–Banks are being robbed. Why doesn’t Butch Cassidy seem to care?

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.
●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.
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Nothing is funnier — or sadder — than a “serious” article that completely misses the point.

New Republic
Financial Reform Is Being Dismantled. Why Doesn’t President Obama Seem to Care?
By Jeff Connaughton, 3/21/13

President Obama wants to consign the financial crisis to the past and delegate the implementation of financial reform to others in his administration. But he needs to get personally involved. Why? Because Senator Carl Levin’s recent hearing on the JP Morgan Whale showed that nothing has changed at the largest banks or the bank regulatory agencies since the run up to the financial crisis.

The sad humor of this is that Mr. Obama IS personally involved. In fact, he is the perpetrator. Mr. Connaughton seems to believe that Mr. Obama really wants the banksters to reform themselves, but somehow is too busy or too distracted to take on the chore.

Total nonsense.

Mr. Obama has been bought and paid for by the upper .1% income group, whose primary purpose is to widen the income/wealth gap between the rich and the rest of us.

Obama rose to classic Chicago political stardom by doing what classic Chicago politicians do: Obey rich. He has been “Clintonized” by promises of lucrative speeches and other money-making events for him and his family, plus a huge Obama library, plus a fawning legacy, courtesy of media owned by the wealthy.

In the early months of 2012—two years after passage of the Dodd-Frank Act—JP Morgan acted deceptively, regulators remained clueless, and investors were the last to know about the true magnitude of the bank’s $6.2 billion in losses. Nevertheless, Republicans and some Democrats in Congress are today working to repeal reforms.

Think. Why would this be? And why doesn’t President Obama “understand” it?

Senator Levin issued a statement Tuesday saying, “It is incredible that less than a week after new JP Morgan Whale hearings detailed how the bank’s London office piled up risk, hid losses, and dodged regulatory oversight, that some House members are again supporting the weakening of derivative safeguards.”

“You’re putting the taxpayers on the hook,” said Representative Collin Peterson of Minnesota, the panel’s top Democrat, at the mark up. “This could come back to haunt you.”

“Putting taxpayers on the hook?” While literally untrue – taxpayers do not pay for federal spending – the idea of putting the private sector on the hook is exactly what the .1% bribes our politicians to do. Does anyone seriously accept the notion the entire Obama administration is unaware of all this and is unable even to say anything about it, much less do something to stop it?

Are we expected to visualize our poor powerless President, huddled fearfully under his desk, praying that Republicans and other criminals somehow will find God, begin to exhibit morality and start to support the middle class?

Is it too soon for President Obama to care? After all, it’s just one committee in the House. But this is precisely how momentum developed for passage of the JOBS Act, which loosened securities regulations for small companies, and which former securities regulators had harshly condemned during congressional consideration. The White House sat silent.

How could this monstrous criminal activity have escaped Obama’s notice? Ah, ’tis a true mystery.

In yet another disappointment to those who care about preventing securities fraud, President Obama signed the JOBS Act, even over the (belated and weak) objection of his own SEC Chairman.

It’s yet another disappointment to those deluded innocents who actually believe President Obama wants to close the income/wealth gap. This is the same Obama who has promised for years, to cut Social Security, and who recently raised FICA, the most regressive tax in U.S. history — all to widen the gap. And now they expect him to care about the middle class?

If Wall Street proponents succeed in passing this wave of Dodd-Frank “fix it” bills, more will follow. Wall Street reform is a legacy issue for the president. Does he really want a derivative deregulation bill to reach his desk in the coming months?

Yes, he does, and he will leap to sign it. Legacy, aka “history,” is written by the rich and powerful. What we see is a mutual back scratching arrangement, whereby Obama gives the rich what they want, and later the rich will give him what he wants: Money, historical admiration and that big library in Chicago.

Unfortunately, President Obama has always been a delegator on Wall Street reform issues. In his first term, he picked disciples of Bob Rubin such as Larry Summers and Tim Geithner to implement policy, then sat back and watched.</blockquote.

And why did he specifically select two notorious incompetents, Summers and Geithner? Because he knew they would do exactly as they did, i.e. implement policies to crush the middle class, while rewarding the criminal .1%.

This was no accident of delegation. It was the plan.

After passage of Dodd-Frank, President Obama has done little to support the regulatory agencies charged with its implementation. He doesn’t seem to care that even his own Attorney General believe that Dodd-Frank didn’t end Too Big to Fail.

Now that the second term is here, and a new Treasury Secretary is in place, this is a good moment to see whether we can expect more than President Obama’s bank-friendly, first-term policies.

Republicans will continue to push for what Wall Street wants, Democrats will sign on in growing numbers, Dodd-Frank will crumble bit by bit (even as regulators struggle to implement the original Act), and the Wall Street fundraising and lobbying machine will win again.

And Obama will get his bribes: His library, his speaking engagements, his hobnobbing with the rich and famous and his legacy.

The title of Mr. Connaughton’s article should have been: “Banks are being robbed. Why doesn’t Butch Cassidy seem to care, and why don’t I understand what’s happening?”

Meanwhile, may we please see the merciful end to articles assuming President Obama is a liberal who really has the best interests of the middle class at heart, and is being thwarted by the conservative Republicans?

Obama is more conservative Republican than Reagan was.

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
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

Don’t be shy, MMT. It’s bribery, pure and simple.

Is there anyone out there (aside from MMT) who doesn’t yet believe there is sufficient proof that President Obama, and his entire administration, have been bribed by the .1% to widen the gap? If so, read this:

Senator Sherrod Brown Drops a Bombshell in Mary Jo White’s Hearing
By Pam Martens: March 13, 2013

Americans learned for the first time on March 6 of this year that the highest law enforcement agent in our country, Attorney General Eric Holder, weighs economic interests when deciding whether to enforce our Nation’s laws against criminal wrongdoers like the too-big-to-fail banks.

What this really means is, if prosecuting a criminal would, in the Obama administration’s opinion, harm rich stockholders, the prosecutor will not follow the law. He (she) will wink at the criminals and let the whole thing slide.

This, of course, is exactly what has happened regarding the banksters that cost middle-class Americans dearly. The “little” people lost their homes, their jobs and their savings, while the banksters received big bonuses. Why?

Following the Obama/ Geithner/ Holder/ White doctrine, Bernie Madoff should not have been prosecuted. Instead, he should have been given federal money to pay off his wealthiest creditors, and some of that money would have been his to take as bonuses.

When it came time for Senator Brown to question Mary Jo White, the exchange went as follows:

Senator Brown: When you were U.S. Attorney, my understanding is you consulted Bob Rubin and Larry Summers when considering whether to bring charges against financial firms. Is that correct?

White: I actually consulted the Deputy Attorney General who had Mr. Summers call me back. I was asking a factual question.

Senator Brown: Did they reject the argument that institutions could not be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law?

White: I’d like to answer that yes or no but I can’t. Essentially, I was seeking information based on an argument that had been made by the lawyers for the institution that I ultimately indicted, as to whether an indictment of that institution would result in great damage to either the Japanese economy or the world economy. And the answer I got back is that I should proceed to make my own decision; which I took to mean that it would likely not have that impact.

Senator Brown: Policy seems to have changed. You a moment ago said, you talked about the SEC doesn’t consider, you used the term collateral consequences to Senator Menendez’ question.

And in 2008, the Fed’s General Counsel called the SEC to urge the Commission not to pursue fault penalties against bailed out firms that had committed fraud. As a result, institutional investors, pension funds that provide retirement security for working Americans for example, end up with less compensation in the settlement. The New York Times affirmed the costs were shifted from Wall Street banks to working Americans. Was the SEC right to lower these penalties back in ’08.

White: I think what the SEC does do – they don’t, as I understand it, they don’t take collateral consequences into their charging decisions. But they do consider consequences in their remedies.

So that, for example, a corporate fine that in effect would have grievous impact on innocent shareholders is taken into account in terms of remedies that they seek. I don’t know all the particulars of the example you’re giving me so I can’t respond any further than that.

Translation: “We don’t consider consequences, but we do consider consequences. Understand? We protect these ‘innocent shareholders’ because they are the wealthiest people in America. We really don’t give a damn about the poor and middle classes who were devastated by these criminals. Our job is to protect the Japanese economy, not to enforce the law.”

Now, please tell me why Obama, Geithner, Holder and White care about the Japanese economy? They don’t. They care about the rich investors, who care about the Japanese economy.

So, why do Obama, Geithner, Holder and White care about the rich investors? Because they are paid to care (also known as bribed to care). And it begins at the top: Barack Obama.

He has been bribed (via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative speaking tours and a big Obama library, later) to care. So, he instructs his underlings to care. They do as they are told, to keep their big jobs.

It’s bribery, pure and simple, and I continue to wait for MMT to come right out and use the “B” word. Three little syllables: Bri-Ber-Ree.

Don’t be shy, folks. Hey, it’s only a criminal offense verging on treason, by our highest officials. Nothing to worry about.

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
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

–Whither Goes The Magic Wand Economy?

What if you, and every other person, had a magic wand that enabled you to produce anything? What would economics be?

Want a car? Wave your wand and POOF!, you’ve got it. Want a bar of soap, a banana, a telescope? POOF! They’re yours.

Predicting the future always is chancy, but we actually have begun to create such magic wands. They are called 3-D printers.

The March 9, 2013 issue of Science News described a book titled: Fabricated: The New World of 3-D Printing by Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman. On the cover is a photo of a cheeseburger.

Here are the opening paragraphs of that description:

The first chapter of Fabricated is set a few decades in the future: In your kitchen a 3-D printer outfitted with food cartridges cooks up breakfast, while across the street a giant printing nozzle oozes out the concrete foundation of a new home.

At work, you’re investigating the bioprinting black market, wherin counterfeiters sell sloppily printed organs for transplants.

The scenario seems farfetched, but Lipson and Kurman make a compelling case that some version of it is not far off.

You Star Trek fans recognize the 3-D printer. It was called the “replicator”, and it not only could produce virtually anything, but it obviated the need for money.

There no longer is any question about the feasibility of 3-D printing. It already exists and it creates all kinds of amazing stuff. As the article says:

From hipsters in Brooklyn to the R&D labs of giant companies, people are harnessing 3-D printing to make clothing, airplane parts and prosthetics.

While today, the fraction of objects that are 3-D printed is infinitesimally small compared with traditionally manufactured goods, the market is growing.

So will 3-D printing prove to be the universal “magic wand”? No one knows. But even if it falls short, it still will change economics.

What, for instance, will GDP measure in a world where a large percentage of goods are home-produced? How does one even begin to assess the meaning or value of income, wealth and of money itself?

Will the upper .1% income group be composed, not of people with the most income, but of people with the best 3-D printers? Will the upper .1% come to view 3-D printing as a threat to their power over the people?

Will the 3-D printer be the cure for the income gap? Will the upper .1% begin to pass regulations restricting its use (except by the .1%, of course)? This may begin with guns (which already are being created by 3-D printers), and then having set a precedent, it can continue on to any item the .1% considers “dangerous,” i.e. not in the best interests of the .1%.

Will the .1% outlaw ownership of 3-D printers, altogether?

Computers, the Internet and smart phones have changed “everything,” but I suspect even these monumental inventions will pale in comparison to the 3-D printer, a device limited only by materials input.

Not just products, but even services will be affected. Already in development are 3-D printers that can create 3-D printers. Why repair, when entire creation becomes easy?

I don’t pretend to know how far 3-D printing will take us, but take us it will. And economics had better try — at least begin to try — to anticipate the incredible effects of this incredible technology.

Economics as we know it, and the laws surrounding it, are on the cusp of obsolescence. Laws will change and economists had better be ready to guide these changes.

To date, economists have proved to be disgracefully poor guides, as witness the idiocy of the euro and the sequester, neither of which accommodates the revolution of Monetary Sovereignty.

But perhaps economists can learn from their horrendous errors and this time prepare to deal with the age of 3-D printer.

Or else.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–The Obama legacy: The man who crushed America’s middle class

Americans always have seen this nation as fundamentally middle-class. We deplore royalty and aristocracy. Our politicians feign middle-class roots, or claim a Horatio Alger rise from poverty.

We sneer at the lower classes as, at least partly, deserving their poverty and somewhat dishonest. We despise the upper classes as not deserving their wealth and significantly dishonest. And, we identify with the middle class as being solid, honest, real Americans.

The “American dream,” — married, children, good job, home in the suburbs — is a middle-class dream.

Today, Barack Obama, elected to a final term, focuses on his life after office and on his legacy. Will he and his children know wealth? Will they hobnob with the rich and the famous? Will there be grossly over-paid speeches before adoring crowds? Will he be received in the halls of power. Will he be Bill Clinton?

And how will history rank him?

The two questions, wealth and legacy, are intertwined, for while Obama does not want to be considered a “President-for-the-rich,” he is acutely aware the rich have the financial power to give him the life to which he now has become accustomed, and they have the media power to write history.

He must cater to the rich, by giving them what they want, so they will give him what he wants. They, after all, have given him what he has wanted thus far, and he understands they can continue to do so.

More specifically, his fealty must be given, not to the rich, but to the super-rich, the upper .1% income/wealth people. They have more income and/or wealth than the rest, the 99.9%.

The key word is “more.” Being in the upper .1% is not an absolute measure; it is a comparative measure.

Years ago, being an American millionaire would have put you well into the upper one-tenth-of-one-percent (.1%). Today, it barely gets you into the one percent (1%), and nowhere near the .1%.

The difference between the super-rich and the rest of us is the “gap.” If there were no gap, everyone would be equal and no one would be rich or poor.

When the gap widens, the super-rich grow richer and more powerful, which is why the super-rich do not care about their absolute wealth and income. The super-rich care about the gap.

There always will be a large cap between the super-rich and the poor, so for Barack Obama to curry favor with the rich, he must help them increase the gap between the rich and the middle class. That is what they really want, and that is what they pay for.

He either must:
A. Increase the wealth and income of the super-rich, and/or
B. Decrease the wealth and income of the middle class.

But there is one other, less obvious requirement:
C. Obama must seem to favor the poor.

In a classic “Nixon-goes-to-China,” seeming to favor the poor provides an anti-rich disguise, that allows Obama to crush the middle class with minimal objection from the middle class.

He safely can help he poor, so long as he punishes the middle.

US funding bill to make sequester cuts permanent
By Andre Damon, 19 March 2013
Hundreds of thousands face unpaid furloughs

Congress is moving to make permanent $1.2 trillion in spending cuts. On top of these cuts (are) provisions to freeze federal pay through the end of this year.

Leon Panetta said that the “vast majority” of the Defense Department’s 800,000 civilian employees would take pay cuts of 20 percent.

Federal employees are part of the hated “big government,” so punishing federal employees is considered just and proper, engendering scant outcry from the public. But, of course, federal employees are middle-class Americans. Cutting their pay widens the gap.

Obama is resolutely pushing for cuts in Social Security benefits and hundreds of billions of further cuts in Medicare, as well as the introduction of means-testing, which will begin the transformation of the medical insurance program for seniors from a universal program to a poverty program, a major step toward its destruction.

AP correspondent Peter Arnett writing about Bến Tre city, quoted a U.S. military official: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” Obama long has spoken of “saving Social Security” by cutting it.

Nearly 4 million long-term unemployed who receive federal unemployment benefits will see an 11 percent cut in their benefits, or about $130 per month.

These are America’s middle class, being pressed down into poverty. They are portrayed as lazy slackers, who should not be given handouts, but rather made to work (in non-existent jobs) or starve.

The joint goal of the Obama administration and congressional Republicans and Democrats is to manufacture an atmosphere of crisis, in which an immense assault on social services and workers’ living standards can be carried out.

The White House is seeking to spin this historic attack as a boon to the “middle class” and a “fair” and “balanced” approach to the deficit by linking it to token tax increases on the rich. Any such increases, however, would be more than made up for by a “reform” of the tax code that slashes corporate taxes and shifts the tax burden further from the wealthy to the working class.

Whenever any politician uses the words “fair” and “balanced” (as in “fair taxes” and “balanced budget” hold tight to your wallet. They are Obama’s favorite words.

There are dozens more examples (raising FICA is a huge one) — too many for a blog post — but you will be able to keep track of them by asking one simple question, every time you hear about any government action: “Will this benefit or will this hurt the middle class?”

Obama wants to burnish his legacy and his after-office wealth. Ultimately, he will do so, not with historical accomplishment, but rather by sucking up to the .1%.

It is the .1% who will give him his large Presidential library in Chicago. They will hire him for lucrative speaking engagements, ala Bill Clinton. The media, owned by the .1%, will praise Obama for “saving” America’s middle class.

But despite his, and the .1%’s, best paid plans, history ultimately will remember Barack Obama as the man who crushed America’s middle class and America’s dream, all for his own ego, ambition and greed.

His name forever will be linked to Herbert Hoover and to Benedict Arnold.

So much for legacy.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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