–“Framing” has brainwashed America, but Krugman will save us.

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 leads to civil disorder.
●Cutting the deficit is the government’s method for taking dollars from the middle class and giving them to the rich.
●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.
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“Framing” has brainwashed America, but Krugman will save us.

Framing Conservative Arguments
by bfrederk, Daily Kos

The conservative movement is tremendously successful at generating language to define positions and ‘frame’ arguments. “Frame” is in scare quotes because framing refers to presenting one’s positions in a way that it is most likely to garner support. It is more effective political rhetoric, but it is often intellectually dishonest. When you cannot win with your actual argument, you ‘frame’ it in a certain way so that you can win.

Here is how the politicians and the media (almost all of which are owned or paid by the upper 1% income group) frame the debate about the federal budget

January 21, 2013 9:22 pm
America’s debt dilemma: A looming crisis
By Robin Harding

As the Obama administration begins its second term this week, the Financial Times explores the real fiscal choice for the US: not the short-term frenzy of cliffs, debt ceilings, deficits and sequesters, but how – or whether – to pay for an older population. The answer will decide the very nature of the US economy in the 21st century.

Down one path, the retirement contract is untouched, but tax levels have to rise by 30 per cent or more; the US would look like a mature European economy.

Down the other, taxes stay low, but barring a revolution in healthcare costs, provision for at least some retirees – current or future, rich or poor – must be slashed.

And there it is. The argument has been framed: The public is told to choose from two possibilities: Increase taxes or slash healthcare. The third possibility, increase the deficit, is not even considered, let alone debated.

But wait!! (as the TV ads say) Here comes Paul Krugman to the rescue (O.K., belatedly, but he’s getting there, sort of):

Weekend Reader: Paul Krugman’s End This Depression Now!
January 26th, 2013 Allison Brito

Allow me to offer a better option—Paul Krugman’s End This Depression Now! Originally published electronically and in hardcover last spring, it’s been brought to our attention again with its forthcoming release in paperback on January 28.

As a leading economist, New York Times columnist, distinguished Princeton professor, and 2008 Nobel laureate, Krugman’s solution to the nation’s expanding deficit is stunningly simple: Spend more, at least for now.

That’s right — while politicians are warning of excessive government spending, Krugman says that federal spending is what got us out of the Great Depression, and can quickly return us to prosperity today.

“Now is the time for the government to spend more, not less, until the private sector is ready to carry the economy forward again—yet job-destroying austerity policies have instead become the rule,” he says. Krugman’s enduring Keynesian outlook and his hopeful, progressive approach to growth are an essential contribution to a national discourse dominated by deficit “hawks.”

Yes, I’m jealous. Krugman received a Nobel for almost, but not quite (at long last) saying what my book and 900+ blog posts have been saying for 15 years (To understand economics, you must understand Monetary Sovereignty. Most economists and politicians don’t.), and the MMT folks have been saying even longer than that.

What he gets right is: The government needs to spend more, not less. And austerity, aka deficit reduction, is job destroying, economy destroying and life destroying.

Sadly, what he gets wrong is: “ . . . until the private sector is ready to carry the economy forward again . . . “ thus demonstrating he really doesn’t get it. This suggestion indicates a desire to return to austerity, once we emerge from the recession. Yikes!

Message to Professor Krugman: The federal government should deficit spend, and after that, deficit spend, and then deficit spend – until we are at a point of full employment of such scarce resources as people and energy – that is, until we face an inflation we can’t cure by raising interest rates (as we always have done).

Barring that kind of inflation, which is so far off, I hope your grandchildren live long enough to see it, the government needs to continue growing the economy with deficit spending.

Anyway, this is a good first step for Professor Krugman, whom I’m sure will tell us he “always believed that,” and in a few years, when he decides that deficit spending should continue he will tell us he “always believed that, too.”

Welcome to the party, Professor. Better late than never.

And I’m still jealous.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Medicare — parts A, B & D — for everyone
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
4. Long-term nursing care for everyone
5. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
6. Salary for attending school (Click here)
7. Eliminate corporate taxes
8. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
9. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99%

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:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–It happens here, there and everywhere. Is this really so hard to understand?

The UK wisely kept its own currency, the pound, rather than join the mutual suicide pact of the euro nations. So the UK remains Monetarily Sovereign. It never can run short of its sovereign currency, the pound. It never needs to borrow pounds or to ask anyone for pounds.

Unfortunately, UK politicians, like U.S. politicians, act as though their nation were monetary non-sovereign. They seek balanced budgets; they cut spending; they raise taxes — all harmful to their economies, and especially harmful to the middle- and lower-income groups.

Excerpts from Financial Times
Britain slides back towards recession
By Sarah O’Connor and Claire Jones

Britain’s economy shrank 0.3 per cent in the final quarter of last year, bringing it closer to a possible “triple-dip” recession and piling pressure on the coalition government.

Chancellor George Osborne, whose austerity programme has come under increasing criticism as the economy has faltered, said he would “confront” the UK’s problems and not “run away” in response to the data, which was worse than economists had predicted.

He said. “. . . we face problems at home because of the debts built up over many years and problems abroad with the eurozone, where we export most of our products, in recession.”

Er, ah, excuse me, Chancellor, but you “face problems” because of your austerity program. You are pulling money out of your citizens’ pockets and expecting this to grow the economy.

But don’t feel bad. Our politicians in the U.S., being on the dole from the 1%, are doing exactly the same thing.

Said Chris Williamson, an economist at Markit, a data company. “. . . the data pile ever more pressure on the chancellor to seek ways to revive the economy in the March Budget.”

If you’re waiting for Chancellor Osborne to revive the economy, I wish you a very long life. He is clueless about Monetary Sovereignty.

The opposition Labour party hit out at the government, holding it responsible for the poor economic figures. Ed Balls, shadow chancellor, said: “These deeply disappointing figures expose just how dangerously complacent the prime minister was when he said last autumn that the ‘good news will keep coming’.”

Mr Balls called for the government to abandon its plans for fiscal consolidation. “A plan B now should include a compulsory jobs guarantee for the long-term unemployed and a temporary VAT cut to boost family incomes and our struggling high streets,” the shadow chancellor said. “We should also bring forward infrastructure investment including building thousands of affordable homes and establish a British Investment Bank to boost lending to small businesses.”

Possibly helpful, sort of helpful and very helpful. The jobs guarantee possibly could help – or ever hurt — depending on the details. The temporary VAT cut will help, but why make it temporary? Make it permanent. And government spending on infrastructure definitely will help.

Like American politicians, UK politicians pretend their nation is not Monetarily Sovereign, so the middle- and lower-income classes must pay the price. Austerity always, always, always widens the gap between rich and poor, by crushing the poor.

That is the true purpose of austerity, as ordered up by the 1%.

My question is, if every time austerity happens, recession happens, how long will it take the voting public to realize that austerity causes recessions, which in turn, punishes the 99%, and that the politicians are paid by the upper 1% to widen the income gap?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Yet another effort by the 1% to widen the gap and screw the 99%. Enough never is enough.

The richest 1% feel it isn’t enough that President Obama raised FICA again, so that a salaried worker making $50,000 a year will pay an additional $1,000 in taxes. No, there needs to be more pain for the middle- and lower-income 99%. The gap must be wider.

And the richest 1% feel it isn’t enough that the qualifying age for Social Security has been raised two years, and discussions are underway to raise it further. The gap must be wider.

And the 1% feel it isn’t enough that every politician is making plans to cut federal spending, and virtually all of these cuts will negatively impact the 99% far more than the 1%. No, it isn’t enough, it never is enough and it never will be enough. The gap must be wider; there must be ever more pain for the non-rich.

And here it comes:

Governors Push Bigger Reliance on Sales Taxes
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON, New York Times
Published: January 24, 2013

WASHINGTON — Republican governors are moving aggressively to cut personal and corporate income taxes, including proposals that would increase reliance on state sales taxes, setting up ambitious experiments in tax reform that could shape what is possible on a national level.

In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal is pushing to repeal the state’s personal and corporate income taxes and make up the lost revenue through higher sales taxes. Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska is calling for much the same thing in his state. Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas wants to keep in place what was supposed to be a temporary increase in the state sales tax to help pay for his plan to lower and eventually end his state’s income tax.

They are focusing attention on the idea, long championed by conservatives but accepted up to a point by economists of all stripes, that the economy would be better served by focusing taxation on consumption rather than on income.

Translation: The 1% would be better served by a reduction in their taxes and an increase in taxes more heavily impacting the 99%.

Taxing consumption has the potential to lift economic growth by encouraging more savings and investment.

Translation: Taxing consumption has the potential to reduce consumption, which will reduce economic growth, by encouraging less spending. Reductions in economic growth negatively affect the 99% far more than the 1%.

But the shift could also increase inequality by reducing taxes predominantly for the wealthy, who spend a smaller share of their income than middle- and lower-income people.

Exactly. That is the whole point.

Beyond citing economic growth, the governors and their supporters say their plans would help make their states more competitive in attracting employers and high-skilled workers, simplify their tax systems and curb pressure for more government spending.

Translation: Beyond reducing economic growth, their plans would please their wealthy supporters, punish lower skilled workers and curb pressure for the federal spending that would benefit the 99%. But it would be simple, just as death is a simple solution for disease. (Tax “simplification” is the sales slogan for more onerous taxation.)

For Mr. Jindal and other Republican governors who are considering a presidential run in 2016, there are obvious political benefits to having a robust income tax-cutting record to present to conservative primary voters.

Translation: He’ll be able to say, “Support me. I have a great record for widening the gap, and crushing the 99%.”

But Democrats say the approach would lead to cutbacks in education, health care and other vital services while shifting relatively more of the tax burden to those who can least afford it.

“These aren’t pro-growth policies — they’re shell games that reward the wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else,” said Danny Kanner, a spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association.

Again, that is the whole conservative point.

While all politicians, Democrats as well as Republicans, rely on financial support for the wealthy (even more so with the right-wing Supreme Court “Citizens United” decision), the Republicans lately have evolved to become the true “Party of the Rich.” There is no limit, and will be no limit, to their efforts to reward the 1% at the expense of the 99%.

The ongoing goal of royalty always has been to put ever more distance between themselves and the peasants. Enough never is enough.

As recently as Reagan, I tended to vote Republican. But of late, the party has become way too crazy. Today, if you earn less than a half million dollars a year, or have less than perhaps $20 million – $30 million in net assets, you are a fool to vote Republican (unless your hatred for blacks, browns and poor women is stronger than your concerns about your own finances).

Sadly, there are an awful lot of fools in America. And they and their money are being parted.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Five proofs showing why the federal deficit should be cut

Here are five proofs showing why the federal deficit should be cut:

Oh, sorry, but you never will see even one proof. Not from any politician. Not from any media writer. Not from any economist. Not from me. You may see general comments like, “It’s unsustainable.” Or, “We’re broke.” Or, “We can’t keep spending forever.” Or, ‘One day, we’ll be like Zimbabwe.” Or, “If you have to live within your means, so should your government.”

But never will you see or hear specific evidence. Why? Because such evidence does not exist. There are no data to support the contention that the federal deficit should be cut. There only are opinions, and all those opinions merely equate federal debt with private debt, demonstrating ignorance of the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty.

Our federal politicians and our media are controlled by the upper 1% income group, whose primary objective is not merely to increase their own income, but far more importantly, to increase the gap between the 1% and the 99%. For them, it’s not enough to go up; they want you to go down. The gap is everything.

Sadly, even many knowledgeable people find it difficult to believe the 1% intentionally would injure the middle- and lower-classes, just to widen the gap. Perhaps this article will come as an awakening:

Congress charts new collision course over deficit
Senate Dems eye new taxes, GOP seeks deeper spending cuts
By Charles Babington, Associated Press | Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s sharp disagreements over taxes and spending are on a re-routed collision course, as Senate Democrats launch a plan that includes new taxes and House Republicans vow to speed up their plan to balance the federal budget with spending cuts alone.

The Republicans’ new approach would require even deeper cuts in social programs than they pushed last year. Liberals denounced those earlier plans as severe and unfair, and they say the new version would be worse.

Translation: Both sides wish to cut the deficit, though the Republicans, more devoted to the rich even than the Democrats, wish only to cut spending on social programs – Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and other poverty aids – anything that helps the 99%. This is the fastest, easiest way to widen the gap.

It’s possible that both parties will continue to find ways to postpone and minimize tough decisions on taming the deficit.

Translation: The media (owned by the 1%) say the deficit needs “taming.” Why? No one knows. It just does. They know if they tell a lie often enough, it assumes the mantle of truth in the public mind.

“The American people will have a chance to compare the two approaches,” said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., who wants deep spending cuts and no new taxes. The only way to shrink the government, he said, “is to choke the monster.”

Translation: We must “tame” and “choke the monster.” Who is the monster that needs taming and choking? The middle- and lower-income classes, whom the 1% regards with contempt.

House Republicans now vow to balance the budget in 10 years without tax hikes. They say the methods might include reducing future benefits for Medicare, and possibly Social Security, for people now in their late 50s, rather than those 55 and younger.

Translation: “The rich, who pay us politicians for our votes, don’t need Social Security and Medicare. Knowing that the 99% relies on these programs, the 1% wants us to cripple them. So that is what we’ll do.

The search for savings must “move over into entitlement spending” more so than before, said Rep. John Fleming, R-La.

Balancing the budget in 10 years without tax increases would require deep spending cuts, causing many analysts to view them as politically near-impossible. But House conservatives say aiming for that goal is important. They demanded this week that GOP leaders agree to balance the budget in 10 years as the conservatives’ price for supporting the three-month extension of federal borrowing powers.

Translation: “We’ll ask for $5 trillion in social spending cuts, and then, when we settle for cutting “only” $4 trillion, the voters with thank us for being generous. We agreed to ignore the idiotic debt ceiling for three months, in return for destroying the middle- and lower-income groups. Seems like a fair exchange.”

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s earlier plans would have changed Medicare into a voucher-like program with limited government contributions to health care for seniors. His plans, endorsed by most House Republicans, also would have given states full responsibility for running Medicaid — the health care program for the poor — with a reduced federal contribution.

Translation: “We also will destroy state finances. State spending is heavily weighted toward the 99%. And we don’t care if the states raise taxes. We rich people don’t pay state taxes. Heck, we don’t even have earnings or bank accounts in America. Ask Mitt Romney.”

Democrats, including President Barack Obama, say new tax revenues must be part of any eventual bipartisan budget accord. “As we go forward to reduce the deficit, we need growth and job creation, we need spending cuts, we need revenue,” Pelosi said during Wednesday’s House debate.

Translation: “We increased FICA a full 2% which will take billions from consumers and businesses. That will stimulate economic growth and job creation. Then we’ll take more tax billions out of the economy, which will stimulate more growth and job creation. Don’t ask me how this works. Just trust me.”
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Summary: If you think the President of the United States, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Council of Economic Advisers and their 500+ PhD economists, plus every single one of the 535 Congress people, and all their assistants all without exception, do not know that taking money from the economy will hurt the 99% – I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

And further, if you think not one of these thousands of educated people do not understand that cutting social programs hurts the middle- and lower-income groups far more than the rich – I have some genuine diamonds I’d like to sell you.

And even further, if you think not one of these thousands of smart people is familiar with Monetary Sovereignty or MMT – I’d like you to invest in the lottery I’m running.

And finally, if you think these political creatures are not affected by the billions in political contributions and the promises of lucrative jobs – I am a Nigerian prince who has a million dollar deal for you.

Bottom line: The 1% are paying billions to widen the income gap by screwing you, the 99%. It’s not ignorance. It’s intentional. It’s a well-thought-out scheme created by some very smart people.

The 1% are planning a feast, and you are the main course.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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