If you wish to succeed at something, find a niche and focus on that thing.
Seems pretty obvious, but you would be amazed at how often that advice is ignored.
Before I retired, my livelihood for 30 years was based on bringing small, sick companies back to life. In those years I saw many sick companies, and I found that the primary reason why these companies were failing waslack of focus.
Company founders usually had a special skill they used to create their companies, but at some point these owners decided that growth or profits would be enhanced if they could add side businesses.
They lost faith in their own visions.
Example: A profitable lawbook company became unprofitable when the owner decided to open a store that sold desk novelties to lawyers. So this owner, who was a great lawbook, telephone salesman, diverted his attention to the complications of running a store.
His lawbook business crashed.
Example: A software company sold a profitable piece of educational software to college students. But the owner, who was an excellent programmer, decided to spend his time creating on-demand, one-of-a-kind software for companies.
He lost focus in his own profitable business.
In both cases, I saved their companies. I added by subtraction.I refocused their businesses on their prime targets, products, and methods.
And in each instance, laser focus on a goal allowed these companies to recover and to dominate their niche.
I believe Black Lives Matter suffers from the same lack of focus I found in failing companies.
Yes, I get it. Who am I, an old white man, to lecture young black men and women about Black Lives Matter?
Obviously, I cannot completely understand their histories, their knowledge, and their motives, but some things are universal, and message focus is one of them.
Focus begins with a goal. What is the goal of Black Lives Matter?
According to BlackLivesMatter.com, “(The) mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.”
According to Wikipedia, “Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an organized movement in the United States advocating for non-violent civil disobedience in protest against incidents of police brutality against African American people.
So it would seem that the original focus of BLM has to do with state-sponsored or state-permitted violence against blacks.
There are numerous other organizations designed to protect blacks against unfair hiring, unfair pay, unfair working conditions, unfair living conditions, unfair educational opportunities, crime, incarceration, biased history taught in schools, drugs, guns, bigotry in the armed services, etc.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), The Southern Poverty Law Center, and numerous other organizations work against all sorts of bigotry against blacks.
They all feel that indeed, black lives do matter.
What makes BLM special? It focuses, or should focus, on government permitted violence against blacks. That is its mission.
Anything other than that diffuses the message, and a diffuse message is not as effective as a focused message.
A FOCUSED LENS LIGHTS A FIRE.
Have you ever heard of a “burning glass.”
It is a convex lens that can focus the sun’s diffuse rays into a narrow area of heat, that can burn combustibles.
For BLM, focus does not include toppling civil war monuments, changing street names, changing sports team names, erasing Mount Rushmore faces, ridiculing articles of clothing, eliminating university courses, burning books, preventing speeches by bigots, demonstrating against Washington, Jefferson, Columbus, or the 4th of July — and not even eliminating police funding.
Yes, all of these have tangential relationships to violence against blacks, just as selling desk novelties has a tangential relationship to selling lawbooks.
But, they are not focused.
They not only are digressions, but are easy targets for accusations of communism, socialism, fascism, or any other unpopular “ism.”
Focus should mean, “Stop police violence against blacks,” not a generalized, anti-bigotry message.
There are enough instances of police violence against blacks to occupy an organization. There is no need to search out other examples of racism, as onerous as they may be.
For instance, trying to reduce police budgets, or to abolish police departments altogether, may seem to some, as noble endeavors, but they are off-target, off-focus, and merely an invitation to opposition for the entire anti-police-violence message.
Those reasonable people, who believe the police are necessary, can be swayed to discount the entire BLM organization when they are told the police should be defunded.
My advice to BLM: Stay on message. Don’t stray into other messages, no matter how worthy they may seem to be.
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:
The post compared the right-wing’s easy acceptance of Donald Trump’s lies, criminality, hate-mongering, infidelity, nepotism, conspiracy theories, incompetence, bigotry, and ignorance, vs. the left’s demand for purity.
The right’s lust for power is prompted by its fear and loathing of the poor. It’s called “Gap Psychology,” the psychological desire to distance oneself from those “below” on any status measure and to approach those above.
Because money is power, those of the right-wing ultimately care only about money — gaining it, keeping it, and preventing those “below” from having it.
Cutting healthcare for the poor is a money/power example. Right-wing bigotry against blacks, browns, immigrants is about money. Anti-semitism is about money. Even the anti-abortion movement is about money; the rich always can get abortions.
For the right, whites don’t have enough power, i.e. money. Despite owning the Presidency and the Senate, it is not enough.
By contrast, the left’s lust for powerhas to do with purity. In an earlier text, I termed it “political purity,” but on reflection, I should have called it “moral purity.”
For the left, no one is moral enough. The left finds pleasure in digging for unpunished sinners, like paleontologists digging for undiscovered fossils.
Trump is a psychopath, so his immorality and amorality lie on the surface as the obvious foundations of his being — so obvious, in fact, that some on the left feel obligated to search for other, less apparent examples.
George Washington owned slaves. So did Thomas Jefferson. Despite their accomplishments for America, they are not pure enough for some liberals. Tear down their statues.
Ulysses S. Grant owned a slave, whom he later freed, and he was not opposed to slavery. The same is true of Francis Scott Key, the lyricist for our national anthem. Tear down their statues and find a new national anthem written by someone pure of heart?
And as a Jew, I might remind you that several American Presidents were anti-Semites, even the sainted Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Shall we destroy his memory?
I once again was reminded of the left’s demand for purity, by this tweet from Colin Kaepernick:
What? The 4th of July, the date of the Declaration of Independence, is a “celebration of white supremacy”? Is that a fair analysis? And what does he visualize as “liberation”?
I greatly respect Kaepernick. He talked the talk and he walked the walk — by taking a knee — when the monetary and emotional costs to him proved to be enormous.
He is correct to feel especially aggrieved when his protest against white bigotry was mischaracterized by many whites and even by the POTUS, to be a protest against America’s armed forces and the flag.
Even the cowardly and bigoted National Football League owners joined in by blacklisting this good man.
So, I get it. I really do. I agree, for instance, with Germany having no statues of Adolf Hitler.
But in addition to expressing well-deserved moral outrage, you must understand how to to make your point without turning your allies against you.
Fight the fight that matters. Winning a meaningful battle advances a cause more than heroically losing a symbolic battle. Or does it?
Yes, tear down any Hitler statues, Mussolini’s, too. But shall I also demand that every statue of every anti-Semitic politician in European history also be torn down, along with every American slave owner’s statue?
Shall we dishonor every imperfect human being?
What about the bigoted popes, who loved Jesus but murdered Jews? And what about history’s Jew-hating artists who created anti-Semetic pieces showing Jews with horns. Shall I set out to destroy all their artwork? The great impressionist, Edgar Degas, was a notorious anti-Semite. Should I demand that all his artworks be destroyed? Where do we draw the line?
Columbus’s statue comes down.
What is seen as extreme in one decade might very well be acceptable in another.
Giving women the right to vote once was unthinkable. Mixed-race marriages. Voting by Blacks. Legal marijuana. Online porn. Shooting an unarmed man if you feel “threatened.” A POTUS cheating on multiple wives.
All once were outrageous, now are acceptable by some, to varying degrees.
There are, to my knowledge, no statues of the notorious traitor, Benedict Arnold, but we countenance statues of an even greater traitor, Robert E. Lee.
Again, where do we draw the line?
Think of street names, town names, school names, and county names, all over America, so many of which honor politicians. Do you know of any perfectly moral politicians? Or perfectly moral people?
Next?
Shall we change all our street, town, school, and county names because they honor imperfect people?Yet again, where do we draw the line?
Today, the statue of Christopher Columbus? Tomorrow Columbus School? The next day Columbus, Ohio?
Shall we destroy any memory of those who voted against suffrage or against abolition?
Virtually all advances in the arts and sciences, including philosophy, are initiated by the extremists.
Bob Dylan wrote, “The times, they are a’changin’.” It’s true that times change, but someone has to change them. The times don’t change by themselves. And changes often seem extreme, especially to conservatives, whose fundamental belief is the conservation of the past.
Now, we have a psychopathic President, whose followers rant about “extreme liberals.” You know, those liberal “extremists” who kneel during the Star-Spangled Banner or who want the poor to have health care, or who created Social Security.
It all leaves me with many questions about Kaepernick, not the man, but the symbol for resistance against white bigotry:
As a symbol, is Kaepernick so “extreme” that his efforts actually will aid the right-wing bigots, and lose independent voters for Biden?
Or, will Biden not be extreme enough, causing the emergence of a 3rd party, even more liberal candidate, whose “extremism” will pave the way for a Trump win.
Or, will “extremism” accustom us to thinking about bigotry in a new way, so that future bigotry will be less or more tolerated?
Can any person be pure enough to satisfy the demands of anti-bigots?
To the left, one cannot be pure enough. That is the left’s voting weakness. To the right, one needs only to be anti-liberal. That is the right’s voting strength.
The right will stay consistently anti-poor and anti-middle class. It has no competing ideology. Trump will continue to promulgate hatred to his bigoted followers, and the GOP leaders will follow. There will be few compromises of doctrine among the faithful.
Will the left find common ground within itself, or will it eat upon itself, like an auto-immune disease, for lack of perceived ideological purity?
The coming election will be a moral and philosophical test for the American left. Today they lead the polls. But will their demands for moral purity manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as they did in 2016?
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:
The “Big Lie” comes in various forms. It is stated as:
Federal spending is funded by federal taxes.
The federal debt will lead to insolvency.
Cuts in federal spending are financially prudent.
Federal finances are like state/local government finances.
Federal spending causes inflation.
The federal government should live within its means.
The federal debt is a ticking time bomb.
China will stop lending to us.
Profligate federal spending reduces our ability to deal with financial crises.
Federal debt reduces economic growth
The “debt”/GDP ratio is too high
All are widely promulgated, even by some economists and virtually all politicians and media writers — and all are absolutely untrue. They all are facets of The Big Lie.
Consider the following article from Reason Magazine:
When President Donald Trump said on March 6 that the coronavirus “came out of nowhere,” it wasn’t quite accurate.
Actually, it was 100% wrong:
A pandemic is caused by germs, not by debt, and . . .
Federal debt not cause a financial crisis (lack of federal debt causes financial crises), and . . .
A pandemic has been anticipated by every administration of the past few decades.
The Obama administration compiled a detailed plan for dealing with a pandemic — a plan the Trump administration completely ignored, costing many thousands of lives.
So far, more than 125,000 Americans have died — most unnecessarily — and many more will follow. To say Trump’s statement was not “quite accurate” is like saying the Pacific Ocean is somewhat damp.
Now, move to another comment that is “not quite accurate,” another statement of “The Big Lie.”
There’s another totally predictable crisis that promises to be even more damaging to our way of life: The national debt—the amount of money the federal government owes—is already choking down economic growth, but in the future, it could lead to “sudden inflation,” and “a loss of confidence in the federal government’s ability or commitment to repay its debts in full.”
It must be extremely difficult to pack so much misinformation into one short paragraph, but Nick Gillespie has accomplished the seemingly impossible.
1. The misnamed “national debt” is not the amount of money the federal government owes. It is the amount of money deposited into Treasury Security Accounts at the Federal Reserve bank.
The government does not “owe” this money; the government does not even “have” this money. It is owned by, and controlled by, the depositors.
To invest in a T-security (T-bill, T-note, T-bond), you open a T-security account. Visualize a bank vault into which you put your money, jewels, deeds, etc.
The bank does not “owe” you the value of your deposits. It possess them but does not own them. It merely holds them for you, and gives them back to you upon your demand.
Similarly, the government does not owe you your deposit. The bank possesses your deposit, but does not own it. It simply keeps it for you, and whenever you want it back, the government returns your deposit to you, plus accumulated interest.
2. Your deposits (the so-called national “debt”) do not “choke down” anything. In fact quite the opposite. Until COVID-19, both the economy and the federal “debt” had been growing massively.
The federal “debt” is a reflection of federal deficit spending which stimulates economic growth. In fact, whenever the national debt has been reduced, America has suffered a depression or recession.
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.
Even when the federal debt grows insufficiently, America suffers recessions.
Recessions (vertical bars) occur after a period of reduced Federal Debt Held by the Public (red line) and are cured by increased Federal Debt.
The reason, quite simply, is that a growing economy requires a growing supply of money, so recessions are caused when the money supply does not increase sufficiently.
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports
That also is why recessions are cured when the federal government pumps dollars into the economy via deficit spending.
While Federal Debt (red) has risen massively in the past 70 years, Inflation (blue) has risen moderately.There is no relationship between changes in Federal Debt (red) and changes in Inflation (blue).
4. There never has been, and never will be a “loss of confidence” in the federal government’s ability to pay its debts.
All federal debt either is denominated in dollars or denominated in a currency that can be exchanged for dollars.
The federal government has the unlimited ability to create dollars — every knowledgeable economist knows this — so the federal government cannot run short of dollars with which to pay its debts.
Further, there is a vast difference between what erroneously is termed “the federal ‘debt'” and the federal government’s debts.
The federal “debt” is the total of deposits into T-security accounts, which the federal government pays off simply by returning the dollars in those accounts.
Federal government “debts” are dollars owed to creditors for goods and services purchased by the federal government.
These debts are paid off by the creation of new dollars.
The federal government accomplishes this by sending instructions to each creditor’s bank, telling the bank to increase the balance in the creditor’s checking account.
When the bank does as instructed, brand new dollars are created and added to the nation’s money supply. The federal government can do this endlessly
Mr. Gillespie’s scare-article continues:
“Such a crisis could spread globally” causing some “financial institutions to fail.”
That’s all according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which has been warning Americans about the long-term consequence of the ballooning debt for years.
Yes, the CBO and other organizations have issued the same warning for at least 80 years, and we still are waiting for that “loss of confidence in the federal government’s ability to pay.”
But despite being wrong for 80+ years, the warnings continue.
Congress and presidents from both major parties have accepted Dick Cheney’s false maxim that “deficits don’t matter.”
Instead, they just keep spending more than we take in during good times and bad, even though being so deeply in hock will make us less able to deal with a future crisis.
Sadly, Mr. Gillespie does not understand the difference between the Monetarily Sovereign, U.S. government, and the monetarily non-sovereign state & local governments.
A Monetarily Sovereign government never can run short of its own sovereign currency. A monetarily non-sovereign entity (like you and me) has no sovereign currency, so can become insolvent.
The amount of money the government owed to the public was 79 percent of gross domestic product at the end of 2019, up from 31 percent in 2001.
The COVID-19 lockdowns and subsequent emergency spending will push the curve above 100 percent of GDP by the end of 2020, and it’s expected to keep rising.
Emergency spending and plunging tax revenues are making a bad situation worse.
CBO forecasts that the budget deficit this year will be 17.9 percent of GDP, meaning that the government is running much larger deficits, racking up significantly more debt, than it did even at the height of the financial crisis of 2007-2008.
Also, contrary to popular myth, the “debt”/GDP ratio is meaningless. GDP is a measure of spending in any one year. Federal “debt” measures the net amount of deposits into T-security accounts.
Two completely different measures and two completely time scales. The “debt”/GDP ratio isn’t just apples and oranges. It’s apples and adverbs — two measures that could not be more different.
Mr. Gillespie sounds the ominous warning about the ratio exceeding 100%. As of June 2019, the nation with the highest debt-to-GDP ratio is Japan with a ratio of 253%.
The next highest ratio is from Greece, which at 181.1%, lags significantly behind Japan.
Other nations with high debt-to-GDP ratios include: Cape Verde: 123.4%, Portugal: 121.5%, Congo: 117.7%, Singapore: 112.2%, Mozambique: 110.5%, Bhutan: 108.64%, United States: 105.4%, Jamaica: 103.3%, Cyprus: 102.5%, Belgium: 102%, Egypt: 101.2%
The nations with the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios include: Brunei: 2.4%, Afghanistan: 7.1%, Estonia: 8.4%, Swaziland: 9.95%, Russia: 13.5%, Burundi: 14.4%, Cayman Islands: 14.5%, Kuwait: 14.8%, Libya: 16.5%, Republic of the Congo: 17%, Kosovo: 17.12%, Palestine: 17.5%, Cuba: 18.2%, United Arab Emirates: 18.6%, Guinea: 18.66%
As you can see, there is zero relationship between the “debt”/GDP ratio and a nation’s ability to pay creditors.
It, very simply, is a meaningless ratio used by those who either wish to scare the public, or who are ignorant of economics.
Economists such as Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman and proponents of modern monetary theory (MMT) look at the absence of inflation and higher interest rates so far as justification for ever-more spending and borrowing.
While it’s true that the cost of paying interest on the debt is still dwarfed by other expenditures, that’s because historically low interest rates have made government borrowing cheap.
But there’s no reason to believe that interest rates won’t rise over time. According to conservative estimates from the CBO, as the total budget grows as a percentage of GDP, the cost of paying interest on the debt will increase faster until, by 2050, it accounts for about 24 cents of every dollar spent.
And these estimates don’t take into account emergency spending for COVID-19, which will make servicing the debt even more costly over time.
No, economists don’t “look at the absence of inflation and higher interest rates so far as justification for ever-more spending and borrowing.”
The U.S. federal government does not borrow. Unlike state/local governments, the federal government has the unlimited ability to create dollars, so why would it borrow?
That is what the Fed means when it says “the government is not dependent on credit markets.”
T-securities not represent borrowing. They represent the acceptance of dollar deposits for safe-keeping.
And low interest rates are meaningless for a government that has the unlimited ability to create dollars.
High interest rates actually have a stimulative component. The higher the rate, the more interest dollars — i.e. growth dollars — the federal government pumps into the economy.
The justification for ever-more spending is quite simple: Federal spending not only grows the economy, but federal spending buys valuable goods and services for the American people.
It is federal spending that brings us roads, bridges, dams, healthcare, the military, scientific research & development, education, farming, courts, a government — the list goes on and on.
And now, Mr. Gillespie reveals either ignorance or perfidy:
Like a monthly credit card payment that eats into a household budget, federal debt means less money to buy other things.
He equates federal finances with personal finances. Either he doesn’t understand the difference, or he hopes you don’t understand the difference.
The U.S. federal government neither has nor needs anything resembling a “credit card.” It creates unlimited dollars at the touch of a computer key. The government does not borrow, and it pays creditors simply by issuing instructions to banks.
And when governments run large, persistent deficits, it also has a devastating impact on economic growth over time.
Our current debt levels could reduce GDP by about one-quarter over 23 years, according to research by Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff.
It’s a case of what French economist Frédéric Bastiat referred to as “the unseen” because we’ll never get to experience how much wealthier we otherwise would have been had the federal government practiced fiscal prudence.
Anemic growth will impact the poorest Americans most of all, causing their material progress to slow considerably. It means less leisure time, smaller homes, older cars, and less health care.
Could it be that Mr. Gillespie doesn’t realize the Reinhart and Rogoff conclusions have been debunked, not only for mathematical errors, but perhaps more importantly, because Reinhardt and Rogoff did not differentiate between Monetarily Sovereign governments and monetarily non-sovereign governments.
The former do not borrow and cannot run short of money. The latter do borrow and can run short of money. Quite a difference to overlook.
Remember that equation: GDP = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports. There is absolutely no mechanism by which a reduction in federal spending can increase GDP.
Mr. Gillespie may be one of the last remaining economic writers who still believes austerity can grow an economy, though he never explains how that works.
In the short-term, there’s no question that the government can and will be able to borrow massively, and interest rates are likely to stay low for the time being as the world shifts into recession.
The federal government does not borrow. Interest rates will stay low if that is what the Federal Reserve wants. The Fed has absolute control over the interest the federal government will pay on T-security deposits.
And now we move from the merely wrong to the outright ridiculous:
But there’s also the specter of investors here and abroad refusing to buy U.S.-issued debt as our economy flattens, China flexes its economic and political might, and alternative instruments such as bitcoin and gold offer safe refuge.
The federal government doesn’t need China or anyone else to buy its “debt.” The Federal Reserve itself has the unlimited ability to buy T-securities, which it does, every day.
The government “lends” to itself in an endless circle of finance.
And, bitcoin offers “safe refuge”?? Is this a joke?
Gold, which has only minimal intrinsic value, pays no interest or dividends, costs money for storage and shipping, and the value of which is not guaranteed by anything or anyone — that is “safe refuge”?
Many nations have suffered depressions while on gold standards.
And it keeps getting worse and worse and worse:
Even the most hubristic economist or president would have to admit that there will come a time when the U.S. dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency.
That change won’t necessarily be as dramatic as when German paper marks became worthless after World War I, but it will massively reduce purchasing power even as it increases the cost of everything.
Mr. Gillespie wrongly believes that “reserve currency” endows the U.S. dollar with some valuable status.
A “reserve currency,” of which there are many, depending on the bank, is nothing more than a currency a bank keeps in reserve to facilitate foreign exchange and trade.
The U.S. dollar, the euro, the British pound, the Mexican peso, the Chinese yuan, the Brazilian real, all are reserve currencies for various banks.
The value of these currencies does not rely on being held in reserve by banks. It’s just a currency exchange convenience.
And then Mr. Gillespie tosses in the inevitable reference to German hyperinflation, which had nothing to do with reserve currencies or with over-spending or with anything else pertinent to the discussion.
The German hyperinflation, like all hyperinflations, was caused by shortages of life’s necessities — food, clothing, housing, energy — the result of onerous financial conditions placed on Germany by the Allies after WWI.
Germany simply ran out of money to pay for goods and services, so these items became scarce, and when a needed item is scarce, the price goes up. Period.
The German hyperinflation was cured when Germany issued a new currency and used it to purchase needed goods additionally to buying the greatest war machine the world had ever known.
German government war spending actually cured the hyperinflation by curing the shortages.
Finally, Gillespie argues against his own proposition:
Between 1940 and 1945, federal spending increased tenfold from $10 billion to over $100 billion to pay for the war effort.
But when victory was won, the government immediately cut military spending.
That cut in federal spending led to the recession of 1945.
Our out-of-control spending has been driven by the persistent rise in the cost of entitlements like Medicare and Social Security.
Mr. Gillespie, as a stout libertarian, hates “entitlements,” (aka, benefits to the public). He would prefer a government that does not provide Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Social Security, roads, bridges, dams, education, a military, courts, Congress, national parks, scientific research & development, food & drug inspection, weather reports, and the myriad of other benefits the public receives from the government.
To a libertarian, any government is bad government, and any government spending should be reduced or eliminated.
When the debt crisis materializes and our options are severely limited because of decades of profligate spending, politicians sitting in the Oval Office and Congress will claim that it all just came out of nowhere, like that crazy virus back in 2020.
But nothing could be further from the truth: Budget wonks are already sounding the alarm. We need to heed these warnings now or suffer an economic lockdown later from which there may be no escape.
Back in 1940, the federal “debt” was about $40 billion. Today it is over $20 trillion, and our options are no more limited now than they were then. (Actually, our options are less limited, because federal money creation no longer is hampered by a gold standard.)
The “Big Lie” reflects ignorance of Monetary Sovereignty, which is the single biggest problem facing America’s and the world’s economies.
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:
The news is horrible. People are sickening and dying. Families are being torn apart. The United States has become the sick man of the world, far more pitied than envied.
But, proof it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, and if there is one pitiful spark of good news, the human gene pool will improve, slightly.
“Nane were keener against it than the Glasgow folk, wi’ their rabblings and their risings, and their mobs, as they ca’ them now-a-days. But it’s an ill wind blaws naebody gude.” Sir Walter Scott
One can forgive youth for its ignorance. Youth, after all, is taught to learn from elders. It is the way of the human species.
And especially, youth learns from titled elders — professors, doctors, team leaders, Senators, Presidents.
But what if a titled elder is ignorant or intentionally misleading, and if following his advice is a path to disaster or death. Whom shall we blame? The youth or the leader?
“We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
“China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank PresidentXi!”
“I want to emphasize that the risk to the American public currently is low.”
“We pretty much shut it down coming in fromChina.”
“Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. I hope that’s true. But we’re doing great in our country.”
“In our country, we only have, basically, 12 cases and most of those people are recovering and some cases fully recovered. So it’s actuallyless.”
“Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”
“The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good tome!”
“When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”
“Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. … And this is their newhoax.”
“Gallup just gave us the highest rating ever for the way we are handling the CoronaVirus situation. The April 2009-10 Swine Flu, where nearly 13,000 people died in the U.S., was poorlyhandled.”
“Anybody that wants a test can get a test. That’s what the bottom line is.”
“This was unexpected. … And it hit the world. And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will goaway.”
“The vast majority of Americans, the risk is very, verylow.”
“America will again, and soon, be open for business — very soon — a lot sooner than three or four months that somebody was suggesting. A lot sooner. We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. We’re not going to let the cure be worse than theproblem.”
“Nobody would ever believe a thing like that’s possible. Nobody could have ever seen something like this coming, but now we know, and we know it can happen and happen again.”
Think about it: Why do doctors and nurses wear masks?
“It’s (wearing a mask) going to be, really, a voluntary thing. You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I’m choosing not to do it, but some people may want to do it, and that’s OK. It may be good. Probably will. They’re making a recommendation. It’s only a recommendation.”
“The cases really didn’t build up for a while. But you have to understand, I’m a cheerleader for this country. I don’t want to create havoc and shock and everything else, but ultimately, when I was saying that, I’m also closing it down. I obviously was concerned about it because I closed down our country toChina.”
“I’m going to put it very simply: The president of the United States (not the governors) has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The president of the United States calls the shots.”
“Today I am instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess [its] role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of thecoronavirus.”
“We think some of the states can actually open up before the deadline of May 1. And I think that that will be a very exciting timeindeed.”
“It’s going to be up to the governors. We’re going to work with them, we’re going to help them, but it’s going to be up to the governors. … I think you’re going to see quite a few states starting to open. And I call it a beautiful puzzle. You have 50 pieces, all very different, but when it’s all done, it’s a mosaic. When it’s all done, it’s going to be, I think, a very beautiful picture.”
“LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” “LIBERATE MINNESOTA” “LIBERATE VIRGINIA and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege.”
So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether its ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said, that hasn’t been checked but you’re gonna test it. And then I said, supposing it brought the light inside the body, which you can either do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you’re gonna test that too, sounds interesting. And I then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute, and is there a way you can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it’d be interesting to check that. So you’re going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds interesting to me, so we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it goes in one minute, that’s pretty powerful.”
“It will go away. It’s gonna go away. It will just go away, without a vaccine.”
“Why don’t we let this wash over the country?”
“You know testing is a double-edged sword. … Here’s the bad part. When you test to that extent, you are going to find more people, find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down please.‘”
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:
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 