Tag: Ten Steps to Prosperity

Why do you believe what you believe? “It’s not my fault.”

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

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Why do you believe what you believe? “It’s not my fault.”

You know millions, billions, even trillions of things. You know humans are causing global warming — or not. You know the sun causes skin cancer. You know you will die before the age of 110. You know God is good — or bad, or doesn’t exist.

You know a butterfly is yellow, because you see it. It looks a certain color, and you have come to know that color as “yellow.”

Except the butterfly isn’t yellow. Rather, gray scales on the butterfly’s wings affect light waves that you interpret as yellow.)

You know Donald . . . or uh, wait, Hillary . . . is the greatest thing since the P&J sandwich.

Why do you know these things?

Why do you know the sun causes skin cancer? You know it because years ago you read it in a trusted source. Then you heard it often again, and the repetition  caused you to believe it more and more until you know it.

But how does a source become trusted? 

Steve Benen, Rachel Maddow blog: A reality-based observer might note, for example, that the unemployment rate has dropped sharply under President Obama.

And the budget deficit has shrunk. And government spending has leveled off.  And murder rates are down.

And border security has tightened as the number of undocumented immigrants entering the United States has declined.

And voter fraud hardly ever happens anywhere in the United States.

Many rank-and-file conservatives will, with great sincerity, insist that each of these claims is wrong.

Independent news organizations, citing official data, will routinely tell the public about important developments surrounding, say, job creation.

But for much of the right, independent media outlets are corrupt and untrustworthy; official figures from the government are extensions of some kind of conspiracy to mislead the public; and they know in their guts that job creation is collapsing, evidence be damned.

Are Steve Benen’s statements true? Are he and Rachel Maddow trusted sources? Why or why not?

Here are the results of a Gallup survey:

The military is trusted far more than Congress and the President, though the military does exactly what Congress and the President authorize.

Religion is more trusted than Newspapers and Television news, though religion deals in unproven, unscientific myths, while Newspapers and TV are where we receive much of our fact-based news.

Banks are trusted more than Organized labor, though it was Banks that primarily were responsible for, and profited from, the “Great Recession,” while labor merely suffered.

Why? What is the source of our trust?

The Truth Is Out There in 2016. Way Out There.

Allan Thiel knows that President Barack Obama is a foreign-born Muslim who cheated his way into the presidency in order to promote a globalist “utopia.”

Thiel waits on the floor of the Greenville, N.C., convention center for Donald Trump to take the stage, holding up his phone so others can see the latest headline he had just read: “Obama Announces Plans for a Third Term Presidential Run.”

He believes that climate change is a hoax, that Islam is being promoted in American schools and that the government has been bought out by drug cartels.

“Our country has never had any problems for the last 200 years,” he says, shaking his head. “We’ve never had a problem with guns or racism until the last eight years.”

No racial problems for 200 years, oh, except for little things like slavery, segregation, lynchings, and the Ku Klux Klan.

Theil is what is known as a True Believer. True Believers idealize the past and glorify the future. The present world is denigrated: “The radical and the reactionary loath the present.”

“Make America great, again” is designed to appeal to True Believers. In Trump’s world, the past was wonderful, and he will make the future wonderful again.  It’s just the present that is awful.

Thiel’s beliefs show up in double digits in national polls and belong to a reality shared by many Trump supporters.

Roxanne Noble, explains why she can’t ever vote Clinton: Vince Foster, a onetime White House aide, was murdered to hide the Clintons’ secrets.

Five official investigations–by U.S. Park Police, the Justice Department, House Republicans, Senate Democrats and special prosecutor Kenneth Starr–ruled Foster’s death a suicide. But there are thousands of web pages that describe fanciful Foster murder-plot conspiracies.

More crucially, Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, has spent years regularly encouraging his followers to doubt much of what is known to be true: that the earth is warming, that Obama was born in the U.S.

Back in May, Trump agreed with Noble, declaring that Foster’s death was “very fishy.”“I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder,” Trump said.

This is classic Trump, attributing conspiracies and lies to “many people.” Who are these “many people“? We never are told.

For Trump, casting doubt on what is demonstrably real and lending credence to what is not has become a core appeal of his campaign.

Trump’s central argument is that faith has been lost, and he is the only solution.

When Trump talks about a rigged system, (he is) talking about the institutions that facilitate democracy: Election Day poll workers; the Federal Reserve, which he has accused of favoring Obama; the debate moderators, who he has falsely accused of being Democrats; and the rest of the national press, which he claims function as agents of the established elite.

Reality, he argued under oath in a 2007 deposition, could be up to him. “My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings.”

Though Trump (finally) admits the truth of Obama’s birth, polls have consistently shown that 20% of Americans refuse to accept that Obama was born in the U.S.

It’s a problem of quantity as much as quality: there is simply too much information for the public to accurately metabolize.

Phony conspiracy theories are often mixed in with accurate journalism and history. People look to their social networks for information, and social networks are where conspiracy theories thrive best.

Passed from Facebook to Facebook, retweeted by thousands of anonymous accounts, ideas can spread quickly without verification or context.

People tend to share content that gets the most extreme reactions, which means a terrifying but untrue story will be shared more widely than a mildly alarming but accurate one.

Sitting at a bar in Wilmington, N.C., Gary Wilson explains (how he figures out) what to trust. “If I hear it from several different sources, I tend to believe it. Let me think about that myself, let me see if I can find that one conspiracy even slightly believable.”

The popular New World Order theory passed that litmus test: Wilson believes that global elites are conspiring with the U.N. to create a world government that will act like Big Brother to ordinary people, and that trade pacts are the first step in the process.

(The U.N. is not involved in the enforcement of trade deals, which are signed as agreements between participating nations.)

“I just believe it,” he says. “Where did I find my sources? Alex Jones is a good one.” Jones is the host of a radio show that is an entertaining mixture of outrage and conspiracy theory.

Jones has claimed that the government has poisoned juice boxes to make citizens gay, that the Bush Administration was complicit in the Sept. 11 attacks and even that Trump was a secret agent working for Clinton by sinking Republican chances of winning the White House.

“Your reputation is amazing,” Trump said on Jones’ show in December. “I will not let you down.”

Wilson says he began to notice four or five years ago that 9/11 had been an inside job after “a friend of mine turned me on to a couple websites.”

He says that if it comes down to it, he’ll have to vote for Trump. “A lot of what he says is the truth. He doesn’t bullsh-t,” Wilson says.

Repetition is important. The more you hear or read something, the more believable you will find it.

I spent my life in advertising, and I can tell you this: Advertising is based on frequency. Advertising is based on frequency. Advertising is based on frequency.

But there is a far more important factor:

Students at the University of Cape Town in South Africa think science as it is currently understood must be abolished.

“I have a question for all the science people. There is a place in KZN called Umhlab’uyalingana. They believe that through the magic’ you call it black magic’ they call it witchcraft’ you are able to send lightening to strike someone. Can you explain that scientifically because it’s something that happens?”

Many people laughed at this remark because, well, witchcraft is not something that happens. But according to the student, witchcraft is like Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity—it’s just one way of explaining the world, among many.

You may be reminded of the Evolution deniers, who say that Evolution is just one theory among many, and that the biblical version is preferable. They want schools to teach both, just as the Cape Town students want their schools to teach witchcraft.

The “fallist” rejection of science and Trump’s rejection of fact have the same underpinnings.

For many people, the facts of their life are too much to bear.  They feel life has been unfair.  And most importantly, they believe it is not their fault.

So they will accept anything, no matter how preposterous, that supports their belief that their misfortune is someone else’s fault.

Africa long has been the “poor man” of the world, a place of scientific ignorance and lack of scientific progress — but “it’s not their fault.” It’s the fault of Eurocentric science. Rather than try to lift themselves, they Cape Town students find it easier to blame science.

Unemployment, poverty, loss of status — Trump’s followers believe none of these is their own fault.

Instead, the fault lies with dishonest media, dishonest scientists, job-stealing and criminal immigrants, world trade pacts, lying and murderous Clintons, rigged elections, and an illegal, foreign-born President.

The fundamental “logic” of today’s True Believer is: “Everything ‘they’ tell me is a lie. ‘They’ lie to make my life miserable.  I don’t believe anything ‘they’ say, because ‘they’ are the devil.

“So, I will believe anything and trust anyone who claims ‘they’ are evil liars whose sole goal is to push me down, and who tells me it’s not my fault.”

Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Castro, Mao Zedong, Robert Mugabe, Pol Pot — all followed the same script: “Your lives are bad. It’s not your fault. It’s the fault of [scapegoats]. Only I can save you.“

Any time someone tells you, “It’s not your fault;” it’s the fault of [scapegoats], and “Only I can save you,” know this: You are about to be enslaved. And it will be your fault.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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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

All you ever wanted to (but wish you didn’t need to) know about Donald Trump

This is it: All you ever wanted to (but wish you didn’t need to) know about Donald Trump:

‘Bury Trump in a Landslide’:

Daily News goes nuclear on GOP

nominee

Colin Campbell October 21, 2016

This says it all.

Well, almost all. There also is this: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/perils-of-eroded-civic-knowledge-forewarned-790540867791?cid=eml_mra_20161021

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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The 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

My letter to AARP explaining the purpose of FICA

I mailed the following letter on October 18, 2016:

Robert Love
Editor in Chief
AARP The Magazine
601 E St. NW
Washington, DC 20049

Dear Mr. Love:

It is only proper that you and your magazine call for not just the survival, but the strengthening of Social Security, a call you have made many times over the years.

Ironically, in making that call you strengthen the myth that has been the cause of attacks on Social Security benefits and the increases in qualifying ages.

In your editorial titled, “Let’s Strengthen Social Security” (August/September edition), you say among other things:

“.  . . preserve Social Security, not only for those of us who have paid into the system for decades but also for our kids and grandkids.

     “ . . . fiscal and demographic challenges are bearing down on the program. Every day, 10,000 Americans turn 65, a surge that will continue for years.

     “Unless something is done, Social Security benefits could be automatically reduced in less than two decades.

     “That’s why AARP launched a Take a Stand – a national campaign to press the presidential candidates to tell voters how they’ll keep Social Security strong and solvent.

     “ . . .If our nation’s leaders don’t act, future retirees could lose nearly 25 percent of their benefits. . . the sooner the problem is fixed, the less drastic the fix will have to be.”

I emphasized the words “strong and solvent,” because they symbolize the myth that FICA funds Social Security.

The United States government is Monetarily Sovereign. It is sovereign over the U.S. dollar. The U.S. federal government never can run short of its own sovereign currency, the dollar.

The federal government creates dollars by paying bills. Every time SS pays a benefit, it sends instructions to the benefit recipient’s bank, instructing the bank to increase the balance in the recipient’s checking account. When the bank does as instructed, new dollars are created.

This has nothing to do with FICA or any other tax. Even if FICA collections were $0, and the U.S. population tripled, the federal government could continue paying SS benefits forever.

State and local governments, and you, and I are monetarily NON-sovereign. We all can run short of dollars. We can become insolvent. But, the U.S. government cannot become insolvent.

No only is the U.S. government 100% immune from insolvency, but all federal agencies are similarly immune.

There is no FICA for the White House, no FICA for Congress, no FICA for the Supreme court – all federal agencies – yet they cannot become insolvent. No federal agency can become insolvent unless Congress and the President will it.

Social Security and Medicare are federal agencies. They cannot run short of dollars unless the politicians want to reduce benefits.

And now you can see the real purpose of FICA. The real purpose is not to fund Social Security (and Medicare). The real purpose of FICA is to limit Social Security and Medicare.

The real purpose is to make Americans believe SS and Medicare are, or soon will be, short of dollars, so benefits must be reduced.

The real purpose is to widen the income/wealth/power gap between the rich and the rest.

Take just 15 minutes to read more on this subject at: “Monetary Sovereignty: The key to understanding economics” and at “I just thought you should know. Lunch really can be free”

I urge you, beg you, to please read those two short papers, familiarize yourself with Monetary Sovereignty, and tell your members the facts about Social Security: FICA can be reduced; benefits can be increased;

Only then will you be able to fulfill the generally understood purpose of AARP.

Sincerely,

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

P.S. If you would like some “Washington-based” affirmation of what I have told you, contact Professor Stephanie Kelton. She not only is the Chair of the Economics Department at UMKC, but she is the Chief Economist for the Democratic Minority Staff of the Senate Budget Committee.

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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

–Donald Trump’s secret religion

–Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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Donald Trump has a secret.

I read an article written by one of the trainers who teaches airport dogs how to signal the presence of drugs.

The dog repeatedly is given a reward for success. But you knew that, didn’t you?

What you may not have known is (according to this trainer) the best reward is not food. The best reward is play.  The best reward is fun. The best reward is approval.

The trainer carries a ball, and each time the dog does what is wanted, the trainer tosses the ball in a game of “fetch.” Apparently, dogs love play, fun, and approval so much, they will choose fetch over food treats.

People are like that, although in a special “people” way. We genetically are predisposed toward fun, excitement, competition, and victory.

Visualize the fans at a football game. They feel powerful emotions.  They are elated or very angry. They scream themselves hoarse.

People don’t do that over food.

If you were floating above the stadium, and looking down, you saw people screaming and flailing their arms, you might have thought they are stupid or insane.

And you would be right. They have, in fact, lost their rational minds. Their rational minds know that the game’s results will have little effect on their lives. But their irrational mind cares greatly.

Or think about a rock concert and the screaming fans. They barely can hear the music, but they are “there,” in the presence of “the man.” They are part of a special group.

The rapper grabs his crotch and the people think — no, “think” is the wrong word — the people feel as though in the presence of God, and His word is truth.

They not only have lost their ratonal minds during the event, but later they still will have powerful, illogical beliefs about the band and the star. Their love for him might be the greatest love they ever have felt.

Now visualize the “fans” at a Donald Trump event. The people are elated or angry, and always highly emotional. They lean on his every word, his every gesture.

Trump gives them what they crave. He gives them enemies to hate. He gives them hope. He sneers. He mugs for them. He gestures like a rock star, and they scream in appreciation for being “in” on his “special” message, just for them.

He speaks to them in a special, private code.

They don’t care about the words or even the “music.” They crave the experience of being in the cult.

Logical argument does not have the same impact. A professor, speaking to a class, does not generate the same emotions.

No sane person believes Trump emotionally, experientially, or intellectually is qualified to be President of the United States. He has every bad attribute — a liar, a womanizer, ignorant, inexperienced, egomaniacal, hate-mongering, emotionally immature, bigoted.

Like a rock star’s fans, Trump’s fans simply don’t care. 

Provide absolute proof of his deceptions and incompetence, and they will grow angry. They don’t want to hear it. Even when Trump himself admits to groping women, and later denies it, his fans believe his denials. No logic there.

Trump said it, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” He is right. His fans would created excuses for his actions.

When a rock star takes drugs, gets drunk in public, trashes hotel rooms, beats his girlfriend, fires a gun, or commits other atrocities, he retains much of his fan base, because he makes them part of his game. They are “in” and the rest of the world is out.

They love belonging to his special faction. They cannot leave the sect, for to do so would make them empty, alone, and friendless, bereft of the approving society they desperately need.

These followers are, what Eric Hoffer termed, “true believers.”

Wikipedia: Hoffer states that mass movements begin with a widespread “desire for change” from discontented people who place their control outside their power and who also have no confidence in existing culture or traditions.

Believing there is no hope for advancement or satisfaction as an individual, true believers are ripe to participate in a movement that offers the option of subsuming their individual lives in a larger collective.

Leaders are vital in the growth of a mass movement, but for the leader to find any success, the seeds of the mass movement must already exist in people’s hearts.

The “New Poor” are the most likely source of converts for mass movements, for they recall their former wealth with resentment and blame others for their current misfortune.

Example: The  working-classes in Germany who passionately supported Hitler in the 1930s after suffering years of economic hardship.

While mass movements idealize the past and glorify the future, the present world is denigrated: “The radical and the reactionary loath the present.”

Thus, by regarding the modern world as vile and worthless, mass movements inspire a perpetual battle against the present.

True believers respond to the slogan “Make America great, again,” because it perfectly idealizes the past and glorifies the future. 

Mass movements aggressively promote the use of doctrines that elevate faith over reason and serve as “fact-proof screens between the faithful and the realities of the world.

Reasonable people wonder why Trump’s followers seem immune to facts. Almost every day Trump says something blatantly untrue, or completely outrageous. Yet he is Teflon.  His followers ignore his lies, and tell themselves “what he really meant.”

They are true believers.

To spread and reinforce their doctrine, mass movements use persuasion, coercion, and proselytization.

Persuasion must be thrilling enough to excite the listener yet vague enough to allow “the frustrated to… hear the echo of their own musings in the impassioned double talk.

“I was going to say ‘dummy’ Bush; I won’t say it. I won’t say it,” Trump said in January.

“I promised I would not say that Carly Fiorina ran Hewlett-Packard into the ground, that she laid off tens of thousands of people and she got viciously fired. I said I will not say it, so I will not say it.”

“I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead, I will only call her a lightweight reporter!”

“Unlike others, I never attacked dopey Jon Stewart for his phony last name. Would never do that!”

Trump’s followers love the joke.  They howl in laughter. They are “in” with him.

Donald Trump’s secret is that he taps into the needs and hungers of true believers.

Trump’s followers, like the airport dogs, need to be thrilled — and double-talked.

At a recent rally in Fresno, Trump stated that, despite five years of low rainfall in California, “There is no drought. They turn the water into the ocean. If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water so that you can have your farmers survive.”

Now, this is a very confusing statement. What could he mean? Go ahead and choose your answer to this multiple-choice problem.

If you click the above link, you will find different answers to what Trump might have meant with his double-talk.

But it doesn’t matter what Trump “really” meant, or whether he meant anything at all. Each of his true believers hears what he wants to hear. That is the magic of double-talk.

Successful mass movements need not believe in a god, but they must believe in a devil. Hatred unifies the true believers, and “the ideal devil is a foreigner” attributed with nearly supernatural powers of evil.

For Trump, such “foreigners” as Muslims, Mexicans, immigrants, all Latinos and “the media” are devils — all to be hated. He also termed Hillary Clinton “the devil.”

Most recently, the Mexican billionaire, Carlos Slim, joined the vast ranks of Trump’s hated devils.

There is no logic to Trump — he is all emotion — so logic cannot defeat him. That is why his comments about groping women had a significant impact. These comments are illogically important.

Being a groper and a cheater does not logically affect one’s ability to run the country. But his words affected women emotionally. Too many of them have suffered from boors like Trump.

And his words affected men, who feel protective of their women. They visualize with disgust, Trump’s dirty hands on their wives and daughters.

So despite all the real, logical reasons Trump is unqualified to be President, his groping of women became the most important reason.

True believers are followers, and one thing a follower wants is to follow a winner. When the leader begins losing, the movement grinds down.

Remember what happened to Benito Mussolini, after Italy was defeated in WWII? He was shot, and his body was hung upside down in the public square. The passions he fomented turned against him.

Trump’s passionate fans will turn against him when the sanity sets in and they realize they have been conned by a man who promised much, but lied, lied, lied.

They will realize he cared only for himself, and that they were part of nothing. The “belonging” was an illusion,

And it finally will end when his true believers decide he has committed the worst sin of all: He just isn’t interesting or fun anymore. And worst, he’s a loser.

Then, they will despise him for it, and turn to another religion.

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