What we can do about the poor. Yes, there is a solution.

The single biggest economic problem facing America and the world is the Gap between the rich and the rest.

The rich would have you believe the fault is with the poor, who are “lazy, criminal, and intentionally unsuitable parents.”

The rich claim the poor would rather wallow in poverty and ignorance, and receive what the rich term “free stuff,” than to work for a living.

It is a lie paid for by the rich and disseminated by the right-wing.

The left-wing would have you believe they truly wish to narrow the Gap.

But they too are bribed by the rich. They wring their hands in false compassion and fake helplessness, saying in effect, “We want to narrow the Gap, but the money isn’t there, so we can’t afford it.”

That too is a lie; that lie too is paid for by the rich.

The facts:
1. The poor are not at fault for their poverty, and
2. The federal government easily could afford to cure poverty in America.

1. THE POOR ARE NOT AT FAULT:

Lock Up the Men, Evict the Women and Children
Posted on May 29, 2016, By Chris Hedges

Matthew Desmond’s book, “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City,” like Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed,” is a heartbreaking snapshot of the rapacious exploitation and misery we inflict on the most vulnerable, especially children.

It is a picture of a world where industries have been created to fleece the poor, and destroy neighborhoods and ultimately lives.

It portrays a judicial system that has broken down, a dysfunctional social service system and the license in neoliberal America to carry out unchecked greed, no matter what the cost.

Being poor in America is one long emergency. You teeter on the edge of bankruptcy, homelessness and hunger. You endure cataclysmic levels of stress, harassment and anxiety and long bouts of depression.

Rent strips you of half your income—one in four families spend 70 percent of their income on rent—until you and your children are evicted, often into homeless shelters or abandoned buildings, when you fall behind on payments.

A financial crisis—a medical emergency, a reduction in hours at work or the loss of a job, funeral expenses or car repairs—can lead inexorably to an eviction.

Creditors, payday lenders and collection agencies hound you. You are often forced to declare bankruptcy.

You cope with endemic violence, gangs, drugs and a judicial system that permits brutal police abuse and ships you to jail, or slaps you with huge fines, for minor offenses.

You live for weeks or months with no heat, water or electricity because you cannot pay the utility bills, especially since fuel and utility rates have risen by more than 50 percent since 2000.

Single mothers and their children usually endure this hell alone, because the men in these communities are locked up. Millions of families are tossed into the street every year.

The working poor, now half of the country, have fallen to levels of misery unseen since the Great Depression.

All of this misery — all of it — is funded by the rich. The rigged judicial system, the unaffordable rents, the creditors, the payday lenders, the collection agencies, the evictions — all at the behest of the rich.

“These days, there are sheriff’s squads whose full-time job is to carry out eviction and foreclosure orders,” Desmond wrote. “There are moving companies specializing in evictions, their crews working all day, every weekday.

“There are hundreds of data-mining companies that sell landlords tenant screening reports listing past evictions and court filings. These days housing courts swell, forcing commissioners to settle cases in hallways or makeshift offices crammed with old desks and broken file cabinets—and most tenants don’t even show up.

“Low-income families have grown used to the rumble of moving trucks, the early-morning knocks at the door, the belongings lining the curb.”

And it all is funded by the rich, and for the benefit of the rich, whose sole aim is to widen the Gap between them and the poor.

There is a lot of money to be made off the poor. They are defenseless. And the law is on the side of the predators.

As Desmond noted in his book, in “many housing courts around the country 90 percent of landlords are represented by attorneys, and 90 percent of tenants are not.”

A life of dead ends led many in Desmond’s book to make decisions that, on the outside, could be seen as irresponsible or foolish: withholding rent payments, or as Larraine Jenkins (not her real name) did, blowing her monthly allocation of food stamps on a dinner of lobster tails, shrimp, crab, lemon meringue pie and Pepsi.

But the present is unbearable, and the future, they know, is grim. So they block the future out and seek, for a moment, to make the present endurable.

It is why so many of the poor turn to drugs or alcohol. Jenkins, as Desmond wrote, was not “poor because she threw money away.” She “threw money away because she was poor.”

The rich point at the “Larraine Jenkinses” and exclaim to you in false horror, that the poor waste their food stamps on the high life. And you believe, because you hear the same lie, again and again.

Escape is denied to the poor. Consider college, the seeming door to freedom.

But, a poor child’s time is needed for earning family income. There is no time for college.

Even if the family can survive without the child’s income, college remains too expensive. “Free” tuition is costly. Who will pay for rent and food and books and clothing and a life away?

And then there is the bait and hook of student loans, the permanent indebtedness of loans based on excessive tuitions — loans that uniquely cannot be discharged in bankruptcy — forever indebtedness to the rich.

College loans are the indentured servitude of modern America, massively benefitting the rich lenders and enslaving America’s children.

As the right-wing sneers at the lazy, good-for-nothing poor, and the left-wing cries its crocodile tears for the unfortunate poor, both repeat The BIG LIE

You hear The BIG LIE every day. It’s told to you by the bribed politicians, the owned media, and by the paid university economists. The “BIG LIE says:

— The federal government somehow can run short of its own sovereign currency
— The federal government cannot afford to lift Americans out of poverty
— Lifting the poor would just make them lazier
— The federal government is too big, so spending should be cut.
— The so-called federal “debt” is unsustainable.
— Spending for the poor will cause hyperinflation

If you repeat a lie often enough it is perceived as truth. But the real truth is:

The U.S. federal government cannot run short of the dollars it originally created from thin air merely by passing laws from thin air.
Because the federal government cannot run short of dollars, it can afford to pay any bill of any size at any time.
Just as you did not become lazy when your parents kept you from poverty, the poor will not become lazy if the federal government lifts them from poverty.
Increased spending for the poor does not require federal government employment to grow, and even if it did grow, that growth would stimulate the economy, benefiting everyone.
The federal “debt” isn’t even a debt; it is money deposited in T-security accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank — just bank deposits.
Hyperinflation occurs when the Supply of money exceeds Demand. However, our Monetarily Sovereign government controls the money demand via interest rates. Historically, hyperinflation has caused excessive money creation and not the other way around.

The solution — and yes, there is a solution — would be the implementation of the Ten Steps to Prosperity:

THE 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 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

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-tranferring 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. Being Monetarily Sovereign, 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 the rest.

Let us stop believing the lies of the rich, and begin to make this a better world. Demand the Ten Steps to Prosperity.

Even if you have no compassion for the poor, do it for your own sake. Prosperity will benefit you, too.

Lifting the poor will not merely save the poor; it will save America. It’s not just charity; it’s not just patriotism; it’s self-preservation.

Does the American public really wish to reduce gun violence?

Yesterday, we published “Five Solutions to Gun Violence.”

It contained five proposals, each of which if implemented, would reduce gun violence — if that is what the American public wants.

The title question is, “does the American public really wish to reduce gun violence,” or does it prefer to address small side problems, while pretending it is doing something about the main cause of gun violence?

The “more-guns = less-gun-violence” myth is akin to “more-anger = fewer-anger-crimes,” or “more-greed = fewer-crimes-of-greed.”

Reality doesn’t work that way.

If you really want to make sure someone stays lost give him a bad roadmap. Sending him on a wild goose chase will waste his time and energy far better than simply doing nothing.

In that vein, today I saw an article titled,“Omar Mateen, an ‘Americanized Guy,’ Shows Threat of Lone Terrorists” Here are a few excerpts to show how far off course we have been sent:

Omar Mateen had been on a terrorism watch list for incendiary comments he once made to co-workers at a local courthouse.

But the F.B.I. soon ended its examination of Mr. Mateen after finding no evidence that he posed a terrorist threat to his community.

Thus, we see the beginnings of the “blame the FBI” bad roadmap. The notion is that if only the FBI had done its job, Mateen would have been prevented from killing all those people in Orlando.

That is what the gun manufacturers want you to believe. They want you to waste your time, energy, and intellect trying to find ways to make the FBI better able to stop gun violence. They want you to follow a bad roadmap.

The government investigation could take months, but an early examination of Mr. Mateen’s life reveals a hatred of gay people.

This is the second bad roadmap — the search for reasons why this individual did what he did.

The hope is that if we knew he killed those people because he hated gay people, we could prevent future killings by . . . by what?

By somehow convincing bigots that gay people are good people? Is that the plan upon which we will expend thousands of hours and millions of words?

He was a man who could be charming, loved Afghan music and enjoyed dancing, but he was also violently abusive.

Family members said he was not overly religious, but he was rigid and conservative in his view that his wife should remain mostly at home.

The F.B.I. director said on Monday that Mr. Mateen had once claimed ties to both Al Qaeda and Hezbollah — two radical groups violently opposed to each other.

He could act like the NRA’s mythical “good guy,” and he also could act like a “bad guy.” No news there. That describes millions of Americans. Where does that lead us in any effort to reduce gun violence?

Investigators now face the question of how much the killings were the act of a deeply disturbed man, as his former wife and others described him, and how much he was driven by religious or political ideology.

Let’s say that after wasting months of tedious investigation, we conclude he was “deeply disturbed” (whatever that means). What then? How does “deeply disturbed” get us one inch closer to preventing the next gun murder?

Arrest all the “deeply disturbed” people, forever?

Unlike Al Qaeda, which favors highly organized and planned operations, the Islamic State has encouraged anyone to take up arms in its name, and uses a sophisticated campaign of social media to inspire future attacks by unstable individuals with no history of embracing radical Islam.

So, shall we search for all the “unstable individuals with no history of embracing radical Islam”?

How many millions of those do you think live in America? What about your dopey brother-in-law, or your goofy next-door neighbor. Are they unstable, with no history of embracing radical Islam?

What shall we do when find them? Arrest them all and keep them in jail indefinitely, for being “unstable”?

Mr. Mateen might have been gay but chose to hide his true identity out of anger and shame.

A senior federal law enforcement official said on Monday that the F.B.I. was looking at reports that Mr. Mateen had used a gay dating app, and patrons of Pulse were quoted in news reports as saying that he had visited the club several times.

So he may have been a guy ashamed of his identity. Should the FBI arrest all Americans who secretly are insecure about some aspect of their lives?

He came to the F.B.I.’s attention in 2013, when some of his co-workers reported that he had made inflammatory comments claiming connections to overseas terrorists, and saying he hoped that the F.B.I. would raid his family’s home so that he could become a martyr.

The F.B.I. opened an investigation and put Mr. Mateen on a terrorist watch list for nearly a year.

Mr. Mateen said he had made the incendiary remarks “in anger” because his co-workers had ridiculed his Muslim background and he wanted to scare them. The F.B.I. closed its investigation and took him off the terrorist watch list.

The F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Mateen a third time, but determined that his ties to the suicide bomber were not significant. The bureau had no further contact with Mr. Mateen.

Mr. Comey defended the work of his agents, although the bureau’s handling of the case is likely to be the subject of scrutiny and criticism in the coming weeks.

They interviewed him multiple times and put him on a terrorist watch list, all to no avail. Meanwhile, the gun industry laughs at their efforts, for none of this has any effect on gun violence. It’s all misdirection.

In fact, the inevitable failures to prevent gun violence beget more gun purchases. Orlando will prove to be another financial windfall to the gun makers, as more people are sold on the false notion that carrying a gun will protect them from future mass murders.

Still, cases such as these rankle F.B.I. counterterrorism agents, who believe they draw criticism for any choices they make — either for leaving cases open too long, or for closing cases that don’t seem to have enough evidence.

Don Borelli, a retired F.B.I. counterterrorism supervisor in New York, said there was a danger in criticizing agents who close investigations for lack of evidence. “Can we allow people’s futures to be affected if there is no proven basis for it? That’s the flip side to all this,” he said.

Sally Yates, the deputy attorney general, told reporters on Monday that the Justice Department might look to adopt new procedures that would alert counterterrorism investigators if someone who had been on a terror watch list tried to buy a gun.

And if she had been alerted, then what? How would Ms. Yates use that information to prevent future shootings?

“Why did he do this?” his father asked. “He was born in America. He went to school in America. He went to college — why did he do that? I am as puzzled as you are.”

To prevent our finding answers, the gun lobby and their voice, the politicians, has led us down a number of false paths. The purpose is to misdirect us.

They want us to scatter our efforts, by asking:
–“Why did he do it?”
–“What can be done about terrorism?”
–“What can be done about mass murder?”
–“What can be done about undocumented immigrants?”
–“What can be done about Muslims?”
–“What can be done about the mentally unstable?”
–“What can be done about hatred and bigotry?”
–“What can be done to preserve gun rights?”

Thousands of Americans are shot every year. Only a tiny percentage are shot by terrorists, mass murderers, the mentally unstable, undocumented foreigners, Muslims, or bigots. The vast majority of shootings are done by people who do not fit into any of the above categories.

The shooters are people who suddenly get angry, or who want to steal something, or who are part of a street gang guarding its turf. They are husbands and wives and children. They are smart and stupid.

Trying to solve the problems of terrorism, mass murder, the mentally unstable, etc., will make only the most minuscule difference in the overall shooting statistics. Each of these problems is more a diversion than a path to a solution.

That is the gun lobby’s plan. Change the subject. Change the focus, so no solution can be found.

The gun lobby doesn’t want you to know this, but the one common denominator for those thousand of American shootings is the easy availability of guns.

Anyone in America can buy a gun. Even if you are a convicted sex offender, multiple murderer, proven terrorist, child molester out on bail, you easily and legally can buy a gun.

Simply go to a gun show. Simply buy one online. Simply buy one from your neighbor or from a stranger in the street.

There is one, and only one way to reduce the vast number of gun murders: Reduce the availability of guns. Period.

Today, we hear politicians and media pundits debating everything from terrorism to insanity, pretending they are looking for solutions to all the gun murders. It’s all a facade, a pretense.

It’s like preventing dog bites by putting up a “no-collies allowed” sign. Even if the sign worked, and you eliminated all collies, there still will be thousands of dog bites.

The only way dramatically to reduce the number of shootings is to reduce the availability of guns as described in: Five Solutions to Gun Violence:

–Interpret the Constitution properly
–Remove the profit motive from gun manufacture and sales
–Eliminate gangs
–Greater penalties for gun carry during felonies
–Make gun ownership expensive; tax and license gun ownership

If we don’t do this, the gun lobby will continue to have us chasing our tails, searching in the wrong places for small solutions to small problems, while the big problem continues to bedevil us.

We return to the question that started this post: Does the American public really wish to reduce gun violence, or does it prefer to address small side problems, while pretending it is doing something about the main cause of gun violence?

=Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
===================================================================================
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 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-tranferring 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 an 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.
========================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Recessions begin an average of 2 years after the blue line first dips below zero. A common phenomenon is for the line briefly to dip below zero, then rise above zero, before falling dramatically below zero. There was a brief dip below zero in 2015, followed by another dip – the familiar pre-recession pattern.
Recessions are cured by a rising red line.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

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

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Mitchell’s laws:
•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes..
•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

A note of compassion to poor, old Charles Krauthammer

I feel great compassion for the “tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of some teeming shore, the homeless, and tempest-tost.”

So how could I not feel the same compassion for Republicans that columnist Charles Krauthammer feels?

To say he tilts right is to say Serena Williams plays tennis. She really, really plays tennis, and he really, really falls over to the right.

Today, his article titled, “Definitely not Paul Ryan’s favorite part of the party,” lamented Donald Trump’s rise to the top of the Republican party and how this was so sad for Ryan, for the Republican Party, and for Krauthammer.

The morning after, the nation awakes asking: What have we done?

Both parties seem intent on throwing the election away.

Whom do the Republicans put up? They had 17 candidates. Any of a dozen could have taken down the near-fatally weak Clinton, unloved, untrusted, living under the shadow of an FBI investigation.

Any of a dozen? Is he talking about the worst, tone-deaf, mean-spirited, bigoted assemblage of men and women ever to grace the election debate stage? Good heavens, where is Sarah Palin when we need her? Her ignorance would be a vast improvement.

Instead, they nominate Donald Trump — conspiracy theorist (from Barack Obama’s Kenyan birth to Ted Cruz’s father’s involvement with Lee Harvey Oswald), fabulist (from his own invented opposition to the Iraq War and the Libya intervention to the “thousands and thousands” of New Jersey Muslims celebrating 9/11), admirer of strongmen (from Vladimir Putin to the butchers of Tiananmen).

His outrageous provocations have been brilliantly sequenced so that the shock of the new extinguishes the memory of the last.

Though perhaps not his most recent — his gratuitous attack on a “Mexican” federal judge (born and bred in Indiana) for inherent bias because of his ethnicity.

“Textbook racism,” averred Speaker Paul Ryan.. Even Trump acolyte and possible running mate Newt Gingrich called it inexcusable.

Trump promptly doubled down, expanding the universe of the not-to-be-trusted among us by adding American Muslims to the list of those who might be inherently biased.

Yet Trump is the party’s chosen. He won the primary contest fair and square. The people have spoken. What to do?

Well, apparently “what to do” requires massive, right-wing denial. The Republicans lapped up Trump’s “birther” lies like starving dogs around the meat bowl.

In bemoaning Trump’s obvious bigotry, the Republicans love to refer to themselves as the “party of Lincoln,” the legendary President who freed the slaves from bigoted slaveholders.

Republicans are as much the “party of Lincoln” as (to continue the sports metaphor) the so-far, hapless Chicago Cubs are the team of Mordecai (three-finger) Brown, the legendary star of the Cubs’ last championship, way back in 1908.

We’re talking about the Republican Party that during the Nixon years, invented the “Southern Strategy,” the political action designed to take advantage of inherent Southern bigotry.

We’re talking about the Republican Party that lost any moral standing, when it allowed itself to be taken over by the Tea Party, whose fundamental purpose was, and remains, to cut spending for programs that benefit the middle and lower income groups, and to cut taxes on the rich.

We’re talking about the Republican party, so saturated with hatred for Obama and the poor, that Republican governors forced their residents to pay billions more in taxes, just so the poor could not benefit from Medicaid expansion.

We’re talking about a right-wing Supreme Court, so enamored of the rich, that it decided money is free speech, and corporations actually are people whose religious beliefs take precedence over the religious beliefs of their employees. — a Supreme Court whose spiritual leader regularly accepted “gifts” from wealthy potential litigants.

The Republicans main objection to Trump’s disgraceful and cowardly wall, and his plan to destroy poor families by rounding up and deporting 11 million men, women, and children (many of whom would be American citizens), had nothing to do with immorality. The right-wing was concerned (mildly) about the cost.

In right wing morals: Guns are wonderful, but browns and blacks and gays and transgenders and yellows and Muslims and undocumented immigrant families are evil.

We’re talking about a Republican party that has indoctrinated its “base” with lies about immigrant criminality, while also lying that the rich are “makers” and the poor are “takers.”

So why has Trump, a wealthy bigot, now come as such a shock to Republicans and specifically to Krauthammer? Trump is their own Frankenstein monster, desired, bought, and paid for.

First, dare to say that the people aren’t always right. Surely Republicans admit the possibility. Or do they believe the people chose rightly in electing Obama?

Or even more aptly, did the people choose right (far right) in electing Bush, the abominable liar, who caused the Great Recession, and whose Iraq war has infected and will continue to infect the Middle East for generations?

I sympathize with the dilemma of Republican leaders reluctant to affirm. Many are as appalled as I am by Trump, but they don’t have the freedom I do to say, as I have publicly, that I cannot imagine ever voting for him. They have unique party and institutional responsibilities.

Phooey! There is no “dilemma” and there are no “unique responsibilities.” Today’s Republican party cares only to win at all costs, even at the cost of America.

How else can you describe the unprecedented refusal even to consider any Obama Supreme Court nominee, for at least a year?

How else can you describe repeated threats to enforce the ridiculous debt ceiling, and bring the nation to its knees?

How else can you describe fifty (or is it sixty) votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act (i.e Romneycare), while having no plan for a replacement?

Perhaps my memory is wanting, and perhaps you will assist me, but can you name one Republican action that was meant to benefit the poor, the black, the brown, or any member of the underclass as opposed to benefiting the rich?

If Krauthammer is “appalled by Trump,” he should have been appalled by a Republican Party of rich bigots, who took over well before Trump emerged.

For some, that meant endorsing Trump in the belief that they might be able to contain, constrain, guide and perhaps even educate him. To my mind, this thinking has always been hopelessly misbegotten but not necessarily — nor in all cases — venal.

He thinks some Republicans hoped to “contain, constrain, guide and perhaps educate” Trump? Oh, puleeze. Do you really believe any had such a hope? Their only — ONLY — concern is that he can’t win, because the American public is not so stupid as to vote for him. The minute they believe he is a winner, they all will come a’kissing up.

Which brings us to the matter of Paul Ryan, now being excoriated by many conservatives for having said he would vote for Trump.

Yet what was surprising was not Ryan’s ever-so-tepid semi-endorsement, which was always inevitable and unavoidable — but his initial refusal to endorse Trump when, after the Indiana primary, nearly everyone around him was falling mindlessly, some shamelessly, into line.

In the end, Ryan called an armistice. What was he to do? Oppose and resign? And then what? What would remain of conservative leadership in the GOP? And if he created a permanent split in the party, he’d be setting up the GOP’s entire conservative wing as scapegoat if Trump loses in November.

Ryan had no good options. He chose the one he felt was least damaging to the conservative cause to which he has devoted his entire adult life.

How heroic of Ryan. He said, “No,” for moral reasons, but in the end, he said “Yes,” to save the conservative wing — the conservative wing for which compassion and morality are alien terms??? Ah, the lying never ends.

And who will be the scapegoat if Trump WINS in November? Who will admit, “We elected the worst human being in America to be President, but at least we defeated Hillary and we won the Presidency. And after all, that’s the only thing that counts, isn’t it?”

One day, we shall all have to account for what we did and what we said in this scoundrel year. For now, we each have our conscience to attend to.

Fear not, Charles. Conscience is of least concern to today’s Republican party, the party not of Lincoln, but of Nixon and Bush.

Now get out there and deport the Mexican parents of American children.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
===================================================================================
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 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

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Trump’s Top 25: Lies, Incompetence and Bigotry

Mitt Romney’s campaign was felled by his “47%” remark.

Newt Gingrich, resigned from the House after an affair with his intern while married to his second wife.

Sarah Palin’s interviews with Katie Couric revealed the utter incompetence that helped her lead the Republican party to an election disaster.

Yet not one of these politicians, nor any other in American history, has combined the lying, incompetence, and mean-spirited bigotry of a Donald Trump.

His transgressions arrive so often — seemingly on a daily basis — they form a swirling fog of ugliness, impossible to visualize or characterize in one word or idea.

Any one of the following 25 “qualities” would disqualify a normal person from ever being President. But Trump is abnormal, at least in America, though perhaps more typical for countries with historically autocratic leanings.

The following “list of shame” is nowhere near complete. The campaign still is young, and Trump too, is relatively young, so the list surely will grow.

But perhaps it might help to clarify the strange and frightening world of Donald Trump:

Insults all who dare to disagree with him, by calling them childish names.
Disparages Latinos, especially Mexicans.
Claims he somehow will find, wrest from their homes, and deport 11 million men, women, and children, even those who are American citizens.
Disparages American-born citizens if they are of Mexican heritage.
Would ban all Muslims (exception his “rich, Muslim friends”).
Will deny gays equality.
Insults women whom he decides are not beautiful or otherwise pleasing to him.
Plans to construct a coward’s wall behind which, he wants Americans to hide.
Cheated on his first wife and reportedly, his second wife, too.
Created an organization, Trump University, using lies and high-pressure sales tactics to cheat students.
Said America should cheat its creditors via bankruptcy and similar renegotiation devices, as he often did.
Said he stands behind no proposals, only “flexible suggestions.”
Repeatedly flip-flops his proposals, i.e. “flexible suggestions.”
Is a compulsive and pathological liar
Wants to break up NATO
Claims his knowledge of Russia comes from running a Miss Universe contest.
Praises, and receives praise, not from his own party, but from Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, while disparaging President Obama
Gladly accepted praise from the Ku Klux Klan
Plans to remove the troops protecting South Korea
Continues to deny the conclusive evidence showing President Obama is an American
Would allow people to carry any kind of gun they want, everywhere.
Advocates violating international law by torturing prisoners
Lied about revealing his tax returns.
Never has served in any elected office, nationally or locally, but claims he needs no advice on foreigh policy, because he has a “good brain.”
Repeatedly sends childish and insulting Twitter messages.

And then there’s this:

Psychologically, Trump is a teenager, an unstable bully, quick to anger, slow to admit error, a child who craves only glory, while lacking common sense, compassion and the will to learn.

He demands we trust him to rest his finger on the nuclear button, but like a recalcitrant child, he belligerently demands that his parents trust him to drink, stay out late and drive the family car.

He has very many characteristics of a banana republic despot, but none for America’s highest office.

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

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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