Tag: cut the budget

“Shell” we return to the cowry?

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.

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

Because the entire Republican platform is shaped by, and skewed for, the rich (the 1%), those middle- and lower-income folk (the “99%”) who vote Tea/Libertarian/Republican are #1 on the “I-know-nothing-about-economics” list in America.

But a close #2 on that list are those people who wish to return to a gold standard. They believe, based on zero evidence, that somehow gold prevents recessions, depressions, inflations, stagflations and even tribulations.

Sadly, gold standards have given the world all of the above-mentioned maladies.

Though gold is pretty in the eyes of some, and has been used as money collateral for centuries, it also is heavy, has little use, varies wildly in price, is expensive to store, ship and insure, and pays no interest or dividend. And no power guarantees its acceptance.

The great majority of “gold bugs” are not exactly disinterested parties. They are people and companies whose income relies on the buying and selling of gold to the suck . . . er, uh . . . investors who believe the “safety” myth of gold vs. the “danger” of so-called “fiat” money, i.e. “paper” money.

Actually, all money is “fiat” in that it is based on some organization’s fiat, and no money is paper. The printed paper only represents ownership of money, just as a printed car title only represents ownership of a car. A dollar bill is just a title to a dollar.

All the above factors lead me to recommend that we return to a cowry standard.

In my opinion, cowries are much more beautiful than gold. They also have a smooth, delightful surface, much more pleasant to handle than gold.

monetary sovereignty
The “Map” Cowry

Per Wikipedia” (Like gold),the shells of cowries (especially Monetaria moneta — the “money” cowry) were used for centuries as a currency in Africa. Huge amounts of Maldivian cowries were introduced into Africa by western nations during the period of slave trade.

The Ghanaian unit of currency known as the Ghanaian cedi was named after cowry shells. Starting over three thousand years ago, cowry shells, or copies of the shells, were used as Chinese currency.

They were also used as means of exchange in India.

The Ojibway aboriginal people in North America use cowry shells, which are called sacred Miigis Shells or whiteshells in Midewiwin ceremonies, and the Whiteshell Provincial Park in Manitoba, Canada is named after this type of shell.

Finding the cowry shells so far inland could indicate the previous use of them by an earlier tribe or group in the area, who may have obtained them through an extensive trade network in the ancient past. Petroforms in the Whiteshell Provincial Park may be as old as 8,000 years.

Cowries have a long and honored history. They have been used for centuries, require shipping and storage, do not pay interest or dividends and essentially are useless — just like gold.

Perfect.

Currently, there are no crooked cowry dealers to sell cowries to unsuspecting rubes, who can be counted upon to believe stories of cowry safety. But dealers will come. Depend on it.

Finally, if you so love the color, you simply cannot bring yourself to divorce from useless gold, may I suggest the equally useless “golden cowrie” (Lyncina aurantium).

monetary sovereignty

The golden cowry gives you the best of both worlds: The color of gold plus the beauty and handling pleasure of a cowry.

If we return to a cowry standard, I will be happy to sell some to you — plus my exorbitant commission, of course.

As with gold, commerce will require that all nations print “cowry bills,” which cowry bugs will denounce as “fiat money,” not understanding what the word “fiat” means. (Some people are impossible to please.)

Anyway, my cowry sales motto: If you like gold, you’ll love the cowry.

And then you may like that bridge in Brooklyn.

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

–Information obsolescence and a revised method for learning the new.

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.

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

The current belief is that the universe is expanding faster and faster, and as its expansion speed increases, it will exceed even the speed of light, so the light from the most distant stars no longer will reach us.

One day, if humans still live, the sky will contain no visible stars at all, and the universe will be lost to us.

Imagine that you teach. If, of what you know today, half will be obsolete tomorrow, and half again the next day, how long will it be before you know nothing, and no longer are able to teach effectively, despite your best efforts to keep up?

That is the world in which we live, today, a world of ever-increasing speed of change. And the problem is not being addressed in our schools.

I just returned from attending my grandson’s graduation from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

A high percentage of students there are computer nerds, who do things that weren’t even imagined, just a handful of years ago.

I asked, “How do teachers keep up with changes, so they don’t teach obsolete concepts?”

The answer was: “They can’t. They try, but we learn more by doing and from each other and from the Internet. In many cases, what they know, no longer is correct.”

And that is how education has changed, at least in some disciplines.

Fifty years ago, when I received an MBA, I went out into the world knowing some of business. My knowledge expanded through practical experience, but the basics hardly changed. Comparatively little was new information.

Television was the great advertising medium, and ten years later, it still was. Newspapers magazines and radio were next. There were department stores and large food chains and a few chain appliance/furniture outlets. We kept folded maps in our glove compartments.

Ten years later, it was much the same.

We had the Encyclopedia Britannica, which though revised only every decade, still was mostly current. That tells you something.

Change was slow and marketing was simple. Teachers could keep up. They even could stop learning and still keep up, because those todays so resembled yesterdays.

In the sum of information, the ratio of old to new was heavily skewed toward old. Today, it is much less so.

In 2015, if you’re a marketer, you have TV, radio and print and Walmart, Target, Costco et al. You also have Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, Linkedin, Google, Pinterest, Amazon, EBay and on and on and on.

If you’re in the world of animation graphics, like my grandson, yesterday you learned how to mimic skin, hair, foliage, clouds, rain, snow, water and myriad forms of live action. Today, you know of programs that can do all that for you. What took you eighty hours yesterday, now requires eight minutes.

There are new programs for interior designers and architects and builders of every sort. New programs for the deaf, the blind and the lame.

The people at PIXAR and Industrial Light and Magic know more about animation than any university professor ever will know — and even what these movie experts know today will be obsolete tomorrow.

One teacher even said to my grandson on graduation day, “You already know more than I know.” While the teacher spent his time teaching what he knew, the pupil spent his time learning what the teacher didn’t know.

All of the above is a prelude to my suggestion that the university, as we know it, is as obsolete as the Brownie camera. The ivied and cloistered halls of knowledge, containing professorial founts of information — all obsolete.

The knowledge and information are elsewhere.

Today, aside from the disciplines that may change slowly — history, philosophy et al — the primary function of a university is a social one, where young people can begin to spread their wings toward maturity, meet and learn by interacting with other young people, and dive into the process of discovery and self-discovery.

Think of a university professor as a sports team coach, no longer able to do what his superior athletes do, but rather guiding and suggesting and critiqueing.

During their college careers, students sometimes are asked to produce theses, papers in which students attempt to prove some proposition. To grant an advanced degree — Masters or Doctoral — most universities require a dissertation, a form of thesis, only longer, more detailed and more original.

Both a thesis and a dissertation are based on:
1) What the student has learned from professors and assigned activities
2) Plus what the student learns via his own research
3) Plus the originality the student creates.

In my ancient experience as a student, #1 was by far, the most important and the most time-consuming. The teacher taught; the students learned what the teacher taught; then we all went home.

Today, even high school students — even elementary school students — may know more, in many cases, than their teachers. The old way not only was limited to what the teacher knew, but was limited to what the teacher imagined.

That is the real crime, for young people have the greatest ability to imagine, an ability that declines with age, as we too often learn what is “not possible.”

To take advantage of the human mind’s abilities, not just to learn and remember, but to change and create, education must change. The teacher lecturing before the class is an obsolete model.

And here is where it becomes difficult for me, because at the age of 80, my own imagination surely has been squandered and dissipated.

But, using what little imagination remains, I suspect that the better educational model is sports.

Consider a football team. There is head coach, a quarterback coach, defensive and offensive line coaches, a defensive back coach, a running back coach, a special teams coach, a kicking coach, etc.

The team may employ a sports psychologist and a physical trainer. Each player might have a financial adviser and a publicist and who knows what else?

The players work with coaches separately, and all together. The coaches provide ideas and suggestions, and each player adds his own creativity, before, during and after each game.

Every game is less a test (which is static) and more a thesis (which evolves and requires ongoing creativity). The Super Bowl is a dissertation.

If the players learned only what they were taught, they might be good. Adding their own personal skills and creativity to the mix, game after game, can make them great.

The analogy is far from perfect, as are most analogies, but I suspect education should operate something like sports teams, where there are multiple coaches, working separately and together, devoted to the members of the team.

Consider a class of students to be the team, and several teachers to be the coaches, all working one-on-one, together. The students would be asked to produce multiple theses, sometimes working alone and sometimes in groups.

Some of the assignments would be theoretical and some practical. The students would be judged on their imaginations and practical development. The teachers would guide, help and suggest, and they would be judged on student achievement.

You might think that’s the way things already work. Students have multiple classes and multiple teachers. But what they don’t have is a team of teachers, working together and separately, helping the students to take the lead in their own educations.

The team is greater than the sum of its individuals, and the individuals are greater than the sum of their knowledge.

Students continuously would tap into the latest information from both within and outside those cloistered halls, from their teachers and from their fellow students, and from others, and bring that information to the team.

It’s a student-directed, rather than a teacher-directed approach, which I believe will ameliorate the increasingly greater problem of information obsolescence.

As humans, most of what we learn, we learn socially. In many disciplines, the world is moving too fast for any teacher to stay current. Perhaps, in those disciplines, the students can help teach each other.

The current system breeds information obsolescence, like the light from the increasingly distant stars, information increasingly is out of the sight of even our best teachers.

To learn the new, our students must chase the new, rather than hoping a teacher will bring the new to them.

We really have no choice.

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

–When is a rape not a rape?

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.

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

Economics is not just the study of money. It includes the myths, mentality and morès of societies, all of which guide every element of economics. Consider, for instance, the economic differences between a Muslim society and a Christian society.

We are what we believe.

In a related vein, you may have noticed what seems to have been an increase in teacher/student cases of what we term “rape”, specifically adult female teachers and teen-age boy students.

There have been dozens of such cases recently, and in many instances, the teachers are attractive women, married, and some having children of their own.

I just read about a case that was trumpeted on the Dr. Phil television show (You know, the show where he really, really cares about the unfortunate people, so he helps them by parading their disfunction for the whole world to see. Shall we call it “emotional rape for ratings”?)

The teacher in this case, is a beautiful, 29-year-old, married woman with a six year old son. Her name, improbably, is Jennifer Sexton.

She had an affair with a 6-foot-tall, 15-year-old, 8th grader (A 15-year-old still in 8th grade??).

The unfortunate woman says she did it because she didn’t receive attention or affection from her husband, and when this 15-year-old came on to her, and told her how beautiful she is, she just couldn’t resist.

I don’t know what happened during her formative years (Do we ever leave our formative years?), but clearly she has been tortured by some unmet, deep-seated needs.

A psychologist might have helped her. Instead she chose a teenage boy.

By our laws, she has raped the boy, and like so many (all?) of the other female teachers, who have had affairs with their young students, she probably will go to jail for years, and be placed on a sex-offenders list for the rest of her life.

I submit that there is a vast difference between an adult male having sex with an underage girl, vs. an adult female having sex with a boy.

Many young girls have permanently been traumatized, even physically injured and often impregnated by rape. Girls under 18 arbitrarily are judged to be too young to make a decision to have consensual sex.

Even if the teen was the aggressor, we judge all old/young alliances to be rape.

Rape is politically dangerous and delicate situation. Neither the politicians nor the courts want to decide whether 18 is the right age in every circumstance, It’s easier simply to say, “17 years + 364 days is too young, but 18 years is O.K.”

I have no objection to the concept. It’s like speed limits. Draw the line, and that’s the law. Girls need protection.

Yet, for instance, if I were rushing a critically ill person to a hospital, and given a ticket for speeding, I might expect the judge, and indeed, all of society, to consider the circumstances that alter this case.

Now consider the physical and emotional harm done to the boy. Well, there is no physical harm. He can’t get pregnant and as a normal teen boy, he has been taking care of his own needs for several years.

So let’s move right on to the emotional harm.

What emotional harm? This boy is the happiest, proudest kid in his school. Typically, he has bragged to all his friends, who themselves are jealous and begging to learn all the details. Many of them sat in Mrs. Sexton’s class, mentally replaying the pleasures of her acquiescence.

Sixty years from now, that boy still will brag to his sniggering friends about how much fun he had with Mrs. Sexton, embellishing the story with each recital.

He will not be scarred by the experience.

Way, way back, when I was an eighth-grader, my women teachers, as I remember them, were old, unappealing hags in their 40’s or even (gasp!) older. But, if I had had a pretty teacher in her 20’s, I can guarantee my thoughts would not have been solely directed to algebra or history.

And given the courage and the opportunity, both of which I lacked, I very well might have done the deed, or attempted to. And succeeding, I would have come out no worse for wear.

According to the article, Jennifer Sexton “faces three counts of second-degree rape, two counts of enticing a child, and one count of forcible sodomy.” (Huh? Forcible sodomy?)

I don’t know, but perhaps the boys parents are outraged — as is the school, as is the entire community, as is the whole world — that this boy’s “innocence has been stripped away,” and he has been “take advantage of,” and “his life never will be the same,” and blah, blah, blah.

Let’s get real. About the only bad things that could have happened to him would have been if he had caught a disease from her (He didn’t) or she had gotten pregnant (She didn’t). I believe there was no physical, emotional, mental or moral harm to him.

And those are the circumstances that should alter this case. The unfortunate teacher should not receive the lifetime of punishment that awaits her.

Our society is defined by its laws. Maybe, just maybe, a little common sense should be applied to this law.

We should not allow the mob to carry their torches and pitchforks to a public witch-burning, merely for giving an 15 year-old-boy what he always will consider his greatest experience to date.

Jennifer Sexton is a human being who has hurt no one, but is herself hurting terribly — a woman who needs our help and our compassion.

And now, let the sanctimonious roar.

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 greatest advertising/marketing campaign of all time.

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.

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

Try to imagine an advertising/marketing campaign that sold pianists on the notion that suffering in poverty improves their playing.

Can you think of one?

Try to visualize a campaign that convinced hundreds of millions of average people to give their money to very rich people as the way to achieve economic success.

What would such a campaign say?

See if you can create a campaign to persuade poor Americans that they actually are rich, and the U.S. federal government is poor, so it needs more money from them.

Any ideas?

And develop a campaign to brainwash Americans into believing that accepting money from the federal government is a sign of sloth, and those who accept such money are nothing but lazy lowlife “takers” and “socialists,” while the very rich are hard workers and “givers,” who deserve their maids, butlers, private jets, endless vacations, generous tax deductions and being first in every line.

What would be your slogan?

Finally, come up with a campaign to convince the populace that money is speech, corporations are U.S. citizens, adding financial stimulus causes joblessness, hyperinflation is a more immediate threat than recession, and private banks and businesses can be depended upon to protect consumers, without being monitored by the government.

Whew! It would take quite a campaign to sell rational people on such nonsense.

But that is exactly the campaign the Tea/Republicans have run. And it has succeeded.

Anytime I suggest the federal government pay for something — education, infrastructure, R&D, health insurance, Social Security, you name it — I receive mail from people whom I’m sure are not part of the upper 1%, calling me a communist and a socialist, and claiming I am asking for a repeat of the Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe and Argentina.

The Tea/Republicans were voted a Congressional majority, by people who are not rich. Their platform: Take from the poor and give to the rich.

Cut Social Security, cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, cut funding for roads, bridges and dams, cut aids to education, cut poverty aids, cut unemployment compensation, cut regulation of banks, brokers, pharmaceutical companies and food companies. Had you told me, ten years ago, that is a great advertising/marketing strategy, I would have told you you’re nuts.

Yet, here we are.

If you had told me I am so rich is should give more of my money to the federal government, while accepting less help from the federal government — if you had told me the rich pay too much tax, while the poor should be burdened with increased sales taxes like gasoline taxes or a flat tax — I would have laughed at you.

Yet here we are.

If you had told me hyperinflation (something we never have had) and deficits (something that adds growth dollars to the economy), are bigger threats than depressions and recessions (something we have had frequently, recently, and still not out of the last one), I surely would have scoffed.

Yet here we are:

Wall Street is on the verge of saying ‘recession’
Business Insider By Myles Udland

After the initial reading on gross domestic product showed the US economy grew just 0.2% in the first quarter, subsequent data has led Wall Street economists to take their outlooks for future Q1 revisions well into negative territory.

Current estimates from Bloomberg show Wall Street thinks the economy contracted by 0.8% to start 2015.

And now with the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker — which was spot-on in predicting first-quarter GDP — showing a tepid bounce back in the second quarter, the economy appears to be teetering on the edge of a recession.

A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

If you look at the graphs below, titled “THE RECESSION CLOCK,” you’ll see that cuts in deficit growth always lead to recessions and that U.S. depressions tend to come on the heels of federal surpluses.

Well, here we are, cutting deficits, heading toward a surplus, and on the cusp of another recession. Will it be a worse recession than the last one?

Probably, since seemingly the populace has learned nothing from that experience, instead buying the Tea/Republican’s advertising.

So a hearty congratulations go to the Tea/Republican party for selling the populace on financial suicide as a way to protect our children and grandchildren.

I spent many years of my life in the advertising business, but I never saw an campaign this effective.

These guys could sell ice to Eskimos, or leeches to the anemic.

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.
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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