Tag: cut taxes

–They don’t have to satisfy investors and creditors. They only have to satisfy passengers. So why not?

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.
●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.
==================================================================================================================================================================

Of late, it has become oh-so-chic to adopt the Tea Party/Libertarian/Republican doctrine that the federal government should be reduced, because it is a corrupt, bloated “leviathan,” while state and local governments are honest, trim servants for the public good.

And don’t even ask the right wing about business, which supposedly is the ultimate of angelic integrity, and lives only to minister to the needs of Everyman.

The trendy effort is to cut federal spending, assign some of its obligations to states (which being monetarily non-sovereign are ill-equipped to handle them), and mostly leave everything to the private sector.

After all, as the right-wing will tell you, government doesn’t produce anything — except for building roads and bridges, paying for the army, inspecting our food and drugs, paying for our courts, supporting grants for Research & Development and providing the myriad other services we take for granted in the good old U.S. of A. The private sector is better at everything — so they say.

In some areas, the states, counties and cities may be more responsive than the federal government, to the public need, because they are “closer” to the citizenry. And the competitive profit motive of the private sector often results in improved product, service and price (if one closes one’s eyes to the ethical violations of the profit motive).

But the federal government has one gigantic advantage over local governments and businesses. The federal government never can run short of dollars. So it has the ability to provide benefits that would be unaffordable for a local government or unprofitable for a business.

I was reminded of this when I read an editorial in today’s Chicago Tribune, excerpts of which follow:

CEOs of America’s three largest airlines say their valuable international business is under attack by three Middle Eastern carriers benefiting from billions of dollars in unfair subsidies from their governments.

The three airlines are American, United and Delta. Have you flown them recently?

I’ve been flying for 50 years. I remember when a flight was a pleasant adventure. The seats were large and plush. The meals, very good, if not excellent. The stewardesses (they all were stewardesses, then) cheerful and helpful.

And we all dressed nicely and acted nicely, because the ambiance demanded it. When you’re in a beautiful, friendly environment, you act and dress for it. It might amaze you young ‘uns, but people actually looked forward to airline travel.

Those were the days of price regulation, which made profits with service possible.

In today’s U.S. airlines, the seats are crammed together, the meals either crummy or non-existent, the service rushed and rude, and the passengers play their slob role, appropriate under the circumstances.

You may find yourself squeezed between two, huge, fat, hairy guys wearing tank tops and no deodorant, who overlap their seats and much of yours.

When you’re in a slum, you respond to your environment. You look, act and dress slummy.

The way United, American and Delta calculate it, the three Persian Gulf states’ airlines (Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways and Emirates) have received $42 billion in subsidies and other benefits from their governments since 2004.

It’s enough money to upend reality in an industry that often struggles financially. And it’s been done, the U.S. carriers contend, in violation of international trade rules.

I’ve not flown Qatar and Etihad, but I have flown Emirates, and the only word I can use to describe the experience is: “Aahhhhhhhhh. What a beautiful ride.”

Airlines, like other global businesses subject to trade pacts, are supposed to compete fairly by standing on their own two feet and attracting enough customers to make a profit, or at least pacify investors and creditors.

But when Smisek and his colleagues look at Qatar, Etihad and Emirates, they see something else. “They’re not actually airlines — they’re an arm of government policy,” United’s CEO Jeff Smisek said.

So there it is as clear as a desert sky. Qatar’s, Etihad’s and Emirates’s flights provide service to passengers that is superior to United’s, American’s and Delta’s, because they are in whole or in part, supported by their government.

They don’t have to satisfy investors and creditors. They have only to satisfy passengers.

Now I ask you: What is wrong with that? What is wrong with a business whose sole goal is to give its customers the best possible experience at a reasonable price? Isn’t that what capitalism and competition are supposed to accomplish?

It’s a lot easier to offer Champagne and caviar on beautiful new planes when you get billions in government subsidies every year.

This is the picture of government meddling that (the U.S. airline CEOs) shared with us.

Oh, that nasty government “meddling,” which allows the general public to know the same kinds of flight experiences that rich people enjoy all the time. Outrageous, isn’t it?

The American CEOs think the only way for Qatar, Etihad and Emirates to grow (so fast) is to not worry about making profits — because their governments are giving them illicit subsidies.

The U.S. carriers want the U.S. government to meet with Qatar and the UAE to negotiate a resolution, and in the meantime impose a freeze on the Mideast carriers’ new routes and flights until this complaint is resolved.

The U.S. airlines haven’t said what kind of relief they want; that would come later, anyway.

Funny, how the solution always seems to punish, rather than reward, the middle-class. Don’t improve service. Instead, freeze the guys who provide the best service. Why? To benefit rich investors and creditors. To hell with middle-class passengers.

Experience says that price competition in the airline industry, harms the public by devolving to terrible service. The airline industry is in a “Spirit Airlines” race to the bottom.

What next? Standing room only, ala subway cars?

The very rich don’t care. They fly private planes, and they are the shareholders and creditors of those penny-pinching airlines.

Though the Tea Party/Libertarian/Republicans would have you believe that private always is better than government, the fact is that what’s “best” is what’s best for the public. That is the whole purpose of government: To provide what’s best for the public.

The solution:
1. Return to airline fare regulation and
2. Provide federal subsidies to airlines, making it possible to provide top service at low prices.

It won’t cost you taxpayers a dime and you fliers who are not among the rich, will receive much better service.

So why not?

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
Monetary Sovereignty

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 Detroit solution is the answer for all of 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.
●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.
==================================================================================================================================================================

The Detroit we now know, is melting, melting away. There is a solution.

The Continuing Depopulation of Detroit

The latest perversity Detroit officials are inflicting on city residents: the potential eviction of tens of thousands, possibly as many as 100,000 people, all at precisely the same time.

Those (residents who didn’t pay their past due property taxes), the city warned, would lose their homes to tax foreclosure, the process by which a local government repossesses a house because of unpaid property taxes.

Just over 60,000 homes, about half of them occupied, are slated for the auction block.

Mary Crenshaw had come to save her family home in Highland Park, a small city enclosed by Detroit whose once occupied homes sported oak floors and beveled glass windows.

Now, more than half of them are empty, lawns overgrown, windows boarded up, the former homeowners having already ridden earlier foreclosure conveyor belts out of the neighborhood.

This current tax foreclosure crisis comes right on the heels of the city’s last great displacement: the 2008 housing crash, which descended on Detroit like a tidal wave, sweeping nearly a quarter of a million people out of the city and leaving in its wake tens of thousands of vacant properties.

The fact that the city is now threatening to evict a seventh of its remaining inhabitants in a single year, all because of unpaid property taxes, seems like an absurd proposition until you begin to connect the dots: the mass water shutoffs, the shuttering of dozens of public schools, the neglect of fire hydrants in particular neighborhoods, and now this deluge of foreclosures.

For the city’s low-income, black, and elderly residents, Detroit isn’t a city on the rise, but one under siege.

As always, it is the poor and politically weak, on whose backs fall the burdens of recession, local or national or worldwide, while the rich swoop in to gather the belongings left behind.

Like the good Germans who stole the homes of their neighbors (away travelling to Auschwitz), the rich will bid pennies on the dollar for the homes of the Detroit poor and politically weak, sowing great misery and reaping great profit.

There is a solution.

Think of Detroit as an unemployed person. Like all persons, Detroit is what is known as “monetarily non-sovereign.” It owns no sovereign currency.

While it uses the dollar, it cannot create dollars at will (unlike the federal government, which is Monetarily Sovereign and does create dollars at will).

So while the federal government always can avoid running short of dollars (merely by creating more dollars), Detroit can and has run short of dollars.

To survive long–term, you require net income — income at least equaling your spending. Similarly, every business, every city, county and state — all being monetarily non-sovereign — require net income to exceed spending.

No state, county or city can survive on it own internal taxes alone, for that would be like a person surviving by eating his own hand for sustenance. Eventually, one runs short of hands.

What kind of net income? Suburban towns receive income from residents who work outside the town, perhaps in a big city, but spend in the town. This transfers dollars from the big city to the suburb.

Big cities may receive income from their state or from tourism and net exports. States receive income from tourism, net exports and from the federal government. (Most states have a positive cash flow from the federal government.)

Detroit does not receive enough income from tourism, net exports or from the State of Michigan to pay its bills, and presumably, Michigan is unwilling or unable to help Detroit sufficiently.

Consider the cash flows of the thousands of governments, large and small, throughout the U.S. Mathematically, it would be improbable for all to have positive cash flows, so today, as you read this, many monetarily non-sovereign governments struggle with debts they cannot pay.

The long-term survival of every financial entity requires that income at least equal outgo. The federal government uniquely solves this problem by creating dollars ad hoc, when it pays bills, i.e. when it runs deficits.

The U.S. could not financially survive long term unless it ran the deficits that create dollars. And in fact:

U.S. depressions tend to come on the heels of federal surpluses.
1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819.
1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837.
1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857.
1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873.
1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893.
1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929.

And therein lies the weakness of world finance, for relatively few entities are Monetarily Sovereign. The U.S., UK, China, Canada, Australia and various other nations are. But France, Italy, Germany and the other euro nations are not.

They use the euro, over which they are not sovereign. This is the primary reason the euro nations are in financial trouble. They are short of euros.

Returning to the United States, how are our cities, counties and states expected to survive long term? How are they all expected to have positive dollar flows?

There is but one way for U.S. cities, counties and states to have positive dollar flows, and that is for the federal government to cut federal taxes and/or to increase federal spending, that is, to run significant deficits.

Federal taxes remove dollars from the cities, counties and states by removing dollars from the citizenry, and federal spending adds dollars.

There is a solution:

Implement Steps #1-#7 and #10 of the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below). It is the answer for Detroit. It is the answer for all of America.

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
Monetary Sovereignty

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

–How stupid do they think we are? Your children’s future with Social Security and Medicare

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.
●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.
==================================================================================================================================================================

How stupid do they think we are? For those of us who are not super-rich, the (the politicians) must think we are very stupid, because they keep telling us the same Big Lie, and we keep falling for it.

Even if you learn nothing more about economics for the rest of your life, learn this seven word secret, and you will know more than 99% of Americans:

Federal taxes do not fund federal spending.

That’s right. Your city taxes fund your city’s spending. Your county taxes fund your county’s spending. Your state taxes fund your state’s spending, but:

Federal taxes do not fund federal spending.

Even were all federal tax collections to drop to $0, the federal government could continue paying all its bills, forever.

The federal government is unique in that it alone is Monetarily Sovereign. It is sovereign over the dollar. It originally created the dollar from thin air, and continues to create dollars from thin air.

Cities, counties, states, businesses, you and I all can run short of dollars. We are monetarily non-sovereign. The federal government never can run short of dollars, if it doesn’t want to.

In fact, it creates dollars, ad hoc, simply by paying its bills.

You now know more than 99% of Americans, and much more than the politicians want you to know.

Why do politicians want to keep this secret? They are bribed by the super-rich, via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later.

And why don’t the super-rich want you to know this secret? Because so long as you believe federal taxes pay for federal spending, the rich can convince you there isn’t enough money to pay for your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and all other benefits the middle- and lower income groups receive.

The super-rich want to widen the Gap between them and you, so they can retain and increase their power over you.

Here is an example of the Big Lie by the bought-and-paid-for politicians.

Christie calls for raising ages for Social Security, Medicare

In major policy speech, Christie calls for ‘honest conversation’ on entitlements
Apr 14, 2015

The New Jersey governor, in a speech at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, called for means testing Social Security, raising the retirement age for Social Security to 69 and gradually raising the eligibility age for Medicare to 67 by the year 2040.

Means testing and raising the retirement and eligibility ages reduce benefits to upper middle, middle and lower-income people, all of whom rely on these benefits.

As for the rich: They don’t care. These benefits mean nothing to them. While, for instance, Social Security benefits might account for 25% of a middle-income person’s livelihood, such benefits may not even account for 1% of a super rich person’s income.

Thus, every single one of Chris Christie’s proposals widens the Gap between the rich and the rest. But, he believes we’re not smart enough to understand this. He expects us to think federal financing is like personal financing, which is what makes us believe the Big Lie.

The Republican likely future presidential candidate said another key part of the sweeping proposal would change the Medicaid system to “per capita” allotments to each state.

Overall, he said, the plan would save the federal government $1 trillion over 10 years.

Christie doesn’t explain two things:

1. The federal government neither needs nor uses “savings.” Being Monetarily Sovereign, it creates all the dollars it needs.

2. Federal deficit spending adds dollars to the economy, and federal surpluses subtract dollars from the economy. When the federal government spends less (i.e. “saves”), the economy receives less — and that leads to recessions. (See “The Recession Clock at the bottom of this page).

Christie said, “Our leaders in Washington are not telling people the truth,” he said. “Washington is still not dealing with the problem. Washington is afraid to have an honest conversation about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid with the people of our country. I am not.”

Tom Rath, a veteran Concord Republican strategist who is uncommitted in the GOP primary, said that while other candidates have been making political announcements in recent days and weeks, Christie’s focus on a specific issue with a specific plan “stands out.”

The Concord Coalition is one of the many mouthpieces for the rich. They are paid by the rich to make the false claim that in some unknown way, the federal government can run short of the dollars it creates as needed. The purpose: To cut your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other benefits.

“When it’s 71 percent of the federal budget, you’d better have some ideas and some answers about it and you can’t be timid about it,” he said. “If this stuff wasn’t true, why would I say it?”

Well, for one thing, you’ve been bribed to say it, Governor Christie, and it’s not like you don’t have a record of lying to the public.

“There’s no political upside to wading into Social Security and Medicare. But you have to do it because if you don’t you’re not going to have the money to spend on national defense. You’re not going to have the money to invest in research and development and you’re not going to have the money to bring tax relief to the American people.

The upside is, the more you lie, the more the rich will pay you. And note the bold-faced lie that the federal government can run short of dollars if it pays Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Christie, who is in a legal battle in his home state over his attempts to cut state funding to public worker pension and health benefits to help balance his state’s budget, touched on that controversy, too. He said his reforms in his home state will “reduce the burden on taxpayers by over $120 billion over 30 years.”

Right. His state, New Jersey, is monetarily non-sovereign. Like all states, it can and has, run short of dollars. Christie wants you to believe the Big Lie that state finances are like federal finances.

The speech on entitlement reform, however, was billed as the centerpiece of his visit.

“In the short term,” he said, the massive cost of entitlements “is growing the deficit and slowly but surely taking over all of government. In the long term, it will steal our children’s future and bankrupt our nation. “

No, what will steal our children’s future is the loss of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other benefits from the federal government. Christie doesn’t want your children and grandchildren collecting benefits.

Christie proposed a “modest means test that only affects those with non-Social Security income of over $80,000 per year, and phases out Social Security payments entirely for those that have $200,000-a-year of other income.”

Translation: He wants to cut Social Security benefits to the people who will need it. The super-rich don’t care. They don’t need Social Security.

In addition to raising the retirement age to 69, he would raise eligibility for early retirement benefits to 64.

It’s bad enough that, uniquely among insurance policies, Social Security benefits are taxed. Now, he wants to raise the retirement age so as to punish even the lowest income groups.

Christie also proposed expanding existing premium means testing for Medicare to ensure, he said, that only those who cannot afford to pay for their own health benefits will receive it.

Christie noted that under current Medicare means testing, there is a sliding scale of costs paid by seniors for part B and part D, from 25 percent for those with incomes above $85,000 to 80 percent for those with incomes of more than $214,000.

He would change the scale to have seniors at the $85,000 level pay 40 percent of premium costs and those with incomes of at least $196,000 pay 90 percent.

Cut, cut, cut. Make life harder for the middle and the aged, so the Gap can be widened.

He also called for raising the eligibility age for Medicare “at a manageable pace” of one month per year, so that by 2040, it would be 67 years old, and by 2064, it would be 69 years old.

This is the “make the middle-class work until they drop” philosophy of the super-rich. Make people poorer and so desperate they will beg the rich for any low-paying job. This is the way the rich re-install slavery in America.

But he would also eliminate the payroll tax for seniors who stay in the workforce over the age of 62.

Each state would receive a “set amount of funds per individual enrollee.”

Translation: He would like to transfer some of the Social Security costs from the federal government — which being Monetarily Sovereign, can afford anything — to the states which are broke.

Christie also addressed the Social Security disability trust fund, which, he said, will run out of money next year without action by congress.

Since the “trust fund” is an accounting fiction, all Congress needs to do is vote to support Social Security disability in perpetuity.

“I believe we should use this moment to reform the system and incentivize getting back to work,” he said.

Ah, there is the cruel myth,“The poor don’t like to work. They are lazy. We need to punish them if they don’t work into old age.”

He said the reforms will allow the federal government to invest in other areas, including defense.

Again, the Big Lie that the federal government is like you and me, and can run short of dollars. It can’t.

Christie’s plan was sharply criticized by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a leading advocacy group for the programs, as another in a “long line of conservative politicians” who want to dismantle the programs.

“The Governor’s plan to means-test Social Security, cutting off some Americans and transitioning the program from an earned benefit to welfare has long been the goal of those who oppose social insurance programs,” the group said in a statement. “It seems the governor acknowledges that his flagging presidential campaign needed a jolt because today’s speech was far more about burnishing Governor Christie’s conservative credentials than offering new proposals that could help America’s workers and retirees.”

Conservatives despise the poor and middle-income groups as being lazy “takers.” What conservatives seldom realize: By punishing the poor and middle, eventually their own children and grandchildren and the nation as a whole, will be punished.

Christie said he will soon unveil a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, which, he said, “does not and cannot work for America.”

“Does not work and cannot work,” except for the additional millions who now have medical insurance.

The right wing has established its lower- and middle-hating credentials. (Remember Bush’s attempt to privatize Social Security?) But lest you believe the right-wing is alone in telling the Big Lie, here is a note recently received from Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin.

The Social Security system is currently generating a surplus in tax revenues and interest income, and is expected to maintain this surplus through 2020.

However, Social Security’s costs will continue to grow in the coming years as millions of baby boomers enter retirement. Expenditures eventually will exceed revenues and interest income.

The long-term funding shortfall is attributed primarily to demographic factors, such as increasing life expectancy, as well as program design features, like annual COLAs and a wage-indexed benefit formula.

While reforms are necessary to ensure the survivial of Social Security, we must pursue sensible changes instead of a risky overhaul of the program.

There is no “long-term funding shortfall.” The federal government cannot have a “shortfall” of dollars.

In summary:
1. The federal government does not use tax dollars to pay for its spending. Even if federal taxes were $0, the government could continue spending, forever. (Tax collections are a relic of gold-standard days, when the government’s dollar-creation was limited.)
2. The super-rich pay the politicians to lie about the need to cut benefits. The purpose is to widen the Gap between the rich and the rest.

Now that you know then facts, contact your Senator and Representative and ask him/her, “How stupid do you think I am?”

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
Monetary Sovereignty

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

–Why compulsory education? Why educate at all? Why not college?

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.
●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.
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Why do we require our children to be educated? Why do we send them off to approximately 12 years of schooling, most of which is paid for by a local government (i.e. by local taxpayers)?

What is the purpose? Why not just have the kids go to work and earn a living rather than spending valuable years in classrooms?

By 1900, 34 states had compulsory schooling laws. 30 states with compulsory schooling laws required attendance until age 14 (or higher). As a result, by 1910, 72 percent of American children attended school.

Even more than 100 years ago, when science and industry were much simpler than today, Americans understood that a successfully competitive nation required educated people.

It was, and remains, to the entire nation’s benefit, that it educate all its youngsters, not just the rich children, but all children.

So, America decided that local taxpayers, not the federal government, would pay for education, up through the 12th grade.

And there it has remained.

As all the sciences have required ever more specialization and education, America still is committed to educating just through 12th grade.

And even as the U.S. federal government has become Monetarily Sovereign, and thus able to pay any bill of any amount, without collecting taxes, still the onus is on the monetarily non-sovereign state and local governments to pay for education.

Why?

Consider the case of monetarily non-sovereign Germany, a nation that like our state and local governments, does not have the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency (it having no sovereign currency, but rather using the euro):

There Is No Such Thing As A Free College Education
By: Christopher Denhart

Following Wednesday’s decision to overturn tuition and fees in Lower Saxony, Germany, all universities will now be tuition free. According to The Times, Germany will now be 100% free of charge to students, national and international, as political figures call tuition fees “socially unjust.”

Of course, college tuition fees are “socially unjust.” Even a fool realizes that charging for education leads to a widening of the Gap between the rich and the rest.

Even a fool realizes that education is as important as medical services, and should not be reserved for those who can afford it.

Of course, not everyone agrees

There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. And there is also No Such Thing As A Free Higher Education. Higher education, especially in science-heavy Germany, is incredibly costly to run and maintain.

In a typical economic model for financing higher education, the consumer (student) would pay for the good that it consumes (education) and the research that researchers do would lead to innovations that have positive economic impact on society, therefore paying for themselves.

We have departed from this free market, “sustainable,” model globally, and rely heavily on federal subsidies to keep universities afloat.

CCAP has argued that these federal monies have largely led to increases in the cost of higher education, which has over time compounded, translating into higher tuition fees.

Remember that Germany is monetarily non-sovereign, just like our state and local governments, so taxpayers do indeed, pay for all government spending. So concern for budgets is understandable.

It is clear in the United States, with annual tuition fees in the $40,000s or $50,000s and millionaire university presidents, that federal subsidies have led to outrageous increases in university spending, as universities, administrators, and faculty enjoy the benefits of captured student loan and grant moneys.

Sooner or later this “free” higher education will feel less and less free as increasing taxes will likely drive the most educated, highest earning, most able Germans away from Germany and into societies where they can take home a greater percentage of their pay.

This will then reduce the tax cache and start to decrease the deficit more than the added tax revenues from a more professional society will add to them.

The author, Christopher Denhart, who though clearly not understanding Monetary Sovereignty, makes this point: In a monetarily non-sovereign community, social services — health care, poverty aids, road building, indeed all government initiatives — are unfair to the taxpayers who don’t use them.

If your city pays for elementary school, the point could be made that such payment is unfair to you, a taxpayer who has no children in elementary school.

Never mind that educating children rewards the nation that educates them. The rewards to any individual city are hard to measure. Sure, good schools increase property values, but by how much? And is a higher property value a benefit if it comes with a higher property tax?

What is the U.S. government’s solution to the unaffordable cost of college? STUDENT LOANS — you know those rare loans that cannot even be discharged in bankruptcy (because that’s not what the big lending banks want).

That is our solution: Put middle- and lower-income families deeply into an unsustainable debt, from which they never can emerge. Conservatives love it.

As the rich folk say, “Let them go to community colleges (paid for by the monetarily non-sovereign states), if that’s all they can afford. Our kids will go to the best universities. That is exactly the way the world should work.”

Activists Stop Paying Their Student Loans
MARCH 31, 2015

Latonya Suggs says she borrowed thousands of dollars in student loans to attend the for-profit Corinthian Colleges but has nothing to show for it. Most employers don’t recognize her criminal justice degree.

Suggs and 106 other borrowers now saddled with Corinthian loan debt say their refusal to repay the loans is a form of political protest. And Tuesday, the U.S. government gave them an audience.

Representatives of the “Corinthian 100” met with officials from the Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Rohit Chopra, the CFPB’s student loan ombudsman, said in a letter to the strikers that the CFPB would like to “discuss further” potential “ways to address the burden of their student loans.”

In September, the CFPB sued Corinthian, accusing it of predatory lending practices. Weeks later, roughly half of its campuses were sold to the Educational Credit Management Corp., a financial company with no prior experience operating colleges.

Finally, in February, the CFPB and the Department of Education announced the forgiveness of $480 million in private student loans held by former Corinthian students.

But those are just the private loans. Borrowers are still on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal student loans — money that the Department of Education expects to be paid back.

That’s true even for students who never earned their degrees, on campuses that are being shut down.

Refusing to pay back a student loan can have serious consequences. Wages and tax refunds can be garnisheed. It can also sink a credit score; limit access to a credit card, auto or home loan; and hurt your chances of getting a job.

Yes, that is our Monetarily Sovereign government’s solution to unaffordable education: Indentured servitude courtesy of rapacious lenders — the student loan scandal.

Or, the federal government simply could pay for a college education, far more easily than state and local governments pay for grades K-12.

Lending money to students and their parents is ridiculous, particularly since the federal government has zero need to receive dollars — its sovereign currency — from anyone. Why send people to loan sharks when dollars are freely available to the federal government?

There is one, and only one, purpose for college student loans — and its not to make college more affordable.

The sole purpose of our student loan program is to benefit rich lenders by enslaving families of modest means — luring them with something they know they need but cannot afford.

In this sense, the federal government is no better than the street corner drug dealer, sucking victims into a life that will lead to their destruction.

The solution: Follow Step #4 in the “Ten Steps to Prosperity,” below.

Do it now!

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
Monetary Sovereignty

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