============================================================================================================================================================================================================
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 motivation.
============================================================================================================================================================================================================

MMT followers have a loud voice. They are on TV and the radio, frequently. But progress is minimal, if that. The public remains convinced the federal deficit must be reduced.

I’ve been urging MMT to introduce the economic facts by first revealing the scandal, namely that the 1% intentionally are bribing politicians and the media to beat down the 99%. The bribes are in the form of political contributions and promises of lucrative employment, later. The media, of course, are owned by the 1%. The goal is to widen the gap between the 1% and the 99%; the wider the gap, the more power the 1% has.

The reason to disclose the scandal first is to provide a basis for the public to accept the truth about Monetary Sovereignty. First disclose the lies and the motive; then reveal the truth. That makes the truth more believable.

Sadly, MMT simply cannot bring themselves to accuse the 1%. Perhaps they feel it is beneath them. Or they don’t think the public would accept it (although there is ample evidence the public loves to believe the worst about the rich). So MMT continues trying to explain the facts in ever simpler terms, only to have the public repeatedly throw the facts back with sneers and derision.

Here is yet another example of how the rich want to work the public to death, by delaying and reducing Social Security benefits.

AARP
CEOs Want You to Work Till You’re 70

Financial planners have been urging us to work longer to save more for our retirement. Now a group of CEOs is pushing for a plan that would hike the retirement age to 70, meaning you wouldn’t be eligible for full Social Security benefits and Medicare until then.

Currently, workers are eligible to get early Social Security benefits at age 62 and full Social Security benefits at 66; for Medicare, it’s age 65. For workers born in 1960 or later, the eligibility age for full Social Security benefits is 67.

The plan by the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs from some of the largest U.S. companies, would raise the age for Social Security and Medicare for people who are age 54 and younger. Those 55 and older would be protected from the changes.

The CEOs released their proposal amid calls by some lawmakers for spending cuts as part of a deal to raise the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said the government will not be able to make its payments, perhaps as early as mid-February, if the debt ceiling is not raised.

In summary, the CEOs of “some of the largest U.S. companies,” the core of the 1%, have decided to help the 99% by forcing us to work until we’re 70. Of course, we won’t be able to find jobs in our later years, so these largest U.S. companies will be able to hire us for pennies, or force us to beg for money, then criticize us for being sloths.

Additionally, to “save” Social Security, benefits will be cut. One method is to institute a new, cockamamie computation for inflation.

Interestingly, we tend to think the public is stupid for refusing to recognize the truth of Monetary Sovereignty. How stupid are we for refusing to recognize the truth of the 1%’s plan to enslave us?

MMT, are you listening?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================

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

============================================================================================================================================================================================================
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 motivation.
============================================================================================================================================================================================================
Readers of this blog know the upper 1% income group wants to increase the gap between them and the 99%, because it is the gap that gives them power. Without the gap, there would be no 1%, and the greater the gap, the greater their power over you.

So, to widen the gap, the 1% pays politicians (via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative jobs later) to lie about the need for austerity. Further, the 1% owns the media, to promulgate the politicians lies.

Here are further examples of political lying on behalf of the 1%, as reported in the media.

Top G.O.P. Donors Seek Greater Say in Senate Races
By JEFF ZELENY
Published: February 2, 2013

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s efforts to win control of the Senate.

The right wing has no objection to Tea Party lies and nutty statements. But, losing elections because voters recognized Tea Party lies and nuttiness — that’s what the right wing objects to.

According to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, corporations are people and money does not buy elections. Someone forgot to tell the politicians, who continue to sell their souls for dollars. And even this inferior Supreme Court cannot deny that money does buy nominations.

“There is a broad concern about having blown a significant number of races because the wrong candidates were selected,” said Steven J. Law, the president of American Crossroads, the “super PAC” creating the new project. “We don’t view ourselves as being in the incumbent protection business, but we want to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.”

Excuse me, but aren’t the voters supposed to pick their candidates via the primaries? Isn’t that what primaries are for? The voters have been brainwashed into surrendering their rights to the upper 1% income group.

The Conservative Victory Project, which is backed by Karl Rove and his allies who built American Crossroads into the largest Republican super PAC of the 2012 election cycle, will start by intensely vetting prospective contenders for Congressional races to try to weed out candidates who are seen as too flawed to win general elections.

The primaries are supposed to “weed out.” However, the richest 1% have taken that privilege from the voters, who don’t seem to care at all.

The group’s plans, which were outlined for the first time last week in an interview with Mr. Law, call for hard-edge campaign tactics, including television advertising, against candidates whom party leaders see as unelectable and a drag on the efforts to win the Senate.

The upper 1% income group, who lost using candidate selection, voter suppression and hard-edge campaign tactics last year, now plan to use exactly the same system next year. But stealing your voting rights in primaries and national elections is not sufficient for the 1%. They also want to steal the dollars from your pocket.

Obama Says U.S. Needs Revenue Along With Spending Cuts

Obama said the government can cut health-care costs, though he added that unspecified “loopholes” and deductions should also be tightened or closed.

If Obama had said the world is flat, he could not have told a bigger lie than his statement that the U.S. needs revenue. Being Monetarily Sovereign, the U.S. never can run short of dollars to pay its bills. NEVER.

Obama knows this. So why does he say it? Why does he stand in front of you and unashamedly lie, lie, lie? Because as a politician, he is bought and paid for by the upper 1% income group. Those people want spending cuts, because the vast majority of federal spending benefits the lower 99%.

The 1% wants to cut health care costs, because those costs will be borne by hospitals, nurses and other hospital employees — and by you. As for doctors, the best have begun to switch away from Medicare into more expensive “concierge” services, allowing the 1% to receive the finest care, and leaving the rest of us to scramble for medical coverage.

Wikipedia: “The concept of concierge medicine has been accused of promoting a two-tiered health system that favors the wealthy, limits the number of physicians to care for those who cannot afford it, and burdens the middle and lower class with a higher cost of insurance. Detractors contend that while this approach is more lucrative for some physicians and makes care more convenient for their patients, it makes care less accessible for other patients who cannot afford (or choose not) to pay the required membership fees.

Concierge medicine would not exist were in not for Medicare’s squeezing payments to doctors. This is called “austerity,” and the politicians have convinced you it is necessary to “save” Medicare.

And yes, President Obama gives lip service to “tightening deductions,” but that is just misdirection. First, in a Monetarily Sovereign nation, “tightening deductions” is wholly unnecessary. And second, the 1% has a long history of bribing Congress to build in special exceptions to the “tightening.”

The real goal of austerity is to cut the income of middle class people. Raising FICA was just one in a series of efforts to impoverish the middle- and lower-classes, the purpose being to widen the gap between the rich and the rest.

The wider the gap, the greater is the power the rich have over you. The irony is, you help them to do it. And, when someone reveals the truth, you deny it.

Wake up, America. The rich are stealing your lives and your children’s futures. And you have been aiding and abetting the crime against you.

Why do you do it? Just asking.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================

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

============================================================================================================================================================================================================
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.
============================================================================================================================================================================================================

Economics is a physical science and a social science. As a physical science it is heavily influenced by statistics. So we analyze of GDP, unemployment, money supplies, trends, per capita measures, deficits, debts, and on and on – all statistical measures.

However, statistical measures often fail in a social science, particularly with predictions and determinations of cause and effect. For example, while deficits generally are stimulative, they sometimes are not, and while increased income can increase spending, sometimes it can increase saving. People are not reliably statistical.

Economics devolves to motivation,, and this is where economists are particularly weak. While psychologists speculate on the motives for human actions, economists feel more comfortable with numbers.

Consider, for instance, confidence. Some economists claim that consumer and business confidence motivates stimulative actions. Most deride this as the “confidence fairy,” and say no statistical evidence supports the claim.

Yet, there is one motivation that does not receive sufficient attention: Government motivation. Though governments are powerful economic movers, and economists explore government actions, most economists do not explore government motivations.

Governments are people, and people act according to motivation. What then, motivates the U.S. government?

1. Bill Black, the brilliant banking expert at UMKC, continually criticizes the failure of the federal government to prosecute bank criminality, yet I cannot recall him mentioning the real motive for this failure. Why?

2. With all the evidence showing that austerity depresses economies worldwide, why do governments opt for austerity? What motivates them?

3. State and local taxes are massively regressive: (Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy)

“Virtually every state’s tax system is fundamentally unfair, taking a much greater share of income from middle- and low-income families than from wealthy families. The absence of a graduated personal income tax and the over reliance on consumption taxes exacerbate this problem in many states.”

Total State and Local Taxes Imposed on Non-Elderly Residents, as Shares of 2010 Income
–Lowest 20% income group: 11.1%
–Second 20% income group: 10.0%
–Middle 20% income group: 9.4%
–Fourth 20% income group: 8.7%
–Next 15% income group: 7.7%
–Next 4% income group: 7.2%
–Top 1% income group: 5.6%

What motivates state governments to punish the poor more than the rich?

(And what motivates the anti-“Big Government” movement to prefer state governments, which are even more adverse to low income citizens than is the federal government?)

4. FICA, the most regressive tax in America, punishes lower salaried people, and does not affect the wealthy, who receive most of their income via investments. Why is FICA structured this way?

5. The income tax rates are higher for salaries than for investments. Why?

Unpunished bank criminality, damaging austerity, regressive state taxes, regressive FICA, highest tax rates on salaries – why do our national and local governments repeatedly favor the rich over the rest?

Are these just examples of economic ignorance? I suggest it is not ignorance; so it cannot be cured by teaching; it is informed and intentional, and there is a motive.

The motive is greed and Political Bribery by the rich – Political Bribery in the form of contributions, gifts and promises of lucrative employment later – Political Bribery that more economically influential than the statistical factors economists generally consider.

Yet few economists acknowledge the government motive for austerity and widening the gap between the rich and the rest is Political Bribery. Why? Bribery is not statistical and it is intentionally hidden — especially since the Supreme Court, in a particularly shameful act, legalized more Political Bribery than ever.

Educating a criminal that his crimes hurt his victims, is unlikely to prevent future crimes. Educating the President and Congress that austerity hurts America is unlikely to prevent future austerity. Yet, economists focus on education and generally ignore motivation. How often have you seen an economist point to Political Bribery as the primary source of laws that increase the gap between the rich and the rest?

Public understanding and anger, that crimes are being committed, is the necessary first step in combating the crimes. Because the public does not understand that the real motive for austerity is Political Bribery by the 1%, recessions are viewed as an inevitable part of the economic “cycle” and politicians are thought to be helpless to prevent economic chaos.

The motive is greed and Political Bribery. The solution is public anger. The first job for economists is to stoke public anger.

Change will come only from the public, not from the criminals. To motivate public, we first must disclose the bribery. Then, when the public is motivated, teach the economics.

Everything in economics devolves to motivation.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================

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

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.
==========================================================================================================================================

US economy shifted into reverse in late 2012, partly because of sharp gov’t spending cuts
By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, January 30

A plunge in defense spending helped push the economy into negative territory for the first time since mid-2009. The contraction in the October-December quarter came in at an annual rate of 0.1 percent, according to a government estimate released Wednesday.

What!! You mean federal spending cuts hurt the economy, especially hurting the lower 99% income groups and widening the gap between the 1% and the 99%??? Why didn’t the politicians and the media — all paid by the upper 1% income group — tell us that beforehand?
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Deep spending cuts are likely, lawmakers say, with no deal on sequester in sight
By Lori Montgomery, Published: January 29

Less than a month after averting one fiscal crisis, Washington began bracing Tuesday for another, as lawmakers in both parties predicted that deep, across-the-board spending cuts would probably hit the Pentagon and other federal agencies on March 1.

An array of proposals are in the works to delay or replace the cuts. But party leaders say they see no clear path to compromise, particularly given a growing sentiment among Republicans to pocket the cuts and move on to larger battles over health and retirement spending.

What!! You mean Congress, which is paid by the 1% to cut benefits to the 99%, and widen the gap between the 1% and the 99%, will not prevent the spending cuts that will hurt the economy???

Some things are hard to believe — unless you unless you understand the motive.

Well, now that Congress and the President see unquestionable proof that austerity hurts the economy, surely they won’t let those spending cuts happen. Right?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================

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