Tag: monetary non-sovereignty

What next? Kristallnacht?

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

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During the past two years, beginning well before Trump became President, we have published posts describing the uncanny resemblances between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler — not their physical appearances, but their actions.

For example:

  1. Astounding similarities: Of whom does this remind you? It’s happening now
  2. Hitler in America. Why a bigot can win the Presidency
  3. What if Trump had won

and several others making similar comparisons.

Predictably, a reader has invoked Godwin’s law, to tell me that by mentioning the name “Hitler” I had “lost” the argument. (Not sure which “argument.”)

But, so long as “laws,” are being quoted, I feel compelled to put forth Sanayana’s: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

And therein lies the problem, for I feel quite certain that Trump’s backers do not remember Hitler’s history, a history that should serve as an object lesson for all people.

If you take a moment to read just #1 (above), you immediately will see the frightening historical parallels between Hitler and Trump.

Here is yet another bit of history for your comparison:

Wikipedia:  In the 1920s, most German Jews were fully integrated into German society as German citizens.

Conditions for the Jews began to change after the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933

From its inception, Hitler’s régime moved quickly to introduce anti-Jewish policies.

Nazi propaganda singled out the 500,000 Jews in Germany, who accounted for only 0.86% of the overall population, as an enemy within who were responsible for Germany’s defeat in the First World War and for its subsequent economic disasters

Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, was a pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938, carried out by paramilitary forces and German civilians.

German authorities looked on without intervening.

The name Kristallnacht comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues had their windows smashed.

Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked, as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned and over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged.

The (British) Times wrote at the time: “No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenseless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday.”

The pretext for the attacks was the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew living in Paris.

Kristallnacht was followed by additional economic and political persecution of Jews, and is viewed by historians as part of Nazi Germany’s broader racial policy, and the beginning of the Final Solution and The Holocaust.

Some key points:

  1. Before Hitler, Jews lived peacefully as German citizens.
  2. Jews were an infinitesimal proportion of the German population
  3. Hitler’s regime introduced anti-Jewish policies
  4. The excuse for these policies was a crime by a Jew.
  5. Hitler’s propaganda inflamed the German people who committed atrocities on the Jews, their businesses, and their homes.
  6. Not mentioned in the article was the historical fact that disabled people received harsh treatment from Hitler, who felt they could not be part of his “blond beast, master race,” and
  7. Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany, one of Adolf Hitler’s close associates and most devoted followers. He was known for his  deep, virulent antisemitism, which was evident in his publicly voiced views.
  8. Hitler rounded up the Jews and “deported” them to concentration camps.

Keep those points in mind as you read this:

Hate incidents spreading in wake of Trump win

On Friday, a Muslim-American high school teacher in central Georgia received a handwritten letter regarding her hijab.

“Your headscarf isn’t allowed anymore,” read the anonymous note. “Why don’t you tie it around your neck and hang yourself with it.”

On Saturday night, a church offering Spanish-language services in Silver Spring, Md., was vandalized with the message, “Trump nation. Whites only.”

And over the weekend, several college students at the New School in New York City awoke to find swastikas scrawled on their dorm-room doors.

These are just a few of the incidents of hate speech, harassment, and intimidation that have been reported in the wake of last week’s presidential election.

As of Friday evening, the Southern Poverty Law Center had counted 201 hate incidents in the first three days after the election, citing local news stories, social media posts and submissions through the SPLC’s website. By Monday, that number had more than doubled, to 437.

“We feel strongly that this outburst of hate crimes is directly related to Donald Trump’s victory,”Mark Potok, SPLC senior fellow, told Yahoo News, noting that “a very large proportion” of these cases included direct references to Donald Trump, his campaign or the presidential election.

“My feeling is that Trump absolutely encouraged this,” Potok said, referring to the divisive rhetoric — including the claim that most Mexican immigrants are “rapists” and “criminals,” his promise to “build a wall” on the United States’ southern border and a proposed ban on allowing Muslims to enter the the country — that came to define Trump’s White House campaign.

“The man has spent the better part of 18 months attacking minorities of all kinds, so it should hardly be a surprise that people who despise minorities are now celebrating and acting out,” he said.

In fact, the recent outpouring of animosity seems to fall in line with what the SPLC and other anti-discrimination groups have described as a rising tide of hate over the past year or so leading up to the election.

On Monday, the FBI released its annual report on hate crimes, which showed an overall rise in the number of incidents nationwide during 2015, driven in large part by a 67 percent increase in anti-Muslim attacks since 2014.

The president-elect has already outraged anti-discrimination groups with his selection of former Breitbart News chairman Stephen Bannon, CEO of the Trump campaign, as chief strategist to the Trump White House.

Several advocacy organizations have launched petitions urging Trump to dump Bannon, who is credited with transforming the conservative Breitbart News site into the mouthpiece of the white nationalist “alt-right” movement.

Now consider the parallels, point by point:

  1. Before Trump, Muslims lived peacefully in America
  2. Muslims are an infinitesimal proportion of America’s population.
  3. Trump introduced anti-Muslim policies
  4. The excuse for these policies is a comparatively small number of Muslim crimes
  5. Trump’s propaganda has inflamed Americans, who are beginning to commit atrocities on Muslims, their businesses, and their homes.
  6. Trump has mocked the disabled for their lack of “perfection.”  (He also mocks women who do not meet his standards of beauty.)
  7. Trump hired Stephen Bannon, the propagandist of the white nationalist “alt-right” movement, to be his chief strategist.
  8. Trump plans to round up Muslims and deport them to (concentration camps??)

The similarities cannot be doubted, nor can anyone doubt the disaster that befell Germany (and indeed all nations making bigotry a political imperative.)

Hatred is easy to sell; fools buy it.  Compassion is more difficult, which is why group hatred generally begins with the lowest-intelligent among us. (High IQs did not create the bigotries pictured above.)

Hatred also is quite contagious and difficult to control. It seeps into every pore of the population until no one is safe.

Finally, hatred tends to devolve to antisemitism. History has told that story countless times.

When things go badly for the Trump administration, you can be sure the bigotry Trump has sown will grow into a whirlwind of hatred for “that Jew, Jared Kushner, in the White House.” Ah, the irony.

So as our sad Hitlerian saga unwinds, we ask, “What next, Donald? Kristallnacht?”

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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LAWS

•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..

•No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth.

•Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.

•A growing economy requires a growing supply of money (GDP = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)

•Deficit spending grows the supply of money

•The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.

•The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

•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 the rest.

•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..

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Bernie Sanders says the right things — but fears the big one

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

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In our previous post, published on 11/12/16, we wrote;

Do you remember those thousands of people attending Trump rallies? Do you remember how excited they were?

They were the Democratic base, though they didn’t realize it, and Trump was telling them what they wanted to hear.

They were the working class, the less educated, the unemployed, the union members, the production line workers, the honest, compassionate, charitable people who had worked, and worked, and worked, and now no longer can afford to retire, or to send their kids to college, or to pay that outrageous college debt, or to pay their mortgage, or receive what our great economy has to offer.

Don’t search for esoteric and hidden reasons why Hillary lost. The Democratic liberal base, composed of ordinary, working class, compassionate Americans, is far, far larger than is the Republican conservative base of the rich, the bigots, and the religious extremists.

They were the traditional Democrats — the FDR, HST, JFK, LBJ liberal-leaning Democrats, who simply wanted good healthcare, food, clothing, housing, education and retirement benefits.

This massive majority would have voted for an “LBJ” Hillary, but instead were offered an “Obama” Hillary

Hillary lost for one reason, and one reason only. She allowed Donald Trump to take the Democratic base.

While Clinton had told them “Things are good, just the way they are, so stay the course,” Trump had told them “Things are bad; It’s not your fault;” and “I will fix it.”

They believed Trump, simply because things were bad for them and they desperately wanted someone to fix it.

On the following day, 11/13/16, Nation of Change published comments made by Bernie Sanders:

“I am saddened, but not surprised, by the outcome. It is no shock to me that millions of people who voted for Mr. Trump did so because they are sick and tired of the economic, political and media status quo.

“Working families watch as politicians get campaign financial support from billionaires and corporate interests — and then ignore the needs of ordinary Americans.

“Over the last 30 years, too many Americans were sold out by their corporate bosses. They work longer hours for lower wages as they see decent paying jobs go to China, Mexico or some other low-wage country.

“They are tired of having chief executives make 300 times what they do, while 52 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent.

“Many of their once beautiful rural towns have depopulated, their downtown stores are shuttered, and their kids are leaving home because there are no jobs — all while corporations suck the wealth out of their communities and stuff them into offshore accounts.

“Let’s rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and create millions of well-paying jobs. Let’s raise the minimum wage to a living wage, help students afford to go to college, provide paid family and medical leave and expand Social Security.

“Let’s reform an economic system that enables billionaires like Mr. Trump not to pay a nickel in federal income taxes. And most important, let’s end the ability of wealthy campaign contributors to buy elections.”

Those not only are mostly true statements , but they are absolutely true in the eyes of the working class Democratic base.

What you, Senator Sanders, didn’t say is how you really would pay for it all.

Trump offered a confused, tax-reform model, that was notable in its misdirection. You offered a more traditional approach, indicating some tax increases that almost would “pay” for it.

But, despite having Professor Stephanie Kelton on your payroll — (She understands that federal taxes do not fund federal spending) — you did not have the courage to tell the real truth. You did not explain the reality of Monetary Sovereignty .

You did not have the political courage to tell the Democratic base why FICA could and should be eliminated, providing an instant pay increase to salaried workers and an instant stimulus to business. (Step #1 of the Ten Steps to Prosperity, below).

You did not have the political courage to explain why every man, woman, and child in America could be covered by comprehensive Medicare Parts A, B, and D, fully paid for by the federal government (Step #2 of the Ten Steps).

You did not have the political courage to tell Americans that each year they could receive from the federal government, an economic stipend, a bonus to help them accumulate savings for the future or to cover bills now. (Step #3)

You did not explain how the federal government could fund free education, all the way through grades 13-16 and beyond, for every American who wanted it. (Step #4).

In short, you were on the right track, but you lacked political courage. Perhaps your fearful advisors told you the public would not accept the notion of a “free lunch.” Or perhaps, the political cowardice was of your own making.

I can understand you, Sen. Sanders, not agreeing with all 10 of the “Ten Steps.” You may have other steps in mind that you consider more important, more effective or more feasible.

But for heaven’s sake, at least be brave enough to tell people the facts. Trust your base enough to believe that most will understand and welcome the beneficial truth.

Tell them why the government has the power to improve their lives, without raising their taxes.

The Democratic base believed Trump’s ridiculous lies, that he had the courage to spew; they would have believed your beneficial facts, if only you had the same courage.

But because you so greatly feared loss, you lost. 

As did America.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

P.S. Within a year, no one will remember voting for Trump — but we will remind you.

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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the rich and the rest.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE AN ANNUAL ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONEFive reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefiting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and corporate taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Now that you have voted, here is what you voted for

You may have thought you were voting for people — Trump, Clinton or someone else, but in fact you were voting for programs that will affect your life. So now that voting is over, you might as well learn what you voted for.

Those of you on the “ABC” (Anyone But Clinton) team must feel great to have dispatched the evil witch, and now you have a chance to “Make America Great Again.”

The following post tells you where your jump from the frying pan has taken you.

Here are some excerpts from an article in today’s Chicago Tribune,  a right-wing newspaper that opposed Trump (as did almost every newspaper in America):

President-elect Donald Trump’s stunning victory Tuesday has delivered to GOP congressional leaders the gift they dreamed of, even if they never quite believed it was within reach: a Republican president to sign Republican bills passed by a uniformly Republican Congress.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who rose to prominence based on his plans to dramatically scale back federal spending, said Wednesday that Trump “earned a mandate” in his victory to enact years of conservative promises and that Republican lawmakers stood ready to help.

These days, every political victory, no matter how narrow, is termed a “mandate” by the winning party.

Trump’s “mandate” is pretty much the same “mandate” Bush had over Al Gore, when Gore received more votes and Bush won the electoral college. Last I heard, Clinton actually received more votes than Trump.

“This is the kind of unified Republican government that we set out to deliver,” Ryan told reporters. “I think we are going to hit the ground running.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also called the election a rejection of Obama’s policies and said Republicans would work with Trump to overturn them — and to fill the Supreme Court vacancy they have kept open for eight months.

Once again we will have a conservative Supreme Court, which may please those who agree with the “Citizens United” (money is speech) decision that allows the rich to spend unlimited dollars to elect candidates favoring the rich, and with the “Hobby Lobby” (corporations are people) decision saying a corporation has religious rights that supersede the religious rights of its employees.

If you have noticed a certain bent in conservative Court rulings it’s this: The rich should have more rights than the not-rich.

Among the first priorities next year is likely to be an effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. McConnell said that would be “pretty high on our agenda” and that he “would be shocked if we didn’t move forward and keep our commitment to the American people.”

Obamacare (originally Romneycare) was created as a result of the Big Lie, the lie that federal taxes fund federal spending. They don’t.

Unlike state and local taxes, which do fund state and local government spending, federal taxes are not in any way related to federal spending. That is the fundamental difference between a monetarily non-sovereign (state and local) government and a Monetarily Sovereign (federal) government.

The public’s ignorance of the Big Lie has done more damage to the American economy than all the wars in U.S. history.

Yes, Obamacare should be replaced, but not with another jury-rigged, anti-middle-class, Rube Goldbergian program based on the Big Lie.  It should be replaced with a federally funded, single-payer, comprehensive Medicare for every man, woman, and child in America.

The more money the federal government spends on Medicare, the more stimulus dollars will enter the economy and the faster the economy will grow.

(By the way, don’t let the oft-used “inflation” excuse confuse you. Being Monetarily Sovereign, the government has total control over both the supply and the demand for [i.e. the value of] the U.S. dollar.) The government can cause or stop inflation any time it wishes.

Ryan told reporters that he also expects to work with Trump to scale back regulations for coal mining, ranching and other industries.

If there is one thing conservatives hate it’s those pesky regulations that prevent the rich from polluting the air, exacerbating global warming, cheating food and drug buyers, and taking America’s land for themselves.

And puh-leeze let’s not regulate those downtrodden banksters, who created the Great Recession. Those poor $100 million a year folks would be able to make $200 million if only you and the government would let them do whatever they want.

Wicker predicted Republicans would get to work immediately on replacing the health-care law, swiftly confirm Trump’s first pick for the Supreme Court and work toward a bipartisan infrastructure package.

In reality, “bipartisan” means, “We have the votes, so shut up. (Does infastructure include a wall on the American/Mexican border? Just wondering.)

Conservatives are expected to push anew to slash domestic programs and to reduce the size of entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Is that what you thought you were voting for? Read it again: The Trump Republicans want to reduce entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Fortunately, you and your children won’t need either Social Security or Medicare.  Right?

The problem is not that money is lacking. There is plenty of money — an infinite amount, really.  The problem is that your life is not harsh enough, and the ultra-rich are not happy about that. You, the servant class, don’t deserve all that “free stuff.” Only the rich deserve free stuff in the form of tax loopholes.

The overriding goal of the rich is not to make more money, but to widen the Gap between them and you. That is accomplished by giving the rich more and/or by giving you less.

The Gap is what makes the rich, rich.  Without the Gap, no one would be rich (We all would be the same). And the wider the Gap, the richer they are. A man making $100 is rich if everyone else makes $10.

That widening Gap is the single, most important problem facing the American Economy.

When you and your children receive less Social Security and a more restrictive Medicare (both programs having been invented by liberals) don’t be surprised. It’s what you voted for. Didn’t anyone tell you?

Last year, Trump said that he would eventually insist on a balanced budget but did not elaborate.

“Right now, we’re so under, we’re so far under that you can’t go too quickly,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News. “But I would absolutely insist on it relatively soon.”

If you believe that a balanced budget (i.e increased taxes and reduced spending) will grow the economy, then you also must believe that your anemia can be cured by applying leeches or by draining your blood into a pail.

While your personal lifestyle depends on many factors, money always is the lifeblood of an economy.  The federal government not only has the unlimited ability to create U.S. dollars, but also has the unlimited ability to control the value of the U.S. dollar (i.e. inflation).

There is absolutely no reason to run a balanced budget, and in fact, a balanced budget would lead to recession or depression.
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THE RECESSION CLOCK

Monetary Sovereignty
Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

Deficit reduction puts less money into the economy, thereby recessing the economy. Recessions begin an average of a year after the red line (Federal Debt Held By The Public) slides to its bottom. 

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recessions, which have been cured only when the growth lines have risen.

Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

And if deficit reductions are bad, surpluses are even worse, because they actually remove dollars from the economy. U.S. depressions tend to come on the heels of federal surpluses.

1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819.
1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837.
1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857.
1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873.
1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893.
1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929.

Bill Clinton ran America’s last surplus, immediately after which we were fortunate to have “only” a recession — in 2001 — rather than a depression.

“On Tuesday, America demanded disruption,” said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), a Trump critic who nonetheless said Wednesday he would “do everything in my power” to hold Trump to his pledges to overturn the Affordable Care Act, pursue congressional term limits and nominate conservative judges.

Congressional term limits are wise for the same reason Presidential term limits are wise. The longer Congresspersons hold their jobs, the less responsive they are to the public good. 

But, can you imagine Congress voting for term limits? Trump’s wisest proposal has the least chance of passing.

Another Trump critic, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (said) “We have wars to win, threats to be dealt with, and a stagnant economy which must be revived. I believe there is consensus to be had on keeping trade free but fairer, rebuilding our military, restoring our standing in the world, reforming our tax code, repealing and replacing Obamacare with an alternative that empowers patients while reining in costs, and confirming conservative justices to the Supreme Court.”

“Empowers patients,” is political doubletalk meaning reducing patients’ benefits and increasing their costs. Implied in all this are two fundamental, conservative beliefs:

  1. More money must be spent on the military.
  2. This money must come from the working class.

Tax “reform” always seems to mean increasing a regressive tax on the working class, like a sales tax, a flat tax or more FICA, while taking care of the very rich idle class.

The working class voted Republican, but the Republicans will disappoint the working class. Sadly, while the Democrats lean (ever so slightly) more to the left, they too have disappointed the working class, because they have become right-wing.

The Democrats too, espouse the Big Lie as a reason to limit social programs. For both parties, it has become a matter of faith that social programs promote laziness, and the only way to eliminate poverty is to punish the impoverished — i.e. to whip the slaves until they are willing to work.

The myth is that cutting social programs is the best way to prod the working class into greater effort.

Until at least one politician has the knowledge, the courage and the power to publicly demonstrate the fallacy of the Big Lie, America will forever be plagued with booms and busts, and after each cycle, the working class will be worse off than before.

Historically, the Republican’ bases are the rich and the Christian fundamentalists. Hillary Clinton lost because the Democrats forgot their own historical base, the working class.

All those thousands of people attending Trump speeches were actually Democrats. They just didn’t know it, because the Democratic party ignored them in its drive for dollars.

Clinton was not a Democrat. Obama was not a Democrat. The last real Democrat was Lyndon Johnson, who did many great things before enmeshing himself in the Vietnam war.

  • Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968
  • Appointed Thurgood Marshall (first black Supreme Court justice)
  • Voting Rights Act of 1965
  • $11 billion tax cut
  • Elementary and Secondary Education Act
  • Public broadcasting
  • Higher Education Act
  • Established the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities
  • Outlawing most racial segregation
  • Medicare
  • Medicaid
  • Aid to education
  • Head Start
  • Food stamps
  • Work study
  • Environmental protection
  • Reduced poverty from roughly 23 percent to 12 percent

Those were liberal initiatives.  If you feel they are worthwhile, don’t allow anyone to use the world “liberal” as a pejorative.

Bottom line: The election was based on ignorance.

The Democratic Party was, and has been, ignorant for using the Big Lie as an excuse to ignore their base: The working class.

The Democrats also have been ignorant in allowing the Republicans to characterize liberalism as socialism and communism.  Liberalism is what Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson did.  Socialism and communism are what Mao and Castro did.

If the working class understood the realities of  liberalism and of the Big Lie, they would vote liberal every time. The Democrats ignorantly allowed the Republicans to steal the Democrats’ “natural” base.

The working class voters were ignorant about what Trump and the right wing plans to do to them. They voted for change, without considering the fact that change can be bad.

And in fact, if the Republicans accomplish their goals, the change will be horrible for the working class and for the entire country, except for the rich, who will prosper.

To win back the Presidency and the Congress, Democrats must re-embrace Roosevelt/Kennedy/Johnson liberalism while teaching the public the facts about Monetary Sovereignty, the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below), and the Big Lie.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

P.S. Within a year, no one will remember voting for Trump — but we will remind you.

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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the rich and the rest.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE AN ANNUAL ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONEFive reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefiting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and corporate taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

More proof that MMT’s JG is a bad idea

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

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MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) is a close cousin to this blog, MS (Monetary Sovereignty). Both schools recognize the Big Lie, which actually is a composite of several lies, among which are:

  1. Federal taxes fund federal spending. (They don’t.)
  2. You and your children owe the federal debt. (You don’t.)
  3. Federal finances are like state & local government, business, and personal financing. (They aren’t.)
  4. The federal debt and deficit are too high, “unsustainable,” and should be reduced. (The defict should be increased. The debt is immaterial.)
  5. The federal government cannot afford to pay for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs. (It can, easily.)
  6. There can be “debt-free” money. (All money is debt. There never can be “debt-free” money.)

While MMT and MS agree on the fundamentals of economics, they disagree on the actions to be taken.

MS proposes implementation of the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below) to:

  • grow the economy and to
  • narrow the Gap between the rich and the rest.

MMT proposes a JG (Jobs Guarantee) to:

  • create full employment and
  • price stability.

Wikipedia: “The JG is based on the buffer stock principle whereby the public sector offers a fixed wage job to anyone willing and able to work.  

Buffer stock principle: Commodities are bought when there is a surplus in the economy, stored, and are then sold from these stores when there are economic shortages in the economy.“

This says, when you are part of JG, you are not an employee. You are not even a person. You are buffer stock.  Being stock, your likes and dislikes don’t matter. What you want to do doesn’t matter.  This is the “beggars can’t be choosers” solution to joblessness.

Previously, we have published reasons why we believe the Jobs Guarantee is naive, unworkable, and not just useless, but harmful:

JG is a non-solution to the wrong problems. It assumes there is a shortage of jobs that the federal government can provide.

MS claims there is no shortage of jobs, but there may be a shortage of the right jobs, and more importantly, for many people there is a shortage of money.

Today, we received the following Email from the website, LinkedIn:

LinkedIn: Explore job openings in Greater Chicago Area
More than 136,000 new jobs are available now.

Top jobs for people like you:
1 President
2 Chief Executive Officer
3 Vice President
4 Director
5 Specialist

Get jobs tailored to you! Update your industry. This is an occasional email to help you get the most out of LinkedIn.

© 2016 LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View CA 94043. LinkedIn and the LinkedIn logo are registered trademarks of LinkedIn.

That is 136,000 executive-type jobs available in Chicago. Additionally, just one website, Employment Crossing, listed the following non-executive jobs available in Chicago and its closest suburbs:

Chicago, IL (21,887)
Downers Grove, IL (748)
Evanston, IL (706)
Oak Brook, IL (672)
Chicago Heights, IL (607)
Deerfield, IL (600)
Bolingbrook, IL (592)
Des Plaines, IL (530)
Arlington Heights, IL (501)
Glen Ellyn, IL (467)

There are thousands upon thousands of jobs available, but visualize that you are looking for a job, and can’t find one.   Why?

There are only two reasons:

  1. You don’t want the jobs that are available to you, or:
  2. The jobs you want don’t want you.

Which of these problems is a government Jobs Guarantee program likely to solve for you?

Is the federal government going to do better than the websites, local newspapers, and employment agencies at finding the kinds of jobs you want??

Consider jobs the federal government will guarantee. They will be minimum wage jobs, and they will be federal jobs.

If you currently are looking for a job, are you really unable to find a minimum wage job?  Is that the job you want? Does offering you a minimum wage, federal job solve your money problems?

If the government provides minimum wage, government jobs to all the people who want, but can’t find, minimum wage jobs, how many people will this program actually help? Precious few.

The Jobs Guarantee is a program only an economist could love — an economist who thinks of the economy, not as composed of human beings, but as numbers on a balance sheet — as buffer stock.

To MMT economists you non-rich are born lazy. You are “takers” who must be prodded to toil as “buffer stock” rather than to receive what you really need: (money, education, healthcare, good food, good housing, a working infrastructure, etc.)

“Free stuff” is only for the rich.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the rich and the rest.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE AN ANNUAL ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONEFive reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefiting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and corporate taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY