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

As we have said many times, the upper .1% power group has bribed virtually all politicians (with the connivance of the right-wing Supreme Court), via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later. The goal: To continue widening the gap between the rich/powerful and the rest.

Clearly, the extreme right-wingers (the Republicans) are more in the pockets of the rich than are the less-right-wingers (the Democrats). But don’t think Democrats are blameless.

Remember, they do control the Presidency and the Senate. So the widening of the gap couldn’t happen without their participation.

In that vein, I bring you the entire text of a letter I just today received from my Democrat Senator, Dick Durbin:

Dear Mr. Mitchell:

Thank you for contacting me about Congress raising the debt ceiling. I appreciate hearing from you.

Actually, I contacted him about eliminating the debt ceiling, but he changed it for his own convenience.

On October 16, 2013, the Senate passed a bill (H.R. 2775) to extend the debt limit through February 7, 2014.

I am not willing to gamble with the full faith and credit of the United States by not raising the debt ceiling. Forcing the federal government to default on the nation’s debt would be the single most irresponsible act we could do to our economy as it continues to rebound.

Refusing to raise the debt ceiling would force the government to limit or suspend payments to a whole host of federal beneficiaries, from Social Security and Medicare recipients, to military personnel, veterans, federal workers, defense contractors, student loan recipients, state governments, and our bondholders throughout the world.

He is correct, although why would he include student loans in his list. The government, cruelly and needlessly, makes money on those.

The worst economic recession since the Great Depression sent our national debt soaring. Although recent increases in spending were necessary as we worked to jumpstart our economy, we cannot sustain deficits of this magnitude over the long term. We must work toward real solutions that will reduce the deficit in a responsible and balanced way.

This is 100% bullcrap. The politicians have been saying exactly the same thing at least since 1940 (!) and surely well before that. In those days the deficit and debt were called “ticking time bombs,” so as to scare the public.

Those phony time bombs still are ticking, and the public still is scared.

Over the past several years, I have worked with my colleagues to reduce the national debt and to control our federal deficits.

In other words, this bribed Senator, who pretends to be a friend of the middle class, has be conspiring to reduce the amount of money in the economy — a situation that always affects the poor far more than the rich and powerful.

I was honored to have served on President Obama’s Bipartisan Fiscal Commission, spending much of that time learning from experts who explained the risk that our growing debt poses to our national well-being. I also have worked with a bipartisan group of my colleagues in the Senate to craft a balanced plan for controlling our federal deficits.

He wants me to believe that increasing the money supply poses a risk to our “national well-being.” He previously wanted me to believe that deficit spending (i.e. increasing the money supply) helped get us out of the Great Recession.

Hmmm . . . does anyone see anything wrong here?

And yes, “bipartisan” and “balanced.” What could possibly be wrong with something that is “bipartisan” and “balanced” — oh, except for a bipartisan and balanced scheme to widen the gap between the rich and powerful, and the rest of us.

There are only two honest ways to reduce our debt: cut spending and raise revenues. I am committed to pursuing proposals that do both. This is going to require sacrifice from both sides of the aisle.

If those are “honest,” we’d be better off with dishonest. Oops, we already have that. It’s called the Big Lie.

No, it won’t require sacrifice on either side of the aisle. You bribed politicians will not feel any sacrifice. None at all. It will be we citizens who do the sacrificing.

This is not a partisan problem, it is an American problem. I will continue to work to find commonsense solutions to rein in our ballooning debt without risking the economic recovery or breaking promises to senior citizens, working families, and future generations.

What can one say about such Big Lies? Hes’ going to cut the deficit “without risking the economic recovery.” He’s going to cut the deficit without “breaking promises to senior citizens, working families, and future generations.”

Really? What is his next magic trick? Building highways, free? Repairing the infrastructure, free. Fund medical research, free. Inspect food and drugs, free?

And what about the billions spent secretly spying on Americans? Will that now be free, too?

Or will you cut spending on Social Security? On Medicare? On federal employment? On regulating Wall Street? On food stamps? Where exactly are you going to cut spending?

And as for increasing revenues (the euphemism for “taxes), will you “broaden the tax base? Increase FICA — again? What exactly will you do to screw the middle and lower income groups even more? Institute the Obama “grand bargain,” potentially the biggest screwing of all time?

Thank you again for contacting me. Please feel free to stay in touch.

Sincerely, Richard J. Durbin United States Senator
RJD/bc

That he should write me such a letter, and expect me to believe even one of his Big Lies, tells me he is confident I am stupid enough to believe them.

But then, most Americans do believe them, so what is my problem?

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. 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)

—–

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

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

According to the right-wing, giving to the needy, turns them into “takers” and sloths. Thus, unemployment compensation encourages the unemployed not to work, food stamps encourage the poor to remain poor and Medicaid encourages excessive use of medical services.

Many religious organizations support charities for the indigent, which charities presumably encourage further indigence. And where did these religious organizations obtain their money? From your charitable contributions.

If fact, a case can be made for the negative effects of your giving to virtually all charities. Any assistance you give to “those” people has a negative, overall effect, so that is a good excuse not to help them.

I was reminded of this Orwellian “black is white, up is down, good is evil” right-wing belief, when I saw this article in the right-wing Washington Times:

Obama’s stimulus beginning to drag economy down
By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times Friday, February 21, 2014

President Obama’s stimulus may have boosted the economy when it passed in 2009, but it’s now beginning to take a toll and will soon begin to leave the economy worse off than if it had never passed, according to a new report Friday by the Congressional Budget Office.

Mr. Obama signed the stimulus into law five years ago this week, vowing it would help rescue the economy from its post-Wall Street collapse tailspin, and saying it would save millions of jobs.

The CBO said it (helped) sustain between 700,000 and 3.6 million jobs at its peak in 2010. “In contrast to its positive near-term macroeconomic effects, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will reduce output slightly in the long run.”

They said the cause is all of the borrowing for the $830 billion program, which dramatically boosted the federal debt.

“To the extent that people hold their wealth in government securities rather than in a form that can be used to finance private investment, the increased debt tends to reduce the stock of productive private capital. Each dollar of additional debt crowds out about a third of a dollar’s worth of private domestic capital,” the CBO estimated.

Where does one begin with an article like this?

First, we have a right-wing newspaper admitting that deficit spending “boosted the economy.” Did you hear that, austerity lovers and deficit Henny Pennys. Deficit spending boosts the economy.

Although, (IMO) the deficit spending was insufficient, it did “sustain between 700,000 and 3.6 million jobs.” So, is that a bad thing, Messrs. Bowles and Simpson, leaders of the disgraceful National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (aka the National Commission for sucking the life-blood out of the economy)?

Then the article says, “the cause (of predicted slightly reduced output) is all of the borrowing for the $830 billion . . . “ So, it isn’t the deficit spending that’s the problem. No, it’s the totally unnecessary borrowing that is the problem.

The deficit spending did its job. If debt is the problem, why is a Monetarily Sovereign nation, with the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency, borrowing that sovereign currency?

And then, “. . .the increased debt tends to reduce the stock of productive private capital.” Again, everyone agrees that deficit spending, by adding dollars to the economy, is stimulative. The question: Does the purchase of T-securities remove dollars from the economy and thereby “reduce the stock of productive capital.”

Apparently, savings (i.e dollars in T-security accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank) are not felt to be productive. But savings are dollars people hold in order to feel free to spend other dollars. If you had zero dollars in savings, would you feel as free to buy goods and services. It’s like saying insurance is not productive.

And finally, “Each dollar of additional debt crowds out about a third of a dollar’s worth of private domestic capital.” I don’t know where this phony statistic came from, or even what it really means, but if one dollar of debt “crowds out” 33 cents worth of capital, doesn’t it follow that one dollar of debt adds 67 cents of capital?

And if that is the case, why would anyone not favor deficit spending?

Anyway, the one, short, right-wing article contains so much illogic, there is no wondering why the public is confused.

Charity is good; charity is bad; spending is good; spending is bad. And the gap benefits us all.

Trust me.

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. 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)

—–

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

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

Our police state loves wars and crises, especially wars that never can be won and crises that never can be resolved.

Wars and crises provide the upper .1% power group with the excuses to take away the liberties of the lower 99.9%, thus legitimizing the widening of the power gap.

Consider the war on terror. There always will be at least one terrorist or potential terrorist out there, at least one person who either hates the United States or hates the President or hates Congess or hates the government or simply is nuts.

And even if my some miraculous means, we were able to eliminate all those haters and nuts, just the possibility that a new one might be born, is sufficient to maintain the never-ending war on terrorism. This eternal war justifies the excesses of the NSA, FBI, CIA et al, not to mention local police excesses, “stop-and-frisk,” airport security and assorted other intrusions into your privacy — none of which pester the upper .1%.

The war on drugs is another endless war that provides the .1% with excuses to harass, prosecute and incarcerate vast numbers of the 99.9%, while giving a free pass to the .1%.

Which brings us to the real subject of this post: The so-called, endless “debt crisis.”

What exactly is the “debt crisis”? No one knows, though you will see and hear that phrase every day, liberally sprinkled throughout the news and commentary.

Look through today’s paper or this week’s magazine, and whenever you see the phrase “debt crisis,” note to yourself that the author either is economically ignorant or a liar on behalf of the .1%. It is a defining phrase.

But what is the “debt crisis”? For the extreme liars, it means any debt (i.e. outstanding Treasury Security) is too much. So if the total federal “debt” were $1, the extreme liars would consider that we still are in a “debt crisis.”

I even have seen statements that the U.S. federal government should run a surplus, so there would be “enough funds for future spending,” as though the government’s finance were like yours and mine.

For the ignorant and the less-extreme liars, “debt crisis” means today’s federal debt, whatever that debt might be. This blog contains several posts regarding our so-called “unsustainable debt” (the prelude to the “debt crisis”) showing how examples of this phrase began in 1940 or earlier — almost 75 years ago!

Today, the “debt” still is “unsustainable,” still in “crisis,” and the upper .1% still is doing everything possible to increase the power gap.

The reason: Enough never is enough. Although the GINI ratio (a measure of the gap between the rich and the rest) continues to grow, no gap ever will sufficient for the rich. They want to beat the 99.9% down, down, ever down.

And they do it by convincing every level of the 99.9% that those residing in levels below them are slackers and takers.

Think of it: The vast majority of ultra-conservative voters are part of the lower 99.9%, voting against their own well-being. What a remarkable brainwashing job, the .1% have done.

Of course, there is no “debt crisis,” a manufactured “crisis” that could end tomorrow with the simple expedient of not issuing any more T-securities. Even the existing T-securities could be made to disappear, by the other simple expedient of debiting T-security accounts and crediting checking accounts. That could be done tomorrow, without creating any new money.

There are, in fact, just two debt crises, and neither has anything to do with federal debt. One is the crisis of consumer debt, forced on the ignorant, who have been made to believe it is better for a Monetarily Sovereign government to run a surplus than for the economy to run a surplus. (“The government needs my dollars more than I do.”)

The other debt crisis is the shameful, unnecessary student debt crisis, about which I will post in the future.

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. 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)

—–

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

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

Here is an interesting site: What we pay for

I can’t testify as to the accuracy, but it purports to break down federal spending for any year from 1985 through 2014. (The blue box on the left.)

It also contains a red box on the right which supposedly shows “how much you pay in taxes” for each element of federal spending. Of course, this is wrong. Your tax money does not support federal spending.

All the red box does is estimate your federal taxes (not including FICA) according to your income and marital status, then divide those taxes by the amount the federal government spends.

(It would be just as meaningful to divide total federal spending by the number of albino cats in France.)

The red box does have a function, however. Click on any link in the blue box, and the red box will add detail to the spending distribution of that link.

Although the red box would mislead (or perhaps is designed to mislead) the financially ignorant, you who understand Monetary Sovereignty, and understand what the red box really shows, might enjoy playing around with both boxes.

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. 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)

—–

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