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:

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

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.

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

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

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

Before we analyze the plan from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) let’s summarize the differences between a Monetarily Sovereign (MS) vs. a monetarily non-sovereign (MNS) entity.

1. The U.S. government is MS. You and I, Chicago, California and Greece are MNS.
2. An MS government has the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency. An MNS government has no sovereign currency.
3. An MS government does not need to ask anyone for its sovereign currency – not lenders, not taxpayers.
4. An MS government creates its sovereign currency by spending; it destroys its currency by taxing; taxes received are not part of the money supply.
5. An MNS entity creates money by lending; it destroys money when loans are repaid; Taxes received remain part of the money supply.
6. An economy grows when its supply of real (inflation adjusted) money grows; it shrinks when its supply of money shrinks.

[The OECD is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade.]

The Telegraph
OECD unveils plan to end ‘golden era’ of tax avoidance
By Philip Aldrick, 19 Jul 2013

David Cameron has called on the world’s leaders to get behind a global crackdown on tax avoidance and “break down the walls of corporate secrecy”.

The Prime Minister was throwing his support behind proposals to stamp out sophisticated tax dodging strategies. The Paris-based think-tank has drawn up a 15-point action plan to stop multi-nationals moving profits from one country to another to reduce their tax bill.

–What is the biggest problem facing the world’s economies? Lack of growth.
–When an economy is in or near recession, what is the worst thing a government can do? Suppress business.
–What is the surest way to suppress business? Increase business taxes.

The crackdown follows public outrage in the UK, the US and across Europe about the minimal amounts of tax paid by big businesses. In Britain, Google, Amazon and Starbucks have been accused by politicians of being “immoral” for not paying their “fair share”.

Forcing business to pay more taxes is counter-productive for any economy. An MS government neither needs nor uses tax money.

An MNS government does need and use tax money, but long term survival is not possible via local taxes. Long term survival for an MNS entity requires money coming in from outside its borders. (You are MNS. Visualize trying to support yourself by taxing yourself.)

Britain has been at the forefront of efforts to overhaul the antiquated global tax system, by pledging to contribute €400,000, alongside France and Germany, to help the OECD turn its proposals into concrete policies.

Translation: Britain, which is MS, will pay the OECD to weaken Britain’s businesses. Britain’s government can afford this waste. It has the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency.

However, Britain’s businesses will suffer, meaning Britain’s economy will suffer.

France and Germany are MNS. They too will pay the OECD to weaken their businesses. Their governments cannot afford this waste. There will be a double loss: Their governments will lose the money and their businesses will be weakened.

Mr Cameron said, “I will call on fellow leaders to get behind this action plan to ensure that we break down the walls of corporate secrecy, once and for all, and that all companies pay their fair share.”

Translation: “Although I have no idea what a ‘fair share’ of taxes is, I will demand that our nation’s business be weakened, so that they will hire fewer workers and pay them less.

“That will increase the gap between the rich owners and the workers, which is our real goal.”

The OECD report said, “Existing domestic and international tax rules should be modified in order to more closely align the allocation of income with the economic activity that generates that income.”

Sandy Bhogal, head of tax at law firm Mayer Brown, said: “The aim of linking the revenues of multinational businesses to particular territories and requiring reporting on a multilateral basis will be extremely complex to agree and implement.

“This process will take a considerable amount of time, even with the cooperation of all the relevant parties.”

Translation: “The whole thing is foolish and harmful to your country, but if you want to spend your money this way, we’ll be glad to take it.”

Business groups such as the CBI (a business lobbying organisation in the UK) have disputed that there is a broad problem with tax avoidance and claim measures to address it could hit job creation, trade and innovation.

Translation: “We didn’t get the message. We still claim businesses paying more taxes will help our economy. Right?”

Tax avoidance has long been the bane of governments but, in the current austere times, it has come to be seen as totally unacceptable. Politicians in many leading countries – including the UK, US, France and Germany – want to tighten up the loopholes.

Translation: “Yes, we know the U.S. has no need for taxes, while France and Germany do need taxes — but the public doesn’t understand the difference.

“And yes, we know that when companies are weakened, the top brass continues to rake in its salaries and perks, while the lower employees are cut, which widens the income gap — but the public doesn’t understand that either.

“As long as we facilitate ignorant people demanding their own destruction, we’ll keep ruling them.”

And so, we are treated to yet another internationally acclaimed organization (Hello, EU and IMF), and not so acclaimed organization (Hello U.S. Congress and U.K. Parliament) spouting absolute rubbish, the intent of which apparently is to widen the gap between the rich and the rest.

OECD’s plan: The troika is lagging because two of its horses are sick. Please sicken the third — for “fairness.”

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