Tag: Ten Steps to Prosperity

Three things to remember as you watch Trump, Clinton speeches

Soon you will hire someone for the difficult job of being President of the U.S. As with any talent hunt, you’ll want to take into consideration certain key factors, while eliminating extraneous factors.

For example, the ability to be a good President does not rely on who cheated on a spouse, or who stole money. Personal morality never has been a good measure of Presidential effectiveness.

(Lyndon Johnson, for instance, may have been one of our least moral, but most effective, Presidents.)

Though the “job interview” speeches may seem complex, with both candidates offering excessive solutions to non-problems and bashing the other candidate for trivial offenses.

But it’s quite simple, really. There are three, and only three, issues:

1. The single biggest problem facing the U.S. economy and the world’s economy is: The Gap between the rich/powerful, and the rest, is too wide and continues to widen. (See: This is the single biggest problem facing America)

The Gap is responsible for our most serious ills:

  • Poverty: “Poor” is a relative term. The rich/powerful always have sucked the best out of the economy, leaving only the dregs for the rest.
  • Street crime: Have you noticed that most street (as opposed to white collar) crime occurs in poor neighborhoods and/or by poor people? Having little wealth and power, and with no hope of obtaining more, the poor resort to physical crime.
  • Gun violence: Street crime not only includes gun violence, but fear of street crime breeds the need for guns, which breeds more gun violence.
  • Poor health and early death: Unaffordable health care and bad (but cheap) food, shorten lives.
  • Lack of education: No one knows how many millions of children are born with native intelligence, but are unable to use that intelligence because they cannot afford a good education. The cost to America’s growth, well-being, power and prosperity is immeasurable.

By enabling poverty, street crime, gun violence, poor health, early death, and lack of education, the Gap adversely affects everyone — the entire nation — even including the rich.

When you listen to each of the candidates’ proposals, ask yourself this: Will this proposal help narrow the Gap between the rich/powerful, and the rest?

2. The single biggest Lie about our economy is: “Federal taxes fund federal spending.” (See: Monetary Sovereignty and Free Lunch)

This “Big Lie leads to:

  • Unnecessary, regressive taxes: The FICA tax, which purportedly funds Medicare and Social Security, in reality, funds neither. Even if FICA were eliminated, Medicare and Social Security could continue paying benefits, forever. The only thing FICA (and sales taxes, and income taxes on the non-rich accomplish is to widen the Gap)
  • Unnecessary reductions in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs. The false belief that the federal government “can’t afford” these programs, leads to ongoing attempts to reduce benefits.
  • Lack of federal spending to support infrastructure, research & development, scientific progress, and education.

When you listen to each of the candidates’ proposals, ask yourself this: Will this proposal reduce FICA, sales taxes and/or income taxes on the non-rich? Will it increase funding for social programs and science?

3. The single biggest consideration about the candidates is: What are their qualifications?

  • Will they do what they say they will do? What is their history? Whether in business or in government service, have they done what they promised to do?
  • What is their experience? When hiring for any job, past experience is one of the most important attributes a candidate can have.
  • Are their proposals truly feasible? One can promise to bring everlasting peace, and defeat all our enemies, but is this reality?
  • What is the nature of their lies? All politicians lie. The real question is not whether they lie, or even how much they lie, but how will their lies affect you? A lie about a personal indiscretion is much less important than a lie about one’s experience.

When you listen to each of the candidates’ proposals, as yourself this: Considering the nature of the candidate, is this proposal possible or even likely to occur?

In summary, ask yourself three simple questions:

  1. Will this proposal help narrow the Gap between the rich/powerful, and the rest?
  2. Will this proposal reduce FICA, sales taxes and/or income taxes on the non-rich? Will it increase funding for social programs and science?
  3. Considering the nature of the candidate, is this proposal possible or even likely to occur?

Those questions will help you wade through the clutter, the obfuscations, the personal insults and the moral digressions, and decide who should be President of the United States.

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.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

How ignorance will “make America weak, again.”

The federal government’s finances are different from yours. They also are different from your city’s, county’s, and state’s finances.

Before the U.S. existed, there was no dollar. The U.S. dollar is an arbitrary creation of U.S. laws, which in turn are arbitrary creations of the U.S. government.  The dollar is exactly what the government’s arbitrary laws say it is.

At various times, U.S. laws arbitrarily have valued the U.S. dollar at  .0515616 tr (troy ounces) of gold, .0483742 tr, .0483091 tr,  .0285714 tr, and other weights.

These official weights were part of gold standards.Today, there is no official dollar evaluation relative to gold.

While we say that gold backed the dollar, in reality, the U.S. government could have removed that backing any time it wished — and it did several times, the most recent on August 15, 1971, when President Nixon finally and permanently took us off the gold standard.

We stressed the word “arbitrary”  to show that gold never has provided safety for dollars.  Gold backed the dollar only at the whim of the government.

Unlike you and your local governments, the U.S. government never can run short of its own sovereign currency, the dollar. It creates dollars at will. It is Monetarily Sovereign.

So long as the government can create new laws, it can create new dollars.

(And it can prevent/cure inflation by increasing the Demand for dollars via interest rate control.)

In summary, the U.S. has total control over its dollar supply and the value of its sovereign currency. It never needs to ask anyone for dollars. Which brings us to the following article:

Japanese will ‘watch Sony TV’ if US is attacked

“You know we have a treaty with Japan, where if Japan is attacked, we have to use the full force and might of the United States,” Donald Trump said.

“If we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to do anything. They can sit home and watch Sony television, OK?”

Trump added that the United States protects Japan, South Korea, Germany, Saudi Arabia and other nations, and “they don’t pay anything near what it costs.”

“They have to pay. Because this isn’t 40 years ago.  It’s got to be a two-way street.”

Japan’s alliance with Washington has been the bedrock of its defense since the end of World War II, and the country still hosts 47,000 US troops.

Trump stirred international concern in April by stressing that NATO member states should begin paying their “fair share,” and that Japan and South Korea must be prepared to arm themselves to deter a threat from North Korea.

“It could be that Japan will have to defend itself against North Korea,” Trump said Friday. “You always have to be prepared to walk. I don’t think we’ll walk, I don’t think it’s going to be necessary. It could be, though.”

We don’t invest in our allies out of the sheer goodness of our hearts. There are many political, military and strategical advantages for the U.S. to protect NATO nations and our other allies.

They provide air bases, and rocket sites, as well as financial and military cooperation in isolating rogue nations and fighting other enemies. Aid to our allies is a very good investment, indeed.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump, the man who refuses to ask for advice because he “has a very good brain,” the man who claims to know more than our generals — this man apparently has no understanding of why the U.S. invests in our allies.

He wants to make them think we’ll “walk” at any time, so they will have no trust in us.

Not living up to his promises is the way Trump always has done his business — cheating those who invested their time and their money in him.

Perhaps not paying laborers their salaries, and not paying creditors their due, worked in Trump’s businesses, but cheating fellow nations wouldn’t work for us.

After time, we would be branded as unreliable, and find ourselves isolated in the world.

More importantly, we don’t need the money Trump wants our allies to pay. Unlike Trump, who needs income to support his lavish lifestyle, the U.S. is Monetarily Sovereign. We can continue spending forever, and never ask taxpayers for one additional dollar.

In fact, even if all federal taxes fell to $0, the U.S. government could double spending and still never run short of dollars.

So giving our allies an ultimatum that offers no benefit for us, displays monumental ignorance — not just ignorance, but dangerous ignorance.

Trump relies on the ignorance of the public, but ignorance has its penalties.

Trump would “make America weak again.”

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.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Commitment denial: A story of cardiologists and economists

You may have noticed on this site, repeated examples of economists parroting the Big Lies in economics: Federal taxes fund federal spending, federal deficit spending is “unsustainable,” Medicare and Social Security are running short of money.

We never have seen a precise explanation for “unsustainable,” but we expect the economists want you to believe some combination of:
–The U.S. federal government is running short of its own sovereign currency, the dollar
–Taxpayers pay for federal spending
–Deficit spending causes inflations
–Deficit spending causes recessions and depressions
–At some unknown future time, the federal government will not be able to pay off its debts

All of the above are false.

The facts are: The U.S. government cannot run short of dollars; taxpayers do not pay for federal spending; deficit spending doesn’t cause inflations; deficit spending prevents and cures recessions and depressions; the federal government could pay off all its debt tomorrow.

Why do many economists, who of all people should know better, disseminate harmful myths about our economy?

In previous posts we have attributed the Big Lies to bribery by the rich — specifically those people who want to widen the Income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest. (Without the Gap, no one would be rich — we all would be the same — and the wider the Gap, the richer they are.)

The rich bribe economists by employing them in “think tanks” and by making donations to their universities.

There may, however, be an additional factor: Commitment denial

Are Good Doctors Bad for Your Health?
New York Times, by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, 11/15/15

“Get me the best cardiologist” is our natural response to any heart problem. Unfortunately, it is probably wrong.

One of the more surprising research papers published recently appeared in JAMA Internal Medicine. It examined 10 years of data involving tens of thousands of hospital admissions.

It found that patients with acute, life-threatening cardiac conditions did better when the senior cardiologists were out of town.

And this was at the best hospitals in the United States, our academic teaching hospitals.

As the article concludes, high-risk patients with heart failure and cardiac arrest, hospitalized in teaching hospitals, had lower 30-day mortality when cardiologists were away from the hospital attending national cardiology meetings.

And the differences were not trivial — mortality decreased by about a third for some patients when those top doctors were away.

The research began as an investigation of how much harm cardiology meetings did (by calling doctors away from their hospitals), and instead found that heart patients did better when the hospitals’ best cardiologists were away!

There were several speculations about why this might be true:

One possible explanation is that while senior cardiologists are great researchers, the junior physicians — recently out of training — may actually be more adept clinically.

Another potential explanation is that senior cardiologists try more interventions.

When the cardiologists were around, patients in cardiac arrest, for example, were significantly more likely to get interventions, like stents, to open up their coronary blood vessels.

We usually think more treatment means better treatment.

We often forget that every test and treatment can go wrong, produce side effects or lead to additional interventions that themselves can go wrong.

The point of this post is not specifically to discuss medicine, for which I have very little background. Instead, the point is to discuss the medical establishment’s response to this research: Commitment denial.

When the AMA and several doctors were questioned about the research results, the responses could be summarized as, “We’re pleased that doctors made sure their staff was fully prepared.”

Get it? Rather than worry about why such results occurred, they tried a “lemons into lemonade” approach, in effect claiming that greater mortality with top doctors was a good thing.

Also, they questioned the research itself, and seem less concerned about the possibility the research may have uncovered a real problem.

Doctors themselves intuitively believed the results were impossible. And why should they not?

They have devoted their entire lives to the “self-evident” postulate that better, more experienced doctors always create better patient outcomes.

They are committed to denying otherwise.

In the same vein, many economists have devoted their lives to the belief that federal taxpayers, (like state and local taxpayers) fund their governments’ spending, and that deficits and debts are economically bad.

To them, it’s “self evident.” No proof needed, and no contrary evidence accepted.

Economists have written papers and read papers on the subject, given speeches and heard speeches , attended meetings and had informal discussions with fellow economists, received awards for their hypotheses, taught classes and corrected students who said otherwise — day after day after day — all of which have solidified their beliefs.

In short, the economists, like the doctors, are not just financially committed, but also emotionally committed to their versions of the Big Lie.

You probably have not heard much about the above-mentioned medical research. The doctors and media don’t discuss it.

Nor have you heard much about the Big Lies in economics. The economists and media don’t discuss them.

They believe what they believe, and anything that disagrees “obviously” is wrong.

Each group of doctors and economists fervently prays the data simply will disappear — the head-in-sand approach, though in each case, the data point to ways in which physical and financial lives may be saved.

In human psychology, a saved life sometimes is less valuable than a saved self-image.

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.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Medicare for Education: The “Free College” promise could come true

The web site, “Reason.com,” published an article titled, “Hillary Clinton’s Free College Promise Won’t Be Free—and Won’t Help College Students.”

The article is right — and wrong — and if you’re interested or confused about the “Free College” promise, here are some excerpts from the article:

“It’s just not right that Donald Trump can ignore his debts and students and families can’t refinance theirs,” Hillary Clinton said during her acceptance speech Thursday night.

She specifically name-checked Sanders and promised to work with him “to make college tuition free for the middle class and debt free for all.”

Actually, she and Bernie are on somewhat different paths. She even is on a different path from herself.

She spoke about refinancing debt, which is a long way from “debt free for all.”  For example, in the past few years, as interest rates fell, millions of people refinanced their mortgages, but that didn’t mean they were “debt free.”

