–When, the revolution?

I wrote this as a comment on the previous post, but on second thought, I felt it deserved a post of its own.

President Barack Obama has proposed spending cuts that will crush the middle class, but John Boehmer wants even bigger cuts.

The National Memo
Boehner Rejects Obama’s Offer To Cut Social Security

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) preemptively rejected President Barack Obama’s upcoming budget proposal Friday, slamming the president’s offer to cut Social Security as “only modest entitlement savings.”

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka vowed that America’s largest labor federation would oppose any budget deal that included chained CPI, saying the index is “another example of how Washington creates fancy-sounding phrases to mask stupid policies that only work for the rich.”

The public seems to stand with Trumka; recent polling suggests that Americans strongly oppose any Social Security cuts.

The budget reportedly includes several other cuts, such as $400 billion in health care savings (including additional means-testing for Medicare,) and $200 billion in cuts to farm subsidies, federal employee retirement programs, and unemployment compensation.

Obama’s budget also aims to raise $600 billion in new revenues, including an increased cigarette tax, which would be used to finance the president’s proposal for universal pre-Kindergarten.

It sure looks like a fierce battle except, it’s not a real battle. It’s the pro wrestling version of combat. Obama and Boehner are putting on a show for the public. It goes like this:

Obama: “O.K. John, I’ll propose large cuts. You demand gigantic cuts. I reluctantly will offer to compromise on huge cuts.” The fools will think I’ve done my best and you’ll look like you’re being reasonable. We both get paid and no one gets hurt.

Both Obam and Boehner and their parties are bought and paid for by the upper .1%, so both will do as they are told, i.e. widen the gap between the rich and the rest. The rich want power, not just money, and power is what the gap gives them.

Since both parties are criminal, I’m beginning to wonder — dare I say it — whether this nation is headed for revolution. I sure hope not, but with the President and the entire Congress being owned by the .1%, for whom does one vote?

The people don’t understand what’s happening — they are brainwashed with debt-cutting lies — especially since the media also are owned by the rich.

The people pinned their hopes and dreams on Obama, but his greed got the best of him. He sold his soul for a Presidential Library, lucrative speaking engagements for his wife and him, and big jobs for his daughters.

As for the people, in frustration and feeling there is nowhere to turn, the people may lash out. They lack only a charismatic leader — an empathetic, Rooseveltian figure — to give them voice and strength.

Yes, it could happen here. Unfortunately, revolutions often result in even worse poverty for the middle and lower classes. But when people are killing your kids and stealing your house, you may not think about the subtleties.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Medicare — parts A, B & D — for everyone
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
4. Long-term nursing care for everyone
5. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
6. Salary for attending school (Click here)
7. Eliminate corporate taxes
8. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
9. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99%

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Suitable for Framing

My legacy:

I increased FICA
I cut Social Security
I cut Medicare
I cut Medicaid
I cut federal employees
I cut post office employees
I cut military employees
I cut scientific research and development
I cut NASA
I cut food inspection
I cut drug inspection
I cut stock market regulations
I cut bank regulation
I cut food stamps
I cut housing for the poor
I cut aid to the poor
I cut aid to the elderly
I cut aid to the disabled
I cut aid to education
I even cut visitors the White House

I widened the gap between the rich and the rest
and I never prosecuted a single crooked banker.

So will you contribute to my Obama library
and pay me big money for speeches
and hire my wife and kids to high-paying jobs?

No?

Who needs you? I’m helping my rich friends who will.

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Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Absolute proof deficit reduction (austerity) works, even though you can’t.

Here is absolute proof deficit reduction (aka “austerity”) works in the United States and everywhere in the world (i.e. works to crush economies, destroy middle classes and widen the gap between the rich and the not-rich.)

This unblemished record of success demonstrates why President Obama and both political parties continue to advocate deficit cutting.

Obama budget would cut entitlements in exchange for tax increases
Friday, April 5, 8:00 AM
President Obama will release a budget next week that proposes significant cuts to Medicare and Social Security and fewer tax hikes than in the past, a conciliatory approach that he hopes will convince Republicans to sign onto a grand bargain that would curb government borrowing and replace deep spending cuts that took effect March 1.
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Factory Data Shows US Manufacturing Dead In The Water As Headlines Mislead
4 April 2013
Wall Street Examiner
The headlines today blared of a 3% increase in factory orders in February, completely obscuring the truth of just how bad the US manufacturing trend is. The real story lies in the fact that factory orders have been flat for two years and have trended lower for the last four months.
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Wall Street falls at open on weak payrolls
4/5/13
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks fell more than 1 percent at the open on Friday, following a payroll report that was much weaker than expected, the latest in a series of reports to indicate that economic growth may be losing momentum.
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A vanishing middle-class — the new normal?
4/5/13 MONEYWATCH
Almost half of middle-class households today live paycheck-to-paycheck, according to a recent survey by financial services firm NestWise.
Sequester cuts already hurting small businesses
Most companies don’t expect to hire next quarter
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Hiring slowed to 88K jobs in March; unemployment rate drops to 7.6 percent
Washington Post 4/5/13
Businesses sharply reduced their pace of hiring in March, according to government data released Friday morning, deflating hopes that the nation’s economy is ready for takeoff. Gallup chief economist Dennis Jacobe said the recent spate of job growth has done little more than keep pace with population growth. “If you’re out there looking for a job, the dismal situation is no better now than it was a year ago,” he said.
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Moody’s sees gloomy outlook for Spain banks
The Economic Times 4/5/13
MADRID: Global credit rating agency Moody’s warned Friday that Spain’s battered banks face a grim outlook even after a European-funded rescue, with high levels of bad assets set to worsen “significantly” in the recession.
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Fitch sees bad loan charges to keep hurting Italy banks
By Reuters | 5 Apr, 2013, 12.13PM
MILAN: Fitch said on Friday it expected a rise in impaired loan charges at Italian banks to continue through 2013, adding this trend was unlikely to slow down until the economy improved. Italian banks have been forced to book writedowns and hike provisions against a steep rise in deteriorating company loans.
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Workers Protest to Get E.U. Leaders to End Austerity
By AP / March 14, 20133 Comments
(BRUSSELS) — Some 10,000 workers from across the European Union protested outside a summit of EU leaders Thursday, demanding they end years of austerity and focus instead on curbing runaway unemployment with more spending. Trade unions and an increasing number of economists say austerity has inflicted severe economic pain — the economy of 17 EU countries that use the euro are stuck in recession and joblessness is at a record high.
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Greek Unemployment Reaches Record 26%
By Associated Press March 14, 20133
(ATHENS, Greece) — Unemployment in debt-crippled Greece rose to a record of 26 percent in the last quarter of 2012, as austerity measures combined with a deep recession took a harsh toll on the workforce.
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Eurozone crisis: Portugal protests against austerity
Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in protests across Portugal against government austerity measures. Huge crowds gathered in the capital Lisbon to demand the government resign. Many carried placards condemning the “Troika” of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank, which demanded budget cuts in return for a financial bailout. The conservative government has introduced steep tax rises as it tries to reduce a huge budget deficit. Unemployment is at a record 17.6% and the economy is expected to contract by 2% this year – the third straight year of recession.
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Where are the activists as austerity bites? They have been beaten back
Protesters face violence, arrest and serious charges. Only the brave dare face this savage suppression
The Guardian, Thursday 4 April 2013
As millions of people stare down the barrel of job losses, benefits sanctions, destitution and desperation and the rich are given tax cuts, I hear a lot of people asking why there isn’t more resistance going on. It was brutally and systematically put down. The students, the street-organising anti-cuts campaigners, the Occupy movement. They were cleared out, arrested and beaten back by police,

Ah, that good old austerity. Gotta love it. At least the rich do.

Here, deficits are “unsustainable” (even though the U.S. government can fund any deficit of any size), but austerity is sustainable because it only punishes the middle and lower classes.

Numbingly, it’s the middle and lower classes who believe austerity is necessary. Why? To prevent hyperinflation, like Germany and Zimbabwe had. Never mind that the German and Zimbabwe hyperinflation were not caused by deficits. And never mind that the U.S. never has had hyperinflation, not even during depressions and world wars — not even during the civil war.

And never mind that the Fed easily has been able to maintain inflation near its target level. And never mind that as a result, we are nowhere near an uncontrolled inflation, while recession and unemployment and poverty and the resultant crime are upon us.

And never mind that austerity widens the gap between the rich and the rest. And never mind that the politicians have been bribed by the .1% (via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later) to widen that gap.

Let’s just keep doing what has not worked, cannot work, and never will work, anywhere in the world, anywhere in history: Cut those deficits. Cut Social Security. Cut Medicare. Cut Medicaid. Cut federal employment. Cut aid to the poor. Cut aid to education. Cut research and development. Cut food inspections, drug verifications and financial regulations. Turn once-great America into a 3rd world, banana republic, where the rich rule and the rest starve.

And while we’re at it, let’s keep cuting our own throats. That seems to work, while so many of us can’t.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–If President Obama really wants to reduce gun violence . . .

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive.
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Jesus: “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”
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In a June 22, 2011 post titled, “Actually, the 2nd Amendment doesn’t legalize private gun ownership, but so what? There is a solution to gun violence,” I wrote:

Chicago was home to one of the most murderous neighborhoods in America. It was called “Cabrini Green,” ironically named after Mother Cabrini. For three weeks, in 1981, then Mayor Jane Byrne, moved into Cabrini Green. She was surrounded by police. For that period, murders ended, demonstrating that sufficient numbers of police greatly can reduce the murder rate in even the worst area.

I also wrote:

I suggest that Congress and the individual states pass an “aid and abet” law that reads: “If a gun of any type and/or ammunition for that gun, is used in the commission of a felony, the manufacturer, distributor, importer and/or supplier of that gun and/or ammunition, shall be liable, civilly and criminally, in equal measure with the perpetrator of the felony.”</

I was wrong, or at least partially wrong, for focusing on the penal side of gun control without acknowledging the fundamental cause of gun violence.

Chicago, my hometown, notoriously has suffered from gun violence, most of it in its south and west sides, where the majority are lower income people, and where gun ownership is highest. Although more police are concentrated in these areas, their presence has not been sufficient to stop gun crime, or even slow it to reasonable levels.

Near Chicago, you’ll find a series of suburbs, together known as the “North Shore.” Aside from being north of, and close to, Chicago, they share two features: They are affluent and they are low crime, especially low violent crime.

The primary crimes seem to be exceeding the speed limit, DUI, illegal drug sales in high school and burglary. Gun crime is so rare as to rate headlines in the Chicago newspapers. In Wilmette, the southernmost of the North Shore villages, most burglaries are committed by people coming up from Evanston, a far less affluent suburb, which has a far higher crime rate.

The people on the North Shore are not killing each other. Drive-by shootings are unheard of. Very few people feel the need to carry a gun on the street, and “Stand your ground” is not an issue. Why?

The pattern is clear and undeniable: Gun crime is most often committed by people from the lower economic groups. The other pattern that is clear and undeniable: Despite NRA claims, gun ownership does not prevent gun crime; in fact, gun ownership exacerbates the problem.

In short, gun crime is due to the income/wealth gaps between the economic groups, and the lower the group, the more gun crime it will suffer.

Although periodic mass shootings in schools attract national headlines, those are not symptomatic of daily gun crime. Those mass shootings are symptomatic of individual mental breakdowns; gun crime is symptomatic of financial need – two completely unrelated problems.

When the NRA demagogs claim that arming school teachers is the best way to protect our children, they simply are wrong, and they know it. Adding guns consistently and predictably increases gun crime. Homes, neighborhoods and towns that have guns are more likely to encounter gun violence.

The NRA has the statistics, but they are paid to ignore or to lie about them. Rather than spending millions to convince America that more guns = more safety, the NRA would do its members a great service by focusing on the fundamental reason for gun crime: The gap.

It is the gap in income, the gap in wealth, the gap in education, the gap in health, the gap in food and shelter and in hope and opportunity. Those are the gaps that cause gun violence.

When President Obama and Congress eliminate jobs and cut spending on Social Security, Medicaid and other social programs, they essentially are creating criminals and putting guns in their hands. The real criminals are those who voted for deficit reduction, and those who vote for its continuance.

The focus should not be on gun ownership or gun registration or background checks or shotguns in school or on the 2nd Amendment. The focus should not be on the guns at all. Perhaps the NRA is onto something when they say, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” The focus should be on people.

If President Obama really wants to reduce gun violence, he will focus on increasing deficit spending for social programs to reduce the gaps.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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