–Scientific American magazine not so scientific.

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more 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.
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Perhaps it is too much to expect a magazine titled, “Scientific American” actually to understand the principles of science, like demanding at least a modicum of evidence before promulgating wrong hypotheses. After all, they just are writers, not scientists. So the following post may be a bit unfair.

Anyway, SA has published numerous articles correctly decrying the failure of the U.S. government to support various science projects and education. But all their articles are hampered by one significant, wrong assumption.

Here is only the most recent:

Future Jobs Depend on a Science-Based Economy
The next administration must prime the true growth engine

The 2012 presidential election will be won by the candidate who can convince voters that he has the vision to lift the nation out of the economic doldrums.

The economy is the right topic, but the discussion neglects the true driver of the country’s prosperity: scientific and technological enterprise. Half of the U.S. economic growth since World War II has come from advances in science and technology. To neglect that power—and the government’s role in priming the pump—would be foolish.

President Barack Obama makes much out of having rescued Detroit’s carmakers from bankruptcy. This achievement won’t hold up, however, unless the thousands of small auto-parts manufacturers down the supply chain stay globally competitive.

One way to help them would be to foster initiatives like the National Digital Engineering and Manufacturing Consortium, which is providing independent manufacturers potent information technology at Purdue University and the Ohio Supercomputer Center.

Is providing manufacturers with “potent information” important to America’s growth. Of course it is. So why is there even a hint of concern about this obvious need? Read on.

The German government encourages a close partnership between technical universities and industrial manufacturers; it supports centers where scientists and engineers pursue fundamental research in close proximity to industrial colleagues investigating more applied technologies.

German battery makers, for instance, work with technical universities on nanotechnology, while textile makers contribute to research in carbon fibers for composite fabrics. Could there be a grander vision for harnessing U.S. research talent in this way? On this, both candidates have been silent.

Not exactly silent, but rather more concerned about reducing the budget than about having an insufficient budget.

The U.S. Department of Energy funded and helped to develop the shale-cracking techniques that have released the country’s current surplus of natural gas. And no nuclear reactor has ever been built in this country without financial and scientific support from all levels of government.

While Obama touts the $90 billion in federal investments in clean energy research made on his watch, Romney repudiates this “green energy agenda.”

His thinking is shortsighted. The bankruptcy of solar panel maker Solyndra in 2011, which critics have used to argue against government support of energy research, instead shows why such investment is so important: experimental projects always carry a high risk of failure, which is why commercial firms are reluctant to undertake them. Yet without them, innovation will slow.

The DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy funds ideas that may sound like science fiction to some—genetically modifying microbes to produce fuel, for example. History shows that such bold efforts will yield the beginnings of new industries.

In 1962, for example, a researcher envisioned a fanciful “Galactic Network” that would connect distant computers, inspiring the Pentagon project that eventually became the Internet.

O.K., already. We’re sold. Government funding for science benefits America in myriad ways we cannot anticipate. So what’s the problem?

A high-tech economy needs the best scientists and engineers, yet in science and math, U.S. students are middling. The Obama administration has had some success by tying grants for K–12 schools to Common Core math standards, but neither candidate has come out in support of the Next Generation Science Standards recommended by the National Research Council.

Right. Scientific research, development and education is underfunded, much to the disadvantage of America. Why?

With looming unemployment and debt, such concerns may not seem urgent. Yet unless we invest in an economy built on scientific and technological skills, we will only be papering over our economic troubles.

And there it is. Scientific American magazine agrees with the popular notion that (federal) debt is “looming.” What does use of that word, “looming,” say about SA?

To me, it says SA buys into the myth that federal debt is an actual problem, is “looming” over the economy, like some giant vulture, waiting to peck our livers, rather than the benign and boring total of T-security deposits in the Federal Reserve Bank.

As a long time subscriber to SA, never have I seen an article discussing the reality (or rather, the mythology) of this silly belief. SA may opt for science everywhere – except in economics.

So long as the upper 1% income group is able to maintain the Big Lie that the federal deficit and debt are too big, no amount of whining, begging and pleading will produce adequate federal support for scientific research, development and education. The game is lost before the opening whistle.

It’s like asking your rich daddy to give you money for a round-the-world trip, but prefacing your plea with the statement, “Daddy, I agree the world is flat, but . . . “

My hope is to live long enough to see a science magazine publish an informed article about Monetary Sovereignty. (As you can see, I’m wishing myself a long life.)

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

–How your lords (Yes, you have lords) use myths to rule you.

All living things are created with some indifference to the plight of other living things. It is “nature, red in tooth and claw.” It is a fundamental of evolution, in which the stronger survive at the expense of the weaker.

Cat owners, who have seen their cute, fluffy, lovable pets cruelly toy with an already maimed mouse, have seen it. Our innocent children are known for cruelty and indifference. Bullying is the common example. Street gangs take it to extremes with shootings, stabbings and other sadistic acts. Adults do it too – the crime syndicates, the drug cartels — they specialize in cruelty and indifference as intimidation techniques or just for pleasure.

But they are exceptions, right? If you could push a button that would bring you a hundred million dollars, but cause a dozen unknown Asians to die prematurely, would you push that button? Think before you answer. Being honest, would you?

The executives of the tobacco companies, push that button every day, and have done so for years. As do executives of pharmaceutical companies. Wall Street executives too, push that button, except their victims die of poverty, not disease. The upper 1% push that button with seldom a thought.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” said Lord Acton. The murderer and torturer have power over their victims. The rich have power over the poor. The knowing have power over the ignorant. The murderer, the torturer, the rich and the knowing are corrupted by their power.

It benefits the abuser that the abused not know how to end the injustice, or even to recognize it. Ignorance is the ally of the powerful. Why did a German soldier murder his Jewish neighbor, a neighbor with whom he previously had friendly relations? The soldier was taught by his leaders, the ignorance that the Jews are evil.

Why today, do Syrian soldiers, themselves part of the poor and middle “99%,” kill their Syrian “99%” neighbors? The soldiers have been taught the ignorance that their neighbors are evil. The 99% are both the abused and the abusers, and all do the bidding of the 1%, via ignorance of the truth.

And so it is in America (and elsewhere), that the minority in power keeps the underclass ignorant. Here, it is done with the Big Lie, that the federal government cannot afford to provide benefits to those who need them, but instead must extract taxes from those who ill can afford them:

— the federal government cannot afford Medicare for all
— the federal government cannot afford more generous Social Security
— the federal government cannot afford to operate without taxation

And if a member of an underclass protests correctly that the government indeed can afford these things – and without extracting taxes — he then is told:

–the federal government is just like him, and must remain within strict financial budgets
–and it must balance its budget against tax income.
–and he is a fool to believe otherwise.

And with these myths, the upper 1% income group rules.

Think of religion. A group is taught certain myths: There is one God or there are many gods, and these gods demand obedience. High priests or shamans dictate what God says the followers must do, and inevitably these rules involve sacrifices – human, animal, financial, time or effort.

Enduring these sacrifices provides the psychological benefit of knowing one has done the “right thing” as defined by the religious leaders. Attending church services, reciting pre-written prayers, donating money, keeping kosher, building cathedrals, circumcision, abstinence, sexual practices, prescribed garments, travel to Mecca – all are sacrifices dictated by religions. Fail to sacrifice, and you will be punished, with hell and ostracism, even torture and murder.

It is sacrifice that gives religion its power. Forcing people to do what they would not otherwise do, and depriving them of what they otherwise would desire, is what builds dominance and obedience. Power comes from teaching that those, who do not share these believes and sacrifices, are evil.

Once the populace has been brainwashed, only minimum further effort by the high priests, is necessary to enforce compliance. After Germans were brainwashed into believing Jews and others were evil, Hitler and his acolytes didn’t have to do the killing. The people did it themselves, willingly and with relish.

Similarly, convincing people that to pay taxes, to suffer insufficient health-care insurance, to live on minimal retirement funds, go hungry and homeless – all build the dominance of the 1% over the 99%. The victims come to believe that yes, they must sacrifice, and however much they sacrifice, it never will be enough.

Today, the American people, and indeed people throughout the world, have been taught by the 1% that sacrifice, not only is necessary, not only is beneficial, but is morally good – and always insufficient.

Every culture has a version of “the ant and the grasshopper,” in which hard work and struggle are virtues unto themselves, while ease and comfort are immoral. By combining that belief with the cynicism of “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” the 1% has created a perfect scenario in which the 99% are made to believe Monetary Sovereignty not only is too easy and too obvious, but morally wrong.

Tell someone that he should not have to pay federal taxes, should not have to pay for health care and should not suffer from minimal retirement benefits, that person likely will respond to this good news with anger and sarcasm. “Life cannot be that easy (except of course, for the 1%). There must be good reasons why we have been sacrificing our wealth and our health. There cannot be a free lunch.”

The 1% are accustomed to life being easy. The 99% are uncomfortable with that notion.

And just as religious piety often is strongest among the least educated, so too is the belief among the least economically knowledgeable that it is normal and right for the 1% to have life handed to them, while the 99% must strive and suffer for their meager reward. Thus, the populace accepts the austerity that punishes them for the sin of not being wealthy, and rejects the facts of Monetary Sovereignty.

It’s a religious thing – belief triumphs over fact, ignorance over knowledge. Myths can be far more powerful than rationality. That is how your lords rule you.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Congratulations Yahoo Finance on publishing the dopiest poll of the year.

There is ignorant. There is stupid. And then there is Yahoo Finance and Chris Nichols. I didn’t see Part I, but I assume it was as silly as Part II is:

Here’s Your Chance: You Fix the Economy, Part II
By Chris Nichols | The Exchange – Fri, Oct 26, 2012

The best way for the federal government to balance the budget is through a combination of spending cuts and increased taxes, more than half of the voters in an informal Yahoo! Finance poll said Thursday.

With 10,283 total responses to the question, 52% said some combination of those two actions would be preferred to the other choices provided. However, 41% of respondents wanted to only cut spending in order to balance the budget, making for a very strong second-place showing.

With those two options making up 93% of the total vote, you can see quickly how readers feel about raising taxes alone as the preferred course of action. Our poll ran the same day that a group of corporate CEOs called on Congress to implement tax hikes and lower spending to tackle the nation’s budget deficit.

The question was one of seven we asked readers in a bid to get a sense of what they believe the government should do to improve its financial standing.

Notice that the poll directs voters to determine the best way to balance the budget, not the best way to grow the economy.

Now, if you really want to know the best way to grow the economy, the answer definitely is NOT to balance the budget, but rather to grow the deficit. But, by assuming the answer is to balance the budget, Yahoo Finance and Chris Nichols perpetuate the ignorance of the American voters.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), when Americans vote for candidates who promise to reduce the deficit, thereby assuring another recession, these poor, ignorant souls will be hung by their own petards. They either will pay higher taxes (aka eliminating “loopholes” or “broadening the tax base”) or they will receive lower Social Security and Medicare benefits. Talk about pulling the switch on your own electric chair . . .

Anyway, if it weren’t for the fact that my own children and grandchildren will be injured, I might take a perverse delight in seeing the 99% cause their own suffering — especially when these are the folks who get angry at me when I tell them that reducing the dollar supply hurts the economy.

So, Chris Nichols, for your next survey, I suggest this question: What is the best way to effect world starvation: Destroy all the crops or poison all the water?

World starvation is as good a goal as balancing the budget.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–You never will know what you have lost: IV

This is the fourth in a series of posts titled, “You never will know what you have lost” (Part I, Part II and Part III) Each post describes the invisible, but real costs of federal deficit reduction, aka “austerity.”

Since austerity never has benefited any Monetarily Sovereign nation that has tried it – 100% record of abject failure, often culminating in economic disaster – it is amazing that people still believe in it. But that is exactly what our own government is trying, now.

The first of the posts contained these paragraphs:

The list goes on and on: The lame who might have walked. The blind who might have seen. The children who might have given to America. The tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes that might have been foreseen.

The money that investors might have saved. The inventions never invented. The recessions and depressions that might have been avoided. The wars that might have been won or prevented. The life-saving drugs that might have been developed. The people who might not have died too soon. The beauty never created. The ideas lost. The better world that might have been.

You never will know.

Day by day, we die the death of a thousand invisible cuts, at the hands of people who know not what they do. Like doctors who treat anemia by bleeding the patient with leeches, they bleed the economy of its blood, its dollars, in the name of frugality.

And yet again:

The October 20, 2012 issue of NewScientist magazine contained a short article titled, “Hurricane threat deepens.”

The world really is getting stormier. Climate change is making hurricanes more severe, according to a new study of their effects on the US.

Aslak Grinsted of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, analysed storm surges due to hurricanes dating back to 1923, as measured by six US tide gauges. He found a clear upward trend. If it continues, the average number of hurricanes to hit the US each year will almost double by 2100 compared to 1923, and big storms like Hurricane Katrina will become more common.

Extreme weather already costs US insurers huge sums – some $32 billion in 2011.

Much damage can be mitigated and lives saved, if we have accurate prediction of hurricane paths, storm surges, rainfall and wind speeds.

New York Times
U.S. Satellite Plans Falter, Imperiling Data on Storms
By John H. Cushman, Jr.
Published: October 26, 2012

WASHINGTON — The United States is facing a year or more without crucial satellites that provide invaluable data for predicting storm tracks, a result of years of mismanagement, lack of financing and delays in launching replacements, according to several recent official reviews.

The looming gap in satellite coverage, which some experts view as almost certain within the next few years, could result in shaky forecasts about storms like Hurricane Sandy, which is expected to hit the East Coast early next week.

All this week, forecasters have been relying on such satellites for almost all the data needed to narrow down what were at first widely divergent computer models of what Hurricane Sandy would do next: hit the coast, or veer away into the open ocean?

Experiments show that without this kind of satellite data, forecasters would have underestimated by half the huge blizzard that hit Washington in 2010.

“We cannot afford to lose any enhancement that allows us to accurately forecast any weather event coming our way,” said Craig J. Craft, commissioner of emergency management for Nassau County on Long Island, where the great hurricane of 1938 killed hundreds.

On Thursday, Mr. Craft was seeking more precise forecasts for Sandy and gearing up for possible evacuations of hospitals and nursing homes, as were ordered before Tropical Storm Irene last year. “Without accurate forecasts it is hard to know when to pull that trigger,” he said.

Experts have grown increasingly alarmed in the past two years because the existing polar satellites are nearing or beyond their life expectancies, and the launch of the next replacement, known as J.P.S.S.-1, has slipped to 2017, probably too late to avoid a coverage gap of at least a year.

For now, the agency is running on a stopgap bill that allows it to redirect money from other projects to the polar satellites. In approving it, Congress demanded a plan by next week showing how NOAA intended to stay on schedule and within a strict limit — about $900 million a year.

“NOAA does not have a policy to effect consistent and reliable cost estimates,” the Commerce inspector general said. The outside review team said it could not tell “if the current $12.9 billion is high, low, or exactly correct.”

The program’s problems began a decade ago with an effort to merge military and civilian weather satellites into a single project. After its cost doubled and its schedule slipped five years, that project was sundered by the Obama administration.

The false belief the federal government is limited in its ability to spend dollars, once again will cause property damage and loss of life. That is an absolute certainty.

How much more property will be damaged? How many more lives will be lost? You never will know. Meanwhile, the Republicans and Democrats debate, not about whether we should undergo austerity, nor even how severe a misguided austerity should be, but rather what form of austerity we should face — tax increases or spending cuts.

Austerity is a foregone conclusion, never debated. What kind, is the only question. There are harsh penalties for economic ignorance. How harsh? How many lost lives? How much property unnecessarily damaged?

You never will know.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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