By contrast, Bernie really did suggest free college, though supposedly (and erroneously) “paid for” by taxes.

The attack on Trump here is something of a non sequitur.

Sure, Trump may have overused and even abused America’s bankruptcy laws, but there’s actually an important reason why student loan debt can’t be wiped out in bankruptcy court while the debt of poorly run casinos can.

When a person or business goes through bankruptcy, there are physical assets that can be sold and used to pay lenders.

The bankruptcy process is meant to bring both sides to the table to work out a middle ground. Lenders get something back, and borrowers have to pay what they can.

There are no physical assets in student loan debt.

A college grad with $100,000 in unpaid loans can’t slice off a portion of their knowledge or experience and sell it, any more than they can hand over a portion of the better economic opportunities they have because of a college degree.

The explanation is wrong. Many people, who have no assets, go bankrupt every year. For them, the purpose of bankruptcy is to give them a fresh start, and not to be indebted forever.

So yes, the student loan laws could be amended to allow for bankruptcy, rather than the permanent, “indentured servant” system now in place.

America is damaged when its educated students are hamstrung by debt much of their lives, unable start a family, unable to use their education to create new business opportunities, unable to work in the lower-paid sciences or teaching, because they need to earn more to pay their debts.

To anyone who graduated in the last decade, during which tuition costs have skyrocketed, the idea of “free” or “debt free” college tuition probably sounds great.

But attempts by state and federal government to lower the cost of college have contributed mightily to the high cost of attending post-secondary school.

Government subsidies have hidden the price of college and broken the market forces that would naturally keep tuition costs down, allowing universities to charge pretty much whatever they want.

This is identical with the objections we all heard to Medicare: “Subsidize doctor and hospital bills, and doctors and hospitals will charge whatever they want.”

But, in fact, the opposite happened. Medicare has limited doctor and hospital bills.

Not that this is economically beneficial. By cutting medical bills, Medicare reduces the amount of money the federal government pumps into the economy, thereby reducing economic growth.

And the idea of “market forces that would naturally keep tuition costs down” doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.  It means that poorer students would seek out lower ranked colleges, theoretically forcing the higher ranked colleges to lower rates in order to compete.

Not only is this disgustingly elitist (Shall we also require poorer sick people to use lower ranked health care?), but colleges already compete on price, and that competition has not reduced prices.

Under a plan she announced earlier this month, anyone from a family making less than $85,000 a year would get free tuition to public universities.

(But) her vice presidential pick, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, (previously) wrote, “By making all public university education free, we’d be giving away college education to richer Americans who don’t need the assistance paying for it.”

So, does this mean a family making $86,000 a year should not receive free tuition?  Should we set up an income “no-man’s land,” whereby no one wishes to earn $86,000 – $126,000?

This would be yet another instance of Congressional “fine tuning” that creates more problems than it solves.

The entire discussion of “free college” would greatly be simplified if it revolved around two facts:

  1. College education is just as important to America today, as was high school education yesterday, and elementary school education before then.

    The world has become much more complex, much more technical, and for America to retain its leadership, we must ensure that all those who want a college education get it.

  2. The federal government has the unlimited ability to fund college for everyone. There is no benefit to America in limiting anyone’s financial ability to attend college. Taxpayers do not fund federal spending.

    There is no reason not to “give away college education to richer Americans who don’t need the assistance paying for it.”

    The money enters the economy, thereby stimulating the economy, benefitting many Americans.

    At any rate, “family income” is a horrible way to measure one’s ability to pay for college.

    It is a measure that does not consider the varying costs of living in different geographical areas, the number and ages of people in the family, the family’s wealth, the family’s other financial obligations, the family’s health — a whole host of considerations that are not considered by family income.

What should be done: In the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below), Steps #4 (FREE EDUCATION, INCLUDING POST-GRAD, FOR EVERYONE) and #5 (SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL) describe in more detail, a financial plan for education.

Medicare already has solved many of the functional problems for us. It shows how the government can fund an important function, in this case, healthcare, in an evenhanded, highly beneficial way.

We should institute a “Medicare for education” plan, without the FICA and the age limits.

The government can afford it.
The country needs it.
Medicare has shown us how to do it.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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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.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY