Why the cashless society? To track and control your life

Here are some excerpts from an interesting article in Bloomberg:

Could India Be the First to Get Rid of Cash?
JULY 20, 2016 By Mihir Sharma

“Black money” — the colloquial name for a vast network of off-the-book cash transactions and unbanked savings — is one of India’s biggest scourges.

Amounting to as much as $460 billion a year, bigger than the GDP of Argentina, all that money lies beyond the reach of the tax authorities, creditors, and anti-corruption investigators.

Half the country’s output comes from the small, informal sector, where cash transactions are the norm.

Meanwhile, taxes are cumbersome to pay and easy to avoid.

To collect revenue, India’s government has to rely on indirect levies such as sales and excise taxes, which are distortionary and regressive, rather than on income tax.

Direct taxes contribute only 35 percent of the take in India.

Tax evasion has been a hot-button political issue in India for at least a decade. The anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal — now chief minister of the Indian capital Delhi — made headlines when he accused top politicians and businessmen of having illegal offshore accounts.

Belgium, for example, which has the highest proportion of cashless transactions in the world — 93 percent, according to MasterCard — has banned cash payments of over 3,000 euros.

India’s many poor people and migrants still struggle to access its chronically inefficient banking system, despite the government’s efforts at reform.

If presented with an easy and frictionless way of transferring cash, there’s no reason to think consumers wouldn’t embrace it quickly.

As cash gets used for fewer and fewer transactions, it will become easier for authorities to crack down on tax evasion.

The “cashless society” is proposed as an innocent, money-saving convenience, especially for poor people, and as a way to reduce corrupt tax avoidance. Thus, the “cashless society” is described as a morally and economically good program.

But its real purpose, its insidious purpose, is control.

Consider that India is Monetarily Sovereign. Its currency is the rupee (worth about $.15).

Being Monetarily Sovereign, India has the unlimited ability to pay any bill denominated in rupees.

Even if India stopped taxing altogether, it could continue spending forever. It never would run short of rupees.

Monetarily Sovereign entities do not need income so long as their currency is widely accepted for payment and/or exchange. The rupee is such a currency.

The article gave the example of Belgium, as a nation where few bills are paid with cash. But because Belgium uses the euro, it monetarily non-sovereign. It does not have its own sovereign currency, so it does not have the unlimited ability to pay its bills. It needs income.

Similarly, our states, counties and cities are monetarily non-sovereign. They too, need taxes to fund spending.

By contrast, India (like the U.S., Canada, Australia, China, Japan, and other Monetarily Sovereign nations) does not need to collect taxes for bill payment.

Yet all these nations collect taxes, not because they need the currency (They don’t), but for economic control.

Tax collection, together with harsh laws about tax evasion, provide a means by which a government can track and control the finances of every citizen. Tracking and controlling finances allows governments to track and control the lives of their citizens.

When you use credit cards or checks to pay your bills, you create a “paper” trail, easily followed by the government. Similarly, if you are a business that accepts credit cards or checks in payment, your finances can be tracked.

More importantly, if you fall into either of the above categories, your finances not only can be tracked, but controlled.

Having the power to levy taxes on various forms of income or purchase, allows the government to control much of your life. For instance, a simple gasoline tax can affect such decisions as: Will you drive to work, take a train, or decide to work nearby? Where will you vacation? Where will you live? What kind of vehicle will you own? Import taxes affect what you buy. Luxury taxes affect what you own. Inheritance taxes affect what you leave behind.

The arbitrary tax rates on various forms of income dramatically affect your investing and your saving. Taxes affect your charity giving and your healthcare.

The requirements to declare your income and much of your spending allow the government to trace what you do and where you go.

The operations of any business are controlled in part, by what forms of income are taxed and what expenses are tax-deductible.

Today, computerized “big data” collection, gives the government a permanent record of your life and the lives of every business. Tax laws run the world.

The tracking and control afforded by tax collections is why the federal government does not want you to understand Monetary Sovereignty.

It is why the government wants you to believe the “Big Lie” (i.e. “Federal taxes fund federal spending”). It is why you repeatedly have been told wrongly that federal obligations are taxpayer obligations, and that when the government spends, its spends “taxpayer dollars” — all part of The Big Lie.

In summary, the real effect of the “cashless society” is to ease tax collection. The real purpose of federal tax collection is to track and to control your life.

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

Hotter? Which risk do you prefer

“Global warming” or if you wish, “climate change” has become a contentious question, when it really shouldn’t be. There are but two risks, and all we need do is choose the one we prefer. Simple enough.

If you accept the idea that it is a scientific question, and that scientific questions are best answered by scientists, the consensus of scientists is that the earth is warming due to an increase in CO2, and humans are responsible for much of this increase.

True, scientific consensus isn’t always right. In fact, scientific progress relies on the consensus being proved wrong. Every scientific development proves a previous scientific belief wrong.

Yet, at any given time, time has shown we are wiser to rely on the scientific consensus rather than on business consensus, religious consensus, or political consensus. Businesses, religions, and politicians are highly partisan observers.

Consider the words of Donald Trump, noted non-scientist and the leader of the Republican party:

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

“This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps, and our GW scientists are stuck in ice”

These statements are at odds with scientific consensus:

The increased volumes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, agriculture, and other human activities, are believed to be the primary sources of the global warming that has occurred over the past 50 years.

Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate carrying out global warming research have recently predicted that average global temperatures could increase between 1.4 and 5.8 °C by the year 2100.

Changes resulting from global warming may include rising sea levels due to the melting of the polar ice caps, as well as an increase in occurrence and severity of storms and other severe weather events.

There are three fundamental questions regarding global warming:

Is it real?
Is it being caused by the burning of fossil fuels?
Is it less harmful than efforts to prevent it?

1. Donald Trump and the Republican party notwithstanding, there is zero doubt the world is growing warmer.

Record Breaking Temperatures Again in First Half of 2016

For the first six months of the year, the Earth has had its ‘warmest half-year on record,’ according to NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center. The planet has also seen record Arctic Sea ice shrink.

2. While many hypotheses about the causes of global warming have been put forward, CO2 definitely wis a “greenhouse” gas and that the amount of this greenhouse gas in our atmosphere is growing.

The relentless rise of carbon dioxide

During ice ages, CO2 levels were around 200 parts per million (ppm), and during the warmer interglacial periods, they hovered around 280 ppm (see fluctuations in the graph).

In 2013, CO2 levels surpassed 400 ppm for the first time in recorded history.

This recent relentless rise in CO2 shows a remarkably constant relationship with fossil-fuel burning, and can be well accounted for based on the simple premise that about 60 percent of fossil-fuel emissions stay in the air.

.

.

.

While the science seems clear, people believe what they want to believe, and the Trump/Republicans want you to believe:

–The world is not growing warmer,
and anyway,
–The increased warmth is not caused by fossil-burning,
and anyway,
—The cost to reduce fossil burning is not worth the benefits.

We bolded the final belief, because it is the real belief, and it is based on a very short-term view. The political right-wing, anti-science, pro-business view is that spending money today to reduce CO2 emissions is unprofitable.

And they are correct. Spending millions or billions of dollars this year to reduce CO2 emissions, will have minimal effect on global warming next year or perhaps for dozens of years.

Businesses are short-term efforts. Businesses are run by businessmen, who are far more interested in this quarter’s profits and their own personal compensation this year, than about the long-term effects of global warming on polar bears.

3. But even taking a longer view, say a few decades, is global warming less harmful than efforts to prevent it?

Too hot to work: global warming may cause loss of 20% of annual work hours in Southeast Asia alone

Rising temperatures caused by climate change may cost the world economy over $2 trillion in lost productivity by 2030 as hot weather makes it unbearable to work in some parts of the world, according to U.N. research published on Tuesday.

Across the globe, 43 countries will see a fall in their gross domestic product (GDP) due to reduced productivity, the majority of them in Asia including Indonesia, Malaysia, China, India and Bangladesh, researcher Tord Kjellstrom said.

In Southeast Asia alone, up to 20 percent of annual work hours may already be lost in jobs with exposure to extreme heat with the figures set to double by 2050 as the effects of climate change deepen.

Apparently, we are not “just” talking about polar bears, melting ice, rising seas or tropical diseases coming to the temperate zones. We are talking about lost business, today.

In discussing business, we always must return to risk/reward analysis. For any individual business, is the reward of CO2 reduction worth the spending risk?

The answer is “No.”

Any business that spends money to prevent global warming will see no return on that investment. Such an investment should be included in the “Charity” section of the balance sheet — an effort to “do the right thing” and not in anticipation of profits. While businesses may give to charity, the business purpose is good will.

From a short-term standpoint, most businesses would profit more from investments in marketing and product development than in greenhouse gas reduction.

The one entity that can and should take the long view on greenhouse gas reduction is a Monetarily Sovereign government — a government that has the unlimited capacity for financial risk, does not need profits, and whose investments in of themselves would stimulate its economy.

In evaluating risk, we should look at the risk of doing something vs. the risk of doing nothing.

For a Monetarily Sovereign nation, the primary risk of doing something (CO2 prevention and removal) is time: The research and development time necessary to create systems that do not produce CO2, or to invent CO2 storage systems — a minimal “risk.”

There will be many failures, which in the world of science are known as “learning.” The information gleaned from these efforts becomes part of the world’s scientific knowledge — the positive result of scientific failure.

But for a Monetarily Sovereign nation, the risk of doing nothing is monumental — at worst, the decline and end of life as we know it.

In summary, the “reward” from doing nothing is that Monetarily Sovereign nations will not stimulate their economies by adding their sovereign currency to their nation’s money supply, a dubious “reward” indeed.

The worst risk is that life on earth will become so stressed as to cause a massive extinction of species, impacting all life, including human life.

It is vital that Monetarily Sovereign governments absorb the costs of CO2 amelioration. If we want clean-running cars, clean electrical generation, clean heating and air conditioning, thriving ecologies, etc. governments should pay the R&D costs,rather than simply demanding that private industry pay.

Fundamentally, the global warming question boils down to our selecting which risk we prefer:

The non-risk that a government will add dollars to its economy, thereby stimulating the economy, but failing to develop good solutions, or
The real risk of doing nothing, and thus creating an unlivable world for our children and grandchildren.

Take your pick.

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Two problems, one solution: Gun violence and the Gap

Often, in an argument, much can be learned by looking closely and honestly at the other side, to see what elements of truth might lie there.

Consider, for instance, Gun Violence

What if the weapons manufacturers and their paid lobbyists, the NRA, are right after all? What if it’s true that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people”?

What if limiting gun purchases and stronger gun-control laws don’t work? What if allowing everyone own a gun makes you safer?

I personally don’t believe these things, but what if they were true?

Hold that thought, as we move to the next problem:

The Gap between the rich and the rest.

Have you noticed that the wealthier parts of town have fewer gun murders than do the less-affluent neighborhoods?

Why?

Is there a genetic difference between poor babies and rich babies, that makes poor babies more desirous of shooting people?

Is there a genetic difference between poor babies and rich babies, that makes rich babies grow up to be more honest and compassionate?

Does a genetic difference cause rich babies to grow up more ambitious and harder working? Is it a genetic difference that causes poor fathers to run away from home more often, leaving poor children without role models?

Are there cultural and traditional differences? Is there a common culture among poor blacks, poor whites, and poor Latinos, a common culture that is different from the common culture of all rich people (some of whom are black, white and Latino)?

What is the one common element among poor blacks, poor whites, and poor Latinos? The answer is clear.

The single common element among all poor people is they all are poor.

Poor people may be black, white or brown, more or less intelligent, lazy or hard working, happy or sad, caring or uncaring, honest or dishonest, good parents or bad, ruthless or compassionate, religious or not — but the one thing they all have in common is a lack of money.

And therein lies the solution to two problems: Gun killings and the Gap.

Because all poor neighborhoods, of all colors and faiths, are more subject to gangs and gun violence, and the only common element among all poor neighborhoods is poverty, then one partial solution to gun violence is to reduce poverty.

Rather than try to attack gun violence at the level of gun ownership, or blather on about Constitutional rights, perhaps we simply should attack the most fundamental cause.

If we reduce the Gap between the rich and the rest, we automatically can reduce gang warfare and shootings.

I don’t need to keep a gun for protection. I live in an upscale community where gun violence is quite rare. Some of my neighbors may have or even carry guns; I don’t know which ones may.

But, mathematically, I would increase my odds of being shot if I kept a loaded gun in the house or carried one in the street.

I’m sure there are plenty of drugs in our schools, but drug gang warfare is non-existent and shootings unheard of.

It’s not that my neighbors and I are morally superior, or more intelligent, or harder working. Far from it.

The difference is we don’t have to commit street crime in order to make ends meet.

I have no trouble paying for food, clothing, and lodging. I don’t need to rob anyone, and my neighbors don’t need to rob me.

The vast majority of the few burglaries in our town are committed by people who come from a neighboring town, where poverty is far more common.

You seldom hear of a rich man committing burglary or robbery. Rich people may commit white-collar crime, but not gun crime.

Yes, there can be exceptions, but historically the most common gun crimes are committed by the poor, so a partial solution to gun crime is to reduce the number of poor people.

The best protection you can give to your family and yourself is not to own a gun, but rather to help lift the poor.

This may be counter-intuitive to those who despise the poor, and who attribute to the poor all sorts of demeaning characteristics.

But this much is true: If you lived in an area where there were no poor, you wouldn’t need to own or carry a gun for protection.

(And no, carrying a gun will not protect you from a government-orchestrated military takeover. So puleeze, no conspiracy theories.)

Here we have a straightforward partial solution to gun violence and to the Gap, all rolled into one. No need to even argue about the 2nd Amendment.

Simply institute the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below).

It’s a much more moral and surer way to protect your family and yourself.

Rather than writing to your Congressperson, asking for a loosening of gun laws, ask him/her to read the Ten Steps and to implement them.

Protect your self and your family by helping others.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Police shootings: Causes and solutions

Five police murdered in Dallas. More unarmed black men killed by police. Dozens shot in Chicago. The beat goes on.

The term “police shootings” can mean shootings by police or shootings of police. Interestingly, they have the same causes and the same solutions:

Widespread gun availability means that every police encounter — from the simplest traffic stop or jaywalking warning — can lead to a gun confrontation. The police know and fear this.
.
The armed and carrying public comes in all colors and stripes — some angry, some drunk or drugged, some bearing a grudge, some criminal — and the police, being human and fearing for their own lives, are on hair-trigger alert.

Even the best-trained, most compassionate police officer can, by a simple misunderstanding, believe his life is in danger, causing him to shoot before the other guy does.
Bad apples. Police are human, and every group of humans will include at least some who either from fear or hatred or anger, will shoot an innocent person.
.
The fact that people are more likely to be armed today, and more likely to be aware of, and angry about, wrongful shootings by police, makes for an explosive situation.

Think of two armed people, both of whom know the other is armed, and neither of whom trusts the other to act responsibly, and you have a greatly increased possibility of an unnecessary killing.

Shootings by police bad apples inflame the populace, which responds by shooting police, in an ever-increasing helix of violence.
Police unions and the code of silence. Police unions see their job as protecting all police from punishment even for the most egregious acts.
.
Similarly, the brotherhood “code of silence” keeps bad apples on the street, sticks of dynamite waiting for the slightest excuse to explode.
The profit motive: The gun industry and its paid puppet, the NRA, care only about gun sales profits.
.
To increase sales, they promulgate the notion that allowing every fool on the street to carry a killing machine is what makes America safer.

Because anyone, under certain circumstances and sufficient pressure, can become a “bad guy,” the gun industry tells us we all have to be armed to protect ourselves against the “bad guys” they already have armed.

It’s a perfect profit setup: Arm some people, then tell other people they need to be armed to protect themselves against the first group.

As you arm more and more people, it’s easier to frighten the remaining people into buying guns.
The right-wing Supreme Court: Bribed by hunting trips and other gifts of value, the right wing of the U.S. Supreme Court has come to the indefensible conclusion that the authors of the Constitution included the words “well-regulated militia” for no reason whatsoever.
.
The normal, plain English interpretation of the Second Amendment would be: A nation, having experienced a war for freedom, would want the ability to assemble an army quickly, in case of surprise attack.

Thus, it would want militias, and not just any crazed groups who call themselves “militias,” but militias well-regulated by the government, to which the citizenry quickly could report and be trained.

Having guns immediately available to the citizenry, expedited the purpose. Today, no such purpose exists.

To the founders, “arms” meant muzzle-loading muskets and flintlock pistols, one-shot, inaccurate weapons that took much time to load and fire. They did not anticipate an entire citizenry carrying high-powered, rapid firing weapons with large magazines — a citizenry neither trained nor regulated, and having no relationship to a government militia.

Until recently, this interpretation was understood by the Supreme Court. In fact, for all of American history, the law held that gun ownership and carry could be restricted by the government.

Only in June of 2008, just eight years ago, did the right-wing Supreme Court decide that two centuries of American law was wrong.

By a 5-4 margin (split along party lines) the Court decided, in Heller v District of Columbia, that any fool in America could carry the most lethal of killing machines.
Gangs: Fools associate with fools, and create gangs of fools, but the problem of gangs goes well beyond foolishness.
.
It is a product of the Gap between the rich and the rest.

There is very little gang problem in upper-middle-class neighborhoods. Gangs feed on feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness — lack of money, lack of opportunity, lack of a future.

The solutions to police shootings — shootings by police and shootings of police — involve removing the causes.

A liberal Supreme Court could return to the two-centuries of 2nd Amendment interpretations, allowing gun ownership only for the purpose of implementing well-regulated militias.
The gun manufacturing industry should be nationalized, to remove the profit motive and its false propaganda about the need for everyone to carry guns
Existing gangs could be made leaderless by application of the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) statutes. Application of the Ten Steps to Prosperity (below) would help ease the gang recruitment problem.
Eliminate police unions. The police, firefighters, the military, NASA and other similar government workers are in a special category that should not be allowed to unionize. Their work environment is not determined by the profit motive, but rather by the law. There is no public purpose to be served by allowing unions to dictate working conditions for government-run agencies.
.
Then, for current gun ownership:
There should be expanded punishment for any felony committed while carrying a gun
and
Make gun ownership expensive by taxing guns and ammunition.

When we give fools the opportunity to do something foolish, fools predictably will do foolish things, especially if egged on by the gun lobby.

So now they are out there, the fools of America, walking the streets and carrying guns, a menace to themselves, to the police, and to all those around them.

Five police murdered in Dallas. More unarmed black men killed by police. Dozens shot in Chicago. The beat goes on.

It doesn’t need to be this way. We don’t need to have killings every day. The situation is not hopeless, even though it can’t be solved in a day.

The current system is not working. We can’t keep doing the same things, while hoping for a different outcome.

We need to take the first steps toward a society where we no longer have the need or the means to kill each other.

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: