Study these numbers, and you will see the #1 reason why you go deeply into debt to send your child to college, and why Donald Trump won:

Holgorsen contract extension through 2021 exceeds $18M
By Allan Taylor in News, Sports, WVU Sports | December 03, 2016 at 3:45PM

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia University reached a contract extension with Dana Holgorsen, signing the head coach through 2021 with a package worth $18.6 million before incentives.

Holgorsen’s 2017 salary will climb to $3.5 million, a bump from the $2.9 million he was slated to earn under his previous deal. By the final year of the extension, Holgorsen would receive $4 million.
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With $2.7M extension, ‘never any doubt’ where Gibson wanted to be
By Allan Taylor in Sports, WVU Sports | December 21, 2016 at 9:10PM

Defensive coordinator, Tony Gibson will earn $850,000 next year, up from the $700,000 he was scheduled to receive under the previous deal. In 2018 his salary climbs to $900,000 and in 2019 it reaches $950,000.

If your child attended West Virginia University, did you object to the school spending so much for football coaches?

West Virginia University Salaries:

Professor: Ave.9 Month Salary: $116,853; Ave.Effective Annual Salary: $155,804
Assistant Professor $110,414
Postdoctoral Fellow  $47,459 per year
Research Associate $52,253 per year
Research Assistant Professor $66,962
Graduate Research Assistant $22,871
Associate Professor $97,229
Professional Technologist II $50,149 per year
Teaching Assistant Professor $57,152per year
Post Doctoral Fellow $49,225 per year
Assistant Professor – Hourly $79.83 hourly
Research Assistant $22,983 per year
Postdoctoral Research Associate $45,898 per year
Graduate Assistant – Hourly $12.21
Senior Lecturer $44,526 per year

Do you agree that Coach Holgorsen is worth more that 20 times as much to you and your child, as is a full professor?

Tuition and fees: $46,704
Room and board: $13,730
Books, transportation, personal expenses: $3,566

Total: $64,000

What percentage of your annual income was devoted to sending your child to a college in which the football coach makes what 20 professors make? Did you object?

2017 School Rankings: West Virginia University is ranked #183 in National Universities. Schools are ranked according to their performance across a set of widely accepted indicators of excellence.

#183 (tie) in National Universities
#247 (tie) in High School Counselor Rankings
#99 (tie) in Top Public Schools
#150 (tie) in Business Programs
#116 (tie) in Engineering Programs (doctorate)

Did you object to spending so much to send your child to a school that is ranked #183 among universities, and spends millions on football coaches?

But the good news is:

West Virginia University college football ranking: 16 

And really, that’s the important thing, isn’t it? Football ranking. That’s why you didn’t object. Right?

I don’t mean to pick on West Virginia University. It is not unique. In fact, it is typical.

It shows you why the politicians can continue to tell the Big Lie every year for at least 75 years — the lie that Social Security and Medicare are “going broke” and deficits are “unsustainable” (See: From “ticking time bomb” to “looming collapse.”) — and the populace continues to believe it.

How Police Dogs Work 

People often wonder if dogs sniff out hidden drugs because they want to eat them. In fact, the dogs have absolutely no interest in drugs. What they’re actually looking for is their favorite toy. Their training has led them to associate that toy with the smell of drugs.

The toy used most often is a white towel. Police dogs love to play a vigorous game of tug-of-war with their favorite towel.

“Sniffer” dogs are not trained with treats.  They are trained with praise and games.

Like those trained dogs, the public prefers games to facts. It’s the  perfect example of “bread and circuses.”

“Sniffer dogs” and the public — so long as they receive circuses, they don’t worry about bread. The most recent election proved that.

Donald Trump supplied the circuses, and the public didn’t care that every other sentence was a lie.

That is why you go deeply into debt to send your child to college and that is why Trump won, and that is why you accept the Big Lie, that has proven wrong for at least 75 years.  

You have been well-trained with circuses.

Arf!

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the rich and the rest.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE AN ANNUAL ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA, AND/OR EVERY STATE, A PER CAPITA ECONOMIC BONUS (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONEFive reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE CORPORATE TAXES
Corporations themselves exist only as legalities. They don’t pay taxes or pay for anything else. They are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the government (the later having no use for those dollars).
Any tax on corporations reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all corporate taxes come around and reappear as deductions from your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and corporate taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

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