–The Republican nightmare is only beginning

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.

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

Let’s be clear. The politicians of both parties have been bribed by the rich (via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment, later) to widen the income gap between the rich and the rest.

So, both parties tell us federal spending must be reduced (which negatively impacts the middle- and lower-income groups most) and taxes must be “reformed” (which also negatively impacts the middle- and lower income groups most).

The difference is: The Republicans are extreme and obvious in their disdain for the poor while the Democrats are more moderate and much cleverer by half.

The Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, said,

“There are 47 percent who are with (the President), who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it — that that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. … These are people who pay no income tax. … [M]y job is not to worry about those people.

Uh, excuse me, but what is the purpose of government if not to care for its needier citizens? And, uh, excuse me again, but aren’t Americans entitled to health care, food and housing? Or should we simply turn our backs on our less fortunate, and allow them to sicken and die in the streets?

The last election proved that most Americans understand we cannot all be rich and self-sufficient or born with lucky genes. Americans fortunate enough to be so born have a duty and a desire, to care for those who need care.

Really, what does the religious right learn in church? That is what being American is all about.

Romney was wrong, stupid, selfish and mean-spirited. In short, he was a Republican.

As Republican Governor Bobby Jindal said, “We must stop being the stupid party.”

But they simply can’t help themselves. They’ve tried to elect such non-luminaries as Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and of course, Mitt Romney, the guy who complained about poor people not paying taxes, while he avoided most of his.

The Republicans not only have shown disdain for the poor and the middle, they also despise immigrants, Latins, gays, lesbians, Jews and blacks. In short, they intentionally have alienated the vast majority of America’s voters, hoping to win elections by stealing ballots in the South, and appealing to the basest instincts of the callous.

The Democrats are much more subtle. President Obama pretends to love the poor and huddled masses, while he continues to opt for deficit reduction and his “Grand Bargain,” which would decimate the middle class.

But if the religious right thought things couldn’t get worse, with the re-election of Obama, I have news for the “stupid party.” Things could get worse — much worse.

Here are a few quotes from the Chicago Tribune:

Medicaid coverage to expand in Illinois
By Peter Frost and Rick Pearson, Chicago Tribune reporters, July 23, 2013

About 342,000 low-income Illinoisans will be newly eligible for government-sponsored health insurance through Medicaid starting in January as part of legislation signed into law Monday by Gov. Pat Quinn.

The expansion of the state-administered Medicaid program, one of the central components of President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care overhaul law, will be financed fully by the federal government for the first three years, then gradually decline to 90 percent by 2020.

Illinois’ share in 2017 will be an estimated $99 million, rising to $210 million by 2020. Over those four years, state officials project Illinois’ portion to be about $573 million.

In Illinois, about 957,000 residents will be eligible for subsidized health insurance next year in the form of a federal tax credit available through the Illinois Health Insurance Marketplace.

That’s just Illinois. Nationally, many millions of voters will remember how the “stupid party” wanted to deprive them of health care. They will thank the Democrats for saving their children.

Equally important, the federal government will pump much-needed dollars — billions of dollars — into the states, and these dollars will translate into lower state taxes and/or better state services.

For the states, it’s all good.

Illinois is one of 23 states, plus the District of Columbia, moving forward with the Medicaid expansion, aimed to extend coverage to 17 million Americans starting in 2014.

Did you hear that, “stupid party”? Seventeen million people. Don’t bother to ask them for their vote.

Twenty-one states, largely those controlled by Republican governors, have opted out of the program

In April, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Janesville, Wis., the Republican who chairs the federal House Budget Committee, said he had been advising GOP governors not to count on the high levels of federal Medicaid reimbursement for expansion.

Ryan called the reimbursement “the fastest thing that’s going to go when we’re cutting spending in Washington” — adding, “there’s no way we’re going to keep those match rates like that.”

Yes, the first thing — the very first thing — the “stupid party” wants to cut is the thing the poor and middle need and want most — health care.

Oh yeah, health care and food. The “stupid party” also wants to cut food stamps.

Oh yeah, the poor and middle want health care, food and also education. The “stupid party” has forced a “compromise” resulting in higher interest payments for student loans.

Oh yeah, the poor and middle want health care, food, education plus lower taxes. The “stupid party” wants a flat tax that would cost the rich less and the rest more.

As for Illinois, the “stupid party” probably doesn’t care. Illinois is solid blue, which may be why Illinois Republican Senator Mark Kirk must be having night sweats, as he tries to justify his membership in the “stupid party.”

Today, religious Republicans pray Obamacare will be a disaster and that all those millions of people it covers will lose their insurance and their health.

Otherwise, beginning in election year 2014, the “stupid party” will be faced with the nightmarish task of telling people why eliminating health care coverage actually is good for them.

So, having learned its lesson in 2012, who is the “stupid party” putting up for the next presidential election? The likes of:

Ted Cruz, whose primary motto is: “Defund Obamacare.”
Rand Paul, whose aide, Jack Hunter had a radio program, “The Southern Avenger,” in which he extolled white pride, pro-secession, and John Wilkes Booth for assassinating Abraham Lincoln. Rand Paul said he did not believe Hunter was racist or white supremacist.
Scott Walker who hates union members and food stamp recipients.
–Proven losers old Ron Paul and sanctimonious Rick Santorum.
–And then there is Marco Rubio, the ultimate of the cynical Tea Partyesque politician, viable only because he is Cuban-American, though he is solid right wing with regard to immigration. He is so inept (not just in drinking water), one cannot imagine even the Latinos voting for him, much less the blacks and whites.

There are a few others — the aforementioned Jindal, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush — but they will have to explain to mainstream America why they really love the various minorities, while they explain to the religious right why they really hate the various minorities.

Given that there are so many middle- and lower-income voters, gay voters, black voters, Latin voters, immigrant voters, voting families of indebted students and Jewish voters, plus white voters who have empathy for the downtrodden, who the heck has been voting for the “stupid party.”

Are there that many voters who combine being rich, white, straight, cold-hearted and Christian?

Can photo-ID laws really turn the tide?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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

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. Click here
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%

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

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–OMG! Please Say It Isn’t True. Not Sleepy Summers, Again!!

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.

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

Last year this blog published: Lawrence Summers: Failing to the top and followed it up with “Lawrence “Sleepy” Summers comedy hour renewed for another season,” which included this appropriate photo:

Monetary Sovereignty

Now that zombie movies are all the rage, “Sleepy” seems to have risen from the dead. I highly recommend the following article: “The Return of Lawrence Summers, Mr. Spectacular Failure” by Robert Sheer on July 15, 2013.

Apparently, Lawrence Summers has the cojones to tell the world he would like to be the next Chairman of the Fed. (For all you who feel the Fed should be eliminated, his Chairmanship would solidify your belief.)

A couple of lines from Mr. Sheer’s article:

Tell me it’s a sick joke: Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, the guy who tops the list of those responsible for sabotaging the world’s economy, is lobbying to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. But no, it makes perfect sense, since Summers has long succeeded spectacularly by failing.

I urge you to read the entire article. It’s too funny (horrifying?) to be summarized by a single paragraph.

Will President Obama appoint possibly the worst choice on the planet to lead our banking system (now that Bozo the Clown and Sarah Palin haven’t shown interest)?

Probably.

Obama previously appointed Summers to be Director of the National Economic Council, which advises Presidents on economic matters. So the future bodes ill.

For Mr. Obama, who has been well bribed by the rich (as witness the appointment of billionaire and loyal supporter Penny Pritzker to be Commerce Secretary), the appointment of the bribed Summers is a natural.

Both men have shown an insatiable lust to suck up to the upper-income group and to stomp on the rest of us working slobs. Obama repeatedly has expressed the desire to gut Social Security, and let’s not even talk about Obama’s middle-class-crushing “Grand Bargain.”

Again quoting Sheer:

It was a massive infusion of Wall Street money that helped Obama get elected both times. And Wall Street, which showered Summers with almost $8 million in speaking fees and hedge fund profits during the 2008 campaign while he advised Obama, clearly would approve of this greed enabler as the next Fed chairman.

So our advice is: Keep your passport current. If Obama appoints Summers, you may want to use it.

Quickly and long term.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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

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. Click here
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%

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

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–How the rich have turned the rest of us into docile draft animals

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.

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

You might expect the U.S. government to do everything possible to make the U.S. more competitive and to grow our economy. Here’s a hint at what that would require:

Chicago Tribune
Blue-collar jobs that require science, maths skills on the rise
7/22/13, Dan Zehr, Austin American-statesman

A Brookings Institution study released last month reports that the number of jobs requiring proficiency in science, technology, engineering or math — the STEM fields — is much larger than previously considered.

U.S. employers provided 26 million such jobs in 2011 — about 20 percent of the country’s nonfarm job base.

Machinists often rely on specialized computere programming and math skills to operate modern manufacturing equipment. Those skills are as STEM-intensive as those used by website programmers.

Based on the way the world has changed, you might expect the U.S. government to do everything possible to facilitate education in America, including higher education.

How wrong you would be.

The federal government essentially has washed its hands of educational responsibility (other than passing counter-productive laws like “No Child Left Behind,” that burden the educational system and require families to pay for education.)

Grades 1-12 mostly are financed by local governments, which are monetarily non-sovereign, and so are financially pressed. Local governments are supported by local taxes, which are paid by families.

Grades 13+ are financed directly by families or via local taxes paid by families.

In America, the educational system emphasizes your ability to pay. The wealthier you are, the better are your educational opportunities.

Not only does the U.S. government fail to support education, it actively discourages education:

Senators reach deal on student loan interest rates
Susan Davis, USA TODAY July 17, 2013

A Senate deal would offer students lower interest rates through the 2015 academic year, but then rates would likely climb higher than they were when students left campus this spring.

The interest rates would be linked to the financial markets, but Democrats won a protection for students that rates would never climb higher than 8.25% for undergraduate students. Graduate students would not pay rates higher than 9.5%, and parents’ rates would top out at 10.5%.

This is a great “victory” for the Democrats?? Rates as high as 10.5%!!

I have one simple question:

Why the hell does a Monetarily Sovereign government, with the unlimited ability to create dollars — a government that should grow America and make America more competitive — why does that government charge students interest on loans to pay for the education we need, more than ever, to make America prosper?

Rather than forcing cash-strapped local governments and cash-strapped families, to pay for education (plus onerous interest), why doesn’t the federal government encourage education by paying for it?

Why does the federal government do everything possible to discourage education in America?

It doesn’t. The federal government does not discourage all education; it only discourages the education of middle class and poor families.

The middle-classes get stuck with high interest payments on loans so restrictive they can’t even be discharged in bankruptcy. The lower-classes get stuck with bad schools.

Rich families have no difficulty gaining the best educations, and thus, achieving the best, most powerful, leadership jobs. Rich families don’t care about student loan interest rates.

This situation isn’t accidental. It is intentional. The politicians are bribed by the rich (via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment) to widen the income gap between the rich and the rest.

The rich do not want the middle and the poor to be educated. The rich want to maintain a ready supply of a servant class. They want hoards beholden for their daily bread. They want power over the rest.

Not only should the federal government Eliminate School Loans and simply pay for schooling at all levels, but it should pay students a Salary for Attending School.

Being Monetarily Sovereign, the government could pay for schooling and student salaries without charging taxpayers one cent.

But that won’t happen so long as the middle- and lower-classes are brainwashed into believing federal taxes pay for federal spending and government spending should be reduced.

If the government paid for all aspects of education, America’s best and brightest — rich or not — would lead America to greater prosperity for all.

But, if the non-rich are happy to be docile draft animals, the rich will keep riding and the rest will keep struggling in ignorance.

Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty
Why educate them, when they’d rather be whipped?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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

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. Click here
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%

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

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–How Greece will grow its economy. Remarkable new plan: An alms bowl.

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.

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

Greece has developed a remarkable method for saving its economy: Fire as many people as possible.

Financial Times
Greece agrees deal to reform civil service
By Quentin Peel, FT.com, July 18, 2013

The Greek parliament has approved controversial reforms of the civil service and tax administration, opening the way for mass dismissals of state employees in return for a €6.8bn aid disbursement by international lenders.

As you surely should have learned by now, “reform” is the upper income group’s euphemism for “widen the income gap by screwing the middle- and lower-income classes.”

One Pasok legislator broke ranks, voting against the axing of the 3,500-strong municipal police force.

Now there’s 3,500 more unemployed, wandering the streets, struggling to find food, by hook or by crook. Hey, who needs police?

Teachers at vocational training institutes, school guards and municipal police officers will be transferred to a special “mobility reserve” on reduced pay and given eight months to find another job in the public sector or face dismissal.

Finding another job should be no problem in Greece. Right?

The governing coalition is committed to sacking 15,000 civil servants by the end of 2014 under the bailout terms.

Yannis Stournaras, the finance minister, agreed to suspend payment of €80m in compensation for 2,600 workers who were sacked at the state broadcaster ERT last month.

Sack ’em and cut their pay. Make ’em starve. Force ’em to beg. We, the upper crust, will show ’em who’s boss.

“We can’t accept this level of payouts when we have cut the pensions of farmers [who receive the lowest state pension],” said Makis Voridis, a rightwing legislator.

Our solution to the unfairness of cutting farmers’ pensions is to cut everyone else’s pensions, too. That’s fair.

By increasing its unemployment, Greece guarantees a deepening of its depression, which shortly will require more firings, greater unemployment, deeper depression and more suffering for the lower income classes and by what’s left of the middle classes.

Thus, the gap between the rich (who will not be affected) and the rest, will grow. The Greek poor will have to beg the Greek rich for alms, which is exactly what the rich want.

Message to the Greek people: My heart goes out to you. You have been conned by your political leaders (who are bribed by the rich), into believing austerity will grow your economy.

Message to my fellow Americans: Our government is perpetrating exactly the same austerity and the results will be exactly the same: Recession and depression.

It’s what austerity always brings.

But, I suppose if we are dizzy enough to elect politicians who tell us we can grow our economy with federal spending cuts and austerity, we deserve our fate.

Get your alms bowls ready, citizens. A- begging we will go.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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

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. Click here
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%

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

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY