Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Fwd: Amazon HQ2


From: John H


If anyone in Pittsburgh (or wherever else you might be if your city is making a pitch) wonders just why it is not such a great idea to win this negative lottery, take a look at this information provided by Wolf Richter at Wolf Street.  Pittsburgh survived the housing bubble crisis quite nicely thank you because we did not have the kind of bubble that much of the rest of the nation (particularly California and Florida) experienced.  Housing bubbles are wonderful for those relative few who need to sell, but they are hell for everyone else – particularly low income wage earners and renters.

  John

Why is it easier to imagine the total destruction of mankind, from nuclear war to a climate catastrophe,
than to work on changing the system of relations spawned by neoliberal capitalism?

Pepe Escobar



Monday, January 29, 2018

Fwd: Two for the price of one


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John H

Two very good articles for your evening reading.

 

John

 

The Left has an Intersectionality Problem, in PDF

Whole Foods, Amazon and Pittsburgh.



Saturday, January 27, 2018

Fwd: These are the books you should read to master the liberty message


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Tom Woods


January 26, 2018
View this email in your browser
It's been quite a while since I've shared my recommended (if non-exhaustive) reading list intended for people who want to understand how the world works.

I should probably add a few titles from the past year that would likewise be helpful, but I'm taking the kids out of town for the weekend and I'm in a bit of haste, so this will have to do. (I would certainly add Paul Johnson's Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties. Incidentally, his updated edition that extends through the nineties involves a defense of George H.W. Bush's foreign policy and is unsatisfying.)

Before you ask me, Woods, why haven't you included Amazon links to these books, the answer is that strictly speaking sending Amazon links in an email is a violation of the terms of their Associates program. No way am I taking chances with that. So at the very end I'll give you a link to a page on my website that does have the links, for your convenience.

Here's my short list of books I would recommend to someone who is interested in the ideas I write and speak about and wants to learn more. If you read and absorb these books you will never look at the world the same way again.

If you're like me, you are annoyed by books that teach you three new things. My time is limited. I like books that are full of things I didn't know, or ideas I'd never thought of.

The books I recommend below belong in that category. They teach you something new and unexpected on every page. And they are a perfect antidote to the propaganda fed to us in the ideological prison camps where most of us spent our formative years. I list them in no particular order.

Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt. Important for beginners. Also useful for beginners is Peter Schiff's book How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes.

The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul. This is another good one for beginners. It has a good track record as a proselytizing device.

Democracy: The God that Failed, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Just read it. Trust me on this.

The Quest for Community, by Robert Nisbet. Here is a graduate course in political philosophy. Except in this one, the state is not the glorious summit of civilization and the indispensable source of human flourishing. As the new edition explains, "Nisbet argued that the rise of the powerful modern state had eroded the sources of community—the family, the neighborhood, the church, the guild. Alienation and loneliness inevitably resulted. But as the traditional ties that bind fell away, the human impulse toward community led people to turn even more to the government itself, allowing statism — even totalitarianism — to flourish."

The Left, the Right, and the State, by Lew Rockwell. Lew (who of course runs the indispensable LewRockwell.com) did the world an incalculable service with the founding of the Mises Institute, but he is grossly underrated as a thinker in his own right. He has extended Rothbardian thought in numerous ways, and has influenced my own thinking more than almost anyone in the world.

The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays. Features essays by Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Gottfried Haberler, and Murray N. Rothbard. An effective introduction to the Austrian theory of the business cycle, which anyone who wants to understand the real causes behind boom and bust must know.

What Has Government Done to Our Money? by Murray N. Rothbard. An excellent little overview of the origin of money and its fate at the hands of government.

Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays, by Murray N. Rothbard. The quality of the essays in this book is astounding. You will not think the same way ever again after reading "Anatomy of the State" and "War, Peace, and the State," to name just two.

After you read these, I recommend the following:

A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Hoppe's books put everything together for me.

The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. This book blew me away when I first read it. Its title makes it sound dull. It is one of the most intellectually exciting books I have ever read.

Man, Economy, and State: A Treatise on Economic Principles, by Murray N. Rothbard. This one, and the two that follow, are for the especially ambitious. This is a systematic exposition of Austrian economics. The sheer elegance of the Austrian system is on impressive display here.

Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, by Ludwig von Mises. (Some disagree with me, but I favor beginning with Rothbard before moving on to Human Action.)

Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, by Jesús Huerta de Soto. Here is the Austrian theory on money, banking, and business cycles, presented in systematic fashion, and compared with the Chicago and Keynesian alternatives. I have a friend who was so impressed by this book that he learned Spanish so he could pursue his Ph.D. under the author in Spain.

I could name other books, naturally, but to my mind these are the absolutely indispensable ones.

One of the goals of my own books, for that matter, has been to get people up to speed on various topics as quickly and with as little exertion on their part as possible. Rollback, from 2011, covers a very wide range of topics and replies to the most common objections to the free society. I was delighted to hear a student tell me just the other day, "I realized as I was reading this book that it would help me win debates." That was part of the idea, for sure. I tried to do the same thing in some of my other titles, like The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History33 Questions About American HistoryMeltdown [on the financial crisis], and Nullification.

For a version of this list with links, plus how you can get some of these books free online, click here:

http://www.tomwoods.com/goodbooks

Potpourri:

(1) Students: there's still time to apply for the academic event of the year: the Mises Institute's week-long Mises University summer program. Info here.


(2) Via my entrepreneurship site: the replay of the webinar with Steve Clayton (guest on episode #1070), who has helped my listeners earn small fortunes via eCommerce, will be up only until tomorrow (Sunday) night at 6pm Eastern, so all you folks looking for a side hustle, you know what to do: http://www.tomwoods.com/ecomreplay

Tom Woods
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Mark Rauterkus       Mark.Rauterkus@gmail.com
Swimming and Water Polo Coach, Schenley High School, Pittsburgh, PA
http://CLOH.wikia.com
412 298 3432 = cell

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Interview with Principal Colbert at Obama Academy

Article was published in the school newspaper, The Obama Eagle:
Posted: 24 Jan 2018 07:07 AM PST
Yalonda Colbert is the new principal at Obama Academy, and if this isn’t your first year here you may remember her as the Assistant Principal and Middle School Director. But do you know how she came into this position? There are a lot of things about our principal that you may not know, but I got to sit down with her and take a look into the life behind our principal.

How would you describe being the Principal so far based on this school year?
So far, first of all I’m super excited. But, there’s a lot of paperwork. And I think that, that sometimes interferes with my ability to be as visible as I would like to be sometimes and as supportive as I would like to be. Especially in the classrooms to help students and thinks like that. It’s been really good, parents have been very welcoming, students are I think really giving me an opportunity and a chance to provide support and insight on things that we want to change, things that we want to keep, things that we want to improve upon. But it’s been a lot of work, which I expected. But like I said the paperwork piece is really- I don’t want to say overwhelming because I knew that there would be a lot just being here the past to years. But the paperwork is intense. Kind of like, you guys’ class schedules and managing all of your papers and projects you guys do. I’m having to do that for the entire school. But it’s definitely been fun, I’m enjoying it. Just kind of getting to know all of our systems that we have in place and how to make things better. So I’m just looking forward to the second semester.

What was your position before becoming Principal?
Before I was Principal for the past two school years I was the Director, so that’s kind of like being Assistant Principal. The only difference is that I was responsible for a lot more of the paperwork than someone who is an Assistant Principal in the District. So there was a lot of work that I did side by side with Dr.Walters these past two years just because of the nature of my role. So on top of being in charge of discipline for middle school, I also had to support discipline for high school. But then also having to be like Dr. Walters’ right hand person, whether he was physically in the building or not. I had to make sure that school was still happening, students were being taken care of, parents were listened to and taken care of, activities were still going on, the budget, all of those types of things. It was really fun but last year I just felt like I was able to get out into the hall space a lot more.

What were some jobs you had before that helped you prepare for being a Principal?
I began in the district in 2006, I started at Arsenal Middle School. I was a middle school math teacher. After that, I applied to be one of the founding teachers to open up University Prep at Milliones here in the district. So I left Arsenal Middle School and started over at U-Prep in the 2008 school year and I stayed there until 2013 I think. So I was a middle school and a high school math teacher for about seven, seven and a half years then I became a high school and middle school math coach for U-Prep. So I did that for one year and then I had the opportunity to apply to become a Secondary Supervisor over curriculum for mathematics for grades 6-12 math at the district where I was able to be a supervisor and go over and write the curriculum and kind of get some things going on to support students in their learning and teachers in their teaching. And with that I was able to learn all about budgets, all about writing, board tabs to like say “Hey we need this program to come in or we need this person to come in.” So I learned a lot of the back end paperwork from growing from a teacher to a coach to being an assistant supervisor over in the central office, so the math department. And then, like I said just with Dr. Walters’ leadership and challenging me to learn. I learned a lot in two years, he always tells me that. We learned a lot in two years and you don’t often see that from a lot of people. Those are basically the things that really helped me but I think the biggest thing that helped me is just that I’ve always been pushed by others to be a leader. I enjoy leading people and helping, you know to be their best and that really began for me when I used to help my friends who were struggling in math and were struggling in French because I really love French and I really love math, coming through 6th grade to 12th grade. I always loved math probably since I was really little but I didn’t even really get the chance to take French until middle school. So I’ve just always tutored people, helped my friends’ kids, my cousins, and always just being pushed to be a role model so I think that those are my early year experiences all the way through like becoming a teacher and things like that.

Where did you go to college and what did you major and minor in?
So I first started off at Penn State. I had a full ride scholarship, so all I had to pay for was my books. So I was very blessed and thankful for that experience. I declared myself as an Accounting major at first, because I loved math. But I found it to be quite boring so I kind of left that alone and enrolled myself, well declared myself to be an Education major. I transferred up to the main campus and I didn’t have a good transition from the branch campus to the main campus. So what I ended up doing was transferring back to Pittsburgh and I came to the University of Pittsburgh, their main campus and I enrolled in a program that was under the psychology branch. My Bachelor’s is in Developmental Adolescent and Adult Psychology so that helped me to really begin to learn why people behave the way they behave, why they think the way they think and things like that. So I would also say that my Bachelor’s learning and stuff also helped me to be able to really help children and be in the position that I’m in right now. I remained at the University of Pittsburgh where I got accepted to their secondary mathematics education program there so I became certified as a teacher in secondary mathematics. So middle school and high school mathematics. I am still certified to teach, like if I decided I don’t want to be a principal anymore I can go back to teaching math. And then I went to IUP to get my principal certification. And so you learn a lot about community engagement and what it means to be a principal and how to support all three entities in the school. So not just the students but the parents and the community, they make up the school. It’s not just your school and you run it, you have to really make sure that you pay attention to all of those variables.

What was your first choice in careers?
My first choice was accounting, when I was going to school Penn State had a partnership where they helped students get jobs and if you had a certain GPA and you passed your exams, you were guaranteed to be starting out at like $80,000. So like what kid–you know you’re 19-20 years old. I was a very good kid, I was always on the Dean’s’ list. I had to be on the Dean’s list to keep my scholarship. And so just the incentive of, “Oh my gosh, I can really work for a really prestigious accounting firm for $80,000. I’m young, single, I can do this by the time I’m 22 or 23.” That was like really awesome for me but I was missing the whole relationship piece which is what drives me to do what I do like interacting with human beings. Sitting and crunching numbers all day, that just wasn’t going to work for me I couldn’t do it. And so knowing that I still love numbers and I love math I knew that a lot of African-American students in particular just reflecting back on friends they would say, “I hate math, I don’t know how you like it, what is it about it? What is your obsession with it?” It just kind of makes me feel powerful and strong and confident. So I just thought that I could be a role model in that space if I sought to become a mathematics teacher. Not only being an African-American but being a female. You really have a female math teacher so that was how I chose what to do. So first accounting but I quickly switched over to education.

What were some other passions you had that could have affected your career choice?
Middle school was really when I became– people would always say like “Yalonda you are so ambitious” like kind of just know what you’re going to do. And so, I actually applied to go through the Magnet process here in Pittsburgh Public Schools. I’ve been in PPS all my life. I went to Oliver High School which is now closed, but I went there because I actually wanted to be a lawyer at one point. And then somewhere my teachers kind of turned me off, which I would never advise a student to let anybody get them into that kind of space. But I had a rocky road with a couple teachers in that program which caused me to not even be focused on it or love it and enjoy it, and pursue it as much as I probably would have had I not had those encounters. But I would say early on that was one of the spaces that I really wanted to go into and be this voice of justice, voice of reason because of all the stuff I was witnessing in that community. You know with the drug epidemic at that time when I was growing up and I had my peers thinking that early encounters with sexual promiscuity meant that “Oh I’m going to be ok” versus staying in school and being educated and things like that. So I just knew something had to change. I saw a lot of my friends, not necessarily my friends but just people I went to school with being arrested, getting into gangs, just the typical statistical type of thing. What people would say “You’re another statistic” about or something, so that’s why I was interested in pursuing law and just becoming an attorney and I hoped I could be a judge at some point. I can give someone someone a second chance if I really have evidence and I can really see that they deserve a second chance.

Do you ever wish you had chosen a different career?
Sometimes I really do wish I would have at least stuck with pursuing law to at least achieve earning my Juris doctorate. Sometimes I even consider it, will there ever be a point in time in my principalship where I could go to night classes and take those classes so I could at least be certified and go through those courses because I feel like those courses may give me the opportunity to still support some other places that students would need my help and support here in school. So that would be one thing I kind of still have on my bucket list. I haven’t quite put it off but, that’s one thing I still hope to be able to do.

What are some hobbies you have outside of being a principal?
I don’t know if it’s a hobby but I enjoy being a mom, I enjoy being a wife, I enjoy like– I don’t think you guys would even know because I don’t think you guys kind of give me the opportunity to like interact in that way but I love to dance, I love to sing, I really like to eat, I love movies, I just really love to be silly and hang out with my friends. I guess that’s kind of boring but that’s who I am.

What would you say to a student that wants to become a principal some day?
I would say that you have to accept that this position is not necessarily a position of power. So don’t let the title get your head big. You have to approach the position and the work that you have to do through a servant’s heart. The work that you will be charged with as a principal is very delicate and you have to be ok with being lonely. Because it is a very lonely job. And at the end of the day you’re held accountable and responsible for everything and even like your assistant and other people aren’t always going to be there for you or physically in the space when everything is happening. So you have to be ok with working in solitude because it is a very lonely space.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Fwd: Third Community Charrette


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: City of Pittsburgh <no-repl@pittsburghpa.gov>
Date: Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 10:33 AM
Subject: Third Community Charrette
To: <mark.rauterkus@gmail.com>


Published:
01.24.2018
Contact:
Daniel Wood
D6 Staff
District 6
412-255-2134
daniel.wood@pittsburghpa.gov

Third Community Charrette

Lower Hill Redevelopment


 

First Phase of Residential Development

Third Community Design Charrette

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

6:00-8:00 PM

 

Location: Jeron X Grayson Community Center

1852 Enoch Street, Hill District

 

AGENDA:

1. Presentation of Preliminary Concepts that Incorporate Community Input