Watch the Republicans forge their own history

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
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It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders..
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Trump makes it official. He knows more than the climate scientists.

Trumpworld is not becoming warmer, and if it is, the cause is not increased, human-caused carbon dioxide. And anyway, what’s wrong with a little warmth? And by the way, it’s all Hillary’s fault.

Does that about cover it?

Trump quits the Paris climate accord, denouncing it as a violation of U.S. sovereignty

“It is time to put Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., and Pittsburgh, Pa., … before Paris, France,”

It’s like this: Paris, France and the rest of the world may get warmer, species may die, the oceans may rise, tropical diseases may move north, but the children of Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., and Pittsburgh, Pa. will not be affected.  The America of Trumpworld will be immune to climate change.

The climate agreement would “undermine our economy, hamstring our workers, weaken our sovereignty … and put us at a permanent disadvantage to the other countries of the world,” he said. “It is time to exit the Paris accord.”

Trump lashed out at foreign leaders in his statement, saying they supported the agreement because it was a “massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries.”

The so-called “disadvantage” and “redistribution” is 100% bunk. Our Monetarily Sovereign government can support our businesses and our people at will. We don’t need to destroy the world to do it.

If Trump truly cared about the people of America, he would not have sponsored a plan that takes health care from the poor living in Detroit, Youngstown, and Pittsburgh — and the other 24 million poor people of America. 

Republican business leaders, who had lobbied the White House against making this move. They and other supporters of action to combat climate change say that policies designed to limit global warming are helping the U.S. economy by building up new industries, especially solar and wind power.

“The nations that remain in the Paris Agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created,” former President Obama said.

If Trump and his sycophantic followers have their way, the United States will fall behind in non-carbon based technologies of the future including solar, wind, nuclear, and geothermal.

Trump will lock “Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., and Pittsburgh, Pa.” to the technologies of the past: Coal, oil, and natural gas. 

Trump said, he hopes to negotiate a new agreement “on terms that are fair to the United States.”

Why would anyone negotiate any agreement with Donald Trump?  He repeatedly, during his business life, has demonstrated he has no respect for agreements and will disregard them at will. He just reaffirmed that.

“But even in the absence of American leadership; even as this Administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future; I’m confident that our states, cities, and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got,” said Obama.

Obama is too sanguine about that.  Without financial encouragement and support from the federal government, the positive effect of the individual states, cities, and businesses will be minimized.

The move may also harm the growing U.S. clean-energy industry, which may now see China and Europe take the lead in developing advanced technologies.

Rather than build new industries for workers, Trump will help the coal industry to continue throwing coal miners out of work via increased mechanization of that obsolescent industry.

“Disappointed with today’s decision on the Paris Agreement. Climate change is real. Industry must now lead and not depend on government,” Jeff Immelt, the chairman and chief executive of General Electric, said.

Elon Musk, the head of Tesla, and Walt Disney Co. chief Robert Iger announced they were withdrawing from a White House advisory council on manufacturing.

When even big business hates a Republican move, you know something is wrong.

This leaves us with the question: Why would Trump make such a wrongheaded decision, that will be scorned by all but the most mentally defective of his followers?

Here is the answer:

When the Paris agreement was signed, Obama had hailed it as one of his major accomplishments.

Some conservatives and administration officials eager to quit the agreement warned Trump that environmental activists could use it to block the administration from its efforts to dismantle Obama’s policies.

And there you have it, the real reason why Trump and his Republican cronies want to leave the Paris accords. Not because climate change is a “Chinese hoax,” and not because the agreement is “bad for Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Mich., and Pittsburgh, Pa.”

Those are fake excuses.

It is the same reason the right-wing is so determined to destroy Obamacare. It is the same reason why Trump hired an anti-environmentalist to head the Environmental Protection Agency (After Trump’s Paris announcement, EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, ducks question on climate change)

The visceral hatred of Barack Obama runs so hard and so deep among the “religious” right wing, that they are willing to abandon everything Republicans stand for — everything America stands for — in an attempt to erase Obama from history.

But ironically, with Donald Trump, the Republicans are forging their own history, a history that will not soon be forgotten for the damage is will do to those most precious to us.

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 have-mores and the have-less.

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 A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Economic Bonus)) 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 EVERYONE Five 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 FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce 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 business 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.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY