–Did you really think Republicans were the only BIG LIARs?

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.
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Which do you fear more?

The out-and-out, “I-can’t-believe-they-actually-said-that” fruitcake-nutty, Michele Bachmannesque right-wing liars?

Or the sneaky, “I’m-one-of-you-simple-99%-folks,” “Don’t-listen-to-that-rat-Snowden,-trust-me-you-can-keep-your-health-care,” Barack Obamaesque liars?

To trust a nut or to trust a sneak. That is the question.

Here’s something that might help, an article in the Fiscal Times:

Top Dem Hints at Forbidden Entitlement Cuts
By Rob Garver

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the second-ranking Democrat in the House showed that there are significant fissures in the Democratic Party.

Though nominally Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s second-in-command, he is starkly different from Pelosi and many others on the party’s left wing when it comes to economic and fiscal issues. Hoyer spoke at an event sponsored by the self-described “centrist” group Third Way on Monday, delivering a firm defense of the “grand bargain” theory of fiscal policy.

You remember the “grand bargain,” don’t you? It was Obama’s austerity plan to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security if only the Republicans would be nice and increase a few taxes on the wealthy (taxes for which the wealthy easily would find loopholes).

In summary, it was a gigantic stab in the backs of the people who elected Obama. Remember, he’s a Chicago politician whose slogan is, “Change you can believe in, sucker.”

Hoyer expressed his disappointment that the Simpson-Bowles commission’s recommendations were never adopted, and reiterated his support for a “big and balanced” deal to correct the nation’s fiscal course.

You remember Simpson and Bowles, the bought-and-paid-for flunkeys hired by Obama to come up with a really big austerity deal, that would guarantee a huge widening of the gap between the rich and the rest.

The plan would have eliminated what they cleverly called “tax expenditures.” Of course, these things are not an expenditure at all. They are tax deductions.

But Messrs. Simpson and Bowles looked at it this way: All your money belongs to the government. So if you take a deduction, say for charity or for mortgage interest, you are spending the government’s money. Got it?

On the Democratic side of the aisle, the terms “big deal” and “balanced” are code words for agreements that include cuts to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicaid.

And really, who could object to a “big deal” that is “balanced?” No one wants an unbalanced little deal, do they?

As the country continues to borrow money to find spending, Hoyer said, debt service becomes an increasingly debilitating drag on our ability to invest in the future.

“In my opinion, a big deal is the best way for Congress to achieve a fiscally sustainable outlook that can inject certainty into our economy and help us invest in competitiveness, job growth, and opportunity.”

Of course, as readers already know, the country does NOT borrow money to find (fund?) spending, and debt service is not a drag on our ability to invest in the future. Quite the opposite. Mr. Hoyer merely is quoting the BIG LIE.

The vast majority of federal debt service (principal) consists of nothing more than transferring existing dollars from private savings-type accounts to private checking accounts, and does not involve federal government finances at all.

A small part of debt service — interest payments — is not a drag on anything. The government creates those dollars at will, and they add directly to Gross Domestic Product.

And then we come to the magic words of the BIG LIE: “fiscally sustainable” “inject certainty into our economy,” “invest in competitiveness, job growth, and opportunity.”

“Fiscally sustainable” implies the BIG LIE that our government can run short of its own sovereign currency. It cannot.

“Inject certainty into our economy” implies the BIG LIE that certainty of a recession is a worthwhile goal. Austerity, i.e. reducing the money supply, is certain to lead to recession.

“Invest in competitiveness” implies the BIG LIE that taking dollars out of our economy, by some strange metaphysics, actually becomes an investment that will make business more competitive, hire more people and provide opportunity for . . . for poverty, we suppose.

“If we can, in a bipartisan way, reach a comprehensive agreement, it would be the single most effective action we could take to stimulate our economy, give confidence to markets, and ensure that we have the resources to invest in our people.”

“Bipartisan” is another magic word meaning, “If we give the Republicans what they want (lower taxes on the rich and less spending for programs that aid the not-rich), they will give us what we Democrats want (less spending for programs that aid the not-rich and higher taxes that look like taxes on the rich, but easily are avoided.)

And yes, if you think that reducing the money supply and cutting benefits stimulates the economy, you also must subscribe to the “apply-leaches-to-cure-anemia” school of medicine.

But it will “give confidence to the markets,” since the markets are owned by the rich.

And now, the article closes with its funniest lines:

Earlier this month, Laura Friedenbach, press secretary for Progressive Change Campaign Committee told The Fiscal Times, “Just one year ago, Democrats were stuck in defense, constantly defending Social Security benefits from cuts. We’re now at a turning point — progressives are united and going on offense.”

Go on offense by retreating; full speed to the rear.

So, as you can see, the Republicans nuts are not the only people determined to suck up to the 1% and widen the gap between the rich and the rest.

The Democrat sneaks are in that race too, led by none other than Barack “trust me” Obama.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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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. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (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)

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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

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Investors hot for European economies, but where will the euros come from?

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

I must confess to being puzzled by articles like this one from Reuters. Here are a couple excerpts:

Investors pile into Greece and Portugal on recovery bet
BY FRANCESCO CANEPA AND MARIUS ZAHARIA
LONDON Mon Mar 24, 2014 9:28am EDT

Yield-hungry investors are flocking back to Greek and Portuguese markets, shunned by international buyers for four years, as the outlook for the bailed-out countries improves.

Portuguese and Greek shares and bonds have been the best performers in Europe in 2014, and funds invested in them are making a killing.

“It’s not so much an interest-rate-driven rally but much more a structural shift and a perception that the euro crisis is behind us,” said Franz Wenzel, chief strategist at AXA Investment Managers.

After nearly crashing out of the euro zone in 2012, the Portuguese economy is already rebounding, while Greece’s recession is easing.

It seems that beauty indeed is in the eye of the beholder, because this is what “easing” and “rebounding” look like:

Last year, Portugal lost 925 million euros; the year before that, 889 million euros flowed away.

Year after year after year, Portugal loses money, and has no way to replace it.

This is what Portugal’s percapita GDP looks like:

And that is what’s meant by “Easing” and “Rebounding”?

Portugal is monetarily non-sovereign. Unlike such Monetarily Sovereign nations as the U.S., Canada, UK, China et al, Portugal has no sovereign currency. So, unlike those Monetarily Sovereign nations, Portugal cannot create money. It relies on Net Exports (which repeatedly are negative) and gifts from the EU. But the EU lends, not gives, and those loans must be repaid.

Visualize a person who is deeply in debt, with no source of income, and lots of expenses. That’s Portugal. In short, Portugal’s bottle of money has a gigantic hole at the bottom, and nothing is coming in from the top. So where will Portugal obtain money to grow its economy? Where, indeed.

And here’s Greece’s “easing.”

Now do you understand “Easing” and “Rebounding”?

Greece too, is monetarily non-sovereign, so it too cannot create euros. Where will its money come from?

The euro is an ongoing, predictable, rolling disaster, that has two, and only two solutions:
1. The euro nations become Monetarily Sovereign by reverting to their own sovereign currency
or
2. The EU gives, not lends, euros to the euro nations, as needed.

Meanwhile, the pain continues, as plan after plan is put forth to “save the euro.” (Not save the people; save the euro. To hell with the people.)

A Third Weapon to Save the Euro – NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/…/global/a-third-weapon-to-save-the-euro.html
Oct 13, 2012 · The president of the European Council has proposed creating a separate budget for the euro zone, perhaps equipped with a central treasury and borrowing powers.

Three Months to Save the Euro: George Soros
http://www.cnbc.com/id/47642499
Jun 03, 2012 · Euro-zone governments have around three months to ensure the survival of the single currency, billionaire investor George Soros said in a speech on Saturday.

To Save the Euro, Germany Must Leave It – NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/opinion/to-save-the-euro-germany-must…
Jun 26, 2012 · AS the European economic crisis continues to intensify, policy makers are faced with the need to take ever more extreme measures to prevent a financial …

Europe’s currency crisis: How to save the euro | The Economist
http://www.economist.com › Financial rescue plans
Sep 17, 2011 · Europe’s currency crisis How to save the euro It requires urgent action on a huge scale. Unless Germany rises to the challenge, disaster looms Sep 17th …

In case you wonder why everyone seems so interested in saving the euro, rather than saving the unemployed, starving people of the euro nations, the reason is quite simple. The euro, by forcing austerity, is one of history’s greatest devices for widening the gap between the rich and the rest, and thus enslaving the European population

Meanwhile, the experts tell everyone, “The euro crisis is behind us,” essentially the same “calming” lie they have foisted on the populace for many years. But where o where will the euros come from?

Amazingly, the European people seem to accept this stuff.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t get it.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Canada radio station copies Canada government: Burns dollars.

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

Thank you reader Ian Winograd for calling to our attention this article:

Radio Station Burns $5,000 Cash in Publicity Stunt
By Beth Greenfield, Shine Staff | Healthy Living

A contest, “Bank It or Burn It,” run by 90.3 AMP Radio in Calgary, asked listeners to weigh in on whether the stacks of bills should go to a lucky listener or be set on fire.

Morning cohosts Katie Summers and Ryan Lindsay say they were left with no choice but to follow through when 54 percent responded with the hashtag “#BURN” via text.

The contest continues, this time with $10,000 on the line. But if the outcry so far is any indication, this vote could go much differently.

“I just wanted to let you know that you guys make me sick,” one call-in listener declared, echoing the sentiment that had been building throughout the weekend. Hundreds of commenters have expressed anger.

“Disgrace. Absolute…disgrace, this makes me embarrassed to live in this city.” “I hope AMP literally burns for this. Words can’t explain my disgust.” “. . . the contest shouldn’t have existed in the first place. AMP’s fault.”

A slew of tweets say the burning of the bucks was “stupid,” “dumb” and “selfish,” with some calling for station boycotts and attempting to divert public focus to various charities that are hard up for donations right now.

As reader Winograd said, “There was a huge outcry that the money could have gone to charity. But when Canadians pay their billions of dollars in taxes, and the money is destroyed, there is no outcry. Shouldn’t that be the critical debate?”

Absolutely. There is no functional difference between austerity and burning dollars. In either case, there is less money in the economy than there would have been without the austerity or the burning.

(Yes, paper dollars are not actually dollars; they are titles to dollars. But burning those titles effectively removes dollars from the money supply, identical with a reduction in deficit spending.)

National Post
Federal budget aims for economic growth over cuts to erase deficit
Sarah Boesveld – March 21, 2013

OTTAWA — The Conservative government tabled a budget Thursday that relies largely on projected growth instead of new cuts to erase the deficit and balance the budget by the 2015 election.

The budget increases (spending) by less than 1%, “the smallest increase in discretionary spending in nearly 20 years,” according to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. It closes tax loopholes.

“We will not back away from our steadfast commitment to fiscal responsibility,” Mr. Flaherty said in his budget speech. “We will not balance the budget on the backs of hardworking Canadian families or those in need. But we will balance the budget. And we will do it in 2015.”

Translation: “We will cut spending for social services and we will balance the budget on the backs of hardworking Canadian families and those in need. We can get away with this because we have brainwashed you Canadians into wrongly believing the central government is running short of dollars, and that its finances are just like your personal finances.”

Meanwhile Canadians, you have your underwear all in knots, because a radio station burned a few thousand dollars that “could have gone to charity.” But you applaud a government that unnecessarily cuts billions from its budget — billions that could have gone to the needy.

The penalty for ignorance is slavery. Can it get more ignorant than that?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–How one bad legal decision can beget an endless series of bad legal decisions.

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

American law relies heavily on precedent. Later decisions are linked to earlier decisions by a chain of logic that can extend through many decades, all the way back to the Constitution and even earlier.

Early decisions are the ingredients for later cakes.

No law or legal decision is an island unto itself. A wise judge takes that fact into consideration.

Sadly, our current Supreme Court has become ultra, right-wing political, not wise, so its decisions reflect the wishes of the upper .1% income/power group. Prime example: The Court’s Citizens United decision, that corporations have the same free speech rights as people, which favoring the rich, ranks among the more regressive decisions in the Court’s history.

Could Citizens United and a semi-colon undo Obamacare?
National Constitution Center By Scott Bomboy
March 21, 2014 6:24 AM

Next Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear two cases related to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, and the stakes are high for both sides. In fact, the interpretation of a semi-colon in the context of the First Amendment could play a critical role.

“Appellants also argue that Citizens United is applicable to the Free Exercise [of religion] Clause because ―the authors of the First Amendment only separated the Free Exercise Clause and the Free Speech Clause by a semi-colon, thus showing the continuation of intent between the two,” said circuit judge Robert Cowen in the Conestoga Wood appeals court decision.

The semi-colon argument holds that the free exercise of religion and free exercise of speech are linked. Since the Citizens United case gave corporations the same free speech rights as people, the argument states that corporations should have the same free religious exercise rights as people, too, and they should be able to opt out of Obamacare.

The argument is ridiculous — or would be, were it not for the equally ridiculous Citizens United decision, which creates precedent for all sorts of mischief. Not only did that decision provide additional rationale for billionaires to use tax avoiding corporations as secret cover for controlling elections, but it sets the stage for other arguments taking the Constitution far afield.

Citizens United, under the guise of “free speech,” allows rich people more free speech than poor people. Lots more. Further, it arguably allows corporations all the rights of people.

For instance, being born in the U.S., you have all the rights of a citizen. Does a corporation, “born” in the U.S., have all the rights of an American citizen?

Does it also have voting rights? Can corporations adopt children? Can a corporation go to jail if it breaks a law? Can a corporation receive a marriage license and thereby receive the tax benefits of marriage? And what if some shareholders, officers, etc. are foreigners. What then are the rights of the corporation? Does a corporation need a visa or passport?

And so we come to the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood cases:

In Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., the national hobby and crafts chain store asked the Court to take on the birth control mandate that applies to for-profit companies.

The issue in the Hobby Lobby case is if the company is protected under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says the government “shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless that burden satisfies strict scrutiny. Hobby Lobby claims as a family-owned company, its religious rights are violated by Obamacare.

In the Conestoga Wood case, a Mennonite family-owned, profit-making business claims that the ACA’s birth control mandate violates the company’s rights under the First Amendment free exercise clause and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

If a corporation has the free speech rights of an American citizen, who determines what that speech shall be? Is a corporation merely a surrogate for its president? Or its chairman? Or its board of directors? Or its shareholders? Or its employees? Or the employees’ union? Whose free speech are we talking about?

The Supreme Court, in its unseemly haste to favor the rich over the rest, has opened the door to all sorts of related questions.

What is the religion of a corporation? Is it the religion of the above-mentioned president? Or of the chairman? Or of the directors or shareholders? Or of the employees or union?

What shall we make of a corporation owned mostly by Christians, but which hires Jews and Muslims and even promotes Jews and Muslims to executive positions? When is it a Christian corporation and when is it not? Does it lose its “Christianity,” if some of its stock is sold to non-Christians?

And what if some of those Christian owners, executives, etc. are Catholic and some Protestant of various denominaions? What makes this corporation Catholic or Protestant? Does a “Muslim corporation” have legal redress if a Christian corporation refuses to hire it for a job, because of anti-Muslim bigotry?

Yes, bad law tends to extend its tentacles:

The Hobby Lobby-Conestoga Wood case is the first of more than 90 related cases filed by other religious-oriented plaintiffs, including hospitals, social service agencies, universities, schools, and companies.

Kaiser Health News estimates that more than 1,000 religious institutions and other employers with millions of employees have objections.

Here it comes. Every religion has its priorities. And if we assume corporations have the same rights as people, who has the right to decide a corporation’s religion, even when most of the employees and customers are of a different religion?

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” the American public, and to please our wealthy benefactors! Yes, the whole thing is ridiculous, but when you begin with ridiculous incredients, you aren’t going to get a sensible cake.

Interesting times ahead for what arguably will be remembered as one of our less admired Courts. Let’s see how they try to wriggle out of the complex maze they have built. Will they cook up an even more pro-right wing (rich), anti-left wing (poor) complexity. Soon the Court will attempt to bake a cake using the bad ingredients of its own making.

Note to Supreme Court justices: No matter what you do now, you will look like fools.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

cut debt, cut deficits, cut medicaid, cut medicare, cut social security, cut spending, cut taxes, cut the budget, eliminate FICA, filibuster, income gap, MMT, modern monetary theory, monetarily non-sovereign, monetarily sovereign, monetary non-sovereignty, monetary sovereignty

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