Bribed politicians? Of course. Bribed media? Sure. But bribed university economists??

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.
======================================================================================================================================================================================

Readers of this blog have read these three truths:

1. The super rich care more about the income/wealth gap between them and the rest of us, than they do about their absolute income. It is the gap that makes them rich. Without the gap, no one would be rich, and the greater the gap, the richer they are.

2. To widen the gap, the rich bribe the politicians (via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later), the media (via media ownership) and the university economists (via contributions to the university and direct payment to professors for economic research).

3. Deficit reduction, aka “austerity,” has a far greater negative impact on the middle- and lower-income American than it does on the rich. The vast majority of federal spending benefits the “99%,” so spending cuts widen the gap. Repeated efforts to “broaden the tax base” (i.e. make the poor pay more) and increased FICA, also widen the gap, which is why the rich bribe the politicians, the media and the university economists to brainwash Americans into believing the deficit and debt are too large (The Big Lie).

We expect politicians to be bribed. They have made it legal, and the Supreme Court has actively encouraged bribery (via the Citizens United decision) and is expected to reinforce its encouragement of bribery (via McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission).

We know the media are owned by the rich, and media writers, more now than ever, respond to their bosses’ desires. (Hello, FOX News) To keep their jobs and receive promotions, they tell Americans the same Big Lie.

But what of the university economists? Surely the world of academia, the world of honest economic research, has far more integrity than do politicians and the media. Right?

Tampa Bay Times
Billionaire’s role in hiring decisions at Florida State University raises questions.
Kris Hundley, Kris Hundley, Times Staff Writer

A conservative billionaire who opposes government meddling in business has bought a rare commodity: the right to interfere in faculty hiring at a publicly funded university.

A foundation bankrolled by Libertarian businessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University’s economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting “political economy and free enterprise.”

For a lousy $1.5 million, chump change to a guy like Koch, Florida State University sold its soul.

An advisory committee appointed by Koch decides which candidates should be considered. The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it’s not happy with the faculty’s choice or if the hires don’t meet “objectives” set by Koch during annual evaluations.

During the first round of hiring in 2009, Koch rejected nearly 60 percent of the faculty’s suggestions but ultimately agreed on two candidates.

Apparently, the faculty at FSU is so stupid, 60% of their hiring recommendations were not qualified, and had to be rejected by that noted academic, Charles G. Koch.

David W. Rasmussen, dean of the College of Social Sciences, defended the deal, saying hiring the two new assistant professors allows him to offer eight additional courses a year. “I’m sure some faculty will say this is not exactly consistent with their view of academic freedom, but it seems to me it would have been irresponsible not to do it.”

Not “exactly” academic freedom? Not “exactly”? That’s like saying Bernie Madoff was not “exactly” honest. Dean Rasmussen seems to feel that money is more important than academic honesty. How did this guy make Dean?

The foundation partnering with FSU is one of several non-profits funded by Charles Koch and his brother David. The aim: To advance their belief, through think tanks, political organizations and academia, that government taxes and regulations impinge on prosperity.

Bruce Benson, chairman of FSU’s economics department, said “The Kochs find, as I do, that a lot of regulation is actually detrimental and they’re convinced markets work relatively well when left alone.”

Yes, of course regulations are detrimental to crooks, charletans and especially to the rich crooks who caused the Great Recession. Regulations that protect the 99% are especially inconvenient, aren’t they Chairman Benson?

What a wonderful economics department he runs. What a sad disgrace.

Charles Koch cofounded the Cato Institute. David started the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which has worked closely with the tea party movement. George Mason University has received more than $30 million from Koch over the past 20 years. At George Mason, Koch’s foundation has underwritten the Mercatus Center

In addition to FSU, Koch has made similar arrangements at Clemson University in South Carolina and West Virginia University.

The above tells you all you need to know about Cato, Americans for Prosperity, Mercatus Center and the tea party. And I truly pity the parents of students at FSU, Clemson University, George Mason University and West Virginia University, who spend good money to have propaganda pumped into their children’s malleable brains.

With the Big Lie coming from all sides — from the bribed politicians, the bribed media and even the bribed university economists — who can blame the people for believing total nonsense?

And how is this for irony?

Said Rasmussen, “I have no objections to people who want to help us fund excellence at our university. I’m happy to do it.”

Academic integrity? Who needs it? There’s money to be made.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
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. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
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)

—–

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

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Your children and grandchildren never will know what they have lost

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

This is the fifth in a series of posts titled, “You never will know what you have lost” (Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV)

Each post describes the invisible, but real costs of federal deficit reduction, aka “austerity.” The first of the posts contained these paragraphs:

Since austerity never has benefited any Monetarily Sovereign nation that has tried it – 100% record of abject failure, often culminating in economic disaster – it is amazing that people still believe in it. But that is exactly what our own government is trying, now.

The list goes on and on: The lame who might have walked. The blind who might have seen. The children who might have given to America. The tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes that might have been foreseen. The money that investors might have saved. The inventions never invented. The recessions and depressions that might have been avoided. The wars that might have been won or prevented. The life-saving drugs that might have been developed. The people who might not have died too soon. The beauty never created. The ideas lost. The better world that might have been.

You never will know.

The income/wealth gap is what makes the rich rich. If there were no gap, no one would be rich, and the wider the gap, the richer and more powerful are the rich. Widening the gap is the single, most important goal of the rich.

The rich have bribed the politicians, the media and the university economists to widen the gap, which is accomplished via reductions in federal deficit spending, most of which benefit the middle and lower classes.

The politicians, media and university economists tell you your children and grandchildren will have to pay for the federal government’s deficits and debts, so deficit reduction protects them. It is The Big Lie.

Our federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, never can run short of dollars to pay its debts. Even if your children and grandchildren paid $0 taxes, the government could continue deficit spending, forever.

And, being Monetarily Sovereign, the federal government has absolute control over the value of the dollar, meaning it has the absolute ability to control inflation.

So, it is not federal deficit spending and federal debt that threatens your children and grandchildren, but rather The Big Lie and the widening gap.

Here are some examples:

Science News Magazine
Science slowdown
Recent federal shutdown just the latest shock in a deepening funding crisis

BY Beth Mole, NOVEMBER 15, 2013

For two weeks in October, the largest maneuverable radio telescope in the world stood still. With the federal government shut down and the employees who control the Green Bank telescope on furlough, the research of astronomers around the world came to an abrupt halt.

Astronomers Sheila Kannappan and David Stark of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had been allotted 80 hours of observing time on the gigantic West Virginia telescope to study how gases flow between galaxies and fuel star formation. Now it’s unclear when, if ever, they will get to complete those observations.

How important is astronomy to your children’s and grandchildren’s future? Are landing on the moon and Mars, exploring the solar system, finding inhabitable planets, understanding the universe important to your children and grandchildren?

They never will know what they have lost.

The recent federal government shutdown, which furloughed more than 800,000 government workers . . . may have cost the nation as much as $24 billion. In just 2 1/2 weeks, experiments were spoiled, careers derailed and proposed reserach initiatives delayed or suspended.

This is just the latest blow to a research community already weakened by funding cuts and fiscal uncertainty.

How important are research, and the scientists who do research, to your children and grandchildren? They never will know what they have lost.

In the last decade, federal funding for basic and biomedical research has stagnated. The budget for the National Institutes of Health has dropped 23% since 2003, after inflation.

Competitors abroad are boosting their research investments. China, for instance, has increased its science funding more than fivefold since 1999.

Is maintaining a lead in scientific research important to your children’s and grandchildren’s futures? They never will know what they have lost.

Just 15 years agao, the NIH awarded funding to more than 30% of all proposals. (Today), some research programs, accept only 10% of grant application.

After some of his funding ran out, Andrew Singson of Rutgers University, had to lay off one of the four postdoctoral researchers working in his lab, which aims to identify genetic components linked to infertility in humans.

When another postdoc in the lab left last summer, Singson was not able to hire a replacement.

Might Singson have made a discovery of benefit to your children and grandchildren? They never will know.

Larry Suva, an orthopedic researcher at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, worries that the current challenges are scaring off the country’s next generation of scientists.

For the first time in his 30-year career, Suva saw one of his graduate students take a job abroad to avoid the U.S. funding climate.

Even a few years ago, the U.S. was the world’s leader in research funding. Now China is poised to surpass the U.S. in science funding and published discoveries.

Is this important to your children and grandchildren? They never will know what they have lost.

Suva’s lab collaborates with researchers at the Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center to study how bone diseases link to obesity. The experiments involved giving mice daily dietary supplements.

But some of his collaborators were furloughed during the recent shutdown and couldn’t give the mice their supplements.

Could this research have benefited your children and grandchildren? They never will know what they have lost.

The funding cuts, pauses and uncertainty aren’t over. When Congress passed legislation to reopen the government on October 17, it did so only until January 15, at which point another budget battle likely will ensue.

(Professor) Trower of Harvard’s Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education said, “We’ve seen year after year of cut and cut, down to the bone. People are realizing that it’s never going to come back. I don’t like to be gloom and doom, but I don’t think it will.”

So which will hurt your children and grandchildren more — the federal deficit which they will not ever have to repay, and which adds dollars to our economy, or The Big Lie that has put America on a trajectory toward becoming a second rate nation?

Your children and grandchildren never will know what the rich-bribed politicians, media and university economists have cost them.

Will their lives be shorter, their futures dimmer, their existence sadder? Cancer, ALS, Altzheimers, osteoporosis, heart disease, arthritis, stroke, Parkinsons, diseases of the kidneys and liver and brain — will they continue to plague your children and grandchildren because research is lacking?

From where will come the next antibiotic, the next gene therapy, the next heart replacement surgery technique?

Your children and grandchildren will not blame the rich for there lesser futures, though they should. And they won’t blame you, though they should.

For, they never will know what you have cost them. They never will know what they have lost.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

—–

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–If GMO foods scare you, this will really make you nuts.

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

There has been a great deal of anxiety surrounding GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) foods.

Almost every food you eat has been genetically modified via crossbreeding. The corn you eat would not exist without genetic modification. The milk you drink comes from cows that have been bred to give more milk.

About the only non-modified food I can imagine is fish, and even here there is at least one exception, which I’ll mention later.

Those concerned about GMO however, are not talking about crossbreeding, but rather gene insertion, via artificial means — from another plant, bacterium, virus or even from an animal.

I’m not sure why one form of gene modification is scarier than another, i.e. why gene insertion is scarier than crossbreeding. Gene change is gene change. Perhaps it is the greater change that can come from gene insertion.

The Atlantic salmon called the AquAdvantage, has been given a gene from a fish called the “ocean pout,” making the salmon grow twice as fast. Had a larger salmon been achieved via crossbreeding, presumably there would be no concern from those desiring “natural food.”

At any rate, I won’t argue that point here. Instead, the purpose of this post is to discuss consumer information.

NaturalNews
Connecticut legislature passes nation’s first ever GMO labeling bill
Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

The state of Connecticut has officially made history by passing the nation’s first ever bill requiring that genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) be properly labeled.

There is a good discussion of the pros and cons of labeling GMO (or GE — genetically engineered) foods at: Labeling of Genetically Engineered Foods.

Clearly, food is a sensitive product, and people want to know what goes into their food, the main question not being whether to label, but how much to label. Should we label all GMO food? All the spices that go into food?

Take a simple bottle of catsup. It can contain tomatoes, vinegar, sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, onions, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, garlic, and celery. What if the onions were genetically engineered? Should that be on the label?

While you ponder that, let’s get to the real the point of this post: Consumer information.

Recently, an article appeared in the January-February 2014 Discover Magazine, page 81, titled, “Chicken Could Go ‘Round the World.” Here are some excerpts:

In Sepember, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would, for the first time, all poultry raised and slaughtered in the U.S. to be shipped to China, processed, and shipped back to be sold to U.S. consumers.

The move touched a nerve with a public already unsettled by repeated food safety scandals in China — notably, the discover in in 2008 that baby formula manufacturers there had deliberately laced their products with toxic melamine to lower costs.

Yes, we already import quite a lot of food from China. Does that make you uncomfortable?

Between 2008 and 2011, Chinese imports made up two-thirds of the apple juice sold in the U.S., a third of its garlic and nearly 80 percent of its tilapia.

If GMO food scares you, does food from China, notorious for lax supervision and outright food criminality, concern you? Is there any reason to trust people who deliberately poison baby formula? Are you having any second thoughts about eating tilapia or drinking apple juice?

And what about or Mexico, India, Brazil, et al. How do we know their food has been inspected properly?

Consider that bottle of catsup. Which of those incredients — the tomatoes, vinegar, sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, onions, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, garlic, and celery — came from a foreign nation’s uninspected factory?

Some worry that this . . . may crack the door to the eventual importation of chicken raised in China.

And what will the Chinese feed those chickens?

Bottom line: We’re in a world market now. While the U.S. inspects most of its food processing plants (though less so now, with deficit reduction), even here there have been scandals of non inspection, along with botulism and other poisons sneaking into our foods.

How well do you think foreign food processing factories are inspected?

Those Tater Tots your kids love, could be raised here, cut and breaded in China and shipped here for packaging, and they would be labeled “Product of USA” or merely “Distributed by XYZ Company, USA.”

Today, our food is labeled as to the country of origin for only the final step in what can be a many stepped process. Should our food be labeled with country of origin for each step of the process and for each ingredient used?

If GMO scares you, country of origin for every step of the process, might concern you even more.

What is your suggestion?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

—–

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

What are the limits to our government lying to us citizens?

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

US releases more documents on surveillance origins
Associated Press By KIMBERLY DOZIER

President Barack Obama hinted Friday that he would consider some changes to NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records to address the public’s concern about privacy. His comments came in a week where a federal judge declared NSA’s collection program “unconstitutional,” and a presidential advisory panel suggested 46 changes to NSA operations.

The judge said there was little evidence any terror plot had been thwarted by the program, known as Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act.

The above information was courtesy of Edward Snowden, without whom we Americans wouldn’t have known about the government’s massive invasion of our privacy.

He was called a “traitor, and is being chased by our government. He is forced to hide in Russia.

Here is what President Obama said about Snowden:

“We’ve got countries that actually do the things Mr. Snowden says he’s worried about very explicitly — engaging in surveillance of their own citizens, targeting political dissidents, targeting and suppressing the press — who somehow are able to sit on the sidelines and act as if it’s the United States that has problems when it comes to surveillance and intelligence operations.

That’s a pretty distorted view what’s going on out there.”

President Obama added, “No, I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot.”

But he hinted he will consider changes, only because of public concern, not because it’s the right thing to do. (If the public hadn’t found out, there would be no “concern.”)

Lawmakers slam intelligence chief James Clapper for lying to Congress, call for DOJ investigation
By T.C. Sottek

In a March, 2013 Senate hearing: Sen. Ron Wyden: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”
Clapper: “No, Sir.”
Wyden: “It does not?”
Clapper: “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect but not, not wittingly.”

President Obama has made no comment regarding Clapper’s lies.

Clapper apologized to Senator Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, for giving “clearly erroneous” testimony. She called him a “direct and honest” person.

President Obama has made no comment regarding Sen. Feinstein’s opinion of Clapper.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, Committee on the Judiciary, said that Clapper should be removed and prosecuted for lying to Congress. “Lying to Congress is a federal offense, and Clapper ought to be fired and prosecuted for it.”

President Obama has had no comment on Clapper, but others have:

Rep. Peter King Says It’s A Disgrace To Call Out James Clapper For Lying To Congress

Recently, Senator Rand Paul made a claim that that James Clapper’s lying to Congress was more damaging than anything Ed Snowden did.

“That Clapper is lying to Congress is probably more injurious to our intelligent capabilities than anything Snowden did,” Paul said on CNN.

“Clapper has damaged the credibility of the entire intelligence apparatus and I’m not sure what to believe anymore when they come to Congress.”

So, how did King respond to this statement from someone in his own party? He went ballistic. He claimed that Senator Paul “disgraced his office” by calling out Clapper for lying to Congress.

“He disgraced his office and he owes Gen. Clapper an apology immediately.”

President Obama has had no comment regarding Rep. King’s or Sen. Paul’s comments.

From Der Spiegel:
quote:
Merkel spoke with Obama on Wednesday afternoon, calling him from her secure landline in her Chancellery office. Both spoke English. According to the Chancellery, the president said that he had known nothing of possible monitoring, otherwise he would have stopped it. Obama also expressed his deepest regrets and apologized.

So far, no Obama apology to the American people for spying on us and lying to us.

Secretary of State John Kerry says Obama didn’t personally order all the various types of snooping that have been revealed by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden

Not all? We should feel better, now.

In answer to the title question, “What are the limits to government lying to its citizens,” you might think there are no limits, but there are.

The limits to government lying are: Getting caught and voter anger.

Anything up to that point is just fine.

The moral to this story is: The politicians will lie to us until enough Americans angrily throw the lies back in their faces. Only then, will the politicians backtrack and perhaps, as a last resort, do the right thing.

Remember that the next time a pol tells you the federal deficit must be reduced, spending must be cut and taxes increased, and like John Boehner lies, “Let’s face it. We’re broke.”

But that’s a whole different set of lies you angrily should throw back in their faces.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

—–

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: