselves.

If his goal is to cause news outlets to lose money, Trump could achieve that objective without changing any laws at all.

Through judicial appointments, Trump could reverse decades of legal precedent that requires a public figure like him to prove “actual malice” in a libel case.

To win a defamation case, a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the person or entity who is the subject of the statement.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, defamation claims have been limited by First Amendment concerns. Thus, for instance, public officials and public figures (people who are famous) must show that statements were made with actual malice to recover in an action for defamation, by “clear and convincing” evidence rather than the usual burden of proof in a civil case, preponderance of the evidence.

The key here is that the “actual malice” standard for public figures is not codified in federal law; it is merely a longstanding legal precedent.

Precedents can change in the hands of the right judges. The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision reversed at least 20 years of legal precedent on corporate spending in politics.

This is Pakistan:

Pakistan police arrest 1,500 supporters of Imran Khan

Pakistani police have arrested at least 1,500 supporters of opposition leader Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party ahead of a massive rally planned later this week in the capital Islamabad.

Security sources said on Monday that the number of those arrested overnight during a nationwide crackdown against PTI supporters ranges between 1,500 and 1,800.

And this is America:

Trump’s Promise to Jail Clinton Is a Threat to American Democracy
A candidate who accepted the nomination to chants of “Lock her up!” crosses a dangerous line.

If I win,” Donald Trump threatened Hillary Clinton during Sunday night’s debate, “I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation.” And he left no ambiguity as to the intended result.

“You know,” Clinton later responded, “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.” Trump couldn’t resist. “Because you would be in jail,” he broke in.

This is Saudi Arabia:

The Saudi Arabian legal system was based on the sharia, or Islamic law.

The sharia was applied throughout the kingdom in strict accordance with the interpretation of the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam.

Because pious Muslims believed that the sharia was sacred law, they accepted as judges, only men who had spent a number of years studying the accepted sources of the sharia.

Historically, the decisions of judges were subject to review by the ruler. In effect, the judiciary was not an independent institution but an extension of the political authority.

And this is America:

Donald Trump rails against judge’s ‘Mexican heritage’

Donald Trump on Friday repeatedly defended his claims that a judge overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University is biased because of his Mexican heritage.

Trump said U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, a federal district judge in the Southern District of California, “He’s a Mexican. We’re building a wall between here and Mexico.”

Trump first broached these waters in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Thursday, in which he said Curiel, who was born in Indiana, had an “inherent conflict of interest” in the Trump University lawsuit.

“If he was giving me a fair ruling, I wouldn’t say that,” Trump told Tapper, pointing again to Curiel’s background. “I think that’s why he’s doing it.”

“He’s of Mexican heritage, and he’s very proud of it.” Trump again called for Curiel to recuse himself from the case.

You are an American. You stand on the precipice, looking down at the undemocratic, lawless nations “below” you.

Donald Trump stands right behind you.

You feel his hands on your back.

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 afford better health care than 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 benefiting 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

The Presidential Election Campaign fund con job

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

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Every year, you fill out a form that looks something like this:

The form changes annually, but for more that 40 years, there has been a line that has remained essentially the same.  It’s titled “Presidential Election Campaign.”

It gives you the option of directing $3 out of your taxes to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. Like all federal “funds,” it is completely mythical. There is no “fund.”

Here is what the federal government says about this “fund:”

The 3$ Tax Checkoff

When you check “yes,” three of your tax dollars are placed in the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. During each of the last five years, approximately 33 million taxpayers have checked the “yes” box.

That comes to a total of $500 million taken out of your tax dollars and deposited into this fake “fund.” How do I know it’s a fake fund?

Here is what the government says, in small type at the bottom of the page:

The Fund is not a separate account but is actually part of the U.S. Treasury.

Get it? The fund is not a “separate account.” In short, it’s not a “fund” at all.

Like the mythical Social Security Trust “Fund” and every other federal “fund,” it’s a charade. The purpose is to make you believe federal accounting is similar to private sector accounting, where dollars are deposited into special funds, to pay for specific programs.

Why does the government want you to believe that? So you will think federal spending is limited by federal income, in the same way private spending is limited.

But federal spending is not limited by income — not by taxes, not by borrowing (which isn’t really borrowing) and not by fund balances. Federal spending is limited only by what Congress and the President wish to spend.

Even without collecting any taxes at all, the federal government could continue spending, forever.

Why Did Congress Adopt the Public Funding Law?
Congress set up the checkoff in the early 1970’s as an alternative way of funding Presidential elections. Candidates that choose to accept public funds can reduce their dependence on large contributions from individuals and groups.

In the general election, the public funding system places the two major-party nominees on an equal financial footing in the campaign.

The Republican and Democratic nominees in the general election receive a fixed amount of checkoff dollars. Nominees from other political parties may qualify for a smaller, proportionate amount of checkoff funds if they receive over five percent of the vote.

In order to qualify for matching funds, a candidate in the primary elections must first raise over $5,000 in each of 20 states (i.e., over $100,000), consisting of small contributions ($250 or less) from individuals.

Have you ever read such nonsense? ” . . . reduce their dependence on large contributions” . . . “places the two major-party nominees on an equal financial footing“

Have you noticed any reduction in dependence on large contributions? And are the two major parties ever on equal financial footing?

And if, as the right wing Supreme Court ruled (“Citizens United”), money is speech, by what Constitutional right has the federal government decided how much “speech” to allow each party?

Why do the Republicans and Democrats receive more “speech” than do other parties?

  • Checkoff dollars are given only to Presidential candidates who demonstrate broad national support.
  • General election nominees must agree not to accept any private contributions (from individuals or PACs, for example).
  • Candidates must promise not to spend more than $50,000 of their own money on their campaign.
  • Recipients of public funds must adhere to a limit on total spending.

” . . . not accept any private contributions”  But the PACs can spend as much as they wish.

“. . . not spend more than $50,000 of their own money.”  Is this an unconstitutional limitation on “free speech”?

” . . . limit on total spending.”  Another unconstitutional limitation on free speech?

The  Presidential Election Campaign Fund, and like all federal funds, is not only absurd, but it is a lie. Here is why:

Before America existed, there were no U.S. dollars. Then, a few men came together and arbitrarily created new laws from thin air.

These laws created dollars also from thin air. These laws could have created any number of dollars — a thousand, a million, a billion — any number at all.

The U.S. dollar is wholly a creation of laws, which in turn are creations of the federal government. The laws can say anything the government wants them to say.

The dollars in the Presidential Election Campaign “Fund,” and all federal “funds,” are nothing more than numbers in government bookkeeping accounts. The federal government has total control over the numbers in those accounts. It can increase or decrease the numbers at will.

If the numbers happen to be too low to justify some expenditure, the government simply can increase the numbers by pressing a computer key.

If, for instance, the account shows $1,000,000 and the government wishes to spend $2,000,000, the government can change the “1” to a “2,” and complete the spending operation.

No tax dollars needed. No borrowing needed. The U.S. government has complete control over its books.  That is the reality of Monetary Sovereignty.

So, the next time someone tells you:

*the Social Security Trust “Fund” will be insolvent unless taxes are raised or benefits decreased,
*or the Presidential Election Campaign “Fund” is deficient,
*or that Medicare is running short of dollars,
*or that your tax dollars pay for federal spending,
*or that the federal “debt” and “deficit” are unsustainable
*or that you and your children will have to pay for the federal “debt”

Know this: That person either is ignorant of federal financing or is lying.

U.S. dollars do not exist in any physical form.  They are accounting numbers. By the laws arbitrarily created by the federal government, these accounting numbers are under the government’s complete control.

So if you are one of the 33 million taxpayers who checked off that $3 mythical contribution to that mythical Presidential Election Campaign “Fund,” I hope it gives you some feeling of satisfaction.

Just understand that the whole federal tax process is a gigantic con, perpetrated by the very rich, and meant to make you believe the Big Lie, the lie that says the federal government cannot afford to narrow the Gap between you and the very rich.

Think about it the next time you pay your federal taxes. or Medicare won’t cover a medical expense.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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LAWS

•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.

•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money.

•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes..

•No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth.

•Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.

•A growing economy requires a growing supply of money (GDP = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)

•Deficit spending grows the supply of money

•The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.

•The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

•Liberals 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.

•The single most important problem in economics is the Gap between rich and the rest.

•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.

•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.

•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY