Poverty statistics: Figures don’t lie, but the Heritage Foundation does

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

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor,
which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive.

======================================================================================================================================================================================

The right-wing, Washington Times ran the following article. Here are some excerpts. Think about what this article is trying to sell you.

Washington Times
Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record
By Dave Boyer

Fifty years after President Johnson started a $20 trillion taxpayer-funded war on poverty, the overall percentage of impoverished people in the U.S. has declined only slightly and the poor have lost ground under President Obama.

Although the president often rails against income inequality in America, his policies have had little impact overall on poverty. A record 47 million Americans receive food stamps, about 13 million more than when he took office.

So obviously, those food stamps don’t do any good. Right? And it’s all Obama’s fault. Right again?

Read on.

About 50 million Americans live below the poverty line, which the federal government defined in 2012 as an annual income of $23,492 for a family of four.

President Obama’s anti-poverty efforts “are basically to give more people more free stuff,” said Robert Rector, a specialist on welfare and poverty at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Giving poor people “free stuff” doesn’t help them. Right?

(Oh, by the way, the Heritage Foundation is funded by the extreme right-wing rich, whose cure for poverty seems to depend on lower taxes for the wealthy and less regulation of wealthy corporations.)

Mr. Rector said the war on poverty has been a failure when measured by the overall amount of money spent and poverty rates that haven’t changed significantly since Johnson gave his speech.

“We’ve spent $20.7 trillion on means-tested aid since that time, and the poverty rate is pretty much exactly where it was in the mid-1960s,” he said.

O.K., we get it. Spending $20.7 was a waste of money. It hasn’t helped at all because the same number of people are in poverty. So we ought to stop giving poor people “free stuff.” Right?

Then there’s this from the Census Bureau:

How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty

The Census Bureau uses a set of money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition to determine who is in poverty.

The official poverty thresholds do not vary geographically, but they are updated for inflation using Consumer Price Index (CPI-U).

So the same income — $23,492 for a family of four — defines poverty in Manhattan and poverty in Mississippi? Interesting to learn that it costs no more to live in America’s most expensive locations than in America’s least expensive locations.

But it gets even more interesting:

The official poverty definition uses money income before taxes and does not include capital gains or noncash benefits (such as public housing, Medicaid, and food stamps).

Get it? The spending to which the Heritage Foundation’s mouthpiece says does nothing to help the poor, is not even included in the definition of poverty.

Who is poorer? The family with an income of $23,492 that also receives free food stamps, free Medicaid and free housing, or the same family that does not receive this “free stuff”?

Clearly, the “free stuff” to which the Heritage Foundation objects is a huge benefit to the needy people receiving it.

That “free stuff” may prevent starvation, homelessness, sickness and death. But the Heritage Foundation seems not to care about the poor. These mean-spirited guys send out liars like Rector to tell America food stamps don’t work; free housing doesn’t work; Medicaid doesn’t work — and while we’re at it, let’s cut unemployment compensation, Social Security, Medicare and every other aid to the poor and middle classes, while “broadening the tax base.”

The cruelty of the wealthy liars is beyond comprehension. While the rich lounge on yachts, millions of people suffer on scaps, but even that suffering isn’t sufficient. The rich want to take away the scraps.

They paint the poor as lazy freeloaders, who would rather do nothing than work for a living. It’s a cruel lie, but the cold-hearted among us eagerly buy into that lie.

If a nation is measured by its treatment of its less fortunate, then America is diminishing. The fault lies not only with the rich, but even more so with the fools who believe their lies.

And the irony: Those federal benefits don’t cost anyone anything. In our Monetarily Sovereign nation, taxpayers don’t pay for federal spending.

In short, those who object to the “free stuff” that keeps people alive, don’t even pay for the “free stuff.”

How stupid is that?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

—–

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Today’s “It’d-be-funny-if-not-so-sad” story: Iraq version

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.

======================================================================================================================================================================================

Allow me to share with you excerpts from today’s best “It-would-be-funny-if-it-weren’t-so-sad” story.

White House: US pullout not cause of Iraq violence

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is pushing back against critics who argue that the U.S. pullout from Iraq is to blame for escalating sectarian violence.

Escalating tensions in Iraq have raised U.S. concerns about al-Qaida taking firmer root inside the country, as insurgents challenge the government for control of territory.

This sad story is hilarious on several levels:

1. There was no al-Qaida in Iraq until after the US lied to Americans (so what else is new?) about the need to destroy the Iraqi government.

2. There were far more casualties caused by the invasion of Iraq than by recent sectarian violence.

3. More than 4,000 Americans were uselessly slaughtered and 32,000 uselessly wounded in the useless war with Iraq — comparable to the number of Iraqis killed since the US withdrawal in December 2011.

4. The original vote for the useless Iraqi war was:
House:
Republicans: For: 216; Against: 6
Democrats: For: 82; Against: 126

Senate:
Republicans: For: 48; Against: 1
Democrats: For: 29; Against: 21

Question: Who are the current critics of the pullout?

But the black humor isn’t finished:

March 11, 2010, 12:22 am
Five Republicans vote to pull out from Afghanistan
By Eric Zimmermann

Five House Republcians joined 60 Democrats tonight in voting to pull out U.S. forces from Afghanistan. The measure, defeated by a vote of 356-65, was introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and co-sponsored by three of the Republicans who ended up supporting it: Reps. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Ron Paul (R-Texas), and Tim Johnson (R-Ill.)

A huge majority — 336 to 65 — voted to keep Americans in the useless Afghanistan war, where more than 20,000 were killed and wounded. If this slaughter doesn’t tickle your funny bone, what about this:

U.S. wants Afghanistan to sign security deal in ‘weeks not months’

The Afghan government had ignored U.S. demands for it to sign a framework security agreement by the end of 2013.

U.S. officials say unless a deal is reached to keep upwards of 8,000 U.S. troops inside the country after 2014, the United States might instead completely withdraw from the country.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has expressed skepticism at the U.S. threat for a complete withdrawal.

So, our President is begging Karzai to allow us to leave 8,000 Americans in his country, to be killed and maimed (while giving Karzai billions in aid).

Karzai is thinking about it.

And what can you say about this:

Afghanistan to Free Prisoners Despite US Objection

The decision angered US officials, who said the 88 prisoners are Taliban fighters involved in attacks that killed at least 60 American soldiers and more than 50 civilians.

Clearly, our investment of lives and money in Afghanistan and Iraq is paying dividends — for the Taliban.

So let’s put it together: Our foreign policy has been a mortal disaster. Our domestic policy has been a mortal disaster. Our immigration policy has been a mortal disaster. Our financial policy has been a mortal disaster. The gap between the rich and the rest has been growing, disastrously. Everything Congress and the current and former Presidents have touched has been a disaster.

Please raise your hands: How many plan to vote for an incumbent?

Most of you?

Now that’s funny — and sad.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

—–

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Britain promises more suicide (but just for the middle and the poor)

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.

======================================================================================================================================================================================

Britain, like the U.S., is ruled by those who wish to widen the gap between the rich and the rest. Here are excerpts from a New York Times article:

UK Needs 25 Billion Pounds of Spending Cuts After 2015 Vote, Osborne Says
By REUTERS, Published: January 6, 2014 at 4:20 AM ET

Chancellor George Osborne said on Monday, “We need to find a further 25 billion pounds of cuts after the election. We have to make decisions about where those cuts are to be found.

“After the election” is better than “before the election.” That way, the voters will not realize how screwed they are.

“This enormous welfare budget, that ultimately is where you can find substantial savings.”

He already has made “decisions about where those cuts are to be found”: Payments to the poor — of course.

You see, in the world of the rich, the poor have too much money, so the poor and middle classes continually must be beaten down, lest they gain any power at all. To a bribed politician, there is no greater danger than an informed and powerful middle- and lower class.

The UK uses its own currency, the pound. So it is Monetarily Sovereign. Unlike the euro nations, which have no sovereign currency, the UK never can run short of its sovereign currency.

The fundamental formula for Gross Domestic Product is: GDP = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports. So, do the math:

1. How will a 25 billion pound reduction in Federal Spending affect Britain’s GDP?

2. How will a 25 billion pound reduction in the welfare budget affect the already-too-wide gap between the rich and the rest?

Sadly, the British education system must not have taught its people simple mathematics, else the people long ago would have tossed toadies-to-the-rich Osborne and Prime Minister David Cameron out of office.

Which brings me to the politicians in the US, which are doing much the same thing as the British . . .

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

—–

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–What is the most serious, life-threatening disease in America and the world?

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.

======================================================================================================================================================================================

What is the most serious life-threatening disease in America and the world?

According to Wikipedia:

A disease is an abnormal condition that affects the body of an organism. It may be caused by factors originally from an external source, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune diseases.

In humans, “disease” is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person afflicted, or similar problems for those in contact with the person.

Diseases usually affect people not only physically, but also emotionally, as contracting and living with many diseases can alter one’s perspective on life, and one’s personality.

The single most serious, life-threatening, life-taking disease in America and the world is poverty.

Poverty is an abnormal condition that affects people physically and emontionally. Poverty causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person afflicted, and similar problems for those in contact with the person.

More people are infected with poverty, and more people die from this disease, than from any other. It poisons and kills men and women. It kills children of all ages. It shatters entire families, even entire neighborhoods.

Excerpts from ScienceNews Magazine, December 14, 2013
Heal Thy Neighbor
BY Bruce Bower

The women of Mohmandara, in eastern Afghanistan, met at a local health clinic. Mental health workers had heard village women talking to each other about “feelings of sadness” and “worrying too much.”

The village women described being beaten and harassed by their husbands, who were spurred on by their mothers and sisters. Families were imploding. Everyone agreed that unemployment and poverty lay behind the surge of domestic violence.

Many people living in impoverished communities suffer from a mix of mild to moderate depression, anxiety disorders and stress reactions to traumatic experiences.

Many people have endured episodes of depression set off by lifelong poverty and social mistreatment

There are cures for the poverty disease, but strangely, they are not being administered, mostly because of the belief that victims are at fault for their own misery.

Consider these questions:

If you knew someone deathly ill from influenza, would you blame them for their illness? Would you withhold treatment because, “It’s their own fault. They should have taken a flu shot.”

If you knew someone dying of lung cancer, would you withhold treatment because they smoked?

Should medical help for your overweight friend, who is dying from heart disease or stroke be withheld because, “It’s his own fault”?

And what about children? Under what circumstances should help for sick children be withheld?

Poverty disease does not affect only those directly afflicted. Poverty disease causes crime, which causes more crime, which affects everyone, including those not impoverished.

Poverty is a communicable disease:

Scientific American Magazine, January 2014
Excerpts from Our Unconscious Mind
Professor John A. Bargh

Imitation instructs people what to do next: waiting patiently in a long line encourages others to do the same; holding a door for a neighbor, curbing on’es dog and not littering put others in a frame of mind to do the right thing.

Unfortunately, the natural tendency toward imitation cuts both ways. Researches placed graffiti on an alley wall, which led to an increasde in littering.

Research supports the “broken window” theory most famously championed by former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani, who promoted the strict enforcement of laws against minor infractions — littering, jaywalking and vandalism; the dramatic drop in crime has been attributed, in part, to this policy.

Every day of your life, you pay for crime committed by poverty.

You pay for lost goods and services. You pay for insurance. You pay for police, courts and jails. You pay for lost lives, both of victims and perpetrators. You pay for the loss of benefits society would have received, had poverty-encouraged criminals led honest lives.

And think of the children, who suffer from poverty disease today, will suffer tomorrow, and will make you and the world suffer with them.

Poverty not only is the most common disease, and not only the most expensive disease, but poverty is perhaps the most treatable disease.

Poverty can be treated with money, with education, with housing, with food, with health care — all of which can be supplied by the federal government at no cost to anyone.

In fact, fighting poverty can add money to the economy, which in itself will benefit us all.

Yet, we allow this disease to destroy lives. We say the impoverished are to blame for their own poverty. We say helping the poor encourages sloth. We say it’s not fair to give to people what they should acquire for themselves.

We cured smallpox. We are close to curing polio. We fight cancer and heart disease. Yet, we allow poverty disease to kill, maim and cause suffering, while we blame the victims.

But we — all of us — are victims of this most terrible of all diseases.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)

—–

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty Monetary Sovereignty

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY