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

Whenever I feel the need for a laugh, I write to one of my Senators. Being busy guys, their responses come in the form of stock letters, selected by low-paid kids, who probably have stars in their eyes from working with a SENATOR!

If you have an iPhone, you probably laugh at some of the responses you receive from Ciri. Senatorial responses are just about as intelligent, but the following is one of the better ones. It should brighten your day.

I wrote to Senator Dick Durbin (D – IL), asking why not one top-level criminal banker has been prosecuted, much less convicted. (I already knew the answer: They have bribed the President with campaign contributions and promises of lucrative gigs later).

Here is the complete text of Senator Durbin’s response:

Mr. Rodger Name.

Dear Mr. Name.:

Punctuation errors aside, my name is not “Name,” but I do appreciate the almost personalization.

Thank you for your message about President Obama. I appreciate hearing from you.

President Obama took office facing a financial market meltdown, an economy in tatters, and two wars. He has taken bold action to address our economic challenges and is charting a new course in our foreign policy.

Somehow, “bold action” and “Obama” (the great compromiser) don’t seem to go together.

Anyway, the economy still is in tatters, because of deficit reduction, and we continue fighting two wars which cannot be won, never will end, destroy thousands of lives and always seem to require ever greater erosion of our freedoms: The war on terror and the war on drugs.

As for the “new course in our foreign policy,” exactly what is our foreign policy regarding China? Russia? Iran? Iraq? Libya? Israel? Syria? Pakistan? Mexico? Afghanistan? Do we have a foreign policy, anywhere?

He is also establishing a new level of transparency and accountability in the federal government . . .

“Transparency and accountability”? Is this a riot? Didn’t Durbin update his letters after the NSA scandal broke? Yes, there’s a “new level” of transparency. A new low level. Just ask Edward Snowden.

. . . while taking meaningful steps to alleviate our debt.

Obama has “alleviated” government debt (which is too low), by widening the gap between the rich and the rest. Increase FICA. Cut Social Security. Fire federal workers. Cut infrastructure spending. Cut spending on scientific R&D. So many “meaningful steps” of which to be proud.

He has defended the rights of our service members and helped to provide the necessary equipment and funding to care for our veterans.

Does Durbin live in the U.S.?

VA Healthcare System Failing Veterans, Study Says
March 28, 2013

Military veterans experience “excessive wait time” for medical care, leading to higher incidences of preventable hospitalizations and death, according to a scientific research council.

Drawing on the findings of recent government and scholarly studies, a report issued this week by the Institute of Medicine paints a picture of a healthcare system that is understaffed, undertrained, and inaccessible.

But Durbin’s letter gets even funnier:

A President may be impeached and removed from office when accused of unlawful activity. President Obama has not been accused of unlawful activity.

Huh? My note said nothing about impeaching the President. Where did this response come from?

My guess: Durbin has received so many letters saying Obama should be impeached, he simply added this blanket denial to all his responses.

It’s like the kid telling his mother he did not put the fork in the toaster, when she didn’t even know there was a fork in the toaster.

It is essential that we all work together in a cooperative and bipartisan way for the good of Illinois and the nation. For too long, the political arena has been plagued by polarizing words and a lack of willingness to compromise. President Obama has shown that he is willing to work for the betterment of this nation. It is my hope that we can usher in a new era of civility and bipartisanship.

Ah yes, Obama’s bipartisanship and compromise — not strong, effective leadership or compassion for the middle- and lower-classes.

It was bipartisanship and compromise, not leadership, that brought us the sequester, the FICA increase and the NSA disaster. It’s comforting to know the Compromiser in Chief is at the helm.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please feel free to keep in touch.
Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator

Senator, I hate to mention it, but you forgot to respond to my message, which asked why the President refuses to prosecute criminal banksters. Strangely, you seem to have avoided the subject.

But I will contact you again, next time I need a laugh — or a cry.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. 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 lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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

The Fed hinted it may possibly reduce Quantitative Easing, so the stock market tanked. Why?

Question I: What is QE (quantitative easing)?
Answer I: The Federal Reserve purchases billions of dollars worth of T-securities each month, to pump dollars into the economy and to reduce interest rates, so to stimulate the economy.

Question II: Where does the Fed get the billions it spends every month to purchase T-securities as part of its QE?
Answer II: It doesn’t.

Confused? Of course you are, but you’re no more confused than Congress and the media, because Answer I, though it is the official answer, is total bullsh*t.

The federal government is Monetarily Sovereign. It created the laws that created the dollar. The dollar exists only as a system of laws, which the government can change at will. There is no physical dollar. You never have seen or touched a dollar.

That dollar bill in your wallet is not a dollar. It is a bearer instrument, telling the world you own a dollar.

Just as a house deed is not an house, and a car title is not a car, and a loan document is not an loan, that dollar bill is not a dollar. So, what is a dollar? It is nothing more than an accounting notation that follows the currently obsolete laws created, and often revised, by the federal government.

Getting back to QE, how does it work? Let’s think first about bank Certificates of Deposit (CDs), which are similar to T-securities. When you buy a CD, your bank debits your checking account and credits your CD account. No money created or destroyed.

Later, when your bank buys back your CD, it credits your checking account and debits your CD account. Again, no money created or destroyed.

Your bank doesn’t need to spend any money to redeem your CD. The whole process was just a transfer of your funds from one of your accounts to another of your accounts.

It’s the same with T-securities. When you buy a T-security, the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) debits your checking account and credits your T-security account at the FRB. Then, when the Fed buys back your T-security, it merely debits your T-security account and credits your checking account.

Neither the purchase nor the redemption of T-securities creates or destroys money. So the Fed doesn’t need any money to “buy” T-securities. It just transfers money from one account to another — both accounts owned by the same holder.

That $1+ trillion the Fed has “spent” on T-securities added zero dollars to the economy. So why does the Fed do it?

Three reasons:

1. First, the Fed has created the “confidence fairy,” the belief that merely believing the Fed is supporting the economy, will in fact, support the economy. If you believe it, it must be so.

2. Second, by buying T-securities, the Fed increases the price of T-securities, which reduces interest rates. (Bond prices move the opposite of interest rates). The belief is that low rates cut business costs and thereby stimulate the economy.

As with many Fed beliefs this one is factually wrong. There is no relationship between low interest and economic growth.

There actually is a slight inverse relationship, because low rates require the government to pay less interest into the economy.

USA Today
Federal Reserve pays government $88.9 billion
Martin Crutsinger, Associated Press 11:32 a.m. EST January 10, 2013

The Federal Reserve paid the federal government a record $88.9 billion in 2012.

The central bank earned the money from the Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities it has bought to drive interest rates lower and boost the economy.

[That’s $88.9 billion that would have been earned by the private sector, and really stimulated the economy, but now has disappeared from the economy. And this is stimulative??]

3. Third, to increase bank bank lending. Banks are able to lend 10 times their reserves. The vast majority of bank reserves are accounts at the FRB. They can be in the form of cash (i.e. accounting notations) or in the form of T-securities (also, accounting notations).

So, by increasing bank reserves, bank lending is encouraged, and this stimulates the economy. Right? Wrong.

Banks obtain all the reserves they want — from the Fed, from other banks and from private lenders. (My own company lent millions to our local bank for their reserves.) By law, there never can be a shortage of reserves available to banks.

Bank lending is based on credit risk and interest reward. Banks have several investments available to them; lending is just one of those investments.

Ironically then, low interest rates actually reduce the reward for bank lending, and so reduce the motivation to lend.

In total, QE is a fraud. A slight of hand. Under which shell is the pea? QE accomplished nothing good, and mathematically may do harm to the economy.

Somehow, it never seems to make the “experts” wonder how the Fed is “spending” billions every month, yet the money supply doesn’t multiply, the deficit doesn’t grow and the Fed has no source of income to spend all those dollars.

So why did the stock market tank, when Chairman Bernanke hinted he might slow that useless-probably-harmful QE? Because it went up when Bernanke said he would institute that useless-probably-harmful QE.

The stock market went up for the wrong reasons, then came down for the same wrong reasons.

QE is much ado about nothing. It is meaningless, probably harmful. It is like prescribing leeches to cure anemia. The wrong medicine is worse than no medicine at all.

Rather than engaging is shell games, the government could and should stimulate the economy by following the “Nine Steps to Prosperity” listed below.

Unfortunately, Congress and the President have been bribed by the upper 1% income group (via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment) to widen the gap between the rich and the rest. This is best accomplished by impoverishing the economy, while pretending to stimulate it.

Unless, by some miracle, an honest politician enters the White House, we are rushing headlong into a recession.

Yikes! Did I just use “honest” and “politician” in the same sentence?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. 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 lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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

This whole affair should have the title, “Trust me. I’m the President.”

On the Jay Leno show, Obama said, “We don’t have a domestic spying program.”

Yahoo News
The NSA regularly collected e-mails and telephone metadata on Americans without first obtaining legal authorization.

The agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008.

Obama said the administration is “keeping the Congress appropriately informed of compliance issues as they arise.”

Obama said, “You’ve got a federal court with independent federal judges overseeing the entire program, and you’ve got Congress overseeing the program—not just the intelligence committee and not just the judiciary committee.”

Even the Democrats in Congress don’t believe that one.

“I remain concerned that we are still not getting straightforward answers from the NSA,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont said.

Nothing gets the political rulers angrier than having the truth reported about them. Not only have NSA’s activities been kept secret from Americans, but the law upon which these activities were based, also is secret — and the secret agency broke its own secret laws, and even Congress doesn’t know what’s happening.

Washington Post
Court: Ability to police U.S. spying program limited
By Carol D. Leonnig, Published: August 15

The leader of the secret court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the government’s vast spying programs said that its ability to do so is limited and that it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans.

The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government’s surveillance breaks the court’s rules that aim to protect Americans’ privacy. Without taking drastic steps, it also cannot check the veracity of the government’s assertions that the violations its staff members report are unintentional mistakes.

National Security Agency staff members in Washington overstepped their authority on spy programs thousands of times per year. The records also show that the number of violations has been on the rise.

Well, is that a problem? Who doesn’t trust Barack Obama?

Obama: “No, I don’t think Mr. Snowden is a patriot. The fact is, Mr. Snowden has been charged with three felonies.”

Let’s see: Snowden told the truth; Obama lies, repeatedly.

Snowden’s crime was to reveal illegal spying. Obama’s crime was to aid and abet and deny illegal spying.

Snowden is paying for revealing the truth. He is hounded by the U.S. government and essentially has lost his citizenship. Obama is being paid by his wealthy handlers, to hide the truth, and after office he will be rewarded with lucrative speaking jobs and a great big Obama Library.

So, who is the patriot and who is the traitor?

And now our partners have taken the harrassment a step further:

Yahoo News
Partner of reporter at center of NSA leak detained

David Miranda, the partner of Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who received leaks from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden was detained for nearly nine hours — the maximum time authorities are allowed to detain individuals –under anti-terror legislation at Heathrow Airport, triggering claims that authorities are trying to interfere with reporting on the issue.

Greenwald said, “It’s bad enough to prosecute and imprison sources. It’s worse still to imprison journalists who report the truth. But to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic.”

More than 97 percent of those questioned under Schedule 7 are detained for less than an hour. Less than a tenth of 1 percent are held for more than six hours.

Apparently, Greenwald’s love partner must really be dangerous, to warrant such attention.

If you want to deprive people of their liberty, first make secret laws (check) and second, harass the newpapers for revealing them (check).

Third, deny you did anything wrong (check) and fourth, tell the people you were just about to fix what you didn’t do wrong. (check).

philly.com
Obama to tweak process on NSA
Scott Wilson and Zachary A. Goldfarb, Washington Post

President Obama said Friday that he would pursue reforms to open the legal proceedings surrounding government surveillance programs to greater scrutiny.

And fifth, tell the people it’s all for their own good, to protect their security (double check).

Obama: “You can’t have 100 percent security and also 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We’re going to have to make some choices as a society.”

More people worldwide are killed or enslaved by their own governments than by foreign governments.

Worried, yet?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. 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 lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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

John Kass, is a reliably right-wing columnist for the reliably right-wing Chicago Tribune. As a right winger, he hates gun control.

He has written many articles about how a couple dozen people in America have defended their homes with guns, conveniently ignoring the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have been murdered with guns.

Kass sneers at (his words) “U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, of Colorado, who said that her proposed ban on the sale or transfer of magazines holding more than 10 rounds would reduce violence.. . . the ignorance of some lawmakers, including a lead House sponsor of a proposed federal ban on high-capacity magazinesd.”

You see, guns aren’t enough. Kass wants everyone, including your crazy neighbor, to have machine guns as part of their 2nd Amendment rights. What next, John, bazookas?

Anyway, my black sense of humor was tickled when I read of gun-lover Kass’s outrage that police had Tased and shot beanbags at a 95-year-old man, killing him:

“General guidelines for the (beanbag) weapon suggest one should never be fired 15 feet or less from the target.

“But . . . police may have fired well within that distance.

“No doubt, old people can sometimes become violent, especially when they’re frustrated or scared. (But) why didn’t they just wait him out?

“He wasn’t going anywhere. All they had to do was close the door and wait for him to fall asleep.

“He didn’t deserve what came to him.”

Police are selected for qualifications, then trained for weeks, perhaps months, then have years of daily, on-the-street experience in the proper use of weapons and in how to handle difficult situations.

Yet these selected and trained police Tased and beanbagged a 95 year old man to death.

The gun nuts, like Kass, want school teachers to carry guns. Imagine what a school teacher, with limited-to-no training and no experience, and no real knowledge of “guidelines,” would do with a gun — a gun having a high capacity magazine, no less — if confronted by an unruly teenager.

Another George Zimmerman?

Huff Post
Chicago Police Misconduct Settlements Surge As The City Pays Out Millions In Taxpayer Dollars

Chicago’s price tag for legal claims against its police force is climbing and has already surpassed the $27 million the city set aside for this year.

The largest settlement this week was for $4.5 million to the family of 22-year-old Rekia Boyd. (She) was walking down the street on March 21, 2012, when an off-duty police detective sitting in his own vehicle got into an argument with a group of men nearby.

Thinking one of the men had a gun as he approached his vehicle, the detective “started firing blindly over his shoulder,” with one of the bullets striking Boyd in the head, killing her. “She had nothing to do with any of it”.

Selected, trained and experienced police officers repeatedly violate laws, including gun-related laws. Yet, the gun nuts want everyone to carry a gun. Visualize millions of stupid, untrained, anger-management candidates, all carrying guns.

In short, imagine John Kass carrying a gun.

Yikes!

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. 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 lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY