COVID-19 is the most important event in 80 years, but this is far more important yet.

COVID-19 may kill at least a half-million Americans and five-million worldwide, just in the next two or three years, unless we are able to develop a vaccine and unless people will be encouraged to take it.

That is an awful lot of deaths, but it pales in comparison to the people who will suffer and die because of global warming.

More Than 250,000 People May Die Each Year Due to Climate Change
By Rachael Rettner January 17, 2019

In the coming decades, more than a quarter-million people may die each year as a result of climate change, according to a new review study.

In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that climate change would lead to about 250,000 additional deaths each year between 2030 and 2050, from factors such as malnutrition, heat stress and malaria.

But the new review, published Jan. 17 in The New England Journal of Medicine, said this is a “conservative estimate.” That’s because it fails to take into account other climate-related factors that could affect death rates — such as population displacement and reductions in labor productivity from farmers due to increased heat, study co-author Dr. Andrew Haines, epidemiologist and former director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, told CNN.

In addition, the WHO estimate didn’t take into account illnesses and deaths tied to disruptions in health services caused by extreme weather and climate events, the review said.

Climate change is the single, most important, species-survival event to take place since humans began to walk the earth. Yet it doesn’t receive the media attention of COVID-19, or police brutality, or the stock markets, or sports.

While an entire, multi-page section of your daily newspaper is devoted to sports, the looming extinction of our species garners only the occasional article.

Yet, climate change is actively denied by Donald Trump and his science-illiterate followers.

One might hope that the potential suffering and eradication of a substantial portion of our children and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren, would merit a bit more seriousness. Sadly, we must endure “present bias,” in which future lives are discounted vs. current comfort.

Even those who wish to address the threat to the survival of the human species are blocked by ignorance and myths.

Joe Biden sets out aggressive plan to tackle climate change
By Evan Halper, Staff, writer, July 14, 2020

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden unveiled a proposal for rebuilding the economy Tuesday that focuses heavily on restoring American leadership in the fight against global warming, directing government recovery efforts toward expanding clean energy and rapidly reversing the Trump administration’s abandonment of climate efforts.

In a speech in Wilmington, Del., the former vice president called for a massive green jobs and environmental justice program that would invest $2 trillion in his first term on building new renewable energy infrastructure.

“Climate change is a challenge that’s going to define our American future,” Biden said. “I know meeting the challenge will be a once in a lifetime opportunity to jolt new life into our economy, strengthen our global leadership, protect our planet … We’re not just going to tinker around the edges. We’re going to make historic investments that will seize the opportunity to meet this moment in history.”

The spending would go toward expansion of high-speed rail, building electric cars and greatly increasing the use of wind, solar and other renewable technologies to generate power, among other goals. Under Biden’s plan, the U.S. would fully end the use of oil, coal and other fossil fuels to generate electricity by 2035. He would bring the nation to net zero emissions of greenhouse gases no later than 2050.

The plan is notably more aggressive than the one Biden campaigned on during his party’s primaries, part of an overall move in which he has embraced some of the proposals of his more progressive rivals in an effort to unify the party for the general election.

This is the “aggressive” plan — 30 more years of global warming?? Thirty more years of increasing death rates as the world gets warmer and warmer?

We won’t get into the non-science or pseudo-science of global warming deniers. If you want to see the claims, go here. I’ll go along with the scientific majority on this.

If the scientific majority is wrong, and we take action, we’ll only have devoted a lot of time and money to controlling CO2, while creating millions of jobs. If the scientific majority is right, and we take action, we’ll save humanity.

Compared with Biden’s earlier proposals, the current one would spend more, do it faster and aim more investment toward disadvantaged communities.

“The science tells us there is no time for delay on climate change,” the plan says. “Biden will make a $2 trillion accelerated investment, with a plan to deploy those resources over his first term, setting us on an irreversible course to meet the ambitious climate progress that science demands.”

Why only $2 trillion? That’s less than the U.S is spending to remediate COVID 19 — i.e. to deal not only with the disease itself, but also dealing with its current and future effects on people and the economy.

Consider the current an future effects of global warming:

Arctic ‘transitioning’ to a new climate
Extremes are becoming routine, study suggests.

The Arctic has started to transition from predominantly frozen to an entirely different climate, according to a new report.

Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, scientists from the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) say the planet’s north has warmed so significantly that its year-to-year variability is moving outside the bounds of any past fluctuations, signalling the move to a new normal.

Sea ice has melted to the extent that even an unusually cold year will no longer have the amount of summer sea ice that existed as recently as the mid-20th century.

“The rate of change is remarkable,” says lead author Laura Landrum. “It’s a period of such rapid change that observations of past weather patterns no longer show what you can expect next year.”

And this:

CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Ice is melting worldwide, especially at the Earth’s poles. Global sea levels are rising 0.13 inches (3.2 millimeters) a year, and the rise is occurring at a faster rate in recent years.
Vanishing ice has challenged species such as the Adélie penguin in Antarctica, where some populations on the western peninsula have collapsed by 90 percent or more.
Precipitation (rain and snowfall) with severe floods has increased across the globe, on average.
Yet, some regions are experiencing more severe drought, increasing the risk of wildfires, lost crops, and drinking water shortages.
Ticks, jellyfish, and crop pests—are thriving. Booming populations of bark beetles that feed on spruce and pine trees, for example, have devastated millions of forested acres in the U.S.
Hurricanes and other storms are likely to become stronger.
Large parts of the U.S., for example, face a higher risk of decades-long “megadroughts” by 2100.
Less freshwater will be available, since glaciers store about three-quarters of the world’s freshwater.
Some diseases will spread, such as mosquito-borne malaria (and the 2016 resurgence of the Zika virus).
Ecosystems will continue to change: Some species will move farther north or become more successful; others, such as polar bears, won’t be able to adapt and could become extinct.

And we as a species, may not be able to tolerate the heat in many parts of the globe. Much of the world will become unlivable:

Unsuitable for ‘human life to flourish’: Up to 3B will live in extreme heat by 2070, study warns
Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

Temperatures over the next few decades are projected to increase rapidly as a result of human greenhouse gas emissions.

Without climate mitigation or migration, by 2070 a substantial part of humanity will be exposed to average annual temperatures warmer than nearly anywhere today, the study said. These brutally hot climate conditions are currently experienced by just 0.8% of the global land surface, mostly in the hottest parts of the Sahara Desert, but by 2070 the conditions could spread to 19% of the Earth’s land area.

These are projections. They may be high or low. Yes, the situation could even be much worse than projected. Are we willing to take that chance with the future of our grandchildren and their grandchildren? Is this the legacy we wish to leave for future generations?

But it gets even worse:

Climate change will reduce food production which is predicted to lead to a net increase of 529,000 adult deaths worldwide by 2050, according to a 2016 study.

Climate change could also force more than 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030, according to World Bank estimates, which in turn, would make them more vulnerable to the health effects of the changing climate.

This planet is our only home, and will be our only home for the foreseeable future. We are like a tiny lifeboat in a giant ocean. The lifeboat is leaking but still, we argue about whether to fix the leaks. It’s madness.

Republicans warned the plan would further sink the economy and trigger the loss of millions more jobs.

“Today, Joe Biden gave a speech in which he said the core of his economic agenda is a hard-left crusade against American energy,” President Trump said during an hourlong Rose Garden polemic against Biden.

“He wants to kill American energy. This would do nothing for the environment but would cripple the American economy.”

Trump doesn’t want you to know that Biden wants to add stimulus dollars to the economy. This will create far more jobs than did Trump’s tax cuts for the rich.

Some key details, however, were absent from (Biden’s) proposal. Most notably, it does not specify how it would be paid for.

Senior campaign officials said a rollback of the Trump tax cuts, as well an increase in corporate taxes would be part of the payment plan, which the campaign vowed to release in the coming months.

The best part of Biden’s plan is that it would add $2 trillion to the economy. A rollback of tax cuts and an increase in corporate taxes would be unnecessary and counter-productive.

The U.S. federal government is Monetarily Sovereign., Unlike state and local governments, and unlike euro nation governments, the U.S. federal government neither needs nor uses tax dollars. It creates new dollars, ad hoc, to pay for all its spending.

The whole question of “How will this be paid for” is obsolete. The federal government pays for everything by creating new dollars. Anyone who asks how a federal program will be paid for demonstrates abject ignorance about federal financing. The federal government never can run short of dollars.

Think of those tax dollars you work so hard to earn and then are forced to send to the U.S. Treasury. Those dollars are destroyed upon receipt, never to be used or seen again. Rolling back tax cuts and/or increasing corporate taxes would take growth dollars from the economy and not help pay for anything.

Biden has also said he supports a carbon tax — a policy many environmental economists say is crucial to effectively curbing climate change — but there is no mention of that in the current proposal.

The only purpose of a carbon tax would not be to raise funds for the government, but rather to penalize and discourage the use of carbon-based fuel and products.

Far better, however, would be to reward and encourage the use of alternative eco-friendly, non-carbon-based products, just as the government now does to encourage the use of solar panels. The carrot is better than the stick, especially when the carrot will stimulate jobs and economic growth.

The audacity of the spending plan reflects the increased appetite among voters for taking action to curb global warming, as scientists warn time is running short and Trump administration rollbacks have left America isolated from the global effort.

“When Donald Trump thinks about climate change, the only word he can muster is ‘hoax,’” Biden said. “The word I think of is ‘jobs.’”

He aims to create 1 million new auto industry jobs by pushing the industry to take the lead in electric-vehicle manufacturing. High-speed rail is a focal point of the plan, as is a big investment in zero-emission public transit.

“Pushing” these industries should not mean “forcing” these industries; it should mean “rewarding” these industries. The federal government should use its unlimited power-of-the-purse to encourage carbon-zero business activities.

The goal for quickly decarbonizing the power sector would require new subsidies such as tax credits and grants to accelerate production of solar and wind energy technologies.

The federal government would also help subsidize the retrofitting of 4 million buildings to make them more energy efficient and aim to create 250,000 jobs “plugging abandoned oil and natural gas wells and reclaiming abandoned coal, hardrock, and uranium mines.”

And far better than more tax cuts for the rich or eliminating consumer protection laws would be this:

Much of the money would be aimed at disadvantaged communities.

“We have to make sure that the first people who benefit from this are the people who were most hurt historically,“ Biden said.

His plan sets a goal that low-income communities that have traditionally suffered disproportionately from pollution would receive 40% of “overall benefits of spending” by the federal government in areas such as clean energy and energy efficiency, green transportation and sustainable housing.

Trump has crippled our consumer protection agencies, not only by cutting regulations but also by removing experienced and competent leaders and installing incompetent, crooked, and/or inexperienced lackeys to run these agencies: Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, HUD Secretary Ben Carson are but a few examples.

Underpinning the plan is a restructuring of key agencies in the federal government, restoring the climate-forward focus put in place by the Obama administration but then abandoned by Trump.

The Justice Department, for example, would launch a new Environmental and Climate Justice Division “to hold polluters accountable.”

“We’re going to hold accountable those CEOs of corporations that benefit from decades of subsidies that just walked away from their responsibilities to these communities, leaving the wells to leak,” Biden said.

Such an agency was championed by Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, an early rival of Biden’s in the presidential primary who ran on a platform dominated by confronting climate change. Biden adopted several of the ideas pushed by Inslee in his plan.

This article summarizes it best:

“Climate change is causing injuries, illnesses and deaths, with the risks projected to increase substantially with additional climate change, threatening the health of many millions of people,” the report said. “The pervasive threats to health posed by climate change demand decisive actions from health professionals and governments to protect the health of current and future generations.”

The world is dying right before our eyes. Donald Trump is lying, denying, hampering, and hindering. The sand is running down the hourglass. The time to save the planet for our species rapidly is disappearing.

While Biden’s recommended $2 trillion is a notable start in saving the world, it is far too little and may be too late. How much is the future of humankind worth, especially when the money is free?

Efforts to save the planet not only will help assure our grandchildren’s futures, but money spent today will grow our economy today, providing jobs and money to those who need it, while narrowing the Gap between the rich and the rest.

Act now, or too soon there will come a tipping point, when having squandered all our opportunities, we watch helplessly as our little lifeboat in this vast ocean, sinks.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

The real reason why the GOP rescue package is so skimpy.

The U.S. economy is in deep trouble. President Trump’s re-election chances would improve greatly if the economy were healthy. But the GOP(!) is reluctant to provide enough stimulus.

Why?

Let’s begin with the basics:

Millions of Americans suffer because they lack money. Many are jobless and many slave in low-paying jobs. Children go hungry. Families lose their homes. Millions more can’t afford adequate health care.
Millions of American businesses suffer because they lack customers, i.e. money. Many have closed, some permanently.
The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has infinite money. It never can run short of dollars. Even if zero federal taxes were collected, the government could continue spending forever.
The federal deficit spending and “debt” are no burden on anyone — not on the government, not on taxpayers, not on future taxpayers’ grandchildren.

Given that background, why is it the GOP that doesn’t want to pump sufficient dollars into the economy to rescue us from recession or depression?

Coronavirus stimulus: What’s in Senate Republicans’ pared-down relief bill
Jessica Smith, Reporter, Yahoo FinanceSeptember 8, 2020

Senate Republicans unveiled a pared-down coronavirus relief on Tuesday. Negotiations over the next round of aid have been stalled for weeks on Capitol Hill and there is still little evidence of bipartisan progress.

Republicans aim to put pressure on Democrats with their so-called “skinny” relief bill.

The legislation is expected to cost roughly $500 billion, around half of what the GOP proposed in the HEALS Act earlier this summer. McConnell has struggled to unite his party and many of his own members rejected the first Republican proposal.

In an attempt to keep costs down and satisfy Republicans who don’t want to spend additional money, the slimmed-down bill would repurpose hundreds of billions of dollars in unspent CARES Act funding.

“Pared down coronavirus relief”? “Skinny relief” “Keep costs down” “Republicans don’t want to spend additional money”? “Repurpose hundreds of billions”? “Unspend CARES Act funding”? What the heck is going on with the GOP?

Here we have a government with infinite money, and there we have a populace in desperate need for money, and Congress doesn’t know what to do? I have a suggestion for them:

SPEND THE DAMN MONEY! Get money into the hands of the people. Do it now.

Why do they hesitate to do the obvious?

Then there’s this article:

Republicans Push Scaled-Back Stimulus Plan as Impasse on Virus Aid Persists
The economic recovery measure Republicans presented on Tuesday is a fraction of the size of their original offer and was immediately dismissed by Democrats as inadequate.
New York Times, By Emily Cochrane, Sept. 8, 2020

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Tuesday proposed a substantially scaled-back stimulus plan to provide federal aid to unemployed workers, schools, farmers, the Postal Service and small businesses, announcing a vote this week whose primary purpose was to try to foist blame on Democrats for a continuing stalemate.

The legislation — immediately rejected by Democrats as an inadequate response to the crisis — slashes by hundreds of billions of dollars the $1 trillion proposal Republicans had initially offered in negotiations, and is a fraction of the $2.2 trillion Democrats have said is necessary.

Not only is the Republican proposal too little, too late, but it is even less than they originally proposed. Seemingly, they are doing everything possible to avoid an agreement. This is a negotiation??

But Mr. McConnell, said he would force action on the doomed package, to accept a much smaller plan than they have been willing to agree to.

While Americans starve, the Republicans play political games. What exactly is the game? Keep reading.

Since lawmakers left Washington in early August, millions of Americans have filed new unemployment claims, wildfires and devastating storms have ravaged the country, schools have struggled to safely reopen and states have begun carrying out a series of budget cuts to remain solvent.

Moderate lawmakers in both chambers, particularly those facing difficult re-election challenges, are growing increasingly anxious over the gridlock and eager to persuade voters that Congress is addressing the toll of the pandemic, a dynamic that Republicans hope will help pressure Democrats to lower their spending demands.

Does America understand that the Democrats wish to give more money to those devastated economically, and the Republicans wish to give less — and this is supposed to pressure the Democrats??

While House Democrats approved a $3.4 trillion measure in May, Ms. Pelosi in recent days has told Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, that Democrats would be willing to accept a package of $2.2 trillion. (Mr. Mnuchin, for his part, has signaled that the administration may be willing to accept up to a $1.5 trillion package.)

The $3.4 trillion probably would not be enough to bring America out of the recession, but in the name of political cooperation, Pelosi reduced the Democrats’ proposal to $2.2 trillion.

Then Mnuchin cut that to $1.5 trillion, not for any financial reasons, not for any affordability reasons, but just to please the Republicans.

And even that cut wasn’t deep enough to satisfy the GOP, which clearly is more interested in tax cuts for the rich than helping the impoverished.

Fiscal hawks are deeply reluctant to embrace more spending after an infusion of nearly $3 trillion this spring, and the Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday that government debt had ballooned in the 2020 fiscal year and nearly outpaced the size of the economy.

The measure presented on Tuesday, crafted after weeks of daily conference calls with senators and top administration officials, would provide up to $700 billion, Republican aides said, although about half of that money would come from repurposing funding already approved by Congress in the stimulus law enacted in March.

The “$700 billion” really was just “$350” billion to stimulate a $27 trillion economy from the depths of despair. Why so cheap?

The Republican-written legislation would provide a $300-per-week federal unemployment benefit, and provide that relief through Dec. 27. Democrats have pushed to revive the full $600-per-week payment established in the March stimulus law, at least through January.

The bill does not provide funds for another round of $1,200 stimulus checks for Americans, which both chambers had included in their opening offers, or offer any additional funding to state and local governments.

Democrats called the measure “emaciated” and doing little to address the long-term impact of the pandemic on the nation’s economy. “What they have is so meager that it insults the intelligence of the American people,” Ms. Pelosi . “We know we have to negotiate in order to reach an agreement. We all want an agreement, make no mistake about that. But get serious.”

If you didn’t understand the politics, you would think the Republicans not only would want a greater benefit than “$300-per-week” (How many families can live on that?) but would be the ones pushing for $600 or even $1,000 per week.

And why did the $1,200 stimulus checks, which the Republicans first included, suddenly disappear from the latest GOP proposal? Here is why:

Big business wants desperate workers.

The GOP, the party of the rich, does what the rich want it to do. Do you remember the tax cut that was supposed to save you money? The vast majority went to the rich.

Do you remember all the GOP efforts to eliminate Obamacare, the insurance that covered pre-existing conditions? Those efforts continue. The GOP hates that kind of insurance because it allows workers to be independent of company-provided insurance. Without Obamacare, leaving your employer or demanding a raise would be easier.

And now, when the U.S. government has the power to pull everyone out of this virus-induced poverty, big businesses are telling their GOP friends, “We need workers who will work long hours for short pay.”

And what about Trump’s re-election chances?

No one cares about Trump. Certainly not the Democrats, and not even the Republicans. He may be the most despised President in history, perhaps the most despised man in all of America, today.

The Republicans know he is a threat to American democracy and more importantly, he will do nothing for them. He is a “me-first, me-only” fool, who himself shows no loyalty to anyone.

By contrast, the rich provide the GOP Congresspeople with their election money. Long after Trump is gone, the rich will remain loyal, checkbooks in hand.

And the rich have good memories. They will remember who helped them and who didn’t.

If you helped them acquire cheap, hard-working labor for your business, you will be thanked. If you don’t help them, they will help your next opponent.

That is why the rich want to cut Medicare benefits, Social Security benefits, and indeed all benefits to the not-rich. They want a big supply of desperate people.

Pay no attention to the fake concerns about the federal debt being “unsustainable,” or the U.S. becoming “insolvent.” The rich know that cannot happen. They understand Monetary Sovereignty.

The purpose of those fraudulent rationales is to give a “logical” gloss to the illogical idea that the federal government could run short of its own sovereign currency.

After all, the politicians can’t admit they are doing it to keep you in slavery, can they?

The federal government has all the financial power it needs to pull America out of this recession and to help the states, counties, and cities return to solvency.

To do the bidding of the rich, the politicians rely on the ignorance of the public. That is why the GOP rescue package is so skimpy. Big business wants desperate workers.

Now, you know.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

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 Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA

2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone

3. Social Security for all or a reverse income tax

4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone

5. Salary for attending school

6. Eliminate federal taxes on business

7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually.

8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.

9. Federal ownership of all banks

10.Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9%

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Your periodic reminder. After 80 years, the federal debt still is a “ticking time bomb.”

Here is your periodic reminder. After 80 years, the federal debt still is being called a “ticking time bomb,” the slowest time-bomb in history.

We don’t need to go into too much detail. We’ve said it often enough:

The federal “debt” is not debt in the usual sense. The federal government does not borrow. The so-called “debt” is the total of deposits into Treasury Security accounts at the Federal Reserve. The federal government does not touch these deposits, and the accounts can be paid off instantly by returning the balances to the account owners. No tax dollars are involved. No burden on future generations.
Federal deficits add dollars to the economy. Federal deficits are necessary for economic growth. Recessions and depressions result from decreased deficit growth and are cured by increased deficit growth.
The U.S. government, being Monetarily Sovereign, cannot run short of its own sovereign currency. It never can become insolvent. Even if federal tax collections totaled $0, the federal government could continue spending, forever. That is why the federal government never borrows.
The U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is absolutely meaningless with regard to federal solvency. The ratio could go to 1,000% and the U.S. government still would be able to pay its bills.

These facts do not penetrate the minds of the debt shriekers, who after all these years still do not understand the financial differences between a Monteraily Sovereign government (the U.S. federal government) and monetarily non-sovereign governments (state & local governments).

The former has the unlimited ability to create dollars. The latter, like you, and me, and the states can become insolvent. Vast difference.

So every year, every month, perhaps every day, we see warnings like this:

29 Aug 2020 LOS ANGELES, California: Commentary: America’s mountain of debt is a ticking time bomb. The United States not only looks ill, but also dead broke.

To offset the pandemic-induced “Great Cessation,” the US Federal Reserve and Congress have marshalled staggering sums of stimulus spending out of fear that the economy would otherwise plunge to 1930s soup kitchen levels.

The 2020 federal budget deficit will be around 18 per cent of GDP, and the US debt-to-GDP ratio will soon hurdle over the 100 per cent mark.

Such figures have not been seen since Harry Truman sent B-29s to Japan to end World War II.

Assuming that America eventually defeats COVID-19 and does not devolve into a Terminator-like dystopia, how will it avoid the approaching fiscal cliff and national bankruptcy?

To answer such questions, we should reflect on the lessons of World War II, which did not bankrupt the US, even though debt soared to 119 per cent of GDP. By the time of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, that ratio had fallen to just above 40 per cent.

World War II was financed with a combination of roughly 40 per cent taxes and 60 per cent debt.

It all is utter nonsense, exactly the same nonsense that has been published and spoken by self-anointed “experts, since 1940. Every year, those same-old warnings about the same-old “ticking time-bomb” that never seems to go off.

It would be laughable if not for the fact that many people still believe this stuff.

To clarify:

World War II was not financed with taxes or debt. It was financed the same way all federal spending is financed: The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, pays all its bills by creating new dollars, ad hoc.

Federal taxes are destroyed upon receipt.

Federal “debt” actually is deposits into T-security accounts, the dollars in which are not taken by the federal government.

Here is a partial list of the “boy-who-cried-wolf” calls that have emanated from the debt scare-mongers.

================================================================================================================================================================================================

September, 1940, the federal budget was a “ticking time-bomb which can eventually destroy the American system,” said Robert M. Hanes, president of the American Bankers Association.

**September 26, 1940, New York Times, Column 8**

By 1960: the debt was “threatening the country’s fiscal future,” said Secretary of Commerce, Frederick H. Mueller. (“The enormous cost of various Federal programs is a time-bomb threatening the country’s fiscal future, Secretary of Commerce Frederick H. Mueller warned here yesterday.”)

By 1983: “The debt probably will explode in the third quarter of 1984,” said Fred Napolitano, former president of the National Association of Home Builders.

In 1984: AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland said. “It’s a time bomb ticking away.”

In 1985: “The federal deficit is ‘a ticking time bomb, and it’s about to blow up,” U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. (Remember him?)

Later in 1985: Los Angeles Times: “We labeled the deficit a ‘ticking time bomb’ that threatens to permanently undermine the strength and vitality of the American economy.”

In 1987: Richmond Times–Dispatch – Richmond, VA: “100TH CONGRESS FACING U.S. DEFICIT ‘TIME BOMB’”

Later in 1987: The Dallas Morning News: “A fiscal time bomb is slowly ticking that, if not defused, could explode into a financial crisis within the next few years for the federal government.”

In 1989: FORTUNE Magazine: “A TIME BOMB FOR U.S. TAXPAYERS”

In 1992: The Pantagraph – Bloomington, Illinois: “I have seen where politicians in Washington have expressed little or no concern about this ticking time bomb they have helped to create, that being the enormous federal budget deficit, approaching $4 trillion.”

Later in 1992: Ross Perot: “Our great nation is sitting right on top of a ticking time bomb. We have a national debt of $4 trillion.”

In 1995: Kansas City Star: “Concerned citizens. . . regard the national debt as a ticking time bomb poised to explode with devastating consequences at some future date.”

In 2003: Porter Stansberry, for the Daily Reckoning: “Generation debt is a ticking time bomb . . . with about ten years left on the clock.”

In 2004: Bradenton Herald: “A NATION AT RISK: TWIN DEFICIT A TICKING TIME BOMB”

In 2005: Providence Journal: “Some lawmakers see the Medicare drug benefit for what it is: a ticking time bomb.”

In 2006: NewsMax.com, “We have to worry about the deficit . . . when we combine it with the trade deficit we have a real ticking time bomb in our economy,” said Mrs. Clinton.

In 2007: USA Today: “Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen.”

In 2010: Heritage Foundation: “Why the National Debt is a Ticking Time Bomb. Interest rates on government bonds are virtually guaranteed to jump over the next few years.

In 2010: Reason Alert: “. . . the time bomb that’s ticking under the federal budget like a Guy Fawkes’ powder keg.”

In 2011: Washington Post, Lori Montgomery: ” . . . defuse the biggest budgetary time bombs that are set to explode.”

June 19, 2013: Chamber of Commerce: Safety net spending is a ‘time bomb’, By Jim Tankersley: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is worried that not enough Americans are worried about social safety net spending. The nation’s largest business lobbying group launched a renewed effort Wednesday to reduce projected federal spending on safety-net programs, labeling them a “ticking time bomb” that, left unchanged, “will bankrupt this nation.”

In 2014: CBN News: “The United States of Debt: A Ticking Time Bomb”

On Jun 18, 2015: The ticking economic time bomb that presidential candidates are ignoring: Fortune Magazine, Shawn Tully,

On February 10, 2016, The Daily Bell: “Obama’s $4.1 Trillion Budget Is Latest Sign of America’s Looming Collapse”

On January 23, 2017: Trump’s ‘Debt Bomb’: Deficit May Grow, Defense Budget May Not, By Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr.

On January 27, 2017: America’s “debt bomb is going to explode.” That’s according to financial strategist Peter Schiff. Schiff said that while low interest rates had helped keep a lid on U.S. debt, it couldn’t be contained for much longer. Interest rates and inflation are rising, creditors will demand higher premiums, and the country is headed “off the edge of a cliff.”

On April 28, 2017: Debt in the U.S. Fuel for Growth or Ticking Time Bomb?, American Institute for Economic Research, by Max Gulker, PhD – Senior Research Fellow, Theodore Cangeros

Feb. 16, 2018 America’s Debt Bomb By Andrew Soergel, Senior Reporter: Conservatives and deficit hawks are hurling criticism at Washington for deepening America’s debt hole.

April 18, 2018 By Alan Greenspan and John R. Kasich: “Time is running short, and America’s debt time bomb continues to tick.”

January 10, 2019, Unfunded Govt. Liabilities — Our Ticking Time Bomb. By Myra Adams, Tick, tick, tick goes the time bomb of national doom.

January 18, 2019; 2019 Is Gold’s Year To Shine (And The Ticking US Debt Time-Bomb) By Gavin Wendt

[The following were added after the original publishing of this article]

April 10, 2019, The National Debt: America’s Ticking Time Bomb. TIL Journal. Entire nations can go bankrupt. One prominent example was the *nation of Greece which was threatened with insolvency, a decade ago. Greece survived the economic crisis because the European Union and the IMF bailed the nation out.

July 11, 2019: National debt is a ‘ticking time bomb‘: Sen. Mike Lee

SEP 12, 2019, Our national ticking time bomb, By BILL YEARGIN
SPECIAL TO THE SUN SENTINEL | At some point, investors will become concerned about lending to a debt-riddled U.S., which will result in having to offer higher interest rates to attract the money. Even with rates low today, interest expense is the federal government’s third-highest expenditure following the elderly and military. The U.S. already borrows all the money it uses to pay its interest expense, sort of like a Ponzi scheme. Lack of investor confidence will only make this problem worse.

JANUARY 06, 2020, National debt is a time bomb, BY MARK MANSPERGER, Tri City Herald | The increase in the U.S. deficit last year was about $1.1 trillion, bringing our total national debt to more than $23 trillion! This fiscal year, the deficit is forecasted to be even higher, and when the economy eventually slows down, our annual deficits could be pushing $2 trillion a year! This is financial madness.there’s not going to be a drastic cut in federal expenditures — that is, until we go broke — nor are we going to “grow our way” out of this predicament. Therefore, to gain control of this looming debt, we’re going to have to raise taxes.

February 14, 2020, OMG! It’s February 14, 2020, and the national debt is still a ticking time bomb! The national debt: A ticking time bomb? America is “headed toward a crisis,” said Tiana Lowe in WashingonExaminer.com. The Treasury Department reported last week that the federal deficit swelled to more than $1 trillion in 2019 for the first time since 2012. Even more alarming was the report from the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicting that $1 trillion deficits will continue for the next 10 years, eventually reaching $1.7 trillion in 2030

April 26, 2020, ‘Catastrophic’: Why government debt is a ticking time bomb, Stephen Koukoulas, Yahoo Finance [Re. Monetarily Sovereign Australia’s debt.]

August 29, 2020, LOS ANGELES, California: America’s mountain of debt is a ticking time bomb The United States not only looks ill, but also dead broke. To offset the pandemic-induced “Great Cessation,” the US Federal Reserve and Congress have marshalled staggering sums of stimulus spending out of fear that the economy would otherwise plunge to 1930s soup kitchen levels. Assuming that America eventually defeats COVID-19 and does not devolve into a Terminator-like dystopia, how will it avoid the approaching fiscal cliff and national bankruptcy?

APR. 16, 2021, NATIONAL POLICY: ECONOMY AND TAXES / MARK ALEXANDER /
The National Debt Clock: A Ticking Time Bomb: At the moment, our national debt exceeds $28 TRILLION — about 80% held as public debt and the rest as intragovernmental debt. That is $225,000 per taxpayer. Federal annual spending this year is almost $8 trillion, and more than half of that is deficit spending — piling on the national debt.

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Oooh, “the approaching fiscal cliff and national bankruptcy” still are approaching — but never arriving. The only fiscal cliff we have is the one that Trump + COVID are pushing us over. The people in America may go bankrupt, but the federal government never will.

And yet, the GOP refuses to implement the latest $3 trillion rescue package proposed by the Democrats because . . . well, because it was proposed by the Democrats and it includes benefits for the poor and middle-income groups, and “not enough” for the rich.

Millions of Americans are jobless and starving, but that ole’ federal debt bomb is still ‘a tickin’.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

Ten Steps To Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA

2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone

3. Social Security for all or a reverse income tax

4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone

5. Salary for attending school

6. Eliminate federal taxes on business

7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually.

8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.

9. Federal ownership of all banks

10.Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9%

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Whose lies are more harmful to you: Trump’s or the libertarians’?

Donald Trump, being a demonstrated psychopath, is the most frequent liar of any previous American President, perhaps the most frequent of any human in history. His lies, plus his Presidential power, have caused grievous harm to America.

Everything he touches turns to disaster. Soldiers have died. Thousands of other Americans have died. People are homeless. Children are starving. The man walks in chaos. When historians evaluate America’s Presidents, I predict Trump will fall to the bottom.

*Bernanke: “Guess what. The Libertarians still claim the government can become insolvent!” Greenspan: “And some people believe it??”*

Yet with all that, I submit that the Libertarians and their believers are more harmful to you than he is.

See if you agree. Here are some excerpts from a Libertarian article.

Both Biden and Trump Plan to Spend Well Beyond the Government’s “Means.”
Whether Biden or Trump wins this November, we’re in for big, unaffordable government. How much bigger and how unaffordable are the only real questions. By: J.D. TUCCILLE, (former managing editor of Reason.com and current contributing editor. )9.2.2020 3:40 PM

Immediately, we are confronted with lies.

First, the federal government, unlike state and local government, is Monetarily Sovereign. It has the unlimited ability to create dollars. It has no “means.” It never can run short of its own sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar. It neither needs nor uses tax dollars. It creates dollars at will.

**Can you believe it? The Libertarians still claim the government can become insolvent.**

Who says so?

Former Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology called a printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent) that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan: A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”

And Greenspan again: There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody.”

And the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank: As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e. unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational.”

And then there’s Warren Buffet: “Those who regularly preach doom because of government budget deficits, (as I regularly did myself for many years) might note that our country’s national debt has increased roughly 400 fold during the last of my 77-year periods.”

I inspected J.D. Tuccille’s article very carefully, and nowhere does he define, “Well Beyond The Government’s Means.” And you will find that no other debt “hand-wringer” ever explains that phrase. Tuccille simply refers to “unaffordable government.” But unaffordable for whom? Here’s a hint:

Tuccille: “There are differences between what Republican Trump and Democrat Joe Biden threaten to inflict on us in terms of raising revenue and how to spend it.”

Tuccille claims “revenue (i.e. taxes) pay for federal spending. That would be true of monetarily non-sovereign governments — i.e. state and local governments and euro governments — but it is not true of the federal government. If it were true, then it would be possible for the federal government to become insolvent, and Greenspan, Bernanke, and the St. Louis Fed would be wrong.

So perhaps, Tuccille’s “unaffordable” refers to taxpayers. But since taxes do not fund federal spending, his comment makes no sense.

The federal government does not spend tax dollars. It destroys tax dollars, and creates new dollars, ad hoc, when it spends.

The details are hard to nail down—probably deliberately so on the part of the campaigns—but Trump essentially promises tax cuts (and penalties for those who cross him) while spending too much, and Biden intends to raise taxes while ignoring the idea that spending must be constrained in any way.

When it comes to taxes, Trump continues the Republican Party’s traditional interest in reducing the government’s take.

The Republican Party’s “traditional interest” would be correct, except for two small details. They become interested in tax reductions only when the President is a Democrat, and even then, they want tax reductions only for the rich.

And when federal spending is “constrained,” we have recessions and depressions, which are cured by unconstrained federal spending.

“Without further details or clarification, it is difficult to fully analyze President Trump’s second term tax policy agenda,” Erica York noted last week for the Tax Foundation. “Broad themes of the president’s agenda include providing tax relief to individuals and tax credits to businesses that engage in desired activities.”

“Difficult to fully analyze” is another way of saying, Trump has no tax policy agenda. (He also has no health-care agenda, no immigration agenda, no foreign policy agenda, and no COVID agenda). About the only agenda he consistently has had is, “What’s best for me.”

Also, “tax relief to individuals“ should read, “tax relief to wealthy Republicans.” Also, “tax credits to businesses that engage in desired activities” should read, “tax credits to businesses whose owners support me.”

The exception is on the matter of tariffs, given that the president has wandered from his party’s long-time support of free trade.

Trump has “wandered” because he believes, or rather, wants us to believe, that American’s import duties are paid by China, when in reality, they are paid by Americans.

“In his first term, President Trump has imposed more than $80 billion of tax increases in the form of tariffs,” adds York. “Recently, the president said he would impose tariffs on companies that do not move jobs back to the United States from overseas. Whether this is a formal policy proposal is unclear, but it indicates the possibility of continued tariffs if Trump wins reelection.”

Trump typically flails wildly at anything or anyone he believes does not support him. His flailing generally punishes Americans.

Biden, too, fulfills the role you would expect of his party affiliation as a Democrat.

“Biden has not released a single formal tax plan, but he has proposed many tax changes and increases connected to spending proposals related to issues like climate change, infrastructure, health care, education, and research & development,” Garrett Watson and Erica York wrote for the Tax Foundation. “Most of these proposals center around raising income taxes on high earners as well as on businesses.”

With a little more detail to analyze, Watson and York “estimate that Biden’s tax proposals would raise about $3.8 trillion over 10 years. The plan would also reduce long-run economic growth by 1.51 percent and eliminate about 585,000 full-time equivalent jobs.”

All federal taxes reduce economic growth because they reduce the supply of money in the economy. The only worthwhile federal taxes are those that narrow the Gap between the rich and the rest. The Gap is even more harmful to the economy than is the growth-reducing effects of money supply reduction.

Notice how Tuccille admits that taxes “reduce long-run economic growth,” then still talks about the government spending beyond its means. This reflects the knee-jerk, government hatred bythe Libertarians. To them, all government is too big and all government spending is too much. The reality of Libertarianism is that it always devolves to anarchy.

Whether or not a government is taxing too little, enough, or too much is relative to how much it plans to spend and how much ruckus taxpayers kick up in response to the legalized mugging. For both legacy-party candidates, lots of spending well beyond the government’s means is part of the plan.

Yes, yes, again the government’s non-existent “means.” In 1940, the federal debt was about $40 billion. Today, it is above $20 trillion, a 500-fold increase. For 80 years, the U.S. government has been spending beyond its non-existent “means,” and Tuccille still hasn’t caught on.

In Trump’s case, we know he isn’t shy about cutting checks. “Under Trump’s signature, before any true crisis hit, the annual price tag of government went up by $937 billion in less than four years,” Reason’s Matt Welch recently wrote.

For his 2021 budget (a theoretical document, since the federal government has given up on formal budgets), President Trump proposed continuously increasing federal spending, though slower growth than was originally forecast.

Libertarians and those of similar ilk, love to complain about “federal spending,” but when it comes to specifics, they strangely are mute (except for proposing cuts to spending that benefits the not-rich. They generally are happy to see cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and other anti-poverty initiatives.

“The federal deficit would be $2.1 trillion smaller under the President’s budget than in CBO’s baseline over the 2021–2030 period,” the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected earlier this year. That certainly sounds like an improvement, but the budget consistently spends more than the government collects to leave the country with a cumulative $11 trillion deficit instead of the baseline anticipated $13 trillion deficit.

There it is again. He admits that the government consistently spends more than it taxes — almost every year for the past 80 years — and yet here we are. The government has been spending beyond its “means” and nothing is unaffordable.

How do Libertarians explain the absence of insolvency? They ignore history and facts, and keep screaming that the sky is falling, or soon will fall, or us just about to fall. And still, it doesn’t fall.

Then again, that seems almost realistic when compared to what Trump’s main rival, Joe Biden, plans in terms of increased expenditures and benefits.

“From a variety of sources—campaign releases, independent analyses, media stories and the Congressional Budget Office—I have constructed a rough estimate of what it would cost to cover all the new benefits,” The Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson recently tallied. “The additional 10-year spending totals $7.74 trillion.”

“But wait, we’re not finished yet,” wrote Samuelson. “To these costs ought to be added the projected budget deficits under existing policies. For the period from 2021 to 2030, CBO figures that’s another $13 trillion. The grand total comes to $20.7 trillion (the $13 trillion, plus the $7.7 trillion).”

I should add here that the CBO recently admitted that it “has tended to overestimate revenues in its projections—especially those that extend further into the future.” That means we should expect deficits to be higher than all of this number-crunching predicts, with larger debt to result.

Oh, woe. The federal government, which has infinite money, plans to pump more money into the economy. And this is supposed to frighten us? You know what frightens me? The notion that someday again, a Libertarian idea might take hold in the federal government, and we again would have this:

1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began 1807.
1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819.
1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837.
1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857.
1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873.
1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893.
1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929.
1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began 2001.

Bill Clinton, the faux Democrat, was hailed by Libertarians (and by himself) for cutting the debt in the 1997-2001 period. Clearly, that didn’t turn out well. (What, Mr. Tuccille, you’re surprised that taking money out of the private sector led to a recession?)

And all of this is before we take into account the damage wrought by the pandemic and by government-imposed lockdowns.

And what does Mr. Tuccille want to do about that “damage”? He wants to cut federal spending at just the time when millions are jobless and starving. It’s classic Libertarian craziness.

Economic activity “appeared to have declined at a historically rapid rate in the second quarter,” the Federal Reserve conceded in July, adding that “the pace of declines in the unemployment rate, over the second half of this year were expected to be somewhat less robust than in the previous forecast.”

A smaller, struggling economy in which people are scrambling to rebuild businesses, jobs, and wealth isn’t going to surrender as much revenue as government types would like. It’s also likely to be more vulnerable than a thriving economy to burdensome taxes and tariffs.

All taxes and tariffs “burdensome.” Why? Because they all reduce the supply of dollars in the economy — which is exactly what the Libertarians wish to do.

Whoever wins the presidency—realistically, either Biden or Trump—we’re in for big, unaffordable government. How much bigger and how unaffordable are the only real questions.

No, the only question is: When will the Libertarians, the Democrats, the Republicans, and the media tell the American people that:

A growing economy requires a growing supply of money
Federal deficit spending supplies those growth dollars.
The U.S. federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has infinite dollars. It never can run short. It never can be insolvent. The federal government never can be unaffordable.

But then, if the Libertarians admitted it, there would be no raison d’etre for Libertarianism, would there? And the populace, who understood it, would demand Gap-narrowing benefits, which the rich who run America don’t want.

So perhaps the real question is, What will it take to teach the Libertarians, the politicians, and the populace, what really should, at long last, be obvious?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

Ten Steps To Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA

2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone

3. Social Security for all or a reverse income tax

4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone

5. Salary for attending school

6. Eliminate federal taxes on business

7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually.

8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.

9. Federal ownership of all banks

10.Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9%

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

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

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