What is a conspiracy theory?
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy by powerful and sinister groups, often political in motivation when other explanations are more probable.
America’s Rabbit Hole MazeData suggests crimes motivated by conspiracy theories are escalating. Lahaina, Hawaii, is devastated days after Maui’s August wildfires. Conspiracy theorists claim that the fires were set using “energy weapons” developed by the U.S. military. Rick Bowmer/AP
By David Klepper Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Days after Maui’s wildfires killed scores of people and destroyed thousands of homes last August, a shocking claim spread with alarming speed on YouTube and TikTok: The blaze on the Hawaiian island was set deliberately, using futuristic energy weapons developed by the U.S. military.
Claims of “evidence” emerged: video footage on TikTok showing a beam of white light, too straight to be lightning, zapping a residential neighborhood and sending flames into the sky.
The video was shared many millions of times, amplified by neo-Nazis, anti-government radicals, and supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, and presented as proof that America’s leaders had turned on the country’s citizens.
“What if Maui was just a practice run?” one woman asked on TikTok. “So that the government can use a direct energy weapon on us?”
The TikTok clip had nothing to do with the Maui fires. It was a video of an electrical transformer explosion in Chile earlier in the year.
But that didn’t stop a TikTok user with a habit of posting conspiracy videos from using the clip to sow more fear and doubt. It was just one of several similar videos and images doctored and passed off as proof that the wildfires were no accident.
Who supports neo-Nazis? Who supports QAnon?
Neo-Nazis: This past summer, hundreds of white supremacists and neo-Nazis mobilized in Charlottesville, Virginia to prove a point — that they were always here and were here to stay.
With anti-Semites, fascists, and racists gathering at the “Unite the Right” rally on the University of Virginia’s campus and racial tensions flaring between white supremacists and counter-protesters, many reactions to the racist violence at Charlottesville were of disgust and sadness.
Even in the wake of contentious partisan politics, both Republicans and Democrats condemned the actions of white supremacists and even called for President Donald Trump to take a stand against their egregious behavior.
Two days later, Trump begrudgingly gave his take on Charlottesville. His position would not only be a lack of condemnation of white supremacy, but he “blamed both sides” for the violence, stating, “You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent.
“Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now.” Trump also added: “Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.”
Trump’s lukewarm response to the events at Charlottesville and, subsequently, his defense of white supremacy was so shocking to many that journalist Jonathan Cait in New York Magazine wrote, “What is new and even shocking is the intermingling of Republican politics with open white supremacy.”
Increasingly a new constituency for the GOP — one that’s fired up like the rest of the MAGA movement, warring with tech giants and ready to battle through Election Day on behalf of a struggling President Trump.
It no longer is a question of whois the primary support for conspiracy theories but why — why has the Republican party turned so sharply to conspiracy theories as its method of communication? Tucker Carlson, QAnon, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones, FOX News. All make their living peddling nuttiness.
While politicians of all parties have been infamous for lying, two changes have taken place in the Republican party:
The lies are more extreme, bordering on insane.
When facts emerge, the conspiracy theorists double down, aren’t embarrassed, and continue to promulgate the same lies even after losing lawsuits.
Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, says it tries to remove extremist content. Platforms such as X, formerly Twitter, Telegram, and far-right sites like Gab allow it to flourish.
Federal election officials and some lawmakers have suggested regulations governing AI, including rules requiring political campaigns to label AI-generated images used in their ads.
But those proposals wouldn’t affect the ability of extremist groups or foreign governments to use AI to mislead Americans.
Meanwhile, U.S.-based tech platforms have rolled back their efforts to root out misinformation and hate speech, following the lead of Elon Musk, who fired most of the content moderators when he purchased X.
“There’s been a big step backward,” said Evan Hansen, the former editor of Wired.com who was Twitter’s director of curation before leaving when Musk bought the platform.
“It’s gotten to be a very difficult job for the casual observer to figure out: What do I believe here?”
The disinformation spread by extremist groups and even politicians, such as former President Donald Trump, can create the conditions for violence by demonizing the other side, targeting democratic institutions, and convincing their supporters that they’re in an existential struggle against those who don’t share their beliefs.
Trump has spread lies about elections, voting, and his opponents for years. Building on his specious claims of a deep state that controls the federal government, he has echoed QAnon and other conspiracy theories and encouraged his followers to see their government as an enemy.
He even suggested that now-retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, whom Trump nominated to be the top U.S. military officer during his administration, was a traitor and deserved execution.
Milley said he has had to take security precautions to protect his family.
Groups, where any conspiracy theory emanating from such as Trump, FOX, Carlson, et al. is accepted without question, are called “cults.” MAGA is such a cult where the belief comes not from reality but from the personality of the theory’s issuer.
The list of incidents blamed on extremists motivated by conspiracy theories is growing.
The Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, attacks on vaccine clinics, anti-immigrant fervor in Spain, and anti-Muslim hate in India:
All were carried out by people who believed conspiracy theories about their opponents and decided violence was an appropriate response.
To believers, the facts don’t matter.
“You can create the universe you want,” said Danielle Citron, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law who studies online harassment and extremism.
“If the truth doesn’t matter, and there is no accountability for these false beliefs, then people will start to act on them.”
(“Bothsidesism”) claims that U.S. elected leaders and media cannot be trusted feature heavily in many conspiracy theories with ties to extremism.
In 2018, a conspiracy theorist from Florida mailed pipe bombs to CNN, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other top Democrats; the man’s social media feed was littered with posts about child sacrifice and chemtrails — the debunked claim that airplane vapor clouds contain chemicals or biological agents being used to control the population.
In another act of violence tied to QAnon, a California man was charged with using a spear gun to kill his two children in 2021.
He told an FBI agent that he had been enlightened by QAnon conspiracy theories and had become convinced that his wife “possessed serpent DNA and had passed it on to his children.”
With its attendant social isolation, the pandemic created ideal conditions for new conspiracy theories as the virus spread fear around the globe.
Vaccine clinics were attacked, and doctors and nurses were threatened. 5G communication towers were burned as a theory spread, claiming they were used to activate microchips hidden in the vaccine.
Fears about vaccines led one Wisconsin pharmacist to destroy a batch of the highly sought-after immunizations, while bogus claims about supposed COVID-19 treatments and cures led to hospitalizations and death.
Trump claimed hydroxychloroquine and bleach as cures for COVID.
He rejected vaccines while boasting that he had helped develop the COVID vaccines and even has been vaccinated. Despite the contradiction, his cult followers continue to believe.
Few recent events, however, display the power of conspiracy theories like the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, vandalized the offices of Congress, and fought with police in an attempt to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election.
More than 900 have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials, according to data compiled by The Associated Press.
Many of those charged said they had bought into Trump’s conspiracy theories about a stolen election.
“We, meaning Trump supporters, were lied to,” Jan. 6 defendant Robert Palmer wrote in a letter to a judge, who later sentenced him to more than five years for attacking police.
“They kept spitting out the false narrative about a stolen election and how it was ‘our duty’ to stand up to tyranny.”
That narrative continues among Trump’s MAGA followers despite 60+ losing lawsuits and other investigations proving otherwise. As with virtually all cults, counter-facts only harden the belief in the conspiracy theory.
“Who was the bigger spreader of COVID misinformation: some guy with four followers on Twitter or the president of the United States? The problem is our politicians,” Uscinski said.
“January 6 happened, and people said: ‘Oh, this is Facebook’s fault.’
No, the president of the United States told his followers to be at this place, at this time, and to fight like hell.”
Tom Fishman, CEO of the nonprofit Starts With Us, said, “We can look at the window and see a foreshadowing of what could happen if we don’t (defeat conspiracy theories): threats to a functioning democracy, threats of violence against elected leaders.”
Conspiracy theories have always been with us. But why are they so prevalent now, and more so with the Republican Party? The reason: Donald Trump, like most cult leaders, is a proven psychopath, but being President of the United States, he has a louder microphone than any cult leader in history.
Trump meets all twenty criteria for psychopathy (See “The Hare Psychopathy Checklist”), and his mental condition allows him to lie — and even be caught lying — without a pang of conscience.
He is focused on what is best for him and seemingly oblivious to the consequences to anyone else. He is the perfect conspiracy theory machine.
As a psychopath, Trump attracts fearful people, those who feel threatened by the dangerous world they live in. Trump repeats their fears of non-whites, foreigners, non-Christians, gays, the poor, criminals, and women, then tells then only he can protect them.
They so desperately want to believe, they ignore the incongruity and cruelty of his claims and solutions. He becomes the drug they cannot survive without. He defends every lie, never admits being wrong, and attacks those who tell the truth by claiming his misdeed actually is theirs.
If he tells them something as absurd as “a famous politician is kidnapping children, torturing them, raping them, storing them in the basement of a fast-food restaurant, then selling them,” the frightened followers will believe.
Cults are mental drugs. They are addictive. Even when members know the preaching isn’t true, their emotions tell them to believe. You cannot convince an addict or a cult member. There is no outside cure for an addict or cult member,
They can be cured only if they want to be.
Trump was right when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any followers. They are hooked.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary SovereigntyTwitter: @rodgermitchellSearch #monetarysovereigntyFacebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.
Who are the people most likely to believe conspiracy theories? Scientific American Magazine published an article on this subject.
The article is far too long, even for a summary to do it justice, but I’ll quote a few tidbits later in this post.
First, the question, what is a conspiracy theory? Gathering several definitions from the Internet, I submit this: A conspiracy theory is a heretofore secret explanation for a claimedevent or situation when other explanations are more probable or unknown.
Four factors are common to conspiracy theories:
There is an event or situation which may or may not be real or known.
If the event is real, it may be explainable by probable causes, which the conspiracy theory rejects.
The explanation uncovers a secret known only to a special group.
The believers in conspiracy theories wish not only to know the explanation but wish the explanation to be a pejorative about some person or group.
The most pervasive, long-lasting, and influential of all conspiracy theories are called “religions.”Less stable, though no less powerful, while in existence, are “cults.”
The attraction of a conspiracy theory, i.e., a religion or cult, lies in believers being part of an “in” group that knows the “truth” as presented by the theory.
Consider Judaism, which explains the universe’s existence as coming from the miraculous hand of one God rather than from universal evolution.
Christianity further explains this by adding Christ and more detailed sub-explanations and miracles. As far as I know, other religions tend to explain the universe in related manners.
A cult is a miniature version of a religion, generally having a living leader assume the role of a god.
A conservative is a person who adheres to traditional methods or views. A piousperson is most devoutly religious, that is, adheres most powerfully to the traditional practices or views of the religion (or cult).
Thus, those identified with conservatism are most predisposed to believe conspiracy theories and to profess extreme religiousness and patriotism.
The extremes of those beliefs often include, or perhaps rely on, exclusion, the notion that those who are not part of our club are inferior. The people who are the most pious, most conservative, and most involved in their exclusive group tend most to believe conspiracy theories about those who are not part of the group.
And that is the definition of bigotry.The members of the Ku Klux Klanwould go to church Sunday morning, hang a black man Sunday afternoon, and feel no remorse.
They are the people who believed they were patriots when they attacked Congress on January 6, and they still believe Donald Trump’s lies. His power comes as a hate monger who speaks to their fears and hatreds of those who aren’t in “the club.”
A few excerpts:
Stephan Lewandowsky was deep in denial. Nearly 10 years ago the cognitive scientist threw himself into a study of why some people refuse to accept the overwhelming evidence that the planet is warming, and humans are responsible.
As he delved into this climate change denialism, Lewandowsky discovered that many of the naysayers also believed in outlandish plots, such as the idea that the Apollo moon landing was a hoax created by the American government.
Lewandowsky’s findings brought these conspiracy theorists out of the woodwork. Offended by his claims, they criticized his integrity online and demanded that he be fired.
Lewandowsky discovered that his critics—in response to his assertions about their conspiratorial tendencies—were actually spreading new conspiracy theories about him.
These people accused him and his colleagues of faking survey responses and of conducting the research without ethical approval. When his personal website crashed, one blogger accused him of intentionally blocking critics from seeing it. None of it was true.
The ranting even included a death threat, and calls and e-mails to his university became so vicious that the administrative staff who fielded them asked their managers for help.
The dangerous consequences of the conspiratorial perspective—the idea that people or groups are colluding in hidden ways to produce a particular outcome—have become painfully clear.
The belief that the coronavirus pandemic is an elaborate hoaxdesigned to prevent the reelection of Donald Trump has incited some Americans to forgo important public health recommendations, costing lives.
The gunman who shot and killed 11 people and injured six others in a Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018 justified his attack by claiming that Jewish people were stealthily supporting illegal immigrants.
A conspiracy theory positing that high-ranking Democratic Party officials were part of a child sex ring involving several Washington, D.C.–area restaurants incited one believer to fire an assault weapon inside a pizzeria.
When bombs were sent to prominent Democrats and Trump critics, as well as CNN, in October 2018, a number of high-profile conservatives quickly suggested that the explosives were really a “false flag,” a fake attack orchestrated by Democrats to mobilize their supporters during the U.S. midterm elections.
Donald Trump has suggested, among other things, that the father of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas helped to assassinate President John F. Kennedy and that Democrats funded the same migrant caravan traveling from Honduras to the U.S. that worried the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter.
Feelings of anxiety make people think more conspiratorially. Such feelings, along with a sense of disenfranchisement, currently grip many Americans.
A conspiracy theory can provide comfort by identifying a convenient scapegoat and thereby making the world seem more straightforward and controllable.
“People can assume that if these bad guys weren’t there, then everything would be fine, whereas if you don’t believe in a conspiracy theory, then you just have to say terrible things happen randomly.”
Conspiracy theorists believe plots are behind many situations. Some hold that the Apollo moon landing was fakedothers that the White House forced Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy to retire.
Others claim that Trump slogans on a mail bomber’s van were put there to frame Republicans.
A national survey suggesting that 39 percent of Americans felt more anxious than they did a year ago, primarily about health, safety, finances, politics and relationships.
A 2017 report found that 63 percent of Americans were extremely worried about the future of the nation and that 59 percent considered that time the lowest point in U.S. history that they could remember.
Feeling alienated or unwanted seems to make conspiratorial thinking more attractive.
In 2017 Princeton University psychologists set up an experiment with trios of people. The researchers asked all participants to write two paragraphs describing themselves and then told them that their descriptions would be shared with the other two in their group, who would use that information to decide if they would work with the person in the future.
The “rejected” participants, feeling alienated, were more likely than the others to think the scenarios involved a coordinated conspiracy.
People who dislike the political party in power think more conspiratorially than those who support the controlling party.
Conspiratorial thinking can incite individuals to behave in a way that makes them feel even worse. People who are presented with conspiracy theories about climate change—scientists are just chasing grant money, for instance—are less likely to vote.
People who believe vaccine conspiracy theories, for example, say they are less inclined to vaccinate their kids, which creates pockets of infectious disease that put entire communities at risk.
Individuals who want to improve their analytic thinking skills should ask three key questions when interpreting conspiracy claims.
One: What is your evidence? Two: What is your source for that evidence? Three: What is the reasoning that links your evidence back to the claim?
False conspiracy theories have several hallmarks. First, the theories include contradictions. For example, some deniers of climate change argue that there is no scientific consensus on the issue while framing themselves as heroes pushing back against established consensus.
Both cannot be true.
A second telltale sign is when a contention is based on shaky assumptions. Trump, for instance, claimed that millions of illegal immigrants cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election and were the reason he lost the popular vote. Beyond the complete lack of evidence for such voting, his assumption was that multitudes of such votes—if they existed—would have been for his Democratic opponent.
Yet past polls of unauthorized Hispanic immigrants suggest that many of them would have voted for a Republican candidateover a Democratic one.
A third sign that a claim is a far-fetched theory, rather than an actual conspiracy, is that those who support it interpret evidence against their theory as evidence for it.
When the van of the convicted mail bomber Cesar Sayoc was found in Florida plastered with Trump stickers, for instance, some individuals said this helped to prove that Democrats were really behind the bombs.
Conspiracy theories are a human reaction to confusing times. If we look out for suspicious signatures and ask thoughtful questions about the stories we encounter, it is still possible to separate truth from lies.
It may not always be an easy task, but it is a crucial one for all of us.
People may ask, “Why is Donald Trump worshipped by so many people, given all his terrible traits?
Every time he is indicted for a crime, his followers seem to love him more. Why is that?
The answer is right in front of our noses.
First, the source of their bewilderment is the man himself. He is a psychopath — or, more correctly, a person with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD).
And other scandals, any one of which would have derailed the political fortunes of most candidates.
Trump has no morals, no conscience, no feelings of guilt, and no care for anyone but himself — the perfect psychopath.
Psychopaths are difficult for ordinary people to understand. They say and do things at which an intelligent person only can shake his head in wonderment, not believing someone could be so alien.
Why, then, are so many enraptured with him? Why does he draw crowds to his speeches, the size of which he falsely but routinely inflates? The answer: He appeals to three groups of people
The rich and powerful who benefit from the laws he passed as President
The people who wish to emulate the rich, notably the men who admire Trump’s overbearing misogyny.
The bigots and haters, the largest group.
Contrary to our preferred self-portrait, America (and indeed most nations) long has been home to bigots and haters.
The Jews and blacks have been the scapegoats for all that is wrong at any given time. There have been periods when the Irish were demonized, the Italians, the Japanese, the Chinese, et al.
Trump recognized that the two most potent and lasting human emotions are hatred and fear, each being a function of the other.
Hatred comes from fear. Fear comes from hatred. Trump stokes both.
He feeds the fear and hatred of immigrants and Latins in particular, all people of color, gays, Muslims, Chinese, Hillary Clinton, the FBI, the “deep state” (whoever that may be), non-Christians, the media (except the pro-Trump media).
In short, Trump appeals to weak-minded bigots who believe he will protect them from the people they fear and despise. And Trump has made the entire spineless Republican Party complicit in his fear/hate agenda.
Today’s anti-“woke” efforts by such hate-mongers as Ron DeSantis and Tucker Carlson constitute efforts to instill fear in the minds of the uneducated or bigoted that, in some never explained way, gay people will convert your children into being gay — but Trump, DeSantis, et al. will protect you.
Similarly, Trump instills fear of Mexican “rapists,” Muslim “terrorists,” and the undefined “deep state” that helped “steal” the election.
He tells his followers the Chinese, blacks, and women take jobs and college spots from white men, and they “unfairly” receive benefits from the government.
By preying on the hatred and ignorance of the bigoted parts of the middle and lower classes, Trump builds a compliant following whose fears keep them loyal despite any wrong Trump commits.
Those fears also demand that they carry guns everywhere to protect themselves from blacks they despise, which is why the Republican party refuses to consider even the most minor, benign gun control laws.
It also is why the right-wing Supreme Court incorrectly omits the first 13 words of the 2nd Amendment as having no meaning whatsoever.
(Meanwhile, the conservative justices who portray themselves as originalists discount that the framers originally thought “arms” were muzzle-loaded muskets and flintlock pistols. If those original weapons still were the weapons of choice, we would have virtually no mass killings.)
Trump’s border wall entreaty is the pitch-perfect result of his warnings about menacing hordes of Mexican rapists and criminals invading our white land.
Three groups — the rich, admirers of the rich, and the ignorant, fearful bigots — form Trump’s base. It is a base not just immune to reason, but rejecting anyfacts that do not support what their savior tells them.
That concrete mindset is why ridiculous conspiracy theories emanating from such as QAnon, Tucker Carlson, the rest of the Fox News gang, Breitbart, Alex Jones, Glen Beck, along with the Holocaust deniers, the anti-vaxers, and others of that ilk can find welcome in Trump’s party.
That third group, the ignorant, fearful, hate-mongering bigots, comprise much of the uber-religious who follow the dogma of their religion, no matter how unfactual, unscientific, and unbelievable it may be.
In every sense, they are cult followers who cannot bring themselves to resist the siren song of the dictator. They are the fanatics, the true believers in Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Jim Jones, Luc Jouret, Marshall Applewhite, David Koresh — and Donald Trump.
Nothing can change their minds. They react to any counter-evidence, not just with disbelief but with fury.
Go on any Trumpist website and mention any fact unfavorable to Trump, and you will be met with a vitriol usually reserved for the most despicable among us.
Yes, Trump indeed can shoot someone on 5th Ave. and not lose any followers. He was right about that.
We only can be thankful that Donald Trump is one of the less intelligent cult leaders, so he repeatedly talks his way into criminal prosecutions that may dull his image among those not wholly hypnotized.
Finally, in the unlikely event you are a Trump follower and have read this far in the article, which are you, a rich or admirer of the rich, or a hating, fearing bigot?
It’s not the hammer. My problem is that I have a headache. Get me an aspirin.
What is America’s most dangerous and harmful conspiracy theory?
No, it’s not the idiocy from QAnon. There is no group of Satanists, cannibals, and child sex abusers plotting against Donald Trump.
Only the mentally challenged believe that tripe.
No, it’s not the ages-old, anti-Semitic B.S. that Jews drink children’s blood on holidays. Jews famously love children. Mogen David wine is the preferred imbibement.
And no, it isn’t that Trump was cheated out of the election (though he and the entire GOP already plan to make the same claim if they lose again).
Fifty lawsuits, dozens of judges — some Republican — and numerous recounts have demonstrated the ongoing perfidy of that assertion.
The guy lost by over 7 MILLION individual votes and 74 electoral votes! And still, he whines. What does it take to convince the MAGAs?
Only the bottom segment of America’s intelligence range still believes those ideas.
The single most dangerous and harmful conspiracy theory is believed by the majority of America because it is repeated by the majority of America. Repetition is convincing.
The United States faces numerous economic and fiscal challenges, including surging inflation, rising interest rates, trust funds heading toward insolvency, a broken budget process, and an unsustainably increasing national debt.
The CRFB (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget) is part of a conspiracy to spread the false theory that these are problems caused by too much federal deficit spending.
The very rich, who support the CRFB, want you to believe that if you would accept less help from Medicare and Social Security while paying more of your salary to FICA, America could survive financially.
You working stiffs who struggle to pay for food, clothing, a car, a few days of vacation, and education for your kids are simply being selfish by asking the government to help you with your medical bills and retirement.
Shame on you, especially when the rich have to scrimp along on the few millions they get from tax loopholes. After all, rich Donald Trump paid minimal taxes in three of the past ten years. What more do you expect?
In order to help the Federal Reserve fight inflation, reduce interest costs, and support economic growth, policymakers should put forward a plan to put the national debt on a sustainable long-term path.
Though there is no one single “correct” fiscal metric, the higher the debt-to-Gross-Domestic-Product (GDP) ratio and its growth trajectory, the more vulnerable the U.S. economy is.
If you believe those two sentences, you have been royally conned. They are lies.
You have been fed the same baloney since at least 1940 when the “debt” first was called a “ticking time bomb.” The so-called “national debt” was only $40 billion back then.
Today, it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 TRILLION, an astounding 62,400% increase. Yet here we are. Still sustaining. How is that possible?
First, the so-called national debt isn’t really a debt; second, it is infinitely sustainable. The federal “debt” is two different things united by an unnecessary law.
I. The so-called “debt” is the net total of federal deficits, i.e., the difference between federal income (mainly tax collections) and federal spending.
But, while state/local government taxes fund state/local government spending, federal taxes do not fund federal spending. The Monetarily Sovereign federal government destroys every tax dollar it receives, and it funds all its spending by creating new dollars, ad hoc, every time it pays a bill. It works like this:
When you pay taxes, you take dollars from your checking account. Those dollars are part of the “M2” money supply measure.
When those dollars reach the U.S. Treasury, they suddenly are not part of any money supply measure. Because the federal government has infinite dollars, there is no measure of the government’s money.
Your tax dollars disappear from existence. They effectively are destroyed.
State/local governments, being monetarily non-sovereign, put tax dollars into banks, where they continue to be part of the M2 money supply measure. While state/local government debt really is debt, the federal government has infinite money, so it has no measurable debt.
II. The so-called “debt” is the total of deposits into Treasury security accounts resembling bank safe deposit boxes. You put money into your T-security account, the government adds some money, and later, when the account matures, the government returns the dollars already in your account — just like your safe deposit box.
The contents of the boxes are yours, from beginning to end. The government doesn’t “owe” them to you because you never lose ownership of them. The government isn’t indebted to you for those dollars any more than the banks are indebted to you for the box’s contents.
In both cases, the bank and the government do not touch the contents of the “account box.” The government and banks simply store them for you.
Another reason why that misnamed “debt-that-isn’t-a-debt” is infinitely sustainable: The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has the infinite ability to create its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.
It never, never, never can unintentionally run short of dollars.
Quote from former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke when he was on 60 Minutes:Scott Pelley: Is that tax money the Fed is spending?Ben Bernanke: It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.
Statement from the St. Louis Fed:“As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.”
In plain English, the federal government does not borrow dollars. Nor does it rely on taxes. It creates dollars, at will, by pressing computer keys.
Implant this in your mind: THE U.S. GOVERNMENT CANNOT UNINTENTIONALLY RUN SHORT OF DOLLARS. NOT TODAY. NOT TOMORROW. NOT EVER.
Even if the misnamed “debt” doubled or tripled tomorrow, that would have zero effect on the federal government’s ability to pay its bills.
And what goes for the government as a whole also goes for federal agencies. Medicare cannot run short of dollars unless that is what the President and Congress want.
Similarly, Social Security cannot run short of dollars unless that is what our leaders want.
The next time you hear some Congressperson expressing anguish about the “debt” or the “debt ceiling,” you can be sure he/she is lying or ignorant about federal finances.
And when you hear that the Medicare or Social Security fake “trust funds” are running short of money, you will know you are hearing the most dangerous and harmful conspiracy theory in America.
The conspiracy theory continues:
Ideally, debt should be gradually reduced to its half-century historical average of about 50 percent of GDP.
The “debt”/GDP ratio is 100% meaningless. It has no predictive value. It tells you nothing about the federal government’s ability to pay its bills. “Debt” is a measure that accounts for the full lifetime of America. GDP is a one-yearmeasure.
“Debt” is the difference between federal income and federal spending. GDP is total spending (federal + non-federal) + net exports. They are as comparable as apples vs. Apple computers.
Here are the nations having the lowestDebt/GDP ratios: Suriname, United Kingdom, Mauritania, Costa Rica, Tunisia, Brazil, El Salvador, Croatia, Sao Tome/Prin, Austria, Belize, India, Bahamas, Hungary, Morocco, Slovenia, Albania, Qatar, Mauritius, Yemen, Trinidad/Tobago, Sierra Leone, Montenegro, South Africa, Sudan
Here are the nations having the highest Debt/GDP ratios: Japan, Greece, Lebanon, Italy, Singapore, Cape Verde, Portugal, Angola, Bhutan, Mozambique, United States, Djibouti, Jamaica, Belgium, France, Spain, Cyprus, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Canada, Argentina.
What generalizations can you make about these nations? What does the Debt/GDP ratio tell you about their financial health? Absolutely nothing.
Yet it is quoted frequently by those who either want to fool you or are ignorant about national finances.
Every time you see or hear someone quoting that ratio as having some importance, know this: That person should not be listened to.
Given political constraints, we suggest at least stabilizing the debt at its current level within a decade, requiring roughly $7 trillion in savings.
The CRFB wants to reduce the “debt” by $7 trillion — about 25% — guaranteeing a depression that would make 1929 look like Christmas. What the CRFB doesn’t want you to know is every time we reduce the “debt,” we have a recession or a depression:
1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began 1807. 1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819. 1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837. 1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857. 1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873. 1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893. 1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929. 1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began 2001.
The Great Depression, which some “experts” claim was caused by “excessive speculation” or some other myth, actually was caused by federal surpluses.
The federal surplus President Clinton loves to boast about led to a recession that President Bush had to deal with.
Mathematically, a growing economy requires a growing supply of money, but federal surpluses take dollars out of the economy and destroy them, which leads to reduced economic growth or negative economic growth.
America’s money supply growth parallels America’s GDP growth.
(The CRFB) blueprint puts forward a framework to achieve these goals through a combination of revenue and spending changes – with savings from health care, tax reform, discretionary spending caps, energy reforms, Social Security solvency, and other changes to the budget.
About 40 percent of the deficit reduction comes from revenue and 60 percent from changes in spending.
And virtually all of the deficit reduction comes from the middle classes and the poor.
Translation: The CRFB wants to cut Medicare (“health care”), increase the FICA tax (“tax reform”), reduce aids to the poor (“discretionary spending caps”), ignore global warming (“energy reforms”), and cut Social Security (“Social Security solvency”).
The very rich are laughing all the way to the bank.
While politicians of all parties have been infamous for lying, two changes have taken place in the Republican party:
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 