–Guns are here to stay. How do we slow the killing and maiming? Four thoughts.

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.
●Cutting the deficit is the government’s method for taking dollars from the middle class and giving them to the rich.
●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.
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O.K., guns are legal. Absolutely.

Various Supreme Courts have ignored or rationalized around the first half of the 2nd Amendment (“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” and focused all attention on the second half (“the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”)

Further, the various Supreme Courts have expanded the meaning of “arms” to include all kinds of death machines the founding fathers never dreamed of.

Finally, even a total ban on guns would accomplish absolutely nothing. In fact, it would have the perverse effect of increasing gun sales and crime, just as Prohibition increased alcohol sales and crime.

In America, guns are here to stay. The NRA has won. While other nations have avoided the mayhem associated with, indeed caused by, guns, we here have the cowboy mentality of “shoot first and ask questions, later.” It’s become a sign of strength and manhood to pull a 4-pound trigger and end a human life. Only sissies don’t understand that.

Even that impartial judge of morality, National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, said, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

So it’s settled, in law, in history and in American mores. America = guns. Period. So get used to it.

That said, there is a small problem, even gun owners should recognize. Guns do kill and maim. Guns do not prevent murder, as the NRA loves to claim. Guns cause murder and injury. The incidence of people using guns for legitimate self defense is remarkably rare, when compared with the incidence of people using guns for crime or killing by accident.

While some gun owners may lie awake at night, praying that a bad guy will enter their house so they can blow him away with one of their 10 guns, they statistically are more likely, by accident or by intention, to blow away their own wife or children, than any bad guys. That is the reality.

The more guns, the more murders and serious injuries with guns. It’s true here in Chicago, where the neighborhoods having the most privately owned and carried guns also have the most gun crimes. It’s true, worldwide. The nations with the most guns also have the most gun crimes.

So what shall we do? Shall we just surrender, and allow everyone to own and carry around a 50 caliber machine gun, or a rocket propelled grenade launcher, in the mistaken belief we all can act like well-trained police? Should we have any limits, whatsoever?

While nothing can prevent gun violence, there may be ways to mitigate the growing epidemic. That’s all we really want or can expect, isn’t it? Just to reduce the killing and wounding.

I have several thoughts, and would appreciate comments, not only from you bleeding heart liberals, but also from you macho patriot gun owners.

Idea 1: The “dram shop” corollary

At Bar Liability for Alcohol Injuries you’ll see: “Many states hold commercial vendors of alcohol, such as bars, taverns and package stores responsible for injury caused by drunk patrons”

While admittedly, there are many differences between buyers and sellers of alcohol vs buyers and sellers of guns, the principal is the same: The seller of a dangerous item, whether alcohol or a gun, can be responsible for the ultimate effect of that sale.

What if the seller of a gun were responsible for the actions of the buyer of that gun? The seller could be the manufacturer, a retailer or a private party. If you sell someone a gun, and he uses that gun to commit a crime, you could be responsible, perhaps not equally responsible, but legally responsible in some measure.

The effect would be that people only would sell guns to people they know well enough to be sure that person will not commit a crime. No sales to strangers or to “bad guys.” Only sales to “good guys.”

This probably would end gun shows and gun retailers, neither of which is constitutionally protected. So where would people get their constitutionally protected guns. According to the CNN article By the numbers: Guns in America, there were 310 million non-military firearms in America – as of 2009. Presumably, there are many more now.

So we already have plenty of guns, one for every man, woman and child (including newborns, and constitutionally protected fetuses). So, if you want a gun, you’d need only buy it from someone who trusts you are Wayne LaPierre’s “good guy with a gun” and knows you will not commit a crime with it.

That should be no problem for a good guy like you.

Idea #2: Tax guns

Making guns more expensive – much more expensive – might limit gun sales to rich good guys, as opposed to poor bad guys (You know who I mean).

Taxing gun manufacturers and importers, say $1,000 per hand gun and $2,000 per long gun (except for sales to the military and those “well-regulated militias” the Constitution mentions), would be a good start. There’s nothing unconstitutional about a tax.

Sure, there would be foreigners smuggling guns into the U.S., but again, all we can hope to do is reduce the flow, not end it altogether.

Idea #3: Tax bullets and shotgun shells

Same as #2, and actually could be implemented in concert with #2. Levy the tax on manufacturers and importers. Good guys don’t need to use many bullets. After all, how many crimes does a good guy get to prevent in a lifetime?

So if you paid, say $50, for a bullet, and that bullet remained in the gun under your pillow, you’d be protected against intruders your entire life – all for just $50. Cheap protection.

For target practice, maybe folks can use paint balls. Just as much fun, and not nearly so dangerous. As for home-made shells, remember, we’re looking for mitigation, not total prevention.

Idea #4: Tax or outlaw magazines and clips

Our founding fathers did not anticipate automatic or even semi-automatic weapons. Every gun was single-shot, hand loaded. There were no magazines or clips for multiple bullets. (There were some double-shot pistols – something like two pistols glued side by side – but even they were hand loaded.) So, no one can claim magazines or clips are constitutionally protected.

Manufacturers of guns would be prohibited from manufacturing magazines or any type of gun that can carry multiple shells or any type of gun that can be modified to carry a magazine or clip. Magazines could be made illegal, and any crime committed using a gun with a magazine, could carry stronger penalties. Forcing bad guys to hand load their weapons would give the good guys time to respond.

In summary, gun ownership is the law of the land. Personally, I think it’s a terrible law that dramatically hurts America, but it’s the law, today. So, our goal should not be to prevent gun ownership; the goal should be to reduce gun killing and wounding.

The above four ideas are steps in that direction. Perhaps you have better ideas. We surely need ideas.

Until then, keep your head down.

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
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

–Barack Obama, the Portuguese austerity president.

The U.S. is Monetarily Sovereign. It never can run short of its sovereign currency, the dollar. As Alan Greenspan said, “The United States can pay any debt it has, because we always can print money to do that, so there is zero probability of default.”

Portugal, by contrast, is monetarily non-sovereign. It cannot print more sovereign currency to pay its bills, for it has no sovereign currency. It uses the euro, an alien currency it does not control.

So one would think that one nation’s problems and solutions might differ from the other nation’s problems and solutions. Sadly, that is not the case. Here is what is happening in Portugal:

Portugal braced for ‘fiscal earthquake’
By Peter Wise, December 31, 2012

Lisbon plans to lift income tax revenue by more than 30 per cent, raising the effective average rate by more than a third from 9.8 to 13.2 per cent. Anyone receiving more than the minimum wage of €485 a month, including pensioners, will also pay an extraordinary tax of 3.5 per cent on their income.

The increases, which the centre-right government has itself described as “enormous”, are designed to ensure Lisbon meets deficit-reduction targets agreed with international lenders as part of a €78bn bailout.

“This is a kind of armed robbery of the taxpayer. It will not just penalise the middle class, it will kill them off,” Luís Marques Mendes, a former leader of Mr Passos Coelho’s Social Democrat party (PSD), said in October when the 2013 budget was presented in parliament.

As Portugal passes the halfway mark of its three-year adjustment program, the steep tax increases facing many families have made the outlook for 2013 — the third consecutive year of austerity, recession and rising unemployment — the grimmest yet.

Total tax revenue has fallen considerably below target this year, forcing the government to implement additional austerity measures to meet even the more relaxed budget deficit targets agreed with the EU and International Monetary Fund in September.

Translation: Tax rate increases and government spending cuts, i.e. “austerity,” always are recessionary, and recessions always decrease tax revenues, which then requires more tax rate increases and spending cuts — an economic death spiral.

It is bleeding a patient to cure anemia.

The coalition will be relying on increased state revenue to account for about 80 per cent of the fiscal adjustment required in 2013 — a reversal of the original bailout plan, in which consolidation was to be achieved mainly through spending cuts.

A couple in which each partner earns about €3,500 a month — two senior university professors, for example — could now find themselves in the top tax bracket, when previously they would have had to earn more than €6,000 a month each to pay the top rate.

The highest income tax rate is be increased in January from 46.5 to 48 per cent and will apply to couples earning more than €80,000 a year, compared with €153,000 previously (income tax in Portugal is levied on family units). They will also pay an additional 2.5 per cent “solidarity tax” on their income.

Translation: The middle class will be brutalized by tax increases.

Income from value added tax, the government’s biggest source of tax revenue representing about 36 per cent of the total, has been falling since 2008, despite a sharp increase in the rate.

Translation: Increasing tax rates is recessionary, so always fails to bring in a proportional amount of money. The value added tax, like FICA, is a regressive tax, punishing the lower income groups most.

Carlos Loureiro, a tax partner at Deloitte, said, “a tax structure in which wage earners, pensioners and a small percentage of companies bear the overwhelming burden is not sustainable. If tax revenue is going to contribute more to fiscal consolidation, we have to change the system.”

Translation: The worst thing an economy can do to itself is to increase taxes and or decrease spending, especially when the immediate victims are the middle class. This results in a two-class economy, composed of a few very rich, and a great mass of impoverished people, in short, a third-world country.

Now, let us compare Portugal with the U.S.

Obama says U.S. can’t afford more showdowns over debt, deficits

HONOLULU (Reuters) – Fresh from the long legislative fight to prevent a “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and spending cuts, President Barack Obama warned on Saturday that the United States could not afford further budget showdowns this year or in the future.

“We still need to do more to put Americans back to work while also putting this country on a path to pay down its debt, and our economy can’t afford more protracted showdowns or manufactured crises along the way,” he said in the address, broadcast on Saturday.”

Translation: “Pay down its debt” is a code word for austerity, resulting in an economy like Portugal’s. The difference: Portugal, being monetarily non-sovereign, has no choice.

Lawmakers in the Senate and the House passed legislation this week that raised tax rates for the wealthiest Americans while making Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class permanent. It was a victory for Obama, who campaigned for re-election largely on a promise to achieve that goal.

Translation: The Obama goal was to increase tax rates on the wealthy. Every dollar collected from the wealthy is one dollar less in the economy. This has no benefit for the middle- and lower classes. It, in fact, is adverse for them, as dollars drained from the economy reduce GDP, business and hiring.

Obama said he was willing to do more on deficit reduction and suggested that the hike in tax rates for wealthy Americans was not the last tax change he expected to make.

Translation: “I dramatically increased taxes on you middle- and lower-income people — you who elected me– by increasing your FICA from 4.2% to 6.2%, but I was hoping you are too stupid to notice a 48% increase in your taxes. Now, since you haven’t squealed too loudly, I plan to increase taxes even more (i.e. more austerity), to continue widening the gap between the rich and you.”

Summary: President Obama pretends to believe the United States, like Portugal, is monetarily non-sovereign, and will be unable to pay its bills without tax increases or spending cuts. He is lying, and his lies will destroy your life and the lives of your children and grandchildren.

As he governs like a prime minister of Portugal, he will impoverish America, just as Portugal has been impoverished by its leaders.

In Portugal, the wealthiest people are not suffering and will not suffer. The middle- and lower classes will become poorer and poorer, until Portugal becomes a third world, banana-style republic. In America, the wealthiest people are not suffering and will not suffer. The middle- and lower classes will become poorer and poorer, until America too, becomes a third world, banana-style republic.

That is the goal of the .1% and that is the austerity path our politicians are paid to follow. Despite facing diametrically different problems, Barack Obama and Pedro Passos Coelho, the prime minister of Portugal, are leading their respective nations down exactly the same paths to poverty.

Obama has sold his soul to the devil, and you will suffer the payments.

If enough of you tell him so, perhaps you can make a difference.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–The real benefits of the Platinum Coin Solution

Google “Platinum Coin Solution” and you will see what correctly is being touted as a solution to the inane federal debt ceiling. One paragraph of the U.S. statute on money and finance (revised by Congress in 2000) reads:

The Secretary may mint and issue bullion and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time.

What this clearly and unambiguously says is: The Secretary of the Treasury (currently Tim Geithner) has the power to mint a platinum coin in any denomination. He can, if he chooses, mint a $1 coin, a $1 trillion coin or a $100 trillion coin.

The Platinum Coin Solution proposes that the Secretary mint a $1 trillion coin and deposit it with the Federal Reserve Bank as an accounting partial offset to the federal “debt.” No new dollars would enter the economy. There merely would be a balance sheet adjustment made in Federal Reserve Bank accounts. So there would be no inflation implications.

For those of you who think this somehow is “cheating” or accounting slight-of-hand, you are correct. It is both. Of course the so-called federal “debt” also is cheating and accounting slight-of-hand.

The reason: The federal debt is quite unlike your debt or mine or your state’s, county’s or village’s debt, or even the debt of Greece and Italy. Because the U.S. government is Monetarily Sovereign, it creates the dollars to pay its bills. It never needs to borrow the dollars it already has the unlimited ability to create.

So, its “debt” is nothing more than the total of deposits in T-security accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank. The so-called “debt” is created this way:

Someone (you, me, China et al) decides to buy U.S. T-securities. So they instruct their bank to transfer already existing dollars from their checking account to their T-security account at the FRB. I stress “already existing” to show there are no inflationary implications to the purchase of T-securities.

A T-security account essentially is a bank savings account, so the purchase of U.S. “debt” simply is a transfer of already existing dollars from a checking account to a savings account. To pay off the “debt,” the FRB merely transfers the already existing dollars back. The only new dollars: Accumulated interest. So there are no inflationary implications to paying off the “debt.”

The Platinum Coin Solution provides an internal (actually, needless in the real world) accounting justification for making the above transfer. In summary, the federal “debt” really isn’t a federal debt, and the debt limit is a nonsensical limit on the size of deposits in the Federal Reserve Bank.

(Why anyone would want to limit these deposits of existing dollars, is a testament to the power of myth and semantics. Mistakenly call something “debt” and everyone wants to limit it.)

The Platinum Coin Solution makes the mythical federal debt disappear, instantly solving the mythical debt crisis. That is the reason it has been recommended. But there are other good reasons for the PCS.

The discussion about the Platinum Coin Solution will reveal the truth about the federal “debt,” that it not only is meaningless, but concerns about the debt harm those of us not part of the upper .1% income group.

If the Platinum Coin Solution achieves the level of national discussion, you will see great outrage expressed by the media (owned by the .1%) and by all politicians who receive campaign contributions from wealthy donors — especially of course, Republicans who have vowed slavish allegiance to the wealthiest.

Not only will the Republicans not be able to hold the nation hostage to the nonsensical “debt ceiling,” but the discussion will open the way to ending the suicidal austerity plans promoted by the bought-and-paid-for politicians and media.

No more need to cut Medicare. No more need to cut Social Security. No more need to extract FICA (the worst, most regressive tax in U.S. history) from the pockets of salaried people. Instead of cutting the the programs that support the middle- and lower-income classes, the federal government would be able to support programs to grow the economy and reduce unemployment.

And this panics the upper .1%. The austerity the rich have brainwashed the public into supporting, actually has one purpose only: To increase the income gap between the rich and the rest. It is the gap that makes some people rich and others poor. Without the gap, no one would be rich.

Watch for it: The screaming, hysterical rantings by politicians and the media, the innuendos and outright lies, the predictions of doom.

But, no, the Platinum Coin Solution will not cause inflation. New dollars will not be created.

No, the PCS will not give the government free rein to spend endlessly. Congress and the President will continue to control the purse strings, just as they always have, and just as they control the mythical “debt” limit. Nothing changes their ability to spend or not to spend.

What the PCS will do is end the destructive drive for a program that never has worked anywhere in the world or at any time in history: Austerity, i.e. deficit reduction. And it will help narrow the gap between the rich and the rest. And it will reduce unemployment. And it will allow Medicare for everyone. And it will allow Social Security to pay a living benefit.

And it will increase research and development for improved, life-giving drugs, scientific progress and education. And it will allow for improvements in our roads, bridges and dams, air and water. And many, many other benefits.

The majority of suggestions see a $1 trillion coin. I suggest a $100 trillion coin, so the mythical federal debt disappears forever, never again to rise from its stinking grave.

Good riddance, federal debt, for all the damage you have done, and continue to do, to America. And good riddance, ultra-rich, to your lies that brought the austerity monster to our nation.

The only question is whether the Supreme Court, which also has a romance with the ultra-rich, will find some reason to overturn the clear reading of the law.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Who says the National Rifle Association and its followers aren’t good for the American economy?

Armored Backpack Sales Surge In Wake Of Newtown Shooting

SALT LAKE CITY — The reaction to the deadly Connecticut school shooting can be seen at gun stores and self-defense retailers across the nation, with anxious parents buying armored backpacks for children and firearms enthusiasts stocking up on assault weapons in anticipation of tighter gun control measures.

The armor inserts fit into the back panel of a child’s backpack, and sell for up to $400, depending on the retailer. The armor is designed to stop bullets from handguns, not assault weapons like the one used in the shooting at the Newtown, Conn., school.

Ken Larson, 41, of Denver, Colo., already had an armored backpack for himself and persuaded his wife to buy one for their 1-year-old after the latest shootings. He knows the backpack won’t guarantee his son’s safety. But, he added, it was a worthy precaution.

Who would have thought? Body armor for tots. It shows what capitalism can accomplish. As for the economy, think of millions of children, all outfitted with helmets, bulletproof vests, backpack armor, add in some night-vision goggles (for night school) and you’re talking millions, maybe billions, of dollars.

Robert Akers, a Rapid City, S.D., gun seller who specializes in (assault weapons), said the rush of customers had transformed his Rapid Fire Firearms store into a “madhouse” and that he’s not actively selling the guns and has turned off his phone. “The price is only going to go up higher,” he said.

Now, you’re into the really big economic stimulus: Guns. Big guns, little guns. Machine guns. And ammo. Lots and lots of ammo. Hollow points. Armor piercing. Phosphorus. You never know when you might run into a suspicious person who needs to be dealt with. Remember: Only the survivor gets to tell the story.

Anne Marie Albano, psychiatry director at Columbia University’s Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders, said parents should convey calmness, not anxiety. “This is not serving to keep children safe,” she said. “This is serving to increase their fear and their suspicion of their peers.”

Don’t you just hate those lily-livered, left-wing, bleeding heart liberals? Instead of worrying about children, why don’t they worry about microscopic embryos, the way we religious NRA members do.

Anyway, the more fear fear the kids have, the better for the child psychologist business. Start the kids young, and they could go to shrinks for the rest of their lives. Major money, there.

Austin Cook, general manager of Hoover Tactical Firearms in suburban Birmingham, Ala., said the spike in sales since Friday’s shootings has been so intense that federal background checks that typically take five minutes or less are now taking up to an hour.

Damn! I have to wait a whole hour before I can start killing people. What am I supposed to do in the meantime? Use a knife?

Cook said about 50 people were waiting in line for his store to open the morning after the shootings, and that he’s since sold nearly all of his assault weapons. Now, he’s trying to find more distributors.

“I can’t keep them in the store,” Cook said.

It very well could be that gun sales are just the stimulus the economy needs.

But if you truly are concerned about the safety of your child, forget about that flimsy backpack armor. Go to: Advanced Protective Services. Here’s what they do:

”We stand behind our clients to ensure the utmost in armed security guard protection. We specialize in customizing a plan to fit your specific situation and location.”

What kind of parent are you if you don’t provide your child with an armed bodyguard (although I’m not sure “standing behind” your kid is the best way to protect him.) Don’t be so cheap. Spend a few thousand. Isn’t your kid’s life worth it?

Then again, why depend on someone else to protect your child, when your child can protect himself. Go to Guns for the Children. [It’s a joke, but with serious undertones. Do check it out.]

Our mission

Kids in developed countries are at much more of an advantage when it comes to having quality weapons. In underdeveloped countries many kids are stuck using small knives or stones. The fortunate ones are able to get machetes. At Guns for the Children we are trying our best to provide quality and dependable arms and ammunition to children whose only wrongdoing was not being born in the best country in the world, the United States.

Hey, why should those foreign kids be be able to protect themselves, while your kid is unarmed? Get him his own gun to take to school. While waiting for a mass murderer, he can settle schoolyard arguments in a flash – a muzzle flash.

Finally, as for the half dozen, high powered AK47s you’ve stockpiled (and, of course, you’re looking for more), if they don’t protect your kid in school, and the armored backpack won’t really stop a bullet, and the armed security guard winds up accidentally shooting your kid, and your kid turns out to be a bad shot, here’s an excerpt from the Funeral Home Resource:

Pick out a coffin or urn and choose whether, if a casket, you want it open for the funeral, and whether you want a viewing. Also consider small touches like burying the child with a favorite toy, book or blanket.

Yes, those small touches cost money, but they really are good for the funeral business. How about including a little pink gun, so your child can stand her ground in the afterworld. It’s the least you can do for her – and for the American economy.

As the NRA says, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” I believe it. My only question is, with the millions of guns being sold, how many are purchased by good guys and how many by bad guys?

But who cares, really? We’re talking dollars, here. So thank you NRA and other gun nuts, for setting us on the path to fortune and freedom.

And, may your deaths be ironic.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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