–Multi-level irony: The endless cycle of self mutilation by the religious right wing

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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.
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If you enjoy irony, this article is written for you. It contains not just irony, but multi-level irony.

Republicans, those of the party of Abraham Lincoln, have sunk into an endless cycle of self mutilation. The story begins with the “Southern strategy.”

Wikipedia
The “Southern strategy” refers to the Republican Party’s strategy of gaining political support in the Southern U.S.by appealing to racism against African Americans.

Many white Southern Democrats stopped supporting the party following the civil rights plank of the Democratic campaign in 1948 (triggering the Dixiecrats), the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, and desegregation.

Richard Nixon’s political strategist Kevin Phillips, said:

“The Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote [Does this remind anyone of Mitt Romney?] …but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.” [Nobody told the Supreme Court’s right wing.].

The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.”

The South is home to “the Bible belt” — the God-fearing, God-loving, religious right-wing. Politically, these people are as easily manipulated as children. All you need do is tell them the blacks or the poor or the Latinos or the gays are “taking over,” and they will march zombie-like to the polls and pull that bigot lever.

It’s: “Rather than lift ourselves up, let’s just push them down.”.

One of my readers, Bruce Patrick, sent me an article from ABC News. Here are a few excerpts:

NC Becomes 1st State to Drop Federal Jobless Funds
By EMERY P. DALESIO AP Business Writer

With changes to its unemployment law taking effect this weekend, North Carolina not only is cutting benefits for those who file new claims, it will become the first state disqualified from a federal compensation program for the long-term jobless.

North Carolina has the country’s fifth-worst jobless rate. The benefit cuts will disqualify the state from receiving federally funded Emergency Unemployment Compensation. The EUC program is available to long-term jobless in all states. But keeping the money flowing includes a requirement that states can’t cut average weekly benefits.

Because North Carolina leaders cut average weekly benefits for new claims, about 170,000 workers whose state benefits expire this year will lose more than $700 million in EUC payments, the U.S. Labor Department said.

I’m not sure which bible North Carolina’s religious right read. It could not be the one in which Jesus says, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me.”

Nor could it be the bible containing this passage: “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” -Proverbs 14:31.

Rep. Julia Howard, Republican -Davie said, “The cuts also will push people to find work faster, then move to a better job as the economy improves”.

To assuage guilt, right-wing leaders spread the myth that the poor are lazy and would rather accept handouts than work. It’s the all-purpose excuse for cruelty.

But this is not just a state right-wing problem. Economically, it goes far beyond that.

State officials adopted the package of benefit cuts and increased taxes for businesses in February, a plan designed to accelerate repayment of a $2.5 billion federal debt. Like many states, North Carolina had racked up the debt by borrowing from Washington after its unemployment fund was drained by jobless benefits during the Great Recession.

Like every state, NC is monetarily non-sovereign. It cannot create dollars at will. It can run out of dollars.

The U.S. government, being Monetarily Sovereign, can create dollars at will. The U.S. government is the creator of dollars. It is sovereign over dollars. It can create as many or as few dollars as it wishes, and can give them any value it wishes. It never can run short.

With the touch of a computer key, the U.S. government could end North Carolina’s indebtedness.

So why does the U.S. government lend (rather than give) dollars to the states? Why does the U.S. government lend, rather than give, dollars to anyone?

The problem is not just cynical cruelty by the religious right, though that is part of it. The larger problem is the cruelty by the upper .1% income group, which has bribed the politicians and the media to rationalize cutting the federal deficit.

The rich plan to widen the gap between them and the despised poor and middle-classes, and they have found the perfect group, happy to carry out their evil plan: The bible-reading, religious right, most of whom themselves are poor or middle-class.

As for the people of North Carolina, they will suffer, unnecessarily. They will lose $700 million in federal payments.

The rich sit back and direct the bible-belt people to do their dirty work, which will punish – yes, the bible belt people.

You just can’t beat this for irony.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Medicare — parts A, B & D — for everyone
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
4. Long-term nursing care for everyone
5. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. 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

–France announces why it will abandon the euro (but doesn’t yet know it)

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

France to seek 14 billion euros in cuts next year: paper
Reuters, 6/29/13

France will pursue 14 billion euros ($18.2 billion) in spending cuts next year as it attempts to reduce the public deficit to 3 percent of economic output by 2015.

Translation: Our economy is in the toilet, so our “solution” is to destroy another 14 billion euros. Flush!

France’s Socialist government aims to tame the deficit by trimming ministerial budgets, cutting state aid to companies and reducing local government funding.

Translation: We’ll cut government benefits to the middle classes and the poor. We’ll make our businesses weaker and we’ll stop helping local governments provide their benefits. That should work.

With the economy back in a shallow recession, jobless claims at an all-time high and his approval ratings around 30 percent, President Francois Hollande has been reluctant to accelerate the cuts.

Translation: We know cutting the deficit will hurt the economy, and increasing the deficit will grow the economy. But we became monetarily non-sovereign by adopting that failed currency, the euro, so we have no choice but to cut our own wrists.

Annual growth in overall wage costs for French public employees will be cut to 0.15 percent from 3 percent, chiefly through pay restraint.

Translation: These people make too much money.

Funding for services such as the CNRS research institute and Meteo France weather forecaster will be cut 4 percent.

Translation: This is CNRS:

Institute of Biological Sciences (INSB)
Institute of Chemistry (INC)
Institute of Ecology and Environment (INEE)
Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (INSHS)
Institute for Information Sciences and Technologies (INS2I)
Institute for Engineering and Systems Sciences (INSIS)
Institute of Physics (INP)

Hey, who needs that stuff, anyway? And if you’re worried about the weather, carry an umbrella.

The Cour des Comptes, which overseas France’s public accounts, warned on June 27 that the deficit could overshoot its 3.7 percent (of economic output) target for 2013. It recommended spending cuts of 13 billion euros next year and 15 billion in 2015 to meet the 3 percent goal.

Translation: We know that cutting deficits reduces economic output, which increases the deficit percentage — it’s a dog-chasing-tail exercise. But who cares? The purpose is to punish the middle and lower classes and to widen the gap between the rich and the rest. Working pretty well, isn’t it?

There is no question that France will leave the euro. The only question is: How much punishment will the French people absorb before they riot in the streets and kick the rich deficit-cutters out.

I believe the timing depends on two factors:

1. When Greece leaves the euro. Being the sickest of the EU nations, one would think Greece would come to its senses first. When they re-adopt the drachma, and shortly thereafter, become one of the wealthier European nations, the French people (not their leaders) will have an epiphany.

2. When the EU forms a European republic. If the rich EU martinets see rioting all around them, they suddenly will “realize” monetary non-sovereignty doesn’t work for nations, so will form some sort of European republic, in which a central source will provide (without lending) euros to each nation.

My guess: #1 will happen first. Then there will be some “serious talk” about #2, while trying to convince Greece to return.

But the talks will go nowhere, so Italy will leave. Then France, and the whole, ridiculous euro idea will come crashing down.

Just before each nation leaves the euro, it will suffer a depression; the rich will point fingers at the “lazy” poor; millions of the middle- and poorer-classes will suffer and fall into poverty.

Finally, after re-instating Monetary Sovereignty, each nation will return to prosperity, at which time its rich again will push it back toward austerity.

Like a zombie that cannot be killed, austerity will rise again and again to destroy the lives of the ignorant.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Graphic proof: How the biggest banks caused the recession. Bribery works.

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

Remember the big bankers? They are the rich crooks whose gambling helped cause our worst recession since the Great Depression. The also are the rich crooks whom the federal government bailed out.

And they are the rich crooks who continue to rake in multi-million dollar compensations, even after their banks needed bailing out.

And they are the rich crooks, not one of whom even has been prosecuted, much less convicted by the Obama administration, because let’s face it, bribery works.

(Those campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later, create a protective barrier for rich crooks.)

Anyway, if you remember those rich crooks, the following graph will interest you. It compares the 100 largest banks with the rest of the banks, based on mortgage delinquency.

Monetary Sovereignty

For many years, the mortgage delinquency rate was low and essentially the same for the largest and smaller banks. But once the big banks started accepting, bundling and selling “liars loans,” that all changed.

When those liars loans inevitably fell apart, the rich crooks should have had to pay the price — except for one small detail: President Obama (the self-proclaimed friend of the poor) gave the big banks money — enough money to pay off their losses and enough money to continue paying multi-million dollar salaries.

So, while the rich bankers bleat about getting “big government” off their backs, it turns out, big government is nowhere to be found — except on the backs of the poor and middle classes.

Today, nothing has changed. The laws and federal oversight of banks remain weak and untouchable.

As you know, bribery works.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

What do Greece and Chicago have in common? Yes, that. But what else?

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

What do Greece and Chicago have in common? First, they both are monetarily non-sovereign.

Unlike the U.S., UK, Canada, China, Japan, Australia et al, neither Greece nor Chicago can create their sovereign currency. Why? Neither has a sovereign currency.

Greece uses the euro and Chicago uses the dollar, which are, to them, “alien” currencies. By contrast, the Monetarily Sovereign nations mentioned above, each has a currency over which it is sovereign.

Each can create as much or little of its sovereign currency as it wishes, and give any value to that currency it wishes. None ever can run short of its sovereign currency, even if all national government taxes were 0. That is what “sovereign” means.

O.K., you knew that. But, what else?

You also may have known that a monetarily non-sovereign entity cannot survive long term without more money coming in than going out.

You are monetarily non-sovereign. You can’t survive long term without more money coming in than leaving you. A company too, being monetarily non-sovereign, needs more income than outgo to survive long term. States, cities, counties and euro nations have the same requirement.

But what happens when a city or a euro nation has more outgo than income, year after year. Well, it could raise taxes, i.e. take more money from the citizens. But that is only a short-term, and ill received measure.

Eventually the citizens run short of money, and become a bit restive (as in bloody riots and Guillotines). So the monetarily non-sovereign entity eventually resorts to another short-term fix: It sells pieces of itself.

Christian Science Monitor, 2009
The great sell-off: Chicago auctions city assets
The city is auctioning private assets to the highest bidder. But private ownership of parking meters stirs a backlash.

No city in America beats Chicago when it comes to selling public assets – garages, bridges, even parking meters. the Windy City under Mayor Richard M. Daley has sold or leased out public institutions such as the Chicago Skyway ($1.83 billion), underground garages beneath Grant and Millennium Parks ($563 million), and, more recently, city parking meters ($1.15 billion).

That’s not exactly chump change, especially for a city still grappling with a $469 million budget shortfall from last year, not to mention an estimated $300 million deficit this year.

“It’s fraud; it’s extortion,” says Sam Wolfson, owner of String-A-Strand, a crafts-supply store in the Lincoln Square neighborhood, where meter rates have jumped from one quarter to four quarters for one hour.

There are two problems with selling piece of yourself.

1. You may run out of pieces, without solving the income/outgo imbalance.
2. You may sell your profit-making pieces, which exacerbates the income/outgo imbalance, and steals even more money from taxpayers.

And, oh yes, there’s a third problem:

3. The populace might become thoroughly irate at crooked politicians (are those synonyms?) forcing ever-higher taxes AND higher costs for services.

In Chicago, the sale of assets not only didn’t solve any long-term problems, but forced users to pay far more for tolls and parking.

[As an aside, the politicians usually tell the taxpayers a little white lie: That privately owned services are more efficient than public ownership, which is true right up until the private, for-profit services raise prices sky high — generally on the first day after the sale.]

Greece faces collapse of second key privatisation
By Kerin Hope in Athens, June 27, 2013

Greece is struggling to avoid the collapse of a second big privatisation deal, amid threats and pressure from bidders for the state gaming monopoly to change key terms of the deal they agreed last month.

The problems with the €700m sale of Opap (Greek Organization of Football Prognostics) threatens to add to tension with Greece’s international creditors, who fear the slow pace of privatisations will require further spending cuts to keep the country’s bailout programme on track.

Greece’s privatisation agency, Taiped, failed to deliver one flagship privatisation this month when Gazprom unexpectedly pulled out of the bidding for the state natural gas supplier Depa.

Taiped has pulled off one sizeable deal this year: the €400m sale of Desfa, the natural gas grid operator to Socar, the state gas operator of Azerbaijan.

A review of Greece’s bailout by the IMF this month found that income lost through slippage of the privatisation programme would contribute to a hole in Athens’ budget and “additional financing will need to be identified”.

Now ask yourself. Why does Greece have a state gaming monopoly? Right. It’s an alternative to raising taxes, but accomplishes the same thing: It takes money from the poor private sector and gives it to the public sector.

But if Greece sells its monopoly, the money will go from poor private to rich private, and the Greek government will have to beg taxpayers for more money.

The IMF continues to coerce Greece into selling its income-generating assets, as a “solution” to its past and future budget shortfalls.

This would be akin to the neighborhood bakery selling its ovens hoping to cover past and future operating losses. And the people in Greece are buying this IMF nonsense!

I pity the current mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, who inherited this mess from the previous mayor, Richard Daley. Emanuel cannot control the monetary non-sovereignty problem. Only the federal government can do that. (The state government could help, but it has its own monetary non-sovereignty problems.)

But, I have no pity for the Greek government (though my heart goes out the the Greek people.) The government could solve the problem tomorrow, simply by taking back its most valuable former asset: Its Monetary Sovereignty.

Simply dump the euro and reinstate the drachma. The process would be no more difficult than was the original foolish surrender of the drachma to adopt the euro.

Will Greece do it? The rich people don’t want it, because it instantly would solve Greece’s financial problems. An impoverished populace is easier to dominate.

The people — the poor people — they have been poisoned with so many lies, they don’t know what is best for them. (Something like the American public). They may already have been beaten down into acquiescence (Also, something like the American public).

Whenever you read or hear the word “privatizing,” know that it means selling public property to rich, political graft payers, explained by the myth that private ownership always is more efficient than public ownership.

Privatization might delay, but definitely will exacerbate, financial income/outgo imbalances. And it has no financial benefit to a Monetarily Sovereign nation.

Is privatizing being proposed, or has it already happened, in your state, county, city or village? If so, heaven help you.

Your politicians won’t.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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