Tag: income gap

America’s most dangerous and harmful conspiracy theory

It’s not the hammer. My problem is that I have a headache. Get me an aspirin.

What is America’s most dangerous and harmful conspiracy theory?

No, it’s not the idiocy from QAnon. There is no group of Satanists, cannibals, and child sex abusers plotting against Donald Trump.

Only the mentally challenged believe that tripe.

No, it’s not the ages-old, anti-Semitic B.S. that Jews drink children’s blood on holidays. Jews famously love children. Mogen David wine is the preferred imbibement.

And no, it isn’t that Trump was cheated out of the election (though he and the entire GOP already plan to make the same claim if they lose again).

Fifty lawsuits, dozens of judges — some Republican — and numerous recounts have demonstrated the ongoing perfidy of that assertion.

The guy lost by over 7 MILLION individual votes and 74 electoral votes! And still, he whines. What does it take to convince the MAGAs?

Only the bottom segment of America’s intelligence range still believes those ideas.

The single most dangerous and harmful conspiracy theory is believed by the majority of America because it is repeated by the majority of America. Repetition is convincing.

Here is a classic example:

The CRFB Fiscal Blueprint for Reducing Debt and Inflation October 26, 2022

The United States faces numerous economic and fiscal challenges, including surging inflation, rising interest rates, trust funds heading toward insolvency, a broken budget process, and an unsustainably increasing national debt.

The CRFB (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget) is part of a conspiracy to spread the false theory that these are problems caused by too much federal deficit spending.

The very rich, who support the CRFB, want you to believe that if you would accept less help from Medicare and Social Security while paying more of your salary to FICA, America could survive financially.

You working stiffs who struggle to pay for food, clothing, a car, a few days of vacation, and education for your kids are simply being selfish by asking the government to help you with your medical bills and retirement.

Shame on you, especially when the rich have to scrimp along on the few millions they get from tax loopholes. After all, rich Donald Trump paid minimal taxes in three of the past ten years. What more do you expect?

In order to help the Federal Reserve fight inflation, reduce interest costs, and support economic growth, policymakers should put forward a plan to put the national debt on a sustainable long-term path.

Though there is no one single “correct” fiscal metric, the higher the debt-to-Gross-Domestic-Product (GDP) ratio and its growth trajectory, the more vulnerable the U.S. economy is.

If you believe those two sentences, you have been royally conned. They are lies.

You have been fed the same baloney since at least 1940 when the “debt” first was called a “ticking time bomb.” The so-called “national debt” was only $40 billion back then.

Today, it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 TRILLION, an astounding 62,400% increase. Yet here we are. Still sustaining. How is that possible?

First, the so-called national debt isn’t really a debt; second, it is infinitely sustainable. The federal “debt” is two different things united by an unnecessary law.

I. The so-called “debt” is the net total of federal deficits, i.e., the difference between federal income (mainly tax collections) and federal spending.

But, while state/local government taxes fund state/local government spending, federal taxes do not fund federal spending. The Monetarily Sovereign federal government destroys every tax dollar it receives, and it funds all its spending by creating new dollars, ad hoc, every time it pays a bill. It works like this:

When you pay taxes, you take dollars from your checking account. Those dollars are part of the “M2” money supply measure.

When those dollars reach the U.S. Treasury, they suddenly are not part of any money supply measure. Because the federal government has infinite dollars, there is no measure of the government’s money. 

Your tax dollars disappear from existence. They effectively are destroyed.

State/local governments, being monetarily non-sovereign, put tax dollars into banks, where they continue to be part of the M2 money supply measure. While state/local government debt really is debt, the federal government has infinite money, so it has no measurable debt.

II. The so-called “debt” is the total of deposits into Treasury security accounts resembling bank safe deposit boxes. You put money into your T-security account, the government adds some money, and later, when the account matures, the government returns the dollars already in your account — just like your safe deposit box.

The contents of the boxes are yours, from beginning to end. The government doesn’t “owe” them to you because you never lose ownership of them. The government isn’t indebted to you for those dollars any more than the banks are indebted to you for the box’s contents.

In both cases, the bank and the government do not touch the contents of the “account box.” The government and banks simply store them for you.

Another reason why that misnamed “debt-that-isn’t-a-debt” is infinitely sustainable: The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has the infinite ability to create its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar. 

It never, never, never can unintentionally run short of dollars.

Quote from former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke when he was on 60 Minutes: Scott Pelley: Is that tax money the Fed is spending? Ben Bernanke: It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.

Statement from the St. Louis Fed: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.”

In plain English, the federal government does not borrow dollars. Nor does it rely on taxes. It creates dollars, at will, by pressing computer keys.

Implant this in your mind: THE U.S. GOVERNMENT CANNOT UNINTENTIONALLY RUN SHORT OF DOLLARS. NOT TODAY. NOT TOMORROW. NOT EVER.

Even if the misnamed “debt” doubled or tripled tomorrow, that would have zero effect on the federal government’s ability to pay its bills.

And what goes for the government as a whole also goes for federal agencies. Medicare cannot run short of dollars unless that is what the President and Congress want.

Similarly, Social Security cannot run short of dollars unless that is what our leaders want.

The next time you hear some Congressperson expressing anguish about the “debt” or the “debt ceiling,” you can be sure he/she is lying or ignorant about federal finances.

And when you hear that the Medicare or Social Security fake “trust funds” are running short of money, you will know you are hearing the most dangerous and harmful conspiracy theory in America.

The conspiracy theory continues:

Ideally, debt should be gradually reduced to its half-century historical average of about 50 percent of GDP.

The “debt”/GDP ratio is 100% meaningless. It has no predictive value. It tells you nothing about the federal government’s ability to pay its bills. “Debt” is a measure that accounts for the full lifetime of America. GDP is a one-year measure.

“Debt” is the difference between federal income and federal spending. GDP is total spending (federal + non-federal) + net exports. They are as comparable as apples vs. Apple computers.

Here are the nations having the lowest Debt/GDP ratios: Suriname, United Kingdom, Mauritania, Costa Rica, Tunisia, Brazil, El Salvador, Croatia, Sao Tome/Prin, Austria, Belize, India, Bahamas, Hungary, Morocco, Slovenia, Albania, Qatar, Mauritius, Yemen, Trinidad/Tobago, Sierra Leone, Montenegro, South Africa, Sudan

Here are the nations having the highest Debt/GDP ratios: Japan, Greece, Lebanon, Italy, Singapore, Cape Verde, Portugal, Angola, Bhutan, Mozambique, United States, Djibouti, Jamaica, Belgium, France, Spain, Cyprus, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Canada, Argentina.

What generalizations can you make about these nations? What does the Debt/GDP ratio tell you about their financial health? Absolutely nothing.

Yet it is quoted frequently by those who either want to fool you or are ignorant about national finances.

Every time you see or hear someone quoting that ratio as having some importance, know this: That person should not be listened to.

Given political constraints, we suggest at least stabilizing the debt at its current level within a decade, requiring roughly $7 trillion in savings.

The CRFB wants to reduce the “debt” by $7 trillion — about 25% — guaranteeing a depression that would make 1929 look like Christmas. What the CRFB doesn’t want you to know is every time we reduce the “debt,” we have a recession or a depression:

1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began 1807.
1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819.
1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837.
1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857.
1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873.
1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893.
1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929.
1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began 2001.

The Great Depression, which some “experts” claim was caused by “excessive speculation” or some other myth, actually was caused by federal surpluses.

The federal surplus President Clinton loves to boast about led to a recession that President Bush had to deal with.

Mathematically, a growing economy requires a growing supply of money, but federal surpluses take dollars out of the economy and destroy them, which leads to reduced economic growth or negative economic growth.

 

America's money supply growth (red) parallels GDP growth (blue)
America’s money supply growth parallels America’s GDP growth.

(The CRFB) blueprint puts forward a framework to achieve these goals through a combination of revenue and spending changes – with savings from health care, tax reform, discretionary spending caps, energy reforms, Social Security solvency, and other changes to the budget.

About 40 percent of the deficit reduction comes from revenue and 60 percent from changes in spending.

And virtually all of the deficit reduction comes from the middle classes and the poor.

Translation: The CRFB wants to cut Medicare (“health care”), increase the FICA tax (“tax reform”), reduce aids to the poor (“discretionary spending caps”), ignore global warming (“energy reforms”), and cut Social Security (“Social Security solvency”).

The very rich are laughing all the way to the bank.

 

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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

……………………………………………………………………..

Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect the People’s Lives.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–The federal government soon will run out of 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.
●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.
==================================================================================================================================================================

Yes, that’s right. The federal government soon will run out of its own sovereign currency, the dollar.

How do I know? I read it in the Washington Times:

Obamacare may not have enough enrollees to stay solvent
Fewer than 10 million projected; 13 million needed to stay solvent

The administration on Monday said fewer than 10 million Americans will enroll in Obamacare’s health exchanges this go-around, well short of the 13 million target congressional scorekeepers deemed critical to its economics.

The number of enrollees is key, because if too few take part in the exchanges, the pool of customers is too small, and it could skew the economics of Obamacare, forcing insurers to raise premiums and pushing even more people to forgo coverage, choosing to pay the tax penalty instead.

So there you have it. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, of which the Affordable Care Act is a part, soon will be insolvent.

And because the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is an agency of, and embedded in, the United States federal government, its insolvency means the federal government itself will be insolvent.

In short, the federal government, which invented the dollar, soon will run of the dollars it invented — if Congress wants that to happen.

The new projection comes as Republicans prepare to take full control of Congress and redouble their efforts to repeal the law.

Repealing ACA would be a good idea — it’s a crappy law — if Congress and the President had a better idea.

For instance, a better idea would be to create a simple: Comprehensive, federally funded Medicare, Parts A, B and D, with no deductibles, for every man, woman and child in America.

The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign and so having the unlimited ability to pay its bills, easily could fund such a Medicare.

But there is a problem.

It would benefit the lower- and middle-income groups, thus narrowing the Gap between the rich and the rest. And Congress and the President are not paid to narrow the Gap.

No, they are paid by the rich (via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later), to widen the Gap.

You know about the Gap. It is what makes the rich rich, for if there were no Gap, no one would be rich, and the wider the Gap, the richer they are.

More than dollars, more than expensive toys, widening the Gap is what the rich crave most.

So Congress and the President will claim the government “can’t afford” to support Medicare, can’t afford to support Social Security, and surely cannot afford the ACA.

And when facts show that to be a lie (actually, part of the Big Lie), Congress and the President will warn us about hyperinflation.

And by the time facts show that also to be a lie, the people will be so confused, they will accept whatever their leaders tell them.

Yes, we will run short of the dollars the government easily could provide, and as usual, the lower 99.9% will be punished.

Meanwhile, the right wing Supreme Court will say money is nothing more than free speech. The rich will continue to “speak more freely”— right into the pockets of the politicians — than you and I.

And the politicians will use that “free speech” to buy elections and an opulent lifestyle — including blue ribbon, gold-standard health care — for themselves and their families.

And you will impoverish yourself trying to pay for your health care insurance, and health care itself — all because the federal government told you it has “run out of dollars.”

Seems impossible, but that’s how that works.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
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. 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)

The Ten Steps 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

–Who says the government isn’t tough on crime?

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

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

Lest you believe the federal government isn’t tough on crime:

Regulators Edge Toward Foreign-Exchange Settlement With Banks
Deal With Seven Banks Targeted for Middle of Next Week

Regulators including the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority and the U.S.’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are planning to impose a total of well over £1 billion ($1.58 billion) in penalties against the banks as part of a roughly 18-month probe into potential manipulation of the foreign-exchange market.

The banks currently involved in the settlement talks with the FCA are the U.K.’s Barclays PLC, HSBC Holdings PLC and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC; Switzerland’s UBS AG; and the U.S.’s Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

No criminal charges against the top executives of criminal banks that stole billions.

STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL, FEDS REACH $25 BILLION SETTLEMENT WITH FIVE LARGEST MORTGAGE SERVICERS ON FORECLOSURE WRONGS

The nation’s five largest mortgage servicers — Bank of America Corporation, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Company, Citigroup, Inc., and Ally Financial, Inc. (formerly GMAC — have agreed to a landmark $25 billion settlement with a coalition of state attorneys general and federal agencies. The settlement addresses past mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure abuses and fraud.

No criminal charges against the top executives of criminal banks that stole billions.

Ten banks settle foreclosure charges for $8.5 billion

Ten major U.S. banks and mortgage companies will pay $8.5 billion to settle complaints that they improperly foreclosed on some homeowners. More than 3.8 million borrowers whose home loans at these 10 banks were foreclosed on in 2009 and 2010 will receive some compensation.

The settlement includes Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, MetLife Bank, PNC, Sovereign, Sun Trust, U.S. Bank and Aurora.

This agreement is “flawed,” says Alys Cohen, a staff attorney for the National Consumer Law Center. The size of the settlement “is wholly inadequate in light of the scale of the harm.”

No criminal charges against the top executives of criminal banks that stole billions.

Man sent to prison for robbing Farrell bank in 2013

Arthur C. “Corky” Pate, who admitted robbing a city bank of $1,500, was sentenced last week to 2 1⁄2 to 5 years in prison.
monetary sovereignty

At last! Justice is served!

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
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. 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)

The Ten Steps 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 fortress mentality of American voters, and a “poll tax” solution

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

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

Thank you reader Scott Baker, “scottonthespot,” who provided an excellent brief on America’s election systems. (America’s majority rushes to the right, Comment #8.)

Here it is in its entirety:

The election means much less than it seems.

– nearly 2/3 of the potential electorate didn’t, or couldn’t, vote. This means that as little as 1/6 of the electorate (1/3 split mostly evenly between two or more candidates), gets to decide who’s elected.

– Winner-take-all elections means that a third party candidate can siphon off enough votes to tip the balance to the candidate the people LEAST want. This happened in England, with David Cameron who got less than 40% of the vote in his first election. It happened here, with Bush II and Clinton both actually getting less than half the majority, due to third party choices. We need instant runoff voting to prevent this.

– Unverifiable voting machines have been shown to flip votes, curiously, more often to Republicans. Read Brad Friedman’s Brad Blog. It’s full of verifiable examples. Poll workers no longer have the capability to check these complicated machines.

– Gerry-mandering ensures even normally blue districts vote red, or that all blue voters are clustered into one district instead of spread out as simple majorities in many.

– The poor, young and even women (through name-changing when they marry) are disproportionately discriminated against for tough new voter ID laws that are also a back-door poll tax.

– Money in dark pools guarantees a skewing of voter exposure to right-wing Koch Brother type ads. Fox TV does the rest. Even so, actual polls of American attitudes shows stubborn centrism, not right-wing ideology like what comes out of Washington. They don’t represent us.

– The list of reasons to disenfranchise people grows longer every day. In many swing states, like Florida, thousands, millions nationwide, of one-time felons can never vote again, over a million in Florida alone. Felons tend to vote democratic, or left.

The election in no way represents the majority will. Give that American Democracy fantasy up.

Spot on.

How did things get so bad? Could it be that we cannot help but surrender our democracy to the rich and powerful?

When I write an article criticizing one political party or one politician, I am sure to receive comments to the effect: “The other party is just as bad.” Write a negative about Pelosi, and in come the negatives about Boehner. Mention the conservative Koch brothers, and I’ll hear about liberal billionaires.

Mostly we vote against, not for. Negative political advertising works. No politician ever was thrown out of office because the other guy was loved. Politicians lose because they are hated, usually for some narrow reason.

Though Americans tend to be centrists, we are disproportionately influenced by extremes. How could people like Sen. Joe McCarthy or Sen. Ted Cruz have had a following, much less a strong influence? How could the Tea Party be treated seriously?

I believe that evolution has given each of us a fortress mentality — a danger-avoidance system that requires us to make a superficial examination, then a quick decision to defend the evil in the lesser of two evils.

When danger threatens, there is no time for subtleties. It’s flee or fight. Simple, one-word dangers — criminals, communists, terrorists, immigrants, blacks — demand simple, one-word solutions: Flee, fight, jail, deport, shoot.

We are trained not to think deeply, but rather to trust all thinking to our leaders. We are shallow, bumper sticker believers. We get what our own chosen leaders choose to give us.

I don’t know what to do about what evolution has wrought, but I do have a thought about people who don’t vote. There are many reasons for this:

–“My vote won’t matter.”
–“All the candidates are bad.”
–“I don’t have time.”
–“The process is too difficult.”
–“The process is rigged.”

One school of thought holds: Those who care, find a way to vote. Because carers tend to be better informed, non-voting by the less motivated, benefits America. It’s all good.

I disagree. The vast majority of non-voters are lower-income people, dissuaded from voting by financial considerations, poll requirements and deliberately long lines at inconveniently located polling places.

The upper income groups vote, so their wishes are reflected by their choices of political representation, who give the rich what they want. And so, non-voting widens the income/wealth/power Gap, and that’s bad. Plutocracy ultimately self-destroys from within.

I offer one partial solution: A reverse poll tax. Remember Jim Crow poll taxes, the sole purpose of which was to prevent blacks from voting? The same bigotry that created poll taxes now has replaced them with Jim Crow ID requirements, having exactly the same purpose.

(Seemingly, bigots never change. They just beget bigots.)

A reverse poll tax — a payment for voting — would encourage blacks, browns, yellows, reds and all people of less affluence to vote. I suggest each person voting receive an inflation pegged, $500 reward from the federal government

The .1% would hate it. The right wing would hate it. Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito would hate it. The Tea Party would hate it. Sen. Cruz would hate it. The Koch brothers would hate it.

Therefore, a reverse poll tax must be a good idea.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
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. 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)

The Ten Steps 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