–Latest news stories and their possible outcomes

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

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the gap.
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You can discern America’s directions by what appears in our press. Here are two real news stories, together with their imagined possible outcomes.

Real Story: Donald Sterling:

“Monday,” the now famous bigot, Donald Sterling, tells his girlfriend in a private conversation, that he doesn’t want her to associate in public with black people. She secretly records his comments.

Americans are shocked to learn there are bigots in this country. This becomes the biggest news story for many days, as all news and comedy shows reference it.

The NBA fines Sterling $2.5 million and costs him many millions more by barring him from everything basketball, and attempting to strip him of his team.

Possible outcomes:

“Tuesday,” an NBA owner tells his girlfriend in a private conversation, that gay people are an abomination, and will go to hell. She secretly records his comments. He loses his team.

“Wednesday,” an NBA owner tells his girlfriend in a private conversation, that Jews killed our Lord and Savior, and the Holocaust not only never happened, but also was just deserts for their crime. She secretly records his comments. He loses his team.

“Thursday,” an NBA owner tells his girlfriend in a private conversation, that Mexican immigrants are “wetbacks” and food stamp “takers,” and should all be sent to jail or back to Mexico. She secretly records his comments. He loses his team.

“Friday,” an NBA owner tells his girlfriend in a private conversation, that native Americans are lazy savages, drunk on firewater, and who aren’t real Americans. She secretly records his comments. He loses his team.

“Saturday,” an NBA owner tells his girlfriend in a private conversation, that the Pope and his Catholic priests spend their time buggering young boys and stealing millions from the poor to pay for the Vatican. She secretly records his comments. He loses his team.

“Sunday,” NBA owners tell their girlfriends in private conversations, that the Irish are “drunks,” the Italians are “mafiosa,” the Muslims are “terrorists,” whites are “rednecks” and “honkeys,” women using contraceptives are “whores” and raped women were “asking for it.” All the girlfriends secretly record the comments. All the owners lose their teams.

As a result, every owner, every coach and every player has been punished financially and ejected from the NBA, for expressing, in private, any bigotry they have held.

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And then there’s this real story:

Mass. Legislature and Gov. Fork Over $177 Million in State Taxes to the Pentagon
An Imperial Scam Coming to Your State Soon
by John V. Walsh

“Monday:” Governor Deval Patrick signed into law a bond bill that dispenses $177 million in Massachusetts State Taxes to the Pentagon for construction and “upgrades” of U.S. military bases in the state.

Meanwhile cities and towns are in dire need of more state aid for schools and other crucial spending, like ravaged roads, crumbling bridges and decaying senior centers. Taxes have been raised in many cities and towns because of the lack of such funds from state coffers, further burdening the taxpayers.

Similar legislation, for $40 million, has already been enacted in Connecticut for the Naval Submarine Base in Groton. And there is rumor that similar legislation has been proposed in other states.

Thus the $40 million in Connecticut and the $177 million in Massachusetts may well serve as pilots for more giveaways by other states. In fact it is likely that states which refuse to pony up may be threatened with loss of their military bases and the jobs that go with them, setting off an unseemly bidding war.

Possible outcomes:

Tuesday: The bidding war does continue, with each state contributing more and more to the federal government for construction and upgrades of federal facilities.

“Wednesday”: To pay for its continually increased bidding, Connecticut raises taxes, again.

“Thursday”: Connecticut financially is forced to reduce support for public schools, roads and bridges, police and fire departments.

“Friday”: Other states follow Connecticut’s lead.

“Saturday: The federal government begins to charge the states, not only for construction and upgrades, but also for federal salaries.

“Sunday”: Nationally, public education, roads, bridges, police and fire departments are devastated, local taxpayers impoverished, and all states lose the ability to pay their bills.

The President and Congress of the United States (which has the unlimited ability to pay its bills, even without taxes), boast about running a federal surplus. They admonish the states to be more frugal and monetarily prudent.

Which of the above outcomes is more realistic and which is more important to you?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Nine 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. 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
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

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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.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Finally, a voice of reason about guns

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

Just when you think gun nuts could not possibly become more stupid, they outdo themselves. These ardent defenders of the Constitution (when it suits their purposes) have taken one more step into total insanity:

Gun enthusiasts’ stalk and threaten CEO after she develops weapon only owner can fire

Armatix, a German company, has developed so-called “smart guns” that can only be fired by the owner. The company uses a watch that ties the owner to the weapon, called the iP1. Armatix is already selling the personalized weapons in Europe and Asia.

Belinda Padilla, president and CEO of the U.S. division of firearm manufacturer Armatix, says she was stalked and threatened by “gun enthusiasts” after she tried to bring a safer handgun to market.

She said it began with a “few fuming-mad voice mail messages and heavy breathers” that got her to stop answering her phone.

And then photos of her home were posted online.

You see, to a brave heavy breather, even a slightly safer gun is a threat.

The Oak Tree Gun Club near Los Angeles had agreed to sell the Armatix smart pistol until Calguns.net, a forum of second-amendment rights advocates, found out about the news.

“I have no qualms with the idea of personally and professionally leveling the life of someone who has attempted to profit from disarming me and my fellow Americans,” one comment said.

Actually, the level of cowardice and paranoia among gun nuts is go great, they fear virtually everything. Here is what NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told his cheering members:

“We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and carjackers and knockout gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all.”

Gun nuts need their guns to ward off all those terrorists and the drug cartels. (How many terrorists and drug cartels have you stopped lately?)

And, of course you stand in front of the electric company’s power stations to prevent killers from “storms of violence against our power grids“? (Or do you fire your gun up at lightening to prevent those “storms of violence” that knock out your electricity?)

And finally, yes, your gun will be great to have against “vicious waves of chemicals or disease.” (Shooting poisonous chemicals and bacteria takes real marksmanship.)

Have you ever seen movies of Germans joyously cheering Adolf Hitler’s insane rantings against mythical enemies? That is the picture of the NRA crowd cheering LaPierre’s mouth frothing insanity.

And then there’s gun nut Sarah Palin’s speech, also to the NRA:

“Actions to stop terrorists who’d utterly annihilate America and delight in massacring our innocent children? Darn right I’d do whatever it takes to foil their murderous jihadist plots – including waterboarding.

“If I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

To this gun nut, torture is akin to the religious rite of baptism.

But, as the saying goes, “What goes around, comes around.” After Sarah Palin wrung her hands about a terrorist “massacring our innocent children” we get this:

Georgia cops defend man with gun who scared parents at children’s baseball game

(An) unidentified Georgia man with a gun in his holster brought a baseball game to a screeching halt at a Forsyth County park this Tuesday, after he refused to leave a parking lot overlooking the field.

“He’s just walking around [saying]’See my gun? Look, I got a gun and there’s nothing you can do about it.’

He knew he was frightening people. He knew exactly what he was doing,” mom Karen Rabb told WSB-TV. “He scared people to the point where we stopped the game, took the kids out of the dugout and behind the dugout, and kind of hunkered down.”

If it weren’t so sad, the irony would be delicious:

One day after the incident, Gov. Nathan Deal signed Georgia’s House Bill 60, which allows licensed gun owners to carry their weapons in bars without restriction and in some churches, schools and government buildings under certain circumstances.

“Bars” is good. What could possibly go wrong when a drunk has a gun? After all, that drunk is going to protect us against bacteria and power outages.

And kids playgrounds is even better. If an angry father disagrees with an umpire’s call, he can just blow that umpire away. Haven’t we all felt like doing that.

And what if the kid pitcher hits your kid with a pitch. Good thing you have your trusty .45 handy. Blammmo!

But there’s more:

Yes, it’s a community where we cling to our religion and our guns,” said Georgia House Speaker David Ralston.

I must have missed the part of the bible where it talks about everyone carrying a killing machine, everywhere. Must be the New, New Testament.

But finally, a little common sense?

“When I was reading my son’s story last night, he turned to me and said ‘Mommy, did that man want to kill me?'” said Rabb. “I own a gun. I have no problems with the Second Amendment. But they do not belong in a parking lot where we have children everywhere. If you want to make a statement, go to the Capitol.”

Right, don’t endanger our kids (Even though the Constitution clearly states that everyone should be able to carry any gun, anywhere. Right?)

Instead, do as Mrs. Rabb says. Go to the Capitol and shoot some politicians.

Finally, a voice of reason.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–How acceptance of the Gap makes slaves of us all

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

The single most important problem in economics is the Gap — the income/power gap between the very rich (the .1%) and the poor.

Re-read the post, “The Gap, the whole Gap and nothing but the Gap” and you will be reminded that:

Money is power. Privilege is power. The Law is power. Control, Possessions, Strength, Influence, Glory, Weaponry, Knowledge, Talent – all are power. And despite their vast diversity, they all have one measure: The one measure of power is the Gap between the most and the rest.

Power is not an absolute; it is a comparative. If each person on earth owned one million dollars, no one would be rich. But if one person had just a hundred dollars and everyone else had but one dollar, that one person with the hundred dollars would be rich.

It’s not the absolute amount of money that makes him rich; it’s the Gap.

For every level of power, those below wish to narrow the Gap above them, and those above wish to widen the Gap below them.

Thus, those below can be persuaded that Gap-widening strategies are beneficial, so long as the perception is that these strategies will be applied below them.

The Southern middle-class votes for conservative austerity, because austerity widens the gaps between all classes, especially the gap between the poor black and middle-class white.

But, there are unanticipated consequences:

Recovery Has Created Far More Low-Wage Jobs Than Better-Paid Ones
By Annie Lowrey, APRIL 27, 2014

WASHINGTON — The deep recession wiped out primarily high-wage and middle-wage jobs. Yet the strongest employment growth during the sluggish recovery has been in low-wage work, at places like strip malls and fast-food restaurants.

In essence, the poor economy has replaced good jobs with bad ones. That is the conclusion of a new report from the National Employment Law Project, a research and advocacy group, analyzing employment trends four years into the recovery.

Higher-wage industries — like accounting and legal work — shed 3.6 million positions during the recession and have added only 2.6 million positions during the recovery. But lower-wage industries lost two million jobs, then added 3.8 million.

With 10.5 million Americans still looking for work — the unemployment rate is 6.7 percent — employers feel no pressure to raise wages for those who are working. As a result, the average household’s take-home pay has declined through the recession and the recovery to $51,017 in 2012 from $55,627 in 2007, after adjusting for inflation.

Nothing could please the very rich more. Consider how they feel about being able to access an entire nation of low-paid-wage-slaves.

Debt ceilings, deficit reductions, shrinking “big government,” unemployment compensation limits, reductions in food stamps and other poverty aids — these all are austerity designed to widen the gap.

They are popular, not only among the upper .1%, but among all income/power levels, because as “The Gap, the whole Gap . . . “ told you:

The fear of narrowing the Gap below is stronger than the desire to narrow the Gap above. The fear of losing relative power is stronger than the desire to gain relative power.

In evolutionary terms, losing power can result in death, while gaining power may have only marginal benefits, if at all.

Being forced financially to move down to a “worse” neighborhood is far more traumatic than is the pleasure of moving to a “better” neighborhood. Being demoted carries deeper, longer-lasting emotions than does being promoted.

That is why the middle-class easily is persuaded by the rich, that social payments (food stamps, unemployment insurance, etc.) cause sloth, and so should be eliminated.

Being easily persuaded to vote to widen the gap below them, the middle-class pays a price. The gap widens above them:

America’s Middle Class Falls Behind
Denver Nicks, April 22, 2014
For the first time in decades, middle-income Americans are no longer the richest middle class in the world

The New York Times, citing an analysis of survey data going back 35, reports that the middle class in the United States has fallen behind Canada’s middle class. While economic growth in the U.S. is equal to or stronger than growth in other countries, those gains have gone almost exclusively to the wealthiest Americans.

America’s middle class is still wealthier than corresponding demographics in Europe, but the gap has narrowed significantly in the last 10 years. Meanwhile, the poor in the U.S. are significantly worse off than their counterparts in Europe and Canada—a total reversal from 35 years ago.

The people who should care the most, vote the least, and the people who vote the most, vote the worst.

Why the Democrats’ Turnout Problem Is Worst in North Carolina
Nate Cohn

North Carolina might be the state where Democrats suffer the most from low midterm turnout. The state is divided between older, culturally Southern and conservative voters, and younger, more diverse and more liberal voters.

In midterm elections, when older voters turn out at much higher rates than younger ones, the Republicans have a big advantage.

It was not always thus. The South, being poorer than the North, once voted for liberals who provided the most federal benefits. But the Nixon “Southern Strategy,” which appealed to Southern bigotry, turned the tide.

Today, older Southerners, who rely most on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other aids to the elderly, are most likely to vote conservative, i.e. to reduce . . . that’s right . . . Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other aids to the elderly.

They are the ones most easily sold on the false idea that the poor (black and brown) are “takers,” while the rich (white) are “makers.”

Why? Because in despising the poor, the white middle class is quite willing to believe the rich, especially when the bought-and-paid-for media, politicians and economists tell them government aid to everyone should be reduced. It is classic, “Cut your nose to spite your face” thinking.

By linking austerity to rewarding “takers,” the rich have narrowed options for improving the lives of the middle-class and the poor. For example:

Would You Pay a Quarter for Someone Else’s Insurance?
414 APR 28, 2014 9:58 AM EDT
By Christopher Flavelle

The case against the Affordable Care Act rests on the premise that the free market can better provide health insurance to the nation’s 54 million uninsured than a government program can.

That is a quote from Bloomberg View. So indoctrinated are we by the rich-owned media, politicians and economists, that even a normally liberal publication follows the conservative line.

The real case against ACA rests on the conservative premise that the federal government cannot afford to provide fully funded, comprehensive Medicare to man, woman and child in America.

So, because the government is presumed unable to pay for health care, the burden falls on taxpayers, and this has led to the convoluted, complex, Rube Goldberg plan called Obamacare.

A telephone survey by Bankrate.com asked 3,496 people how they would react if a business tacked on an extra 25 cents to every bill to help cover the cost of health insurance for its employees. Among Democrats, 70 percent said they would approve; 11 percent said they’d disapprove but would keep doing business with it anyway. Just 12 percent said they’d stop patronizing that business:

When Republicans were presented with the 25 cents idea, however, a plurality — 35 percent — said they would respond by taking their business elsewhere. An additional 17 percent said they would disapprove but would keep using the business, while 34 percent said they approved of the extra charge.

The vast majority of Republican respondents — 78 percent — also told questioners that Obamacare should be repealed. So a significant portion of Republicans don’t think the government should pay for people’s health insurance, but they are not willing to pay even a small amount more so that those people can get covered through their employer.

Which leads to a puzzling question: How, exactly, are these people supposed to get insurance?

It leads to an even more puzzling question: Why does virtually everyone — Democrat, Republican and Bloomberg — oppose the federal government’s paying for America’s health care?

The Affordable Care Act, that paean to austerity thinking, was created by Republicans and adopted by Democrats, all of whom support the Gap. Today’s conservative objection is that ACA isn’t “gappy” enough, because some of the poor benefit.

And the voters accept the rich propaganda that the government is running short of dollars, or that federal spending is causing hyper-inflation — and the Gap makes slaves of us all.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Surprise! Latest right wing hero turns out to be a lying bigot. So what else is new?

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

You would think that after so many right wing heroes have turned out to be idiots, bigots or worse — Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, the list goes on and on — the Republicans would have learned something. Sadly, no.

You’ve read about Cliven Bundy, the latest in a long line of Republican heroes. He became a conservative celebrity for valiantly fighting against the big, bad old government that wants to kick his cows off his land — land that his ancestors settled in 1877 before the federal government illegally laid claim to it.

He recruited patriotic citizens — armed men and women — to protect him from the U.S. government, and its illegal laws. Those brave souls scared off the weak, government lawmen.

Except:

1. Bundy admits he doesn’t actually own the land. Instead, he now claims the State of Nevada owns the land, so presumably he owes rent (which he never has paid) to Nevada, instead of owing rent (which he also never has paid) to the U.S. government.

2. According to Gene Lyons in the Arkansas Times:

One thing about that mangy posse of anti-government crackpots camped out at Cliven Bundy’s place in the Nevada desert: Most don’t know a thing about cattle ranching.

See, it’s calving season across most of the country. No rancher worthy of the name is going to run off leaving his cows to fend for themselves while he fights somebody else’s battles. Particularly not some deadbeat who refuses to pay his grazing fees, and who claims that the same laws that apply to every other rancher in the United States don’t apply to him.

A guy who wraps himself in the stars and stripes while proclaiming “I don’t recognize the United States government as even existing.”

Nationally, some 18,000 ranchers lawfully graze 157 million acres of federally-owned property supervised by the Bureau of Land Management, at subsidized rates. No wonder the Nevada Cattleman’s Association–not exactly a left-wing organization—has stated that while its membership has perennial issues with the BLM, it encourages obeying the law and “does not feel it is our place to interfere in the process of adjudication in this matter.”

See, this isn’t land the U.S. seized by eminent domain. Surrendered to the Feds by Mexico in 1848, it never belonged to the state of Nevada, which didn’t yet exist. The U.S. District judge who ordered Bundy’s cattle removed ruled that he “has produced no valid law or specific facts raising a genuine issue of fact regarding federal ownership or management of public lands in Nevada, or that his cattle have not trespassed.”

See, it’s a form of welfare the BLM oversees, but it helps sustain a way of life Americans are nostalgic about. The various “Sovereign Citizen” groups and armed militia types playing soldier in the desert, however, are something else. While the BLM was wise not to confront the mob, the current triumphalism among far-right zealots can’t be seen as anything but ominous.

One wonders, however, how the armies of April will react to a Las Vegas TV station’s revelation that much of Bundy’s personal saga is make-believe. Grazing Golden Butte since 1877? Not quite. His father bought the Bunkerville ranch in 1948; they began renting BLM land in 1954.

3. Bundy is a racist of the worst kind. According to TPM Livewire:

Cliven Bundy Wonders If Blacks Are ‘Better Off As Slaves’ Than On Gov’t Assistance

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” the rancher began as he described a “government house” in Las Vegas where he recalled that all the people who sat outside seemed to “have nothing to do.”

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

And there we have it — yet another right-wing nut-case bigot–a deadbeat who won’t pay his bills, but complains about others receiving a government subsidy, and who simply cannot help lying, insulting and otherwise demonstrating abject stupidity.

I wonder how those goofballs with guns, who put their lives on the line for Bundy, feel now. Well, we know how the right wing politicians feel:

The NY Times reached out to spokespeople for Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Dean Heller (R-NV), who have spoken in support of Bundy, and for Texas Attorney Gen. Greg Abbott (R). Those who responded distanced themselves from Bundy and his remarks.

A spokesman for Heller, who had called Bundy and his supporters “patriots,” told the Times that the senator “completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy’s appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way.”

A spokeswoman for Abbott, (said his) letter to the agency “was regarding a dispute in Texas and is in no way related to the dispute in Nevada.”

A spokesman for Paul told the Times that the senator wasn’t immediately available for comment.

As Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal famously said, “We’ve got to stop being the ‘Stupid Party,'”

Keep trying, right wing folks. So far, it hasn’t worked. Must be in the genes.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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