Tag: cut spending

–Crime rewarded is crime unlimited. The banks and bankers in America.

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

Mitchell’s laws:
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
●Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
●The single most important problem in economics is the gap between rich and poor.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap.

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

As you must know by now, the major banks are the biggest criminals in America. Given the unlimited, unpunished, infinite opportunity to plunder, they have plundered — and continue to plunder — billions from the American public.

The major banks caused the Great Recession. They bought and sold worthless mortgages to the suckers who actually believed the banks were reputable and wouldn’t lie.

The suckers lost billions and the banksters made billions. All is well in Greedland.

Later, told to help struggling, underwater mortgagees via the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), the banks stalled and stalled and forced people to jump through hoops, until the people couldn’t hold out any longer, and lost their homes to the rich manipulators.

For committing forgery, for lying to Congress, for stealing and for numerous other frauds, the banks paid “slap-on-the-wrist” fines totaling mere millions out of their billions in ill-gotten gains (aka “the cost of doing business”).

Steal a dollar; pay a penny; then complain about it.

Further, the banks were excused from criminal prosecution, while their executives were not personally liable at all. No fines or jail time for them.

In fact, they used the Federal dollars generously bestowed upon them, by the Obama/Paulson/Geithner sycophants-to-the rich, to grant themselves obscene paychecks and bonuses.

(Few Americans seemed to mind this charity for wealthy criminals. Rather, their desire has been to prevent unemployment benefits and food stamps from going to the poor souls desperate to support their families.)

If you are given a parking ticket, you will pay more than Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan paid for grabbing hundreds of millions.

You might feel the heat and go to jail. The only heat Dimon feels is in a plush Caribbean resort, after a quick jaunt in his private plane. .

So runs rich-man’s justice in America, courtesy of Mr. “Everyman,” who has been brainwashed into believing the rich deserve their wealth, power, privilege and legal immunities, while the poor deserve their poverty.

At this point of the story, you reasonably might believe President Obama was the primary suck-up to the wealthy. After all, Obama is the fake “liberal” who pushed for his “Grand Bargain,” to cut deficits by reducing corporate taxes while increasing taxes on the 99% and cutting Social Security benefits.

And this pretend liberal, in cahoots with the Republican Party, desperately tried to rush through his Trans-Pacific Partnership without Congressional review. “Damn the details; full speed ahead.”

But all that is mere diversion. The truly rich are well aware of which side their gluttony is buttered on.

March 27, 2015, 10:09 am
Wall Street banks mull freezing Dem donations over Warren

Four major banks are threatening to withhold campaign donations to Senate Democrats in anger over Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) attacks on Wall Street.

Representatives from financial powerhouses Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America recently met in Washington and discussed the growing hostility towards big business within the Democratic ranks, according to a Reuters report Friday.

Bank officials cited Warren and Senate Banking Committee ranking member Sherrod Brown (Ohio) as the two main lawmakers leading the charge against them. But the banks have not agreed on how to respond together, with each firm making its own decision on donations, Reuters reported.

The so called “attack” is Warren’s demand that the banks operate in a safe and honest way. To the banks, this is heresy.

“Safe and honest? How do you expect us to receive our $100 million bonuses if we act safely and honestly?”

Citigroup representatives said their firm is already withholding donations to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) to avoid boosting Warren and other progressives critical of Wall Street.

JPMorgan, meanwhile, has so far given Democrats only a third of its annual contribution. Sources there said company representatives have urged Democrats to soften their attacks on the financial sector.

Here are a few details of Senator Warren’s awful “attacks” that have the banksters running scared:

Elizabeth Warren Calls for Breaking Up the Banks

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called Wednesday for breaking up big banks through structural reforms that would bring a decisive end to “too big to fail.”

Warren told a Levy Economics Institute conference she has worked with other lawmakers to advance a bill that would build a wall between commercial banking and investment banking.

Right. The Great Recession was caused by greedy banksters using their vast monetary resources to gamble in the markets and to sell worthless securities. Had they merely functioned as banks, the Recession would not have happened.

“If banks want to access government-provided deposit insurance, they should be limited to boring banking,” she said. “If banks want to engage in high-risk trading, they can go for it, but they don’t get access to insured deposits.”

Warren is one of those “libs” who (shame on her) actually cares about the 99%, and is willing to stick her thumbs in the eyes of the rich and powerful Jamie Dimons of the world.

She is unlike the self-proclaimed “family values,” self-proclaimed “religious,” self-proclaimed “patriotic,” but actually anti-poor, anti-middle, anti-black and brown, anti-gay, Tea/Libertarian/Republicans, who do the bidding of the rich like starving dogs on short leashes.

“Sit. Stay. Do as you’re told boy, and you get fed,” the rich tell these corrupted politicians. And they obey, voting as a group to help the banksters get richer and richer, at your expense.

Sadly, Warren doesn’t go far enough. There is not a single public purpose served by banks being privately owned, greed machines.

Private ownership of banks, and the resultant profit motive, with no possibility of punishment, is an open invitation to all the liars, crooks and swindlers in America to come together and feast on our money.

Crime rewarded is crime unlimited.

Step #9 of the Ten Steps to Prosperity calls for “Federal ownership of all banks.” It is discussed at
The end of private banking: Why the federal government should own all banks. and at The end of private banking. Part II

I truly am sorry Elizabeth Warren won’t run against those abysmal, lap-dog-to-the-rich candidates the Republicans have put forth.

But, what what about Bernie Sanders?

Not perfect, by any means, but surely better for the American middle class and poor, than yet another “Vote Bush For The 1%”.

We’ve been Bushed way too much, already. Crime rewarded is crime unlimited.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

==========================================================================================================================================================================
The Ten Steps to Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded free Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Federally funded, free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually. (Refer to this.)
8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all their forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

Initiating The Ten Steps sequentially will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.-

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

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.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Long term view:
Monetary Sovereignty

Recent view:
Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

–The two most misused, misleading, mistaken words in all of economics: “Taxpayer dollars”

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

Mitchell’s laws:
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
●Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
●The single most important problem in economics is the gap between rich and poor.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap.

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

Regular readers of this blog have seen these two words — “taxpayer dollars” — discussed often, but in today’s blog, we would like to give you three specific examples of how the words are misused, misleading and mistaken.

Example I:

CNS News
Top 20 Worst Ways the Government Wasted Your Tax Dollars
By Curtis Kalin

Every year, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn and his staff compile an exhaustive volume of wasteful government spending from that year. The 2014 tome is chock full of government waste ranging from the redundant to the downright absurd.

Oh, and by the way, the U.S. national debt is approaching $18 trillion.

Here is a list of my personal worst of the worst in federal waste:

Swedish massages for rabbits: $387,000
Teaching Mountain Lions to Ride a Treadmill: $856,000
Studying the gambling habits of monkeys: $171,000
Producing the children’s musical: Zombie in Love: $10,000
Funding a “Stoner Symphony”: $15,000
Subsidizing Alpaca Poop: $50,000
Synchronized Swimming for Sea Monkeys: $307,524
Produce a “Hallucinatory” Roosevelt/Elvis show: $10,000
Funding Climate Change Alarmist Video Game: $5.2 million
Teaching Kids to Laugh: $47,000
Developing a real-life Iron Man Suit: $80 million
Tweeting at Terrorists: $3 million
Predicting the End of Humanity: $30,000
Lost electronic devices from NASA: $1.1 million
Studying if Wikipedia is Sexist: $202,000
Asking heavy drinkers not to drink through text message: $194,090
Government Funded Ice Cream: $1.2 million
Funding Kids Dressing Like Fruits and Vegetables: $5 million
Help Parents Counter Kids’ Refusals to Eat Fruits and Veggies: $804,254

Here, Mr. Kalin demonstrates his abysmal ignorance of the military, economics, sociology, climatology and all science.

He has no understanding of the fact that pure research invariably sounds useless at first. That is what makes it “pure research” rather than “development.” If you go to the above link, you may see small hints about why each of those studies was done.

(If you don’t, ask me and I’ll explain it.)

Kalin has no understanding of the fact that federal deficit spending adds dollars to the economy. The approximately $100 million of federal deficit spending he lists and mocks, added $100 million to the economy. Those dollars are peanuts in the world of federal financing, but they did, to that tiny degree, stimulate the economy.

Most importantly, he has no understanding that the federal government does not spend tax dollars. Being Monetarily Sovereign, the federal government creates dollars ad hoc, simply by paying bills.

Federal spending creates dollars and federal taxing destroys dollars, and that is a primary way the federal government manages the dollar supply.

Even if all federal tax collections fell to $0, the federal government could continue spending, forever.

The author is correct, when he says that his examples are the “worst of the worst.” They represent the worst of the worst — in economics reporting.

Example II:

drugpolicy.org
Wasted Tax Dollars

Over the past four decades, federal and state governments have poured over $1 trillion into drug war spending and relied on taxpayers to foot the bill. Unfortunately, these tax dollars have gone to waste.

While the author is correct that the so called “war on drugs” is a waste, from the federal standpoint, it is a waste of time, effort and lives, but not a waste of federal taxpayer dollars (for the reasons explained in example I, above).

Here, the authors display an abysmal ignorance of the differences between Monetary Sovereignty (federal government) and monetary non-sovereignty (state and local governments), for indeed, the drug war is a waste of state and local taxpayer dollars.

State and local governments, being monetarily non-sovereign, do not have the unlimited ability to create dollars. You and I and businesses and state and local governments, — we all are monetarily non-sovereign entities. We must have income, in order to pay our bills.

For state and local governments, that income is taxes, without which they would be broke.

So yes, the drug war is a waste of state and local taxpayers’ dollars, but not a waste of federal taxpayers’ dollars.

Example III:

ILLINOIS STATE GOVERNMENT WASTES HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS
Benjamin VanMetre

Nearly 200 examples of wasteful government spending in Illinois, totaling more than $354 million, is detailed in the “The 2012 Illinois Piglet Book,” a report compiled by the Illinois Policy Institute in a partnership with Washington, D.C.-based Citizens Against Government Waste.

Each item highlights the decisions of politicians who have lost sight of the core services they were put in place to provide.

Piglet 2012 reveals that state and local governments paid for everything from $9,941 for “Speedy-the-Turtle” bobbleheads to $200,000 customized eco-friendly zip lines to a $2,261,009 cable TV bill for prison inmates to get their weekly fill of Seacrest and Snooki.

Here, the author is correct. Illinois’ wasteful spending does indeed waste taxpayer dollars.

The sole problem is that he quotes from a compilation done in partnership with Citizens Against Government Waste, which focuses on federal spending. And from the standpoint of the economy, no federal spending is waste.

Yes, some federal spending is more economically valuable than other federal spending, but it all grows the economy, and no taxpayer dollars are used.

The Treasurer of the United States could go up in the proverbial helicopter and drop billions of dollar bills on the populace, and that would not be waste and it would not be taxpayer dollars.

It would stimulate the economy by putting dollars for spending into the pockets of Americans, and wouldn’t cost taxpayers one cent.

So the next time you see or hear the words “taxpayer dollars,” ask yourself, “Does this article refer to federal spending, in which case it’s not taxpayer dollars, or does it refer to state and local government spending, in which case it is taxpayer dollars.

Simple, isn’t it?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
The Ten Steps to Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded free Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Federally funded, free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually. (Refer to this.)
8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all their forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

Initiating The Ten Steps sequentially will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
============================================================================================================================================================================================================

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

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.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Long term view:
Monetary Sovereignty

Recent view:
Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

Talking to a wall: Trying to tell Americans how the rich ruin your lives.

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

Mitchell’s laws:
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
●Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
●The single most important problem in economics is the gap between rich and poor.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap.

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

Reader Ian Winograd, quoting from and article at cnbc.com, wrote:

Here is an interesting one:

“The decision by Texas to reject expansion of Medicaid, the government health-coverage program for the poor, will prevent the state from receiving an estimated $100 billion in federal cash over a decade, at the same time its hospitals are eating $5.5 billion in annual costs for treating uninsured people.”

The article is from May 29, but you have been highlighting this for a while now. What is the catch? Texas has to pay no more than 10% of the costs after three years. How does Texas keep reelecting Perry?

We are in a rich man’s world, where political considerations so dramatically trump the wellbeing of our people, that any consideration of human benefit not only is ignored, but derided (i.e. a “bleeding heart liberal”).

In the previous post, we read in the Constitution that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” to secure the “unalienable Rights (including) Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Clearly, the politicians of Texas (and the other states refusing to expand Medicaid) have refused to secure these rights for their citizens, and are far more interested in proving how much they hate Barack Obama.

Today, hating the President, not benefiting the constituency, might seem to be the litmus test for being considered a “serious Republican.”

In actuality, the real litmus test is the degree to which one sucks up to the rich, for the real constituency is the money the rich provide, courtesy of the Supreme Court.

There is no right or wrong. There only is “How much?” And this belief extends from the President, through Congress, into the entire judiciary.

As we repeatedly have stated, the rich own the executive, legislative and judiciary branches (via campaign contributions, free gifts and promises of lucrative employment), the media (via ownership) and the university economists (via gifts to universities).

And lest you believe the Supreme Court justices are immune to the lure of bribery, consider this:

Supremely Unseemly Conduct by Supreme Court Justices Spurs Call for Mandatory Ethics Rules
Submitted by Lisa Graves on January 9, 2012

Madison, WI, January 9, 2012—The Center for Media and Democracy today joined a coalition of public interest organizations in calling for the United States Supreme Court to agree to follow the Code of Conduct for U.S. judges.

Specifically, Canon 2 of the Code of Conduct mandates that “A judge should not allow family, social, political, financial, or other relationships to influence judicial conduct or judgment. A judge should neither lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others nor convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge.”</strong>

Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas have attended exclusive events at private resorts orchestrated by the billionaire oil barons Charles and David Koch, which the brothers use to advance their partisan political agenda.

Justice Thomas has also accepted gifts of travel on the private jets of billionaire Harlan Crow, and he has not been fully forthcoming about the income and political activities of his wife, Ginny Thomas, who launched a group, Liberty Central, to take advantage of the Supreme Court’s controversial ruling in the case that struck down election rules, “Citizens United,” before the decision in the case was even issued publicly in 2010.

And Justice Samuel Alito has headlined fundraising events for right-wing organizations, such as the American Spectator magazine.

One would think this would be a no-brainer. Why would the Supreme Court justices not want to have the same Code of Contact as the other judges??

Apparently, greed knows now boundaries, even the walls of the Supreme Court. Now, years after the above article:

Bill would create ethics code for Supreme Court justices

“The questionable activities of some of our Supreme Court justices have been well documented — participating in political functions, failing to report family income from political groups, and attending fundraisers,” Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said in a press release. “It doesn’t make sense that members of the highest court in the land are the only federal judges exempt from the code of conduct.”

Absolutely.

And the list of Supreme Court justice malfeasances goes on and on.

Supreme Court Justices Accept Substantial Gifts

Justice Thomas has received by far the most gifts, including a $1200 set of tires, a $15,000 bust of President Lincoln, and $19,000 Bible given to him by a major funder of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Stevens and Kennedy received honorary memberships in the Washington Golf and Country Club, which they valued last year at $4,000.

Justice Ginsberg received $100,000 from a charitable foundation which she distributed to various law schools, women’s organizations and theatrical companies.

Justice Scalia enjoyed a free ride on Air Force II while a case involving Vice-President Cheney was pending before the Court.

But here is the “defense” for our Supreme Court justices being able to gobble at the bribery trough.

Professor John Yoo, a former Thomas clerk, defends the gift taking. “I don’t see why it is inappropriate to get gifts from friends,” said Yoo. “This reflects a bizarre effort to over-ethicize everyday life. If one of these people were to appear before the Supreme Court, Justice Thomas would recuse himself. So I don’t see the problem.”

Professor Yoo doesn’t see a problem — and that is the problem.

To him, there is no problem with accepting many thousands of dollars worth of gifts from “friends,” who just happen to want something. (When was the last time you gave a friend a gift worth $19,000?)

And to him, there is no problem with a Supreme Court judge “lending the prestige of the judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others nor convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge.”

(And, of course, he’s dead wrong about the Thomas’s willingness to recuse, but that’s just a detail.)

So if you still wonder why the Supreme Court decided that money is the same as free speech and that corporations are people whose religious beliefs are more important that their employee’s religious beliefs, wonder no more.

Similarly, if you wonder why the politicians of the State of Texas voted intentionally to deprive their state of $100 billion, wonder that no more, either. They were told how to vote by the rich.

I don’t know how long it will take for the American people, especially you who vote for the party of the rich, to understand one simple fact:

The rich want to widen the Gap. Whether this means gathering more for themselves or allowing less for you is immaterial, so long as the Gap is widened.

They could not care less, whether you people of Texas, or any state suffer. In fact, they welcome your suffering as part of their Gap-widening goal. The more you suffer, the wider the Gap.

Yes, yes, I know. This is like talking to a wall.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
The Ten Steps to Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Federally funded, free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually. (Refer to this.)
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

Initiating The Ten Steps sequentially will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

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.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Long term view:
Monetary Sovereignty

Recent view:
Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

–On being thrown off the cliff: Where is the George Washington of Greece?

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

Mitchell’s laws:
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
●Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
●The single most important problem in economics is the gap between rich and poor.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap.

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

In the previous post, we showed how federal deficit cutting (austerity) and the misguided attempt to create a government surplus, harms the middle and lower income groups (the “99%”) by draining dollars from the economy.

We described how deficit cutting has been sold to the 99% as “prudent” economics, while in reality, it is a plan to widen the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

Not well understood is that the widening of the Gap is a self-perpetuating process that once begun, can continue and accelerate of its own momentum.

It’s much like being thrown from a cliff.

G-7 Throws Greece Under the Bus
Posted on June 8, 2015 by Yves Smith

Statements coming out of (the G-7) signal that the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Japan, Italy and the U.K are backing the creditor position.

The Obama administration had changed its position in February from pushing the lenders to come up with more pro-growth policies (meaning give relief to Greece) to stressing that Greece needed to “find a constructive path forward in partnership with Europe and the IMF to build on the foundation that exists.”

“There was unanimity of opinion in the room that it was important for Greece and their partners to chart a way forward that builds on crucial structural reforms” and returns to growth, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

This means, continuing the analogy, that Greece, having been thrown from the euro cliff, now must find a way magically to fly back up, with no help.

Greece does not own sufficient euros to pay its bills. Austerity already has ravaged Greece’s economy, so it has no way to generate euros. The G-7 “solution” is more austerity, which will ravage Greece’s economy further in an unending, unstoppable fall.

The G-7, having applied leeches to Greece’s economic bloodstream, and seeing that the leeches caused the inevitable economic anemia, now demand that more leeches be applied.

Poverty begets poverty by making the climb out of poverty increasingly difficult.

Impoverished people suffer from poor primary education. The schools themselves are inferior.

Additionally, college may be unaffordable, and even those few colleges that are affordable don’t have the cache to provide entry to the best jobs.

Even less understood are the austerity effects on the people themselves. Poverty begets more poverty by changing the impoverished, in body and mind.

Less nutritious food, leading to physical exhaustion, inhibit work, study and thought. Job seeking and job keeping become less successful.

But there is even more:

Look What Austerity Does to a Child’s Brain
Posted on Jun 7, 2015

The stressful conditions of poverty—“overcrowding, noise, substandard housing, separation from parent(s), exposure to violence, family turmoil”—can have toxic effects on the developing brain, permanently diminishing the ability to think clearly and calmly.

Profiling the work of Pat Levitt, a developmental neuroscientist who serves as science director of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, Madeline Ostrander writes at The New Yorker:

These conditions provoke the body to release hormones such as cortisol, which is produced in the adrenal cortex.

In a pregnant woman, the hormone can “get through the placenta into the fetus,” Levitt told me, potentially influencing her baby’s brain and tampering with its circuitry.

Later, as the same child grows up, cortisol from his own body may continue to sabotage the development of his brain.

The negative effect of poverty on the human brain has been documented.

In March, in the journal Nature Neuroscience, a group of researchers from nine hospitals and universities published a major study of more than a thousand children.

They took DNA samples, made MRI scans of the children’s brains, collected data on their families’ income level and educational background, and gave them a series of tests for skills like reading and memory.

The DNA samples allowed the scientists to factor out the influence of genetic heritage and look more closely at how socioeconomic status affects a growing brain.

As might be expected, more educated families produced children with greater brain surface area and a more voluminous hippocampus.

But income had its own distinct effect: living in the lowest bracket left children with up to six per cent less brain surface area than children from high-income families.

Wealth can’t necessarily buy a better brain, but deprivation can result in a weakened one.

In a longer-term study published two years ago, neuroscientists at four universities scanned the brains of a group of twenty-four-year-olds and found that, in those who had lived in poverty at age nine, the brain’s centers of negative emotion were more frequently buzzing with activity, whereas the areas that could rein in such emotions were quieter.

Elsewhere, stress in childhood has been shown to make people prone to depression, heart disease, and addiction in adulthood.

The above findings are expanded upon in the June 4, 2105 article, What Poverty Does to the Young Brain by Madeline Ostrander.

Bottom line: Greece’s austerity-riven economy is in a depression. The nation, deeply in debt, has insufficient sources of euros ever to pay that debt.

But the “troika” — European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission (EC), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – knowing Greece never will repay, still insists Greece apply more of the same austerity that pushed Greece into depression.

The troika’s fear is that Greece will awaken, leave the euro, become Monetarily Sovereign by re-installing the drachma, and reclaim its sovereignty. That would put an end to the troika’s free lunch at Greece’s expense.

The myth, that Monetary Sovereignty would drive Greeks into a greater hardship than they already suffer, is ridiculous on its face (greater hardship than the current depression??)

The myth is promulgated by the banks, to dissuade Greece from freeing itself from their greedy clutches.

The troika’s even larger fear is that other euro nations, seeing Greece’s escape and resultant success, would themselves leave the euro, and then, for the rich banks, the feeding frenzy would be over.

Already impoverished, the Greek people face an increasingly difficult road, making emergence from debt ever more unlikely. The difficulties not only are financial, but physical and mental.

Ultimately, if the troika has its way, the Greek people would be turned into idiot slaves of the rich, desperate and with no hope or facilities for recovery, thankful for the crumbs the rich allow them.

Greece can put a stop to the torture of its people, simply by refusing to pay any more tribute to the troika.

This would require political courage, but just as George Washington led the United States to freedom from tyranny, the leader who leads Greece from troika tyranny, forever will be remembered as the “George Washington of Greece.”

Let us pray that, like George Washington, such a leader somehow emerges.

And let us pray that another George Washington arrives to save us from our own greedy and pusillanimous leaders, before we too are swallowed by the current austerity and the rich.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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The Ten Steps to Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Federally funded, free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually. (Refer to this.)
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

Initiating The Ten Steps sequentially will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
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10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

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.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Long term view:
Monetary Sovereignty

Recent view:
Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY