Mitchell’s laws:
●The more budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●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.
●Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
==========================================================================================================================================
Jesus: “all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

James Eagen’s rampage in Colorado will lead to more debate about the availability of guns in America, the world’s gun ownership capital. And this debate will lead nowhere. (But there is a solution, and you can see it near the bottom of this post.)

The May 21, 2010 post “Is gun control possible?” gives several reasons why gun control is not possible, some of which are:

1. Millions of Americans want guns. Prohibition of something people want never works.
2. There is widespread belief that anti-gun laws leave criminals armed and honest people unarmed.
3. Guns also have a legitimate use in hunting.
4. Most cities do not have fully staffed, fully trained police to enforce gun control. Money has gone elsewhere.
5. The Supreme Court ignores the beginning phrase of the 2nd Amendment.
6. Gun manufacture, import and sales are profitable.

1) Prohibition (of alcohol) didn’t work. Prohibition of recreational drugs doesn’t work. Prohibition of guns will not work. Mayors of gang-infested cities beg Congress for help in outlawing guns, but history shows that no law will prevent people from obtaining guns. What people want, people get.

2) The NRA says, “If guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns.” By definition, they are right. It’s doubtful whether the comparatively tiny number of personal defenses by honest gun users, justifies the enormous number of murders by criminals. Yet, I can empathize with a person, living in a high-murder area, wanting a gun for self protection. I don’t own a gun, but if I lived in a gang-controlled neighborhood, I probably would buy one.

3) Hunting for food is legitimate for an omnivore or a carnivore, like us. But hunting for “sport” is disgusting. Where is the “sport” in killing an unarmed animal? Personal opinion: Sport hunting is for cowards and sadists. And do you “sportsmen” really need an AK-47 or Kalashnikov to kill a rabbit or a duck?

4) Chicago was home to one of the most murderous neighborhoods in America. It was called Cabrini Green, ironically named after Mother Cabrini. For three weeks, in 1981, then Mayor Jane Byrne, moved into Cabrini Green. She was surrounded by police. For that period, murders ended, demonstrating that sufficient numbers of police greatly can reduce the murder rate in even the worst area.

Unfortunately, cities are not Monetarily Sovereign, so cannot afford “sufficient numbers” of police. And, of course, there is the social question of whether living in a police state would be an improvement over living in a murder state.

5) Our Supreme Court is blessed with self-proclaimed “Originalists” – most notably Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas – who believe their appointed mission is to read the minds of the Constitution’s framers, and divine their original intent, regardless of subsequent events. They are of the “If-you-don’t-like-the-Constitution,-change-it” mentality, conveniently ignoring reality — the extreme difficulty of changing it.

The fact is, Scalia, Thomas et al are not Originalists. They are “Originalists-when-convenient.” They are politicians — members of the far right — dressed in black robes, rather than the white robes of that other far right group.

Contrary to the Supreme Court’s and public’s perception, the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution does not read, “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” No, it reads, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Question: If the authors of the Constitution wanted everyone to have guns, why didn’t didn’t they simply write: “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Why did they feel the need to reference “a well regulated Militia”?

And lest one believe the framers of the Constitution just tossed in the words “well regulated Militia” as meaningless garbage, “Militia” is mentioned elsewhere in the Constitution — and given specific meaning:

Amendment 5 – Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings – No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger

And

Section 8. – Congress shall have the power to: Provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.
and
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress

And

Section 2 – Civilian Power over Military, Cabinet, Pardon Power, Appointments – The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States

A normal reading of the Constitution says that the well regulated Militia is a group or groups, organized, well regulated, trained, armed and disciplined by Congress, and which the U.S. may employ, and for which the States may appoint officers and provide training, and which the President may call into service.

Does that sound like your neighborhood gang-bangers? Does that sound like hunting? Does that sound like a guy who wants a gun for protection? Are you, your family, your friends and neighbors in a well regulated Militia that is organized, trained and disciplined by Congress and whose officers are appointed by your state? If not, the 2nd Amendment does not include you.

Sadly, our “Originalist” Supreme Court has decided that when the framers of the Constitution wrote “well regulated militia,” they really meant, “unregulated individuals, not in the Militia.” How’s that for “original intent”?

Then, there is the question about what the framers mean by “Arms”? Did they mean the aforementioned AK-47s, or did they mean the single-load muskets that were used back then? What was the original intent? Wouldn’t muskets have more likely been in the minds of the framers?

Today, laws prohibit ownership of automatic weapons, bazookas, hand grenades, cannons and other powerful weapons. So clearly, even our self-proclaimed “Originalists” understand the need for some weapon restrictions. So, why not restrict everything but muskets? (Not that this prohibition would eliminate guns. It wouldn’t. But at least it would eliminate the phony legal justifications for guns, based on an intentional misinterpretation of the Constitution.)

6) And now we get to the crux of the problem: The huge profitability in gun and ammunition manufacture, distribution and sales. Consider any product so demanded by the public it approaches addiction, and add to that the great profits in manufacture, distribution and sales, and it would take a harsh law and strong enforcement to reduce usage. Recreational drugs and alcohol fall into that category. So do guns.

But what if the manufacture, sales and distribution of guns and ammunition were not profitable? What if the risks outweighed the profits? Might approaching the gun debate from the front end (manufacture), rather than from the back end (user), accomplish what typical gun control laws cannot not, even if our Originalist Supreme Court allowed every man, woman and child to carry a gun?

I suggest that Congress and the individual states pass an “aid and abet” law that reads:

“If a gun of any type and/or ammunition for that gun, is used in the commission of a felony, the manufacturer, distributor, importer and/or supplier of that gun and/or ammunition, shall be liable, civilly and criminally, in equal measure with the perpetrator of the felony.”

This means:

*If you make a gun or ammo that is used in a felony, you can be sued in civil court and tried in criminal court. (This is a cousin to the “dram shop” laws, making a tavern owner liable for damages where intoxication was at least one cause of the damages.)
*If you sell or give a gun or ammo to anyone who uses them in a felony, you can be sued and tried.
*If you sell or give a gun or ammo to anyone who subsequently sells or gives a gun to anyone who uses that gun or ammo in a felony, you can be sued and tried. There is no limit to the length of the liability trail.

So “Originalists,” you can say the Constitution allows all citizens to own guns, despite not being in a well regulated Militia. No problem. You NRA folks can own all the guns and ammunition you wish. However if you give or sell your guns or ammunition, and those guns or ammunition later are used in a felony, you pay up big time. It’s lawsuits and jail for you.

Within short order, all guns and ammunition will be sold only to the federal government. No one will dare sell or give a gun or bullet, to any private person.

Problem solved.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

==========================================================================================================================================
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 exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●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.
●Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
==========================================================================================================================================

In the previous post, “Congress makes astounding discovery: Reducing deficits (aka austerity) causes recessions,” we saw how Congress and the President “discovered” that if taxes were increased and spending reduced, we would fall over the “fiscal cliff.”

We also noted that Congress and the President still want to reduce the deficit, though this would require the very spending cuts and tax reductions that would lead to the “fiscal cliff.”

Finally, we showed that deficit reduction would cause the “fiscal cliff,” because it would reduce money supply growth. GDP = Federal spending + Private Spending and Investment + Net Exports. Reduced federal spending reduces GDP. Increased taxes reduce Private Spending and Investment.

Mathematically, increased deficits are necessary to grow the economy.

When I called this to the attention of my favorite editor, Bruce Dold of the Chicago Tribune, he wrote back: “The big picture here is that while we need spending cuts and revenue hikes — in a ratio of 3-to-1 or 4-to-1, we think — losing all of this liquidity at once would torpedo the economy.”

Incredibly, he says losing liquidity is a good thing for the economy (Yikes!), so long as it’s done slowly. He’s bothered only by the “at once” aspect. But he also said, “We had hopes for yet another plan, which didn’t get much ink: a Go-Big bipartisan proposal to reduce expected deficits by more than $4 trillion over 10 years.”

I guess losing $4 trillion of liquidity in 10 years is slow enough for him. You just can’t make this stuff up.

In that vein, Congress still wants to increase taxes, but not by increasing taxes, overtly. Rather they want to cut “loopholes.”

New York Times Tax Loopholes Block Efforts to Close Gaping U.S. Deficit
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
Published: July 20, 2012

WASHINGTON —On Capitol Hill, lawmakers casually point to closing “loopholes” as the answer to much that ails the country. Negotiations to avoid automatic military spending cuts in January, to enact sweeping deficit reduction and to lower corporate and personal income tax rates all hinge on closing unidentified loopholes.

Translation: “. . . avoid military spending cuts. . . ” increases the deficit. “. . . lower corporate and personal income tax rates . . . ” also increases the deficit. But Congress wants to do these things while it . . .”enacts sweeping deficit reduction. . .” Got it?

Federal tax receipts are reduced by more than $1 trillion a year by various tax deductions and credits, known as tax expenditures, often tied to a policy aim. Ending them would nearly eliminate the federal deficit, which is projected to be $1.2 trillion in the current fiscal year.

Translation: “We know that raising taxes hurts the economy. And we don’t want to be seen as the guys who pushed the economy over the “fiscal cliff.” So we need a sneaky way to raise taxes, and we have found one. We have made everyone believe tax “loopholes” are bad. So we’ll eliminate loopholes, which will raise taxes, and no one will object. Smart, huh?”

But the three largest (loopholes) are as popular as they are expensive: the mortgage interest deduction has cost about $75 billion a year recently, the employer deduction for health care has cost $120 billion a year, and the charitable-giving deduction has cost $38 billion a year, according to the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.

Translation: Oops. We hope the public doesn’t wise up to the fact that one man’s “loophole” is another man’s “legitimate deduction. Nah, why worry? The public never wises up.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who is participating in deficit talks, said: “We have to invite the American people to be part of a conversation about how to rationalize this tax code, reduce its complexity, try to bring rates down in a reasonable way and still reduce the deficit.”

So here is my esteemed Senator who carefully walks both sides of the issue. He wants to reduce taxes, while not reducing taxes, and increase spending, while not increasing spending. Yes, he wants to cut the deficit, while not cutting the deficit, because everyone knows that cutting the deficit will send us over the fiscal cliff.

And that is why Durbin has been in Congress for thirty (!) years. He’s not ignorant. The voters are ignorant. He’s a fox.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

==========================================================================================================================================
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 exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●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.
●Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
==========================================================================================================================================

Congress and the President have just discovered what every awake economist has preached for many years: The more budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.

All the media and political lecturing that the federal government’s “deficit and debt are too high,” and the government should “live within its means,” is mere propaganda by the top 1% income group. The deficit is the federal government’s method for adding dollars to the economy, which stimulates the economy, and the federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has no “means” to live within. Unlike monetarily non-sovereign states, business and people, it can service any size debt, forever.

The purpose of this deception: To reduce benefits to the lower 99%, thereby increasing the income gap between 1% and 99%.

Now that Congress and the President have convinced everyone of this nonsense, they wish to take it back, for fear the peasants will rise up angrily.

Washington Post
Congress’s debate on year-end ‘fiscal cliff’ sets stage for fall showdowns

(‘Taxmageddon’ could shock the nation’s pocketbook: Thanks to some new taxes, the expiration of other short-term tax laws and other changes, the country’s economy could be dealt a major blow in 2013.)
By Paul Kane, Published: July 19, 2012

Five and half months before the deadline for potential disaster, Congress broke into heated debate this week over a January fiscal meltdown that could lead to nearly $600 billion worth of tax hikes and automatic federal spending cuts next year.

Translation: “Those tax hikes and spending cuts will reduce the federal deficit and debt. We hope you don’t remember it was we who wanted it. Now we take it all back, because frankly, tax increases and/or spending cuts lead to recessions and depressions.”

Democrats accused the GOP of risking economic calamity to the middle class to protect lower taxes for the rich. Republicans accused Democrats of wanting to raise taxes and being soft on national security.

Translation: “The other party did exactly what we wanted, but we deny it’s what we wanted. Hey, if Romney can criticize Obamacare, when he invented Romneycare, why can’t we criticize the deficit reduction we demanded?”

“The president’s small-business tax hike will hit nearly the same time as our military’s being hit with arbitrary cuts that will endanger our security,” House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said 20 minutes earlier. “Now some of those same Democrats are threatening to drive us off the fiscal cliff and tank our economy, all in their quest for higher taxes.”

Translation: “I want lower taxes. I want more spending. I want a reduced deficit. Please don’t think too hard about how that works.”

The situation is driven by the failure last fall of a specially empowered congressional “supercommittee” that had been tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in budget savings as part of a broader deal cut last August. With the supercommittee’s failure, the law requires the first wave of 10 years’ worth of automatic spending cuts to kick in Jan. 1 — at the same time that the income tax cuts approved during the George W. Bush administration, along with a host of other tax benefits, are set to expire.

Translation: “Our supercommittee failed to cut the deficit, so now the deficit will be cut automatically, which will be a ‘fiscal cliff’ disaster. If only the supercommittee had done its job, we would have had the fiscal cliff, but we could have blamed them.”

The combined effect of those tax hikes and spending cuts would send the already limping economy back into a recession, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Translation: “Tax hikes are bad. Spending cuts are bad. Deficit cuts are good. Keep repeating that until you actually believe it — unless you already do.”

Obama began last week by restating his support for extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts only for the first $250,000 in income, offering such an extension for an additional year to buy time for a broader effort to reform the entire tax code next year.

Translation: “All tax increases are bad, because they remove dollars from the economy, which causes recessions. Except tax increases on those making more than $250,000 are good, because they also remove dollars from the economy, which also causes recessions, but we know the public will agree to cut off their own noses to spite their faces.”

“The politics of taxes has changed, and for 30 years Republicans won the argument because they conflated middle-income taxes and wealthy taxes,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer, Dem. (N.Y.), said Thursday. ”And when middle-class incomes were going up, the middle class sort of shrugged their shoulders and said okay. With middle income going down, and with us being a lot smarter about this, we are separating the middle class from the wealthy and for the first time in 30 years winning the tax argument.”

Translation: “I don’t give a damn about the reality that Federal Deficits = Net Private Savings, so are necessary to grow and stimulate the economy. All I care about is blaming the other guy, when we fall over the fiscal cliff.”

In case you’re like Congress and the President, i.e. clueless, here is a brief summary:

1. The federal deficit and debt are too high.
2. Increased taxes and/or reduced spending cut the deficits and debt.
3. But increased taxes and/or reduced spending will send the economy off the “fiscal cliff.”
4. So we want to cut the deficit but do not want to increase taxes and/or reduce spending.

Got it?

Sadly, most of America has no problem whatsoever believing points 1 through 4, and will argue to the death that Monetary Sovereignty and MMT (which say 1 through 4 make no sense) are wrong.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

==========================================================================================================================================
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 exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●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.
●Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
==========================================================================================================================================

Let’s begin with the facts. Mitt Romney is a man who wishes to be President of the United States, but doesn’t really know why — other than ego. He has no plan for the country and he has no core beliefs. He just wants to be — tah dah! — *The President*.

The post, “Which of these three candidates do you support: Barack Obama, Flip Romney or Flop Romney” listed some of the opposing positions Romney has taken:

He loved Romneycare, but hates Obamacare, though the two essentially are identical.

He was for and against increasing the minimum wage. For and against stem cell research. For and against women’s pro-choice. For and against the individual mandate. For and against the auto industry bailout.

He loved and didn’t love Ronald Reagan. He was for and against — then for, again — a pathway to citizenship for immigrants. For and against G.W. Bush’s tax cut plan. For and against a ban on assault rifles.

He does and does not own a gun. He takes both sides of the global warming debate. For and against same-sex marriage. For and against a “no-new-taxes” pledge.

In short, he is the Zelig of American politics, a man who will assume the persona of whomever has a vote or a dollar that can help him be — Tah dah! — *The President*. If character were the sole criterion, Romney would be as fit to be President as Bozo the Clown.

That said, the criticism Romney has received about his role at Bain Capital reflects his critics’ remarkable misunderstanding about the purpose of business.

The fundamental purpose of the typical business is to make money for its owners. A business does this by creating a demand for its product/service and by meeting this demand efficiently.

Businesses do not succeed by employing unneeded people. Efficiency means not paying more than necessary for goods and services. If, as a business owner, you have the choice of buying a widget in the U.S., or buying a much less expensive, identical widget overseas, you would be business-wise to buy overseas.

Compassion and patriotism are praiseworthy traits, but a company’s balance sheet does not list them as line items. Walmart did not succeed by putting compassion and patriotism at the top of its “to-do” list. GE didn’t succeed by tolerating money-losing companies.

While I don’t subscribe to the more extreme forms of Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is Good” philosophy, only the business-ignorant, or those having an ax to grind, criticize Romney for “shipping jobs overseas,” or for firing unneeded people, or for closing unprofitable companies or for (oh my gosh!) making a profit. He was doing — successfully doing — what a good businessman does.

In business, competition means you win and someone else loses. Is that lack of compassion? Using Indian workers and Chinese products means Americans pay less for goods and services, and American shareholders make more money. Is that unpatriotic?

And so far as having money in offshore accounts, Romney was trying to minimize his taxes. God bless him for that. Would you respect him more if he didn’t try to minimize his taxes?

And then there’s the fact that he’s rich, which supposedly means he cannot be President, because everyone knows being poor is a good criterion for leadership — because a rich man doesn’t understand the common people. Right?

Of course, that criterion excludes wealthy Franklin D. Roosevelt, who created the New Deal and Social Security for the common people. And there was wealthy Lyndon B. Johnson, who passed the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid. And Jack Kennedy was our third wealthiest president, and the wealthiest of all was — George Washingon. Some pretty good men in that list.

Would Romney make a better President if he was a lousy (though patriotic and compassionate) businessman, who hired too many (American) people, paid them too much, bought too expensively, couldn’t turn a profit, paid too much tax and was broke? Is this the wisdom you would like to see in the Oval Office?

Bain Capital is the least of Romney’s “shortcomings.” Criticize him for being owned by the upper 1% income group. Criticize him for having no core beliefs, no reliable positions, no plans and no ideas not subject to change.

Criticize him for being a crass opportunist, who will say anything and do anything to satisfy his ego-driven urge to be — tah dah! *The President* — but don’t criticize him for being a good businessman.

Good businessmen built America.

[On second thought, not many good businessmen became good Presidents. In fact, almost none of America’s best Presidents were good businessmen. In further fact, good businessmen became some of our worst Presidents: Carter, Harding, Hoover, Bush II.]

Hmmm . . .

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

==========================================================================================================================================
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 exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY