Tag: cut taxes

–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

–Read this declaration and see how it applies to today’s government by the rich.

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.

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

Today, our United States has a government ruled by the rich.

The U.S. Supreme Court has made legal, the unlimited bribery of the President and Congress, by pretending that bribery is nothing more than “free speech,” a unique description, never contemplated in our history.

Thus, our puppet politicians, dependent on bribery to attain power and greedy for bribery to become rich, do exactly as the rich tell them.

In that sense, they are no different from the puppet masters sent to our colonies by King George, and just as cruel and greedy.

I suggest, therefore, that you do something you have not done for many years: Read again the Declaration of Independence. (below)

Don’t skim it. Read it closely, and while you read it, visualize how each line applies to today’s political climate — the politicians, judges and bankers who rule us. You will be astounded at the similarities.

The Declaration of Independence:
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Here, the fundamental purpose of government is detailed: To help us achieve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Think now about what our government is doing, can do and should do, to achieve these three ends.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

People tend to suffer bad governments until the situation becomes unbearable. I submit to you that a government by the rich, for the rich and of the rich is unbearable for the 99% who are not rich.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

For instance, refusing to eliminate the noxious “debt ceiling” laws that have no purpose other than to extort and delay.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

Consider the refusals by Congress, to approve the dozens of each President’s nominees. (Obama’s nominees have been confirmed at a rate similar to those under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — 76.6 percent for Obama compared with 77.9 percent under those two presidents.

But longer wait times have become a serious deterrent. As of Wednesday, 114 executive-branch nominees have been waiting an average of 210 days.)

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

Does the obstruction of the naturalization of foreigners sound familiar?

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

–For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
—For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
–For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
–For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

Aside from some local tax issues, have you ever “consented” to a new tax? Surely not a federal tax. And this is especially galling, because though local taxes fund local sending, federal taxes do not fund federal spending.

–For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
–For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
–For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
–For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
–For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

FEMA essentially has abdicated its duty to protect our people against the ravages of natural disaster. Ask the survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy how well FEMA has protected them.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.

We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

No, we do not suggest a war against the federal government or any other kind of physical war. That would be self-destructive.

We already are in a civil war: A war between the rich and the rest. And our problem is that most of us don’t even understand such a war is being waged.

Instead, the rich have used the power of their wealth to set person against person — liberal against conservative, religious against atheistic, gay against straight, middle-class against the poor, citizens against immigrants — in a “divide and rule” effort.

And it has worked. They have divided us, and they rule. And we have only ourselves to blame.

Believe it or not, there was a time when politicians respected ideas and those who expressed them, even ideas that differed from their own.

Today, a politician can’t be nominated, much less elected, unless he can prove he hates some group more than his competitor does.

If you don’t hate undocumented immigrants, you can’t be elected to a Republican office. Similarly, if you don’t hate the people who want to criminalize all abortions, you can’t be elected a Democrat.

It is doubtful that the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence agreed on all things. But they came together to fight a greater evil.

The greatest evil facing America is the widening Gap between the rich and the rest, which begets ever greater control of our lives by the rich.

That is our real enemy and that is what we should fight.

Not each other.

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

–What is the fundamental difference between Greece and the U.S.? What is our excuse?

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.

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

What is the fundamental difference between Greece and the U.S.?

First a bit of background. Federal deficit spending creates dollars by adding them to the economy. A federal surplus destroys dollars by taking them from the economy.

It’s that simple.

Syriza Commits to Deep Austerity in Its Proposal to Creditors
Posted on June 7, 2015 by Yves Smith

We’ve been telling readers, to sometime hostile responses, that Syriza has in fact already agreed to a continuation of austerity.

“Austerity” is another word for deficit reduction, i.e. removing money (in Greece’s case, euros) from Greece’s economy.

(Finance minister) Varoufakis (is committed) to continued austerity even as he tries to present it as the reverse.

“What are we talking about? Of an independent tax agency, of keeping forever a reasonable primary surplus, of a sensible and ambitious privatization program… of a true reform of the pension system …of liberalizations of markets for goods and services etc,” he wrote.

Translation: A “reasonable” primary surplus occurs only when taxes exceed government spending.

Ask yourself this: If I give the government more in taxes than what the government gives me, will my wealth increase or decrease? Will I be able to spend more or spend less?

Will businesses, which rely on my spending, have more or less income and be more or less profitable? And will this grow the economy or shrink it?

In short, for any nation, there is no “reasonable” primary surplus.

Now as we’ve stressed, any primary surplus is contractionary, and will be particularly damaging in an economy already in depression like Greece’s.

The leaked creditor proposal offers a (surplus) target of 1% (of GDP) in 2015, 2% in 2016, 3% in 2017 and 3.5% in 2018 and beyond and asks that Greece introduce a supplementary budget for 2015 to meet the new target.

Translation: The criminal banks want to extract as much money from Greece as possible, as soon as possible. The reason: They know Greece is insolvent and will not, for long, be able to pay its suppliers of goods and services.

So the banks scramble to suck up the remaining euros, before other creditors get them, while pretending the rape of Greece is prudent economics.

The current Greek VAT system includes 3 rates (6.5%, 13%, 23%). Creditors ask to move to a 2-rates system, with the two rates being 23% and 11%.

VAT is a sales tax system, that like all sales taxes, is regressive. It punishes most the middle and lower income groups — the people who spend the greatest percentage of their incomes on goods and services.

The rich, who invest most of their income, are mostly immune to VAT. And that is the whole point. The euro system was sold as a way to improve trade efficiencies and thus, to benefit workers and small businesses.

It was a clever lie, aka “the Big Lie.”

The purpose of the euro system is to empower the rich (1%) and to enslave the middle and the poor (99%). And that is exactly what austerity mathematically must do.

By draining the blood from an economy, the rich act as the leeches, forcing the 99% to be the blood donors.

Pension reform: The creditors ask for “further immediate steps to improve the pension system, that are expected to yield around 1 percent of GDP in savings annually in 2016-17, including significantly tightening early retirements rule, increasing health contribution for pensioners, and phasing out the non-pension solidarity grant”.

Translation: The words “reform” and “improve” are euphemisms for “cut.” The rich want to cut the pensions on which the 99% survive.

The rich also want to force the 99% to work longer (“tighten early retirements”), pay more for health care insurance and eliminate government contributions to their version of Social Security.

All this so the bankers can be paid, and the Gap between the rich and the rest can grow.

And lest you believe this is a problem solely affecting the Greek people:

Obama is on track to leave a budget surplus

Bill Clinton left the presidency with a budget surplus. And although the first five years of Barack Obama’s presidency have featured high (but falling) deficits, it’s starting to look like Obama could do the same.

Obama leaving office with a balanced budget would come as a big shock to those who have compared the U.S. to crisis-stricken countries like Greece, or claimed that Obama is spending like a drunken sailor.

But that is exactly what the U.S. is on trend to do.

What does the following graph tell you about when recessions occur?

monetary sovereignty

Recessions never seem to occur when the federal deficit — the measure of federal government money being added to the economy — is above 3% of Gross Domestic Product. The strong tendency is for recessions to occur after the federal deficit falls below 3% of GDP.

And where is the line now?

Although President Clinton loves to boast about the surpluses his administration ran, the fact is that those surpluses of the late 1990s led to the recession of 2001.

There was no reason for surpluses. Inflation was low and bore no relationship to federal deficit spending:
monetary sovereignty

The surpluses were created at the behest of the rich.

The title question asks: What is the fundamental difference between Greece and the U.S.?

Greece, being monetarily non-sovereign, has no sovereign currency. It does not have the unlimited ability to create its own currency. It uses the euro, over which it has no control.

It neither can prevent nor cure recessions and depressions. It floats helplessly in a boat steered by its banker creditors, the “Troika” — the International Monetary Fund (IMF) the European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB).

The Greek people are suffering victims of the banks.

By contrast, the U.S. is Monetarily Sovereign. It originally created, and has total control over, its sovereign currency, the dollar. It can create as much as it needs, merely by pressing a computer key.

The U.S. never can be unable to pay its debts.

Why then does the U.S. use the same austerity — the same deficit cutting — as Greece? Because just as the rich control the Greek economy, so too do the rich control the U.S. economy, specifically by controlling the President and Congress.

This control is in the form of campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later. In short, our government is bribed to do as the rich wish, courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The American rich want to cut pensions (including Social Security), cut Medicare, cut aids to the impoverished, cut aids to education, and make the 99% pay more for services — the same as what the European rich are doing to Greece.

It is the rich who bless American gun ownership, then look on, mouthing “tsk tak” while the 99% kill one another.

The rich are the same the world over. Their greed knows no bounds. No amount of money, wealth and power satisfies them. The distance between the rich and the rest never is great enough, despite how much the Gap has grown.

monetary sovereignty

Dictators assemble armies to beset their own countrymen; the rich assemble followers to beset the 99% who object to economic abuse.

These followers have been trained to sneer at “libs” who demand government services, and taught to claim falsely that federal spending causes inflations, sloth and dependence.

Like pet parrots, they speak the words given them by the rich, not understanding it is they, the followers, whom the rich despise for their ignorance and subservience.

The Greeks have fallen into the economic maelstrom called, “the euro.” They cannot help but be sucked down, down, down, with no depth of poverty sufficient to satisfy the rich.

But here in America what is our excuse?

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