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, and the motive is the gap.
===================================================================================

One part of the Big Lie is the myth that we federal taxpayers pay for federal spending. We don’t.

The U.S. government, being Monetarily Sovereign has the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency, the dollar. So it can pay any bill of any size, without tax dollars.

If all federal taxes fell to $0 or rose to $999 trillion, neither event would affect the federal government’s ability to pay all its bills.

Both political parties, and especially the right-wing, use the myth to justify increasing taxes on, and reducing benefits for, the lower 99.9% income/wealth/power group. (FICA increases and Social Security cuts are examples.)

Even children are fair game for the “compassionate right-wing” Washington Times:

Washington Times
Illegal immigrant children get first-class treatment at taxpayers’ expense
Special care for border surge youths at shelters stretches federal budget

Oh woe! Treating children with kindness stretches a non-existent “limit” to federal spending.

From culturally sensitive music to special meals for the lactose intolerant, the organizations the federal government is paying to house and care for the children who have surged across the border illegally are taking pains to make sure they are as comfortable as possible.

What!? Special meals for lactose intolerant children? Outrageous! Next thing you know, we’ll give them special medicines for their illnesses!

Dietitians scrutinize the menus each day to make sure they include enough whole grains but not whole milk. Counselors offer life skills classes in Spanish, and intensive English language training, including use of the Rosetta Stone program. Doctors and dentists treat the children at taxpayers’ expense — often the first medical care of the children’s lives.

Well this certainly is ridiculous: Making sure the children receive a healthful diet! And how are we expected to persecute them for not knowing English, if we teach them English??

And giving them medical treatment? Oh, what will those “libs” think of next?

Children are guaranteed the right to wear their own clothes, to have a private place to store belongings, to have guests, to send and receive uncensored mail, and to have phone privileges.

This is the last straw. Yes, we know these children seek asylum from horrifying, often deadly circumstances, but actually treating them like human beings? That’s going too far.

Documents from the program give a glimpse of the breadth and scope of the effort, which is eating up an ever-larger portion of the Health and Human Services Department’s budget, jumping from $305.9 million last year to $671.3 million so far in fiscal year 2014.

Do you wonder where that extra $366 million came from? Not from taxes or from taxpayers. The federal government simply created it, exactly the same way it creates every other federal dollar — the same way it created the first dollar in 1792.

(No one could pay taxes without the federal government first creating dollars, and to get to the point we are today, trillions more dollars needed to be created than taxes paid.)

And where do those dollars go?

Federal contracting records show that the David and Margaret Youth and Family Services, of La Verne, California, collected more than $3 million this year from HHS to care for the unaccompanied alien children.

Yes, the money goes to private businesses, that provide jobs to people in the communities in which the children are housed.

So bottom line, all the fake outrage about giving these homeless immigrant children “special care” merely is an extension of the Big Lie — the ongoing effort to widen the gap between the rich and the rest. The rich simply don’t want dollars going to the not rich.

It’s disgraceful that the rich continue to oppress the rest of us, with unnecessary taxes and cuts in social programs. But to extend that persecution all the way down to helpless children, really is beyond the pale.

Is this the America of which we are so proud? Is this what we will elect next year?

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)

10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (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

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

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, and the motive is the gap.

Readers of this blog have read about two fundamental beliefs expressed here:

1. A monetarily non-sovereign government requires net infusions of money from outside its borders, in order to survive and grow long term.

2. The single greatest problem facing the world’s economies is the growing Gap between the rich and the rest. (“Rich” meaning money, wealth and power)

Here are two articles referring to those beliefs:

1. Monetarily non-sovereign governments cannot control the supply of their sovereign currency, because they have no sovereign currency.

The U.S. government and the governments of Canada, China, Australia, Japan et al are Monetarily Sovereign. Being sovereign, they have the unlimited ability to create their own sovereign currencies.

The U.S. never can run short of money with which to pay its bills.

Even if all federal taxes fell to $0 or rose to $999 trillion, neither event would affect the U.S. government’s ability to spend.

By contrast, the governments of Illinois, Cook County, Chicago and the euro nations are monetarily non-sovereign. They have no sovereign currencies. They cannot create money to pay their bills. They can and do run short of money.

Eurozone GDP fails to grow in Q2

The eurozone economy stalled last quarter after 12 months of weak growth, underscoring concerns that the region is mired in a deep rut of high joblessness and weak consumer prices that could worsen amid tension in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Gross domestic product in the 18-member currency bloc was flat in the second quarter compared with the first, (with) 0.2 per cent growth in annualised terms, down from the first quarter’s 0.8 per cent pace. European equity markets fell and safe-haven government bond markets rallied early Thursday as national figures trickled out in advance of the region-wide figures.

The weak recovery leaves the eurozone lagging other advanced economies such as the US and the UK, which have experienced firmer, albeit uneven, expansions. Those economies have recouped the output lost in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009.

The eurozone has yet to do so and remains 2.4 per cent below its pre-crisis peak, leaving it vulnerable to outside shocks from Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere that could tip it back into recession.

Because the euro nations voluntarily surrendered their former sovereign currencies, they now cannot create money. Their economic growth demands that they all have more exports than imports — a practical impossibility. They have no way to add money to their economies and to lift themselves out of recession.

The report will likely put added pressure on the European Central Bank (ECB) to do more to spur growth and boost inflation, which at 0.4 per cent is far below the bank’s target of just under 2 per cent. In June, the ECB cut its key interest rates and introduced a new program of cheap loans to banks that are intended to be passed on to businesses.

The ECB’s approach to money shortages is to lend money. But loans must be repaid, and monetarily non-sovereign governments have no ability to make repayment. The loans merely drive the nations deeper into debt. (Visualize the result of lending money to a person who never will have income.)

France’s finance minister Michel Sapin wrote: “The truth is that, as a direct consequence of sluggish growth and insufficient inflation, France will not meet its public deficit target this year despite a complete control of spending,”

The key words are, “deficit target” and “control of spending.” A deficit target (i.e. a reduced deficit target) requires increased taxes and/or reduced government spending — both of which are recessionary.

Gross Domestic Product = Government Spending + Non-government spending + Net Exports

But taxes reduce non-government spending, so by formula, reduced deficits always must reduce GDP (barring increases in Net Exports). So the fixation on deficit reductions absolutely, positively must be recessionary.

The US returned to strong growth in the second quarter after a disappointing, weather-induced contraction during first three months of the year, while China has resorted to a variety of stimulus measures to shore up flagging growth, registering a pick-up in its year-to-year expansion to 7.5 per cent in the second quarter from 7.4 per cent in the first.

The U.S. and China, being Monetarily Sovereign have the unlimited ability to stimulate their economies (though even in the U.S. there is a fixation on deficits — an unnecessary fixation — that has slowed the recovery.)

2. The Gap between the rich and the rest

Jobs coming back post-recession, but with much lower pay, study says,

Chicago Tribune, 8/12/14

The U.S. has regained the 8.7 million jobs lost in the recession, but the average wage has dropped 23 percent, according to a U.S. Conference of Mayors study released today.

The report, “U.S. Metro Economies: Income and Wage Gaps Across the U.S.,” also found a widening income gap between the rich and poor, with the highest earning 20 percent of households gaining the most.

“While the economy is picking up steam, income inequality and wage gaps are an alarming trend,” said Kevin Johnson, conference president and mayor of Sacramento, Calif. The organization expects the trend to continue.

The average annual wage of jobs lost in 2008-09 was $61,637 nationally, while the average wage of jobs added through the second quarter of this year was $47,171.

The Gap between the rich and the rest is exacerbated by:

*Taxes impacting the lower income groups: FICA, sales taxes, gas taxes real estate taxes, Social Security taxes and higher taxes on salaries vs. dividends and capital gains.

*Insufficient and/or reduced benefits for Social Security, unemployment, SNAP, school lunches, aids to education, aids to housing

*Excessive unemployment

*Reduced wages for new or existing jobs.

The first three of the above factors are caused by austerity laws specifically designed to widen the Gap by cutting the federal deficit.

Congress and the President, having been bribed by the rich (via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later) repeatedly pass the laws that widen the Gap.

Their pretext is that in some unknown way, the federal government will find the federal deficit so burdensome it could run out of money to pay its bills — a financial impossibility.

The fourth factor is a result of recessions (caused by austerity), which force desperate people to accept low-paying jobs, together with inadequate support for education and training, which would allow more people to create businesses or take sophisticated jobs.

The bottom line:
The rich care only about widening the Gap, for it is the Gap than makes them rich. (If there were no gap, no one would be rich, and the wider the Gap, the richer they are.

The rich bribe the politicians to pass laws that will widen the Gap. They bribe the media (via ownership) to publish articles praising deficit reduction, the result of which is a widening of the Gap.

And they bribe university economists (via contributions to university foundations) to provide “scientific” support for federal austerity.

Together, these are known as “The Big Lie.”

And, as you can see, the bribes and The Big Lie are working.

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)

10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (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

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

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, and the motive is the gap.
============================================================================

It’s common knowledge that:

1. Japan’s economic growth is too low, and
2. Its debt is too high, and
3. Japan can’t stimulate its economy by “printing” money, since that would cause inflation or hyperinflation.

Japan’s debt looks like this: 1,000,000,000,000,000 yen
John Schwartz — New York Times — 11 Aug 2013

A quadrillion is a million billion. Measuring any currency in quadrillions brings to mind the hyperinflation of Germany between the wars, or Zimbabwe in the last decade.

Clearly, with a debt that high, Japan must be teetering on the edge of hyper-inflation. True?

Not exactly hyper-inflation. Is this a problem?

First, a quick backstory: Deflation is said to be bad for an economy, because it encourages people not to buy.

Today, they wait for prices to fall tomorrow, then tomorrow, they wait for prices to fall the next day. This continual waiting for prices to fall inhibits growth in Gross Domestic Product.

(Would you be more or less likely to buy a house today, if you expected house prices to be lower next month?)

So nations try for a small amount of inflation — usually in the neighborhood of 2%-3% — to stimulate buying today, but not so high as to be an excessive burden.

Inflation generally is micromanaged via interest rates. The Value of money (inflation) is in part, based on Supply and Demand. Demand is, in part, based on Risk and Reward, and the Reward for owning money is interest.

The higher the interest, the greater the Demand for money (i.e. accounts that pay interest), so raising interest rates increases the Value of money. When central banks sense inflation may rise too high, they raise interest rates to increase Demand, which increases the Value of money, thus fighting inflation.

So, Japan’s inflation, after years of deflation, might be a bit higher than desired — a situation that easily could be modified by raising interest rates.

But that relatively small amount of easily-modified inflation is far less a problem than is slow economic growth.

Japan’s Economy Shrinks the Most Since 2011 Quake on Tax
By Keiko Ujikane Aug 12, 2014 9:56 PM CT Bloomberg

Japan’s economy contracted the most since the record earthquake three years ago as consumption and investment plunged after an April sales-tax increase aimed at curbing the world’s biggest debt burden.

Gross domestic product shrank an annualized 6.8 percent in the three months through June, the Cabinet Office said.

Household consumption plummeted at an annualized pace of 19.2 percent from the previous quarter, while private investment sank 9.7 percent, highlighting the damage to demand by the 3 percentage point increase in the levy.

A bit more backstory: Central Government Deficit = Economy’s Income + Balance of Payments This means, the net (after taxes) dollars created by the central government go into the nation’s economy or go abroad.

By definition, a growing economy requires a growing supply of money: Gross Domestic Product = Government Spending + Non-government Spending + Net Exports

This equation merely says that GDP is a money measure, and the less money available in an economy, the less GDP can grow.

But, central government taxes remove money from the economy, and sales taxes are among the worst kind of taxes, because they directly take money from consumers, who then are forced to spend less (Non-government Spending).

Japan’s government is Monetarily Sovereign. It has the unlimited ability to create it’s sovereign currency, the yen. It never can run short of yen to pay its bills.

The only constraint on yen creation is inflation, which can be controlled by interest rates.

So when Japan tries to stimulate its economy via increased government spending, while at the same time, increasing sales taxes, it is, in essence, giving the anemic patient a blood transfusion, while at the same time, applying leeches.

Given its absolute control over what is a moderate inflation, you may find it difficult to understand why Japan has applied leeches to its anemic economy — other than the following speculation:

Sales taxes are highly regressive, falling primarily on the lower and middle income groups. For that reason, sales taxes widen the Gap between the rich and the rest.

The Gap is what makes people rich. Without the gap, no one would be rich, and the wider the Gap, the richer they are. So the rich want, more than anything, for the Gap to widen.

Japan’s politicians, like American politicians and indeed, politicians the world over, are bribed by the rich (via campaign contributions and promises of lucrative employment later), to widen that Gap.

From a purely economics standpoint, there is no logical reason for Japan to have increased its sales taxes. They long ago proved the debt is no problem. The data is right there in front of our eyes.

But the real data is the Gap, and that is what the Japanese rich have bought.

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)

10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (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

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

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, and the motive is the gap.

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

War is hell. But civil war is worse. Both sides defending their home turf are especially brutal. And civil wars seem never to end, completely.

Roughly 1,264,000 American soldiers have died in the nation’s wars — 620,000 in the Civil War and 644,000 in all other conflicts.

It was only as recently as the Vietnam War that the amount of American deaths in foreign wars eclipsed the number who died in the Civil War.

Combine that amazing statistic with the reality that the American civil war never has ended. The feelings of the Southern states, about blacks and northerners, may be camouflaged, but smolder. You still can see Confederate flags printed on decals and flying high from poles.

But, the worst wars are the religious wars. Based on mindless hatred, they are the most brutal, and they too never completely end. Religious hatred lingers, passed from parent to child. And no act is too horrific, as everything is “approved by God.”

I was reminded of this, when I read these articles:

ISIS, beheadings and the success of horrifying violence

. . . . .

A child is photographed, waiting to be killed by militants. ISIS uses these images to terrorize others and to glorify their spree of terror.

“There is a park in Mosul,” Mark Arabo, a Chaldean-American leader, told CNN, “where they actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick and have them in the park.”

Leader: ISIS is ‘Systematically Beheading Children’ in ‘Christian Genocide’

“Christianity in Mosul is dead, and a Christian holocaust is in our midst,”(It is a) ‘Christian genocide.’ Children are being beheaded, mothers are being raped and killed, and fathers are being hung.”

I can’t verify the truth of these stories, but beheading seems to have been a favorite Middle Eastern terror tactic in the past.

Explain Failures or Abandon Training Missions

The evaporation of the Iraqi army in Mosul earlier this summer, followed more recently by the failure of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s peshmerga in northern Iraq, and the “green-on-blue” violence in Afghanistan as well as the Afghan army’s uncertain cohesion against the backdrop of the U.S. retreat from that country should raise serious questions about the efficacy of missions to train foreign militaries.

Despite all the money, training and American lives lost, somehow the results are negligible. I suspect the reason has nothing to do with the quality of the training, but rather with the morés of the nations we try to train.

They are not like Americans. They are a different people, with a different history and a different set of life expectations.

While we have tried to train them militarily, we also have tried to impose our seemingly alien concepts on them: Freedom, democracy and tolerance. And they have not responded well.

Action Against ISIS Still Needs a Strategy

By: Max Boot, military historian and foreign-policy analyst.

President Obama is sending U.S. aircraft back into action in Iraq. His actions provide much-needed relief for the besieged Yazidis who were in danger of dying under siege from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as well as for the Kurdish peshmerga which were reeling under ISIS assaults.

Why is the humanitarian imperative in Iraq compelling enough to justify American military action but not in Syria, where at least 170,000 people have been killed since 2011 and where ISIS is just as oppressive and threatening as it is in Iraq?

What is the logic of telling ISIS to stay out of Erbil and Baghdad but implicitly allowing it to consolidate its hold on western and northern Iraq and eastern and northern Syria?

What is needed now is more than a few symbolic air strikes or food drops. What is needed is a strategy to roll back ISIS.

We need to send many more advisers and Special Operations Forces to Iraq, backed up by airpower, to aid not only the Iraqi security forces but also the Kurdish peshmerga and the Sunni tribes to fight back against ISIS–and that we should also step up our aid to the Free Syrian Army to put pressure on ISIS on the other side of the border.

We could send thousands of our young people into the meat grinder, to be maimed and killed, and to maim and kill thousands of “the enemy,” whoever they might be on any given day.

Or, we could do nothing.

Both approaches, fighting or doing nothing, will accomplish the same nothing, but one way will cost American lives, and the other will not.

Wikipedia

ISIS is known for its harsh interpretation of the Islamic faith and sharia law, and has a record of brutal violence, which is directed at Shia Muslims and Christians in particular.

It has at least 4,000 fighters in its ranks in Iraq who, in addition to attacks on government and military targets, have claimed responsibility for attacks that have killed thousands of civilians.

ISIS was composed of a variety of Sunni insurgent groups. It had close links with al-Qaeda until 2014, but in February of that year, after an eight-month power struggle, al-Qaeda cut all ties with the group, reportedly for its brutality and “notorious intractability.”

Too brutal for al-Qaeda?

Hatred is the power emotion of the Middle East. And hatred does not subscribe to current Western logic. ISIS, for instance, believes that the Shia Muslims are apostates and must die in order to forge a pure form of Islam.

[President Bush II was amazed that Iraqis did not welcome our brand of freedom, democracy and tolerance, vs the dictatorial theocracy they had suffered. He didn’t understand the historical morés.

Only the iron fist of Saddam Hussein kept Iraq together. With Saddam’s disappearance, the nation predictably fell into civil/religious war.]

It was the dictatorship of Iraq that controlled the dictatorship of Iran. Now that Iraq has lost its dictator, Iran’s dictator can act against America, unimpeded.

Freedom and democracy require tolerance — “all men are created equal,” “one for all and all for one,” “everyone’s vote counts,” etc. But given the many lines of hatred within Islam and the Arab nations, plus Islamic hatred for Christians and other non-Muslims, what hope is there for this mutuality?

Not to say that Islamic and/or Arab nations cannot form some type of free democracy. Some do — Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh — though most don’t.

But, democracy by its very nature, is fragile, especially when it has little history in a nation. Only the greatest of leaders can, with much effort, install democracy. But a little, tin pot colonel can overthrow it at a moment’s notice.

And the tipping point can come when, for some reason, a power vacuum occurs, and a charismatic Hitler steps in. And if that leader happens to speak for God, his power is multiplied.

The leaders of ISIS speak for God. To consolidate power, they have provided objects of hatred: Shia, other Muslim groups, Christians, Americans. Hitler did the same with Jews, Gypsies and non-Aryans.

Iraq crisis: Islamic militants ‘buried alive Yazidi women and children in attack that killed 500

Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said his government had evidence that 500 Yazidi civilians had been killed so far, and that some of the victims had been buried alive. A further 300 Yazidi women have been kidnapped as slaves, he added.

Short of totally exterminating ISIS, a practical impossibility and moral offense, there is no way to end the hatred. It will seethe and boil forever. A thousand years from now, the Sunni and Shia will enjoy mutual hatred.

But, can we stand by and allow the slaughter to continue?

Our hearts tell us “no.” Yet, what is the alternative? Return our troops to Iraq so they can participate in the slaughter?

How do we prevent people, who want to kill each other, from doing just that — without helping them kill each other? (See: Arabs killing Arabs)

The Middle East is in the midst of a religious civil war, and the end will come only when one side loses so many people, the remaining souls surrender, and a religious dictator assumes power.

We cannot force-feed freedom into the Middle East. We cannot force-feed them democracy. We cannot force-feed them tolerance. These are historically alien concepts. Israel is the anomaly, a western nation thrust into the midst of an eastern culture.

As cruel as it may seem (and cruel it is), the kindest thing we can do is to allow the Arabs to commit so much barbarity upon each other that their passion exhausts them, a ruler assumes power, and peace descends upon that blood-soaked land.

Our past efforts have been counter-productive. We have done nothing but scratch at wounds, and delayed the healing. It will be heartbreaking to stand back and watch the killing, when we could intervene — and increase the killing.

At most, we can try to protect democracy where it exists and where it is understood — France, Israel, Turkey et al — but beyond that, the mission is impossible.

So yes, the world does need dictators, and will have dictators, because the people demand dictators, whether we like it or not.

And we must find a way to live with that.

Unfortunately.

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)

 

10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (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

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