Tag: Unsustainable debt

–When will the wise Muslim get out of America?

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand Monetary Sovereignty, do not understand economics. If you understand the following, simple statement, you are ahead of most economists, politicians and media writers in America: Our government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has the unlimited ability to create the dollars to pay its bills.
========================================================================================================================================================

In the previous post ( We already have lost the war), I reprinted excerpts from an article written by John Mauldin, in which he asked, “When would a wise Jew have begun making plans to leave Germany?”

He reminds the reader about a series of events occurring in pre-World War II Germany that presaged the holocaust, events each of which would have given the “wise Jew” a clue about what was to happen. In each case, Mauldin asks whether this is the point at which the “wise Jew” should have seen the handwriting on the wall, and left. You might wish to read that post before continuing with this one.

The point of today’s post is that some of the same events occurring in pre-war Germany are occurring now in America, and this time, the main target is Islam. So the question is: When would the wise Muslim begin to make plans to leave America?

Here is one parallel with yesteryear:

Americans’ bias against Jews, Muslims linked, poll says
By Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post Staff Writer, Thursday, January 21, 2010

A (Gallup) poll about Americans’ views on Islam concludes that the strongest predictor of prejudice against Muslims is whether a person holds similar feelings about Jews.

The poll, conducted in the fall (of 2009), is the latest large-scale survey to find a high level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States. . . The Gallup poll asked Americans about their views of Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism and found that 53 percent see Islam unfavorably.

And here is another hint for the “wise Muslim.”

Ground Zero:Exaggerating the Jihadist Threat
by Romesh Ratnesar, Time, August 18, 2010

President Obama’s statement on Aug. 13 endorsing “the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan” has unleashed another storm of partisan bloviation. Obama is “pandering to radical Islam,” says Newt Gingrich; John Boehner finds Obama’s comments “deeply troubling.” On this issue, the President’s critics have public opinion on their side: nearly 70% of Americans in a CNN–Opinion Research Corporation poll say they oppose a Ground Zero mosque.”

And yet another hint for the “wise Muslim”

Growing Bias Against Muslims In America
Posted in Liberaland by Alan, 9/13/2010

“There is a hatred, an open hatred, and a lack of tolerance for people who are Muslim,” said Mary Jo O’Neill, regional attorney for the Phoenix district office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She said she has seen an uptick in discrimination complaints among Muslim workers in her region, which includes Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico.

Claims of bias against Muslims in the workplace rose to 1,490 last year (2009) from 1,304 in 2008 and just 697 in 2004, according to EEOC figures. Last year’s total was even higher than in the year after the 9/11 attacks, when bias claims hit 1,463. Figures from this year are not yet available.

No, I am NOT suggesting that Muslims should leave America. On the contrary, my fervent prayer is that the anti-Muslim demigogs and the hate-mongering bigots will quit America and the Muslims will stay with us to enrich our multi-faceted society. But if you read the previous post and think about what happened in Germany and now is happening in America, you will see disturbing parallels.

We have not gone so far as a “Crystal Night” in America, yet. We like to think we are the compassionate land of the free – we like to think it couldn’t happen here — but in truth, no nation is immune from the bigotry disease. Perhaps the killing of bin Laden will reduce the heat, but I suspect that one more 9/11 tragedy will unleash the dogs of hatred, perhaps far worse than anything we have seen.

What do you think the wise Muslim should do?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com


==========================================================================================================================================
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. It’s been 40 years since the U.S. became Monetary Sovereign, , and neither Congress, nor the President, nor the Fed, nor the vast majority of economists and economics bloggers, nor the preponderance of the media, nor the most famous educational institutions, nor the Nobel committee, nor the International Monetary Fund have yet acquired even the slightest notion of what that means.

Remember that the next time you’re tempted to ask a dopey teenager, “What were you thinking?” He’s liable to respond, “Pretty much what your generation was thinking when it screwed up my future.”

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Financial frauds who give exactly the same advice to every client, no matter what the situation.

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand Monetary Sovereignty, do not understand economics. If you understand the following, simple statement, you are ahead of most economists, politicians and media writers in America: Our government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has the unlimited ability to create the dollars to pay its bills.
==============================================================================================================================================================================================

We all are aware of the euro nations’ financial problems, especially the problems of the PIIGS – Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. We have discussed the fact that because these nations, in surrendering their Monetary Sovereignty, surrendered their control over their money supply. They are unable to create the money necessary to support their economies.

I predicted in a 1995 speech at the UMKC, “Because of the Euro, no euro nation can control its own money supply. The Euro is the worst economic idea since the recession-era, Smoot-Hawley Tariff. The economies of European nations are doomed by the euro.” However, not all European nations surrendered their Monetary Sovereignty. Among the nations choosing to remain Monetarily Sovereign are Poland, Romania, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom.

Here are some sample news items:

Bloomberg; 5/25/11: “Poland’s economic-growth forecast was raised to 3.9 percent from 3 percent at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

5/27/11: According to Capital Economics, a British research group, Romania’s economy will grow by 3% this year compared to a previous forecast of 1%, followed in 2012 by a 2.5% advance. The recovery will be fueled by private consumption, but also by the resumption of investments. Also the research group states that Romania has the second best potential for economic development in the region, along with Bulgaria, Poland and Russia.

OCDE:1/2/11 – Sweden is expected to continue to recover strongly from the recession as high saving, low interest rates and an improving jobs market encourage consumers to step up spending, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Survey of the country.

Bloomberg: 5/26/11: The mainland (Norway) economy will expand 3.3 percent this year and 4 percent in 2012, after growing 2.2 percent in 2010, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said yesterday.

The Monetarily Sovereign nations are doing better than the monetarily non-sovereign nations. No surprise there for those of you who have been reading this blog. The key, of course, is for a Monetarily Sovereign nation to realize it’s Monetarily Sovereign. Not all do.

Why the British economy is in very deep trouble, Financial Times, Posted by Neil Hume on May 26, 2011

Here’s something for the Chancellor and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to chew on: a warning from Dr Tim Morgan, the global head of research at Tullett Prebon, that the deficit reduction plan won’t work and the UK is headed for a debt disaster.

Morgan says sectors that account for nearly 60 per cent of UK economic output are critically dependent on debt (public or private) and set to contract rather than expand. This will render economic growth implausible and means the burden of public and private debt will prove too heavy for the nation to carry:

Over the past decade, the British economy has been critically dependent on private borrowing and public spending. Now that these drivers have disappeared – private borrowing has evaporated, and the era of massive public spending expansion is over – the outlook for growth is exceptionally bleak.

Sectors which depend upon either private borrowing or public spending now account for at least 58% of economic output. These sectors are now set to contract rather than expand, which renders aggregate economic growth implausible. And, without growth, there may be no way of avoiding a debt disaster.

The UK, wisely avoided surrendering its Monetary Sovereignty, then forgot why it did so. It thinks, “the era of massive public spending is over.” Why? It has no idea. It believes it’s monetarily non-sovereign.

This puts the UK in the same position as the U.S., whose politicians, media and old-time economists do not understand the implications of Monetary Sovereignty. Read any article or listen to any politician, and you will not be able to tell whether the subject is a Monetarily Sovereign nation or a monetarily non-sovereign nation. They say exactly the same things about both.

What would you think about an investment advisor who gives exactly the same advice to a wealthy, married old man with no children, as he gives to an impoverished single, young woman supporting five children? If someone says exactly the same things, makes exactly the same predictions, and offers exactly the same advice regarding two diametrically opposite monetary situations, that person is a fraud.

I have just described the debt-hawk media, politicians and old-time economists.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com


==============================================================================================================================================================================================
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. It’s been 40 years since the U.S. became Monetary Sovereign, , and neither Congress, nor the President, nor the Fed, nor the vast majority of economists and economics bloggers, nor the preponderance of the media, nor the most famous educational institutions, nor the Nobel committee, nor the International Monetary Fund have yet acquired even the slightest notion of what that means.

Remember that the next time you’re tempted to ask a dopey teenager, “What were you thinking?” He’s liable to respond, “Pretty much what your generation was thinking when it screwed up my future.”

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–We never will find a solution, because we’re discussing the wrong problem.

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand Monetary Sovereignty, do not understand economics. If you understand the following, simple statement, you are ahead of most economists, politicians and media writers in America: Our government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has the unlimited ability to create the dollars to pay its bills.
==========================================================================================================================================================================

Here are five headlines and the first lines of their articles, from the May 26th Washington Post. What do these five articles have in common? What is their fundamental premise?

Senate rejects GOP budget plan that would overhaul Medicare
The Senate voted 57 to 40 against GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget proposal, with all but five Republicans supporting the spending plan.

Plum Line: Senate Dems up pressure on GOP over Ryancare
Senate Democrats are going to hold a vote today on the GOP budget plan that includes the proposal to end Medicare as we know it, in an effort to put Senate Republicans on the spot and keep up momentum after the big Dem victory in NY-26.

2chambers: Ryan says Democrats have ‘lied to’ voters about his budget plan
One day after his party — as well as his 2012 budget blueprint — was dealt a stinging defeat in a New York special election, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Wednesday that the election was not a referendum on Republicans’ proposed changes to Medicare, and he argued that Democrats had distorted the issue for political gain.

The California researcher who could save health-care reform — and the budget
Joe Selby has been named director of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute

Ezra Klein: When ex-budget directors stop being polite and start getting real
Peter Orszag, concluding a column on why Paul Ryan’s Medicare reforms won’t work to control costs.

The fundamental premise is that the federal deficit should be reduced, and not one of these articles even questions it, much less discusses it. Imagine a group of people discussing the best way to sail from Europe to India, without falling off the edge of the world. Many ideas are debated fervently, but the fundamental premise – that one can fall off the edge of the world — never is discussed. When the fundamental premise is wrong, all solutions will be wrong. And that is why there never can be a good solution to our economic problems, no matter how long, passionately and cleverly we debate.

In a Monetarily Sovereign nation, deficits are what supply money to the economy. Without deficits, America would have no money and no economy. Because a large economy has more money than does a small economy, a growing economy requires a growing money supply. So growing deficits are necessary for economic growth. Further, a Monetarily Sovereign nation has the unlimited ability to pay any bills of any size, instantly.

All efforts to reduce the deficit, i.e. reduce the money supply, by necessity must result in recessions and depressions, and that is exactly what history has shown us. (See: Facts about Monetary Sovereignty )

Our economic problems cannot be solved so long as the discussions are based on a faulty premise. Only when we acknowledge the basic truth of Monetary Sovereignty – federal deficit spending is necessary and sustainable — will we create a solid foundation for economic progress.

We can’t find our way home if we take the wrong path.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com


==========================================================================================================================================
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. It’s been 40 years since the U.S. became Monetary Sovereign, , and neither Congress, nor the President, nor the Fed, nor the vast majority of economists and economics bloggers, nor the preponderance of the media, nor the most famous educational institutions, nor the Nobel committee, nor the International Monetary Fund have yet acquired even the slightest notion of what that means.

Remember that the next time you’re tempted to ask a dopey teenager, “What were you thinking?” He’s liable to respond, “Pretty much what your generation was thinking when it screwed up my future.”

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

–Does unemployment actually stimulate the economy?

The debt hawks are to economics as the creationists are to biology. Those, who do not understand Monetary Sovereignty, do not understand economics. If you understand the following, simple statement, you are ahead of most economists, politicians and media writers in America: Our government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has the unlimited ability to create the dollars to pay its bills.
==============================================================================================================================================================================

Those who understand Monetary Sovereignty know the federal deficit/debt issue is phony, created by the Tea (formerly Republican) Party as an election ploy and/or out of sheer economic ignorance. It’s an issue I predicted would come back to bite the Tea Republicans as specifics about what’s to be cut became understood. Hello Medicare, Social Security, the military, and on and on and on.

So, I anticipate the right wing will begin to focus on a better issue, and that issue will be: unemployment. We all can empathize with those who want income but can’t find a job. Presumably this issue will make more sense than cutting the money supply to stimulate the economy, Rep. Boehner’s latest bit of desperation nonsense.

One problem is definitional. What exactly is unemployment? Is it:
–people who don’t have jobs?
–working age (whatever that is) people who don’t have jobs?
–people seeking employment?
–people seeking employment, and whose separation/unemployment benefits have run out?

Other factors include:
–length of unemployment
–age of those unemployed
–relationship to population size
–definition of a “job” (This one can be especially complex. For instance, do home workers have jobs? Do part-time workers have jobs?)
–Cash workers who don’t pay taxes and are “invisible” to the government statisticians

All these thoughts came to me when I looked at this graph.

graph 1

It shows the total number of unemployed (blue line) and the Civilian Employment / Population Ratio (red line).

The number of unemployed remains near its all-time high, which is an important election issue. But population too is at its all-time high. So, the red line is more revealing, simply because it takes population into consideration.

And it shows something rather interesting. The ratio of employment to population, while relatively high is nowhere near its all-time high, which occurred in 2000. In fact, the Civilian Employment-Population Ratio is higher than it was during all the years from WWII through 1983.

Even more interesting: Unemployment has tended to fall during the years preceding recessions, then climb during recessions, only to fall again when recessions ended. This could indicate that unemployment does not precipitate recessions, but rather is a result of recessions.

Neither curing unemployment nor increasing employment, seems to prevent recessions. On the contrary, based solely on these data, one could make the case that employment efforts are economically counter-productive.

I don’t have good evidence to explain this counter-intuitive result, but as a businessman, I have a hunch: When business improves, companies hire too many people. They create excessive employment. Then, because payrolls become excessive, companies pare down. And this, along with reduced federal deficit growth, leads to a recession.

I am not saying the federal government should encourage unemployment or even neglect it. Rather, I believe reduced unemployment works in parallel with reduced federal deficit spending to cause recessions.

graph 2

Rather than trying to attack unemployment directly, the federal government should increase deficit spending on many fronts, which will stimulate the overall economy and thereby, counteract the negative economic effects of what seem to be periods of excessive employment.

As I said, I don’t have proof for this conjecture, other than the data shown above. Perhaps you have a different explanation.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com


==========================================================================================================================================
No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. It’s been 40 years since the U.S. became Monetary Sovereign, , and neither Congress, nor the President, nor the Fed, nor the vast majority of economists and economics bloggers, nor the preponderance of the media, nor the most famous educational institutions, nor the Nobel committee, nor the International Monetary Fund have yet acquired even the slightest notion of what that means.

Remember that the next time you’re tempted to ask a dopey teenager, “What were you thinking?” He’s liable to respond, “Pretty much what your generation was thinking when it screwed up my future.”

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY