Tag: monetarily sovereign

–Medicare for All: Where do we go from here?

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

Mitchell’s laws:
•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
•Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
•The single most important problem in economics is the Gap between rich and poor.
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..

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

Medicare is a wonderful — a liberal — program that never would have been passed by a conservative President and Congress.

Medicare has helped to prevent millions of seniors from falling into the wretched poverty medical bills can cause.

But Medicare has its weaknesses:

1. It covers only the aged.

2. It pays only a percentage of bills. The uncovered percentage can be financially debilitating, thus requiring private Medicare Supplement expenses.

3. It doesn’t cover pharmaceuticals (i.e. Part D) which also can be financially debilitating, dental, some eye and other examinations and treatments.

4. It doesn’t cover long-term care, psychiatric, substance abuse and many other medical and related treatments and equipment.

5. In the name of Medicare (and Social Security), the poor and middle classes pay a high and unnecessary FICA tax, which is taken from salaries.

So why not a Medicare that:
A. Covers every man, woman and child in America?
B. Covers all hospital, all doctor and all pharmaceutical bills?
C. Covers every form of medical diagnosis and treatment?
D. Covers long-term care>
E. Pays 100% of the bill?

In the June, 2013 post, How one of the best bills in history — H.R. 676, Medicare for All — is spoiled, we discussed a bill before Congress that would accomplish all of the above:

It is H.R. 676, Medicare for All:
“To provide for comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United States residents, improved health care delivery, and for other purposes.”

Some features of the bill:

All individuals residing in the United States (including any territory of the United States) are covered under the Medicare For All Program entitling them to a universal, best quality standard of care

The health care benefits under this Act cover all medically necessary services, including at least the following:
(1) Primary care and prevention.
(2) Approved dietary and nutritional therapies.
(3) Inpatient care.
(4) Outpatient care.
(5) Emergency care.
(6) Prescription drugs.
(7) Durable medical equipment.
(8) Long-term care.
(9) Palliative care.
(10) Mental health services.
(11) The full scope of dental services, services, including periodontics, oral surgery, and endodontics, but not including cosmetic dentistry.
(12) Substance abuse treatment services.
(13) Chiropractic services, not including electrical stimulation.
(14) Basic vision care and vision correction (other than laser vision correction for cosmetic purposes).
(15) Hearing services, including coverage of hearing aids.
(16) Podiatric care.

No deductibles, copayments, coinsurance, or other cost-sharing shall be imposed with respect to covered benefits.

The Program shall pay physicians, dentists, doctors of osteopathy, pharmacists, psychologists, chiropractors, doctors of optometry, nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, physicians’ assistants, and other advanced practice clinicians.

What would you say is the main reason the federal government doesn’t offer such a program?

Yes, there are a couple minor reasons — excuses really:
—Government bureaucrats, not doctors, would make life-or-death decisions about coverages. (The same way Medicare and private insurances are handled now and always have been handled.)

—Private health insurance companies would be put out of business and their employees would lose their jobs. (Right. They would go the way of blacksmiths, small farmers, typewriter, folding map, photo film, public pay phone and buggy whip manufacturers. It’s called “progress and obsolescence.”)

The major (not the real) reason given is that such coverage would cost too much. Under the current system, the private sector (you and me) is forced to spend money we may not have, to pay for our medical care.

Instead, with Medicare for All, our Monetarily Sovereign federal government, which never can run short of dollars would pay for it.

Hmmm . . . . Let’s see. Is it preferable for people to be impoverished by medical bills, rather than having the federal government, which never can be impoverished, pay those bills?

You might believe Congress and the President think so, because they cobbled together the Affordable Care Act, otherwise knowns as “Obamacare,” a Rube Goldbergian, complex, convoluted mess, that to a small degree pretends at what Free Medicare for All could accomplish easily, simply and efficiently.

Obamacare unnecessarily makes the populace pay for medical care.

The real reason we don’t have Free Medicare for All: The rich don’t want it.

Free Medicare for all not only would cut into the lucrative insurance businesses, but more importantly, it would narrow the Gap between the rich and the rest.

As you’ve read many times on this blog, the Gap is the only thing that makes the rich and powerful rich and powerful. If there were no Gap, no one would be rich, and the wider the Gap, the richer the rich are.

So narrowing the Gap is the last thing the rich want.

So where do we go from here? Liberal Monetary Sovereignty.

Liberalism, by its very nature, narrows the Gap by giving money to the lower income/wealth/power groups. The problem with liberals, as represented by the Democrats, is that they have bought into the “tax-and-spend” philosophy (while the conservatives believe in the “don’t-tax-and-don’t-spend” idea).

Both ideas suffer from the same myth, that the federal government needs to collect tax dollars in order to spend. Monetary Sovereignty demonstrates the falsity of that myth.

Even if federal tax collections fell to $0, the federal government could continue spending, forever. (There are other reasons for federal tax collections, but paying bills isn’t one of them. All these years, you have been conned about this, by the rich-owned politicians, media and economists.)

So again, where do we go from here?

We need a liberal government that acknowledges Monetary Sovereignty (MS).

Forget the Republicans. They are the party of hatreds, despising blacks, browns, gays, women, foreigners and foreign nations, the poor and the middle classes, while loving only guns, fetuses and above all, the rich.

Forget Hillary Clinton. She has no fundamental beliefs other than being elected, perhaps so she can get rid of Bill and make the same millions he’s made, on her own.

Which brings us to Bernie Sanders, who claims to be a socialist, but isn’t. He’s a liberal, who doesn’t understand Monetary Sovereignty — or at least, that’s the way it seems.

But I was amazed and heartened that he hired Stephanie Kelton to be his economics advisor.

Stephanie Kelton understands Monetary Sovereignty. She heads the economics department at UMKC (the University of Missouri, Kansas City). It’s the one school in America (the world?) that teaches MMT (Modern Monetary Theory), the sister to MS.

While individual professors around the world also teach MMT, here is an entire economics department devoted to the subject. Take that, University of Chicago, Harvard, Stanford et al. You teach myths while UMKC teaches truths.

So the very fact that Bernie Sanders would hire the chair of UMKC’s economics department says this: He soon will, or already does, understand Monetary Sovereignty.

Will Sanders have the courage to tell us Americans we should benefit from Free Medicare for All? And if so, will we Americans have the intelligence to believe him?

If the first answer is “Yes,” Bernie has my vote. He should have yours, too.

Hey, which would you prefer: To conservatively deport 11 million people and carry a semi-automatic weapon, or liberally for you and your loved ones to have free medical care for life?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
Ten 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 Click here
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

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.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty

Recessions come after the blue line drops below zero.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

–If it’s free, you don’t want it. Right? Ask Ed Krayewski

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

Mitchell’s laws:
•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
•Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
•The single most important problem in economics is the Gap between rich and poor.
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..

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

Among the less knowledgeable, a sign of brilliance is the parroting of such phrases as, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

It represents the clever notion that if something is offered to you free, there must be a catch, and that you will pay for it sooner or later. (Never mind that mommy gave you food, clothing and warmth, and asked nothing in exchange).

The same shrewd people who use that phrase often are the first ones to demand that the federal government stop providing free social benefits to the poor — food, housing, education, medical care, etc.

But if there really were no such thing as a free lunch, what’s the problem? The poor will made to pay for their “freebies” sooner or later.

“But ah,” they say. “The poor won’t pay; I will pay with my taxes.” And therein lies the abject ignorance of how federal taxes and federal spending actually work.

Unlike the state, county and city governments, which are monetarily non-sovereign and can run short of dollars, the federal government is Monetarily Sovereign, and never can run short of its own sovereign currency, the dollar. No taxpayers’ money needed.

Many people who claim to understand economics, repeatedly prove they don’t know the difference between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty. So they talk about spending federal taxpayers’ money, when in fact, your federal taxes are not spent, not needed and cease to exist once they hit the U.S. Treasury.

The latest to demonstrate his ignorance is Ed Krayewski, an associate editor at Reason.com. Before joining Reason, he was an associate producer at Fox Business, a media producer for Fox News and Fox Business, and an assistant producer at NBC News.

Bernie Sanders, the 18 Trillion Dollar Man
Wants taxpayers to “feel the Bern.”
Ed Krayewski|Sep. 15, 2015 2:16 pm

Sen. Bernie Sanders is actually up by 10 points over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire and tied with her in Iowa. (In the RealClearPolitics average of polls.)

What is driving support for Sanders’ campaign? The promise of lots of free shit certainly helps.

The Wall Street Journal has analyzed Sanders’ campaign proposals and estimated that his plans for new federal programs would cost $18 trillion over the next ten years.

The bulk of that $15 trillion would be spent on expanding Medicare to include all Americans in an attempt to impose a “single payer” (the government) healthcare system in the United States.

Ed Krayewski dismisses free healthcare, food, housing and education as “shit.” And anyone who gives “shit” and takes “shit” must be full of “shit,” right Ed?

And giving free Medicare to all Americans isn’t really giving. To Ed, it’s “imposing” this free “shit” on America. How very awful to have such imposition.

Ed’s article then repeats “$15 trillion” again, and yet again, to make sure we really, really heard him the first time and are suitably shocked.

Of course, Ed fails to mention a basic detail: That $15 trillion will not cost federal taxpayers one cent. On the contrary, it will put $15 trillion into taxpayers’ pockets and stimulate the economy. (That is the difference between federal government finances vs. state and local government finances — a difference Ed seems not to have learned.

Rather than you and me and the rest of America spending $15 trillion on health care, the federal government would pump $15 trillion worth of stimulus into the economy.

(There, Ed. I’ve now repeated “$15 trillion” five more times, and knowledgeable readers are saying, “Hey, let’s start passing out that ‘shit,’ today.”)

Sanders’s policy director, Warren Gunnells, called the $15 trillion number for a single-payer system alone a fair estimate.

President Obama and supporters of Obamacare insisted Americans were dying in the streets as if it were Victorian England, because there wasn’t enough government intervention in healthcare or whatever.

Sneered like a big-shot who has a well-paying job and who receives free healthcare insurance (i.e. “shit”) from his employer.

No, Ed, this isn’t as dreadful as Victorian England. Must it get to that point before you take notice of the real medical hardships facing the “99%” — the poor, the middle-classes and the elderly? Or whatever.

When Democrats controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, Obama spent most of the political capital he earned from his landslide victory pushing Obamacare, not immigration reform or police reform or rolling back the war on terror.

In Krayewski-world, health care is “shit.” What’s really important to Ed is deporting Mexicans and his unspecified “reform” of the police.

Sanders’ spending programs are aimed at offering free things—healthcare and public college, primarily—for everyone.

Sanders has dropped the pretense held by some liberals and progressives that government spending should focus on the needier elements in society. Even as he rails against “income inequality,” Sanders is promising to pay for the healthcare and education of all Americans, even its richest.

Here, Ed does a sneaky pseudo-left turn. After railing against free “shit,” he now complains that the “shit” should go to the “needier elements” — you know, those people whom Ed says are not “dying in the streets as if it were Victorian England.”

The fundamental reasons to provide a simple, straightforward Medicare for everyone, rather than just for the poor are:

1. There would be no need for a bureaucracy to try to separate “needy” from “not needy.” What is needy? Low income? How low? Is “needy” the same in Manhattan as it is in Peoria? The same for a one-person family as for a ten-person family?

And exactly what is income? Salary? Does Social Security count? Does free rent count? College scholarships? Other poverty aids?

How would interest, stock dividends, property sales and all the other little gimmicks in our tax code be counted?

And what about wealth? Does a retired guy having minimal income, but a no-mortgage house in the suburbs, count as “needy”?

2. Unless you are in the hundred million dollar wealth class (and there are comparatively few of those), medical expenses can eat you up.

But the federal government can afford anything.

Ed forgot to mention wealth inequality (the even more important inequality than income inequality). But if he really cares about inequality he can opt for the “Ten Steps to Prosperity (listed at the bottom of this page), and not create yet another million-word tax law.

And while he (Sanders) promises higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for all that free stuff, even setting aside the fact that there are serious diminishing returns on higher tax rates, his tax plans “only” cost taxpayers $6.5 trillion over ten years, far short of what’s needed if Sanders wants to deliver on his promise.

The so-called diminishing returns means the rich have ways to avoid some of those taxes. So?

And then we return to the really, really ignorant part: “His tax plans “only” cost taxpayers $6.5 trillion. . . “

Ed, maybe if I shout, you’ll get it: FEDERAL TAXPAYERS DON’T PAY FOR FEDERAL SPENDING.

The federal government’s finances are different from state and local government finances. While state and local taxes DO pay for state and local spending, federal taxes DO NOT pay for federal spending. Can you understand that? Did shouting help?

Sanders’ proposals show a total lack of priorities, and are divorced from progressives’ self-identification as compassionate people who care for the poor.

Sanders isn’t campaigning to help poor people. He may use that rhetoric, warning of income inequality or how economic conditions hurt the working poor.

But his solutions have nothing to do with helping poor people, and everything to do with getting free stuff to everyone.

As we’re seeing in the polls, that’s a far more popular position.

Hmmm . . . so Medicare for everyone and financial support for education doesn’t help poor people?? Yikes!

Or Ed, do you mean poor people are not part of “everyone”?

And whom do you believe the polls are interviewing: Rich people? No, the polls are interviewing the 99%, the people who would be helped by Medicare for everyone.

It’s difficult to know what nonsense Ed really is spouting. That Medicare for All wouldn’t help the 99%?

That free “shit” from the federal government costs taxpayers money rather than adding dollars to the economy, creating jobs and putting money into taxpayers’ pockets?

That expelling immigrants, Trump-style, is more important than funding health care and education for all Americans?

Or is it that Sanders’s plans don’t help the 99% enough, compared with the right-wing’s generous plans for . . . uh . . . punishing poor people?

Ed, until you publicly recognize the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, you don’t know “shit” about economics.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
Ten 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. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

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.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty

Recessions come after the blue line drops below zero.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

–What is the definition of “Obamacrime”?

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

Mitchell’s laws:
•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
•Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
•The single most important problem in economics is the Gap between rich and poor.
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..

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

Obamacrime: The crime a government official intentionally ignores, waiting for the statute of limitations to run out. Obamacrimes ordinarily are associated with a quid pro quo, based on bribery of the government official.

Usage: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder facilitated Obamcrimes by allowing criminal bankers to go unpunished.

Bill Black: Now the Justice Department Admits They Got it Wrong
Posted on September 11, 2015 by Yves Smith

By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives

It is now seven years after Lehman’s senior officers’ frauds destroyed it and triggered the financial crisis. The Bush and Obama administrations have not convicted a single senior bank officer for leading the fraud epidemics that triggered the crisis.

The Department’s announced restoration of the rule of law for elite white-collar criminals, even if it becomes real, will come too late to prosecute the senior bankers for leading the fraud epidemics.

The Justice Department has, effectively, let the statute of limitations run and allowed the most destructive white-collar criminal bankers in history to become wealthy through fraud with absolute impunity.

When the history of the Obama Presidency is written, Obamacrime, not Obamacare, will be his legacy.

Obamacare is a complex, convoluted, Rube Goldberg invention, based on the false assertion that the federal government can’t afford Medicare for All. Eventually we, the public, will awaken and demand that our nation provide medical care for everyone. Then, Obamacare will be all but forgotten.

But Obamacrime is forever.

The Obama administration and the Department have failed to take the most basic steps essential to prosecute elite bankers.

They have not restored the “criminal referral coordinators” at the banking regulatory agencies and they have virtually ignored the whistleblowers who gave them cases against the top bankers on a platinum platter.

The Department has not even trained its attorneys and the FBI to understand, detect, investigate, and prosecute the “accounting control frauds” that caused the financial crisis.

In short, not only has the President created Obamacrime, which immunizes banker criminals from prosecution, but he is determined to hide these crimes, burying them under a cloak of public ignorance.

The only effective means to deter elite white-collar crimes is to imprison the elite officers that grew wealthy by leading those crimes.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s bank fines were useless – and the Department’s real prosecutors told him why they were useless from the beginning.

No one, of course, thinks Holder went rogue in refusing to prosecute fraudulent bank officers. President Obama would have requested his resignation six years ago if he were upset at Holder’s grant of de facto immunity to our most destructive elite white-collar criminals.

Thus, we have 100% proof the Obamacrimes of the banksters were countenanced, aided and abetted by Barack Obama, himself.

As a U.S. attorney, Loretta Lynch failed to prosecute any of the officers of HSBC that laundered a billion dollars for Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel and violated international and U.S. anti-terrorism sanctions. The HSBC officers committed tens of thousands of felonies and were caught red-handed, but now Attorney General Lynch refused to prosecute any of them.

In April of 2015Barack Obama appointed Loretta Lynch as Attorney General of the United States, thus assuring that Obamacrime will continue.

Not that the President is alone in his guilt. The entire Democratic Party has stood by, saying little.

Even more tellingly, the Republican Party, which hates and fights everything the President does, even to the point of disclaiming his place of birth, has said nothing about the Obamacrimes being committed before their eyes.

They are bribed by the same banksters who, with campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later, bribe the Democrats and Obama.

We must not simply prosecute the current banksters, but also prevent and limit future fraud epidemics.

I renew my long-standing offers to the administration to, pro bono,
(1) provide the anti-fraud training and regulatory policies,
(2) help restore the agency criminal referral process, and
(3) embrace the whistleblowers and the scores of superb criminal cases against elite bankers that they have handed the Department on a platinum platter. We can make the “new” Justice Department policy a reality within months if that is truly Obama and Lynch’s goal.

Ah, hope springs eternal in the breast of the innocent and the honest.

Sorry Bill (Black), that’s a wonderful offer, but if Obama wanted to “prosecute the current banksters,” and “prevent and limit future fraud epidemics,” he could have done it long ago.

But then, how would he achieve those obscene speaking fees and lucrative jobs for Michelle, Malia and Sasha, and that huge ego-building Obama library, all paid for by wealthy and grateful criminal donors?

Obamacrime pays, not just for the criminals, but for the Obama family. That will be his legacy.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
Ten 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. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

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.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty

Recessions come after the blue line drops below zero.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

–The creative guy who sold you the Planned Parenthood scandal myth

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

Mitchell’s laws:
•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
•Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
•The single most important problem in economics is the Gap between rich and poor.
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..

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

If you are outraged by Planned Parenthood, you should learn this:

James E. O’Keefe III is an American conservative activist.

O’Keefe has produced selectively edited, secretly recorded undercover audio and video encounters with public figures and workers in a variety of organizations, purportedly showing abusive or alleged illegal behavior by representatives of those organizations.

Due to his videos of ACORN workers allegedly aiding a couple in criminal planning, the US Congress voted to freeze funds for the non-profit.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was a collection of community-based organizations in the United States and internationally that advocated for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues.

At its peak, ACORN had over 500,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the U.S.

ACORN suffered an extremely damaging nationwide controversy after two conservative activists secretly made and released videos of staged interactions with low-level ACORN personnel in several offices, portraying them as encouraging criminal behavior.

Some media publicized the videos without investigation. These videos were later found to have been partially falsified and selectively edited by the activists, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles.

Four different independent investigations by various state and city Attorneys General and the GAO cleared ACORN, finding its employees had not engaged in the alleged criminal activities and that the organization had appropriately managed its federal funding.

Their reports described the videos as deceptively edited to present the workers in the worst possible light. The national scandal resulted in the non-profit also losing most private funding before investigations were completed.

In March 2010, ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) was close to bankruptcy and had to close most of its offices.

The California State Attorney General’s Office and the US Government Accountability Office found that O’Keefe had misrepresented the actions of ACORN workers.

The loss of funds had been too damaging and by March 2010, ACORN announced it was closing its remaining state chapters and disbanding.

Hmmm . . . Does this sound familiar?
–O’Keefe misrepresented.
–Funds taken away without investigation.
–A valuable organization closed.

O’Keefe seems to be a serial liar:

O’Keefe was arrested in New Orleans in January 2010 during an attempt to illegally make recordings at the office of United States Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat.

(He) initially was charged with malicious intent to damage the phone system, a felony. The charges were reduced from a felony to a single misdemeanor count of entering a federal building under false pretenses. O’Keefe pleaded guilty on May 26.

Sadly, and with the cooperation of the media and the gullibility of the populace, the O’Keefe nonsense continues:

This time, O’Keefe claims his latest sting operation found Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign breaking the law, when in reality all that happened was the purchase of a t-shirt.

O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action accused the Clinton campaign of allowing a Canadian tourist to launder money, in the form of allowing a t-shirt to be purchased.

In the video, representatives of the Clinton campaign point out to a woman from Montreal that that the campaign can’t take contributions from anyone who isn’t American.

An undercover activist from Project Veritas then makes the purchase on behalf of the Canadian.

As The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel points out: “There are just two catches. One: No one’s ever thrown the book at an American for purchasing merchandise from a campaign, then giving it to a foreigner as a gift.

Two: The person who takes the Canadian’s money and gives it to the Clinton campaign is the Project Veritas Action journalist.”

O’Keefe held a press conference September 1 to promote the video, where journalists reportedly asked him “Is this a joke?”

O’Keefe’s crew has reportedly already made multiple other attempts to sabotage the Clinton campaign.

Project Veritas last month released a video showing their operative undercover with the Clinton campaign, discussing the registration process and whether they can register people who don’t support Clinton.

A Clinton campaign staffer is then shown telling the Project Veritas operative that they will register anyone who asks, regardless of their presidential preference.

As Time reported, “Nothing in the video shows the Clinton campaign violating the law, or the campaign’s own policy.”

This approach to training volunteers is standard operating procedure across field campaigns, according to a Republican field staffer, who requested anonymity.”

Time reports that in addition to the t-shirt scheme, Project Veritas operatives approached the campaign and attempted to pass a cash donation to volunteers and interns while another told the campaign they wanted to illegally funnel donations through a third party.

These failure-laden sting attempts continue O’Keefe’s pattern of using deceptively-edited videos, childish costumes, and sometimes committing crimes, in a futile campaign to attack the left.

Even Fox News hosts have been embarrassed for O’Keefe, telling him to “give it a rest.”

O’Keefe, knowing the media is careless, the public is clueless and the right-wing is shameless, continues his “shoot-edit-release” efforts.

In recent years, conservative activists, under the guise of journalism, have been churning out undercover “sting” videos supposedly capturing reprehensible behavior by their mostly liberal targets.

Those targets have included low-level workers at ACORN, a fundraiser at National Public Radio, and now officials at Planned Parenthood, among others.

The activists release a series of videos in an effort to build a big takedown story, and the press usually plays along.

Meanwhile, activists coordinate with right-wing media players and members of Congress to generate simultaneous outrage over the clips.

The problem for the activists, and the problem for journalists who excitedly treat the clips as news, is that the videos invariably turn out to be doctored, filled with deceptive edits, and missing context in an effort to manufacture scandal.

The whole cycle has become a media cliché, but it’s one that conservative partisans cheer.

And they’re cheering again this month as the “Center for Medical Progress” releases edited clips to claim Planned Parenthood officials have been caught discussing how the organization “sells the body parts of aborted fetuses” and “haggling” over prices for “baby parts.”

Both incendiary videos have been proven to omit crucial context undermining their central claims.

If you hate Planned Parenthood, and are happy to see the right wing shut down the government unless funding for Planned Parenthood is eliminated, perhaps you should know at least a little about what this organization actually does.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) or often just Planned Parenthood is the largest U.S. provider of reproductive health services, with 97% of its clinical interactions focused on breast and cervical cancer screening, HIV screening and counseling, contraception, and 3% on abortion.

Services provided at locations include contraceptives; long-acting reversible contraception; emergency contraception; screening for breast, cervical and testicular cancers; pregnancy testing and pregnancy options counseling; testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases; comprehensive sexuality education, menopause treatments; vasectomies and tubal ligations.

They serve over five million clients a year, 26% of which are teenagers under the age of 19. According to PPFA, 75% of their clients have incomes at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level.

The fact that Planned Parenthood serves the poor makes them a target for the Republicans, whose allegiance is to the rich.

While the abortions are legal, and comprise only a minuscule part of what PP does, the right wing wishes to “throw out the baby with the bathwater” by closing PP. For example:

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has attempted to sever the contract with Planned Parenthood in his state (where no abortions are provided), at a time when there is an epidemic of syphilis in New Orleans, and where Louisiana ranks first among the states in cases of gonorrhea, second in chlamydia, and third in syphilis and H.I.V., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As Republican Jindal is well aware, the rich can afford prevention and treatment for these diseases.

Planned Parenthood clinics in Louisiana last year administered approximately 20,000 tests for these infections, and provided gynecological examinations, contraceptives, screening for cancer, and other services for nearly 10,000 mostly low-income patients, and there is insufficient access to medical care for the people who now can’t be seen at Planned Parenthood clinics.

Without Planned Parenthood, these tests, screenings, contraceptives and other services would not be affordable for the poor.

Aside from repeated attempts to entrap PP employees via selectively edited videos, the “pro-life” right wing has engaged in horrendous, anti-life activities:

In the US, abortion providers have often been threatened with death, and facilities which provide abortions are frequently attacked or vandalized.

Planned Parenthood clinics have been the target of many instances of violence by anti-abortion activists, including bombing, arson, and attacks with chemical weaponry.

In the self-proclaimed, “religious,” right wing world, violence, bombings, shootings, arson and chemical attacks are considered “pro-life.”

And now we await the shutdown of the government by those who wish to shut down women’s health, all in the same “pro-life” name.

If you don’t see the irony in that, you aren’t as creative as James E. O’Keefe III, video editor, convicted criminal and the guy who sold you the Planned Parenthood myth.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Ten 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. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

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.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty

Recessions come after the blue line drops below zero.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY