Tag: monetary non-sovereignty

The end of the Supreme Court

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

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The creators of America built the Constitution on three fundamental beliefs:

1. One person, or one small group of people, cannot be trusted with absolute power. The President is not the king, nor is Congress, nor is the Supreme Court. Each moderates the other’s power.

Additionally, the founders created states, and in the states are counties and cities, all moderating national power.

2. Only certain people can be trusted to make rational decisions.  We “commoners” do not vote directly for the President, but rather the “more trusted” people comprise the electoral college.

3. Ultimately, our political representatives will come together to put country ahead of party.  That is the essence of a representative democracy rather than a pure democracy.

Unfortunately, there is no fool-proof, completely fair or rational way to create a nation’s government. If leaders are irrational, hate-filled or power-mad, and are able to convince the voting public to yield its own power, even “the best-laid schemes of mice and men, gang aft agley.”

Overpromises And Litmus Tests: How The GOP Is Boxing Itself In On SCOTUS

If Hillary Clinton wins, conservatives have already devised a new litmus test for how truly anti-Clinton a Republican is: Will they commit to blocking any Clinton nominee to the Supreme Court?

Over the last year, preserving the Supreme Court has become the symbol by which Republicans have rationalized falling in line behind unpredictable, conservative poser Donald Trump.

Evangelicals have ignored Trump’s crass comments about grabbing p***y in the name of Roe v. Wade.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) won’t say the nominee’s name on the stump, but he’s quick to point out the importance of voting for the “Republican nominee” in order to preserve the balance of the court.

And slowly but surely, vowing to block Hillary Clinton from ever getting a nominee through the Senate if she is elected has become normalized.

What began as brash campaign rhetoric is now being adopted by the conservative base as the litmus test of what it means to be a Republican. Anything short of it could be construed as RINO territory.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) pointed out last week there was precedent to have fewer than nine justices.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) said “if Hillary Clinton becomes president, I am going to do everything I can do to make sure four years from now, we still got an opening on the Supreme Court.”

The Hill reported last week that Dan Holler, a spokesman for Heritage Action, said it was “unacceptable” for Republicans to allow Clinton’s nominees to get through.

Precedent is important in politics.

Remember Gary Hart? Back in 1988, he led the Democratic primaries, until he was found to have had an affair with a woman named Donna Rice. While many Presidents have had affairs, the times, they were a’changin’, and by 1988, things the media formerly kept secret, now were exposed.

A new precedent had begun. Hart was out.

Click forward a couple dozen years, and those new precedents became old precedents. Donald Trump now has set brand new precedents for Republicans.

His popularity survives his bigotry, misogyny, infidelity, ignorance, nativism, scamming, lying, insulting and breaking promises. He isn’t even a conservative, but the conservative party is fine with that.

Why? Because the new precedent seems to be this:  All politicians are evil and expected to be evil, so anything that can prevent politics from working is good.

There always has been a bit of that cynicism in politics. The Libertarians have promoted it for decades. The Tea Party followed suit. And now Trump has taken it to its logical conclusion, by claiming only that he will “shake up the establishment.”

Now, no plan, no knowledge, no moral code is necessary or even wanted by the Republican “base.”

Never mind that the “establishment” is comprised of the Constitution of the United States, the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court.  In short, the “establishment is the American system of government.

Today, among Republicans, anyone favoring any aspect of current American democracy is oh, so outré. It’s a “Let’s burn down America, so we can remake it the way we want it” attitude.

The current Republicans already have thumbed their noses at the spirit of the Constitution by passing voter denial laws, by refusing to approve many Obama submissions, and by refusing even to consider President Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court.

Where are these new precedents taking us?

Across the federal government, nearly 1,200 executive level jobs may be filled only by individuals appointed by the president and approved by a simple majority vote of the Senate.

  • Secretaries of the 15 Cabinet agencies, deputy secretaries, under secretaries and assistant secretaries, and general counsels of those agencies: Over 350 positions
  • Justices of the Supreme Court: 9 positions (Supreme Court justices serve for life subject to death, retirement, resignation or impeachment.)
  • Certain jobs in the independent, non-regulatory executive branch agencies, like NASA and the National Science Foundation: Over 120 positions
  • Director positions in the regulatory agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration: Over 130 positions
  • U.S. Attorneys and U.S. Marshals: About 200 positions
  • Ambassadors to foreign nations: Over 150 positions
  • Presidential appointments to part-time positions, like the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System: Over 160 positions

What precedent will be set by the Republican refusal to approve any Clinton appointment to the Supreme Court?

The next time the President is of one party, and a majority of the Senate is of another party, you can look forward to the American government shutting down for four years.

The no-compromise, anti-establishment precedent has been set, and seemingly that is what a large number of voters want.

Forget “country before party.”  Forget patriotism and the Statue of Liberty. Forget the American Constitution and our government. They all are “establishment.”

It’s a new world, everything must go, and the inmates now run the asylum.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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..

•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

The hidden connection between cutting your state & local taxes and growing America.

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

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Most state and local taxes have to do with education, support for the poor, and infrastructure. Instituting the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below), especially Steps #3, #4, #5, and #10, will cut your state and local tax bill.

Because the federal government is Monetarily Sovereign, and neither needs nor uses tax dollars, it could assume, tax-free, much of the spending by the (monetarily non-sovereign) state and local governments.

Less state & local spending; less state & local taxes necessary. Further, the state and local governments rely largely on sales taxes, which are highly regressive, and far more poverty-inducing.

(Yes, I know. Libertarians tell you the federal government is too big, thus requiring state and local governments to carry the burden of service to the public. It makes no sense, but it’s what passes for economics these days..)

Additionally, Steps #1,  #2, #6, and #7 would reduce poverty . And all ten Steps would help narrow the Gap between the rich and the rest.

So what is the connection to growing America?

NewScientist Magazine
Childhood poverty can be a life sentence – we must act
The science tells a clear story. Politicians now have a duty to do something other than pay lip service to the problem

It’s rare that scientists are moved to tears by their research projects, but for Harvard neuroscientist Charles Nelson, that was once a daily experience.

In the late 1990s he and his team set up a long-running study of children living in Romanian orphanages. What they witnessed was so distressing that they had to make a rule: if you couldn’t hold back the tears, make sure you didn’t let the children see you cry.

Nelson set up the study to find out what early adversity does to child development – especially cognitive development. Institutionalised children are in terrible distress.

A more recent project in the slums of Bangladesh is likely to reach a similar conclusion. Poverty and squalor in childhood can be a life sentence.

Children in the West rarely endure the desperate levels of deprivation seen in the orphanages of Bucharest or the slums of Bangladesh, but many do experience genuine hardship.

In the US, 15 million children live in households with an income below the official poverty line. For a couple with two children, that’s $24,036 – about $16 per person per day. For everything.

Children who grow up poor lag behind at school and have worse health than their wealthier peers.

But even Western levels of poverty can have detrimental and long-lasting effects.

Children who grow up poor lag behind at school and tend to have worse physical and mental health than their luckier peers.

That’s 15 million children who are more likely to lag behind at school and have worse health.

That’s 15 million children who are less likely to be educators, researchers, inventors, physicists, doctors, or economic leaders — 15 million children who are less likely to win a Nobel prize — 15 million children less likely to help America grow.

Instead, these 15 million children are more likely to be sicker and to need help rather than giving help.

The negative effect of poverty on children’s brains is well documented:
Poverty Stresses The Brain So Much That It’s Like Losing 13 IQ Points
and
Poor concentration: Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life
and
Poverty shrinks brains from birth

Alleviating child poverty can be done, but it requires political will.

From 1998 to 2010, approximately 800,000 children in the UK were lifted above that poverty line, largely because of policies designed to do so. But progress is fragile. Over the past five years 500,000 have slumped back in.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies forecasts that by the end of this parliament the number will have climbed back to its late-1990s peak, despite legally binding targets to reduce child poverty.

That is a shameful statistic. Politicians paying lip service to the goal while spectacularly failing to deliver it might be jolted into action by the fact that their abject performance is costing the taxpayer huge sums of money.

According to one recent analysis, dealing with the consequences of child poverty directly costs the UK government £15 billion a year, £3 billion more than in 2008.

The problem is not the financial cost of dealing with poverty.  After all, the UK  and American governments, being Monetarily Sovereign (though pretending they are not), can afford anything — and without levying taxes.

Here in America, we are so proud of our accomplishments — our moon landing science, our wealth, our democracy. But how much more would we have accomplished if we had educated an additional 15 million young people, using their brain power to grow America.

Why aren’t UK opposition parties holding the ruling Conservatives to account for not just failing to live up to their own targets, but for letting the gains of the early 2000s be lost – and squandering billions in the process?

Why isn’t the Labour party trumpeting its own admirable record on this issue, if only to highlight the fact that it is possible to make a difference if you actually want to?

Pardon the generality, but conservatives and liberals seem similar everywhere, the former tend more toward selfish and tight-fisted, and the latter tending more toward meek and weak-willed.

The conservatives angrily brand the poor as lazy takers, who do not “deserve” government assistance. The liberals softly offer solutions as humanitarian charity.

But helping the poor is not charity. Helping the poor is national self-serving.

Lifting children from poverty enables them to become productive adults, using their born-with intelligence to strengthen America.

Bottom line: Those who oppose poverty aid because the poor “don’t deserve help,” are simply forcing economic suicide on America, and are harming our nation and themselves far more than could a foreign enemy.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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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

If you don’t like Medicare for All, read this:

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

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Step #2 of the Ten Steps For Prosperity reads:

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?”

Click the link, read the article, then read this:

National Public Radio: Cuts In Texas Medicaid Hit Rural Kids With Disabilities Especially Hard

Last year, the Texas legislature approved a $350 million cut in Medicaid reimbursement rates to early childhood intervention therapists and providers.

The cuts, made to help balance a billion dollars in property tax relief, affect the most vulnerable Texas children — those born extremely prematurely or with Down syndrome or other genetic conditions that put them at risk for developmental delay.

Medicare for All, funded by the federal government, would pay for everything Texas Medicaid — i.e. the citizens of Texas — now pay. No federal taxes would be needed, and Texas’s citizens could save hundreds of millions in taxes.

The problem is the Libertarian belief that federal government should be small. Why should a huge, wealthy nation have a small government? No real reason. 

Presumably, they believe a small government is preferable to children’s health.

For months, providers of in-home physical, speech and occupational therapies have continued to serve children who have disabilities, despite mounting financial losses.

Now some have had to shut their doors, curtail services or halt their home-visit programs, leaving many children without treatments their parents feel are crucial to the kids’ well-being.

That’s what’s happened to 2-year-old Haylee Crouse, who lives with her three brothers and sisters in the small town of Whitehouse, in East Texas.

When she was just 8 days old, Haylee contracted newborn meningitis. It left her with some mental and physical deficits, and she started having periodic seizures.

But at the age of 9 months, Haylee started getting home visits and treatments from physical, occupational and speech therapists, several days a week.

“They were a lifesaver to her and to our family,” Amanda Crouse, Haylee’s mother said. “They worked her hard. For example, she was not rolling over. They taught her how to roll over. They then taught her how to crawl, pull up on the couch and then, finally, she learned how to walk.”

The state’s cuts to its Texas Medicaid Acute Care Therapy Programs have meant that the one provider of early childhood intervention treatment in Tyler can no longer do so.

And so, that’s it.

On the 2-year-old’s last day of therapy, Crouse said, “her therapist actually cried. Gave her a hug, said goodbye.

Parents and grandparents of children who have disabilities flocked to Austin in March to implore the state Senate not to do this.

Mothers wept in frustration as they testified before the Texas Senate Finance Committee about the vital these early interventions play in their children’s quality of life.

Mrs. Crouse, please tell little Haylee this: Texans can’t afford to help sick Texas children, and the federal government can’t help because it’s too big.

I’m sure Haylee will understand.

Republican Sen. Jane Nelson, who heads the Texas Senate’s finance committee, tried to reassure anguished parents that the state would make sure there would be no interruption of services, whatsoever.

“Every eligible child for these services will continue to receive them. And we’re going to monitor it and we’re going to make sure that happens.”

But that’s been a promise the state has not been able to keep, and it’s in the rural parts of Texas where collapse of service has already begun.

This is how they “Make America Great, Again”: Ignore sick children.

“Sometimes you need to talk to some of the parents before you just decide to cut a program,” said Waymon Stewart, the executive director of the Andrews Center in Tyler.

Stewart predicts that children with profound disabilities will suffer most from the closure of his program and others like it, especially in rural regions.

It’s not uncommon for early childhood intervention therapists to have to drive an hour each way to get to far-flung patients. For children who are prone to seizures, or who have to be connected to machines for daily living, long trips in the car several days a week for treatment in other clinics are simply not going to happen, he says.

The cuts made in the state capital took a $312,000 bite out of his center’s budget, forcing him to terminate 20 employees.

“It really hit us hard,” Stewart said. So we were really digging into reserves to try to make this program last, and we did for a year.”

But after that, he said, “we just decided to give our notice. We couldn’t continue to do it unless the rates were changed.”

In Wichita Falls, 235 miles away, the same thing has transpired at the North Texas Rehabilitation Center, which serves 10 North Texas counties.

Mike Castles, the center’s president, said they hung on for a year, but it cost them more than $200,000 in losses. So, after 30 years of service to thousands of North Texas families, that’s it for them too.

“It’s all about money,” he said. “There’s just so much money to make this all work. We tried to for a year; it got worse instead of better with even more bad news coming for this fiscal year.”

The mark of a great nation is not how many atomic bombs it has, or how many billionaires. The mark of a great nation is how it cares for its most vulnerable.

Medicare for all would cost you taxpayers nothing. But the rich, the Tea Partyers, the Libertarians, and especially the health insurance companies, don’t want you to understand that.

They want “small government” so that only the wealthy and powerful can live the American dream.  The rest of you: Just keep struggling.

And don’t worry about sick kids.  They’re just “takers,” aren’t they?

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

“That guy is another Trump”

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

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

By any reasonable measure, Donald Trump is among the worst, if not the worst Presidential candidate in American history.

He is a mean-spirited and vindictive bigot and a compulsively endless liar.  He is anti-black, anti-brown, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-science, anti-women, anti-fact and anti-truth.

He is a hate-monger, a fear-monger, and a rumor-monger. He lacks morality and judgment.

He is inexperienced in, and ignorant of, both international and domestic matters, but is so egocentric he seems not to recognize his ignorance — a most dangerous combination.

He claims personal superiority in all areas, from war knowledge superior to that of trained generals, to tax knowledge superior to that of all previous Presidents, to physical fitness superior all previous candidates, to athletic ability superior to everyone living in New York, to superior business ability — despite ample evidence he actually is inferior in all these  areas.

Yet despite his obvious failings, he has a massive and passionate following.

One hint to this seeming anomaly might be found in an article from the November 2016, issue of Scientific American Magazine. Here are a few excerpts:

Why Political Pessimism Trumps Optimism
The psychology of political pessimism
By Michael Shermer

“If you had to choose a moment in time to be born, any time in human history, and you didn’t know ahead of time what nationality you were or what gender or what your economic status might be,” what time would you choose? Paleolithic? Neolithic? Ancient Greece or Rome? Medieval times? Elizabethan England? Colonial America? The 1950s?

“You’d choose today,” answered the man who posed this question in an April 2016 speech, President Barack Obama.

“We are fortunate to be living in the most peaceful, most prosperous, most progressive era in human history,” he opined, adding that “it’s been decades since the last war between major powers.

More people live in democracies. We’re wealthier and healthier and better educated, with a global economy that has lifted up more than a billion people from extreme poverty.”

If these facts are true—and they are —then why the doom and gloom heaped on us by politicians and pundits on both sides of the political aisle?

First, news media outlets are far more likely to report bad news than good. Another day in Turkey without a coup goes unreported, but just try and take over a country without the world’s media covering it.

Second, as psychologist Roy F. Baumeister explained, “bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good.

Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones.” Why?

One answer, I suggest, is in the psychology of loss aversion, in which, on average, losses hurt twice as much as gains feel good.

To get someone to take a gamble, the potential payoff must be about twice the potential loss. Why? Because of the endowment effect, which is the tendency to value what we own more than what we do not own.

Why is our psychology wired this way? Evolution. According to Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker, in our evolutionary past there was an asymmetry of payoffs in which the fitness cost of overreacting to a threat was less than the fitness cost of underreacting.

The world was more dangerous in our evolutionary past, so it paid to be risk-averse and highly sensitive to threats.

All of which helps to explain much political pessimism.

That is part of it — pessimism is stronger than optimism, and is widely considered to be wiser. The optimist often thought naive and innocent, while the pessimist is wrongly believed to be a realist.

A second factor is what we described in earlier posts, and what the philosopher, Eric Hoffer, calls the “true believers.” These are people who passionately follow a leader or a faith. Religious fundamentalists and group fanatics are true believers.

One of the characteristics of a true believer is certainty despite contrary fact, especially the certainty that the past was good, the present is bad, but the Leader can make the future good again.

When Donald Trump says, “Political correctness is killing us;” “Free trade is killing us;” “Globalization is killing us;” “China is killing us;” “Mexico is killing us;” he is speaking to true believers, who long for a mythical future and a beautiful past that never really existed.

Trump’s slogan, “Make America great, again,” is a paean to that belief.

Despite Obama’s optimism and factual statement of how things are better today, many people have things worse, or think they do, or are afraid they will in the future.

Trump speaks to those of the middle and low income/wealth/power groups, who have seen the Gap widen between them and the rich, and they are resentful and need someone to blame. 

True believers need a devil to blame, generally someone from a competing ideology (a different religion or nationality). Trump’s Mexicans, Muslims, gays, Chinese, etc. fit perfectly (though ironically, the real devils are the American rich who, like Trump, create and benefit from policies that widen the Gap).

Third, there is a characteristic commonly known as “charisma,” a hard to define quality that many people find attractive and convincing.  Barach Obama and Bill Clinton have it in the eyes of many. Hillary Clinton seems to lack it. Donald Trump has it.

If we combine general need of threat avoidance, the specific needs of true believers, plus charisma,  we have a leader. If we add to the mix, a frightening lack of job qualifications and morality, we have Donald Trump.

It is quite likely that, no matter the election outcome, Donald Trump’s name will live on as the epithet: “That guy is another Trump.”

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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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 afford better health care than 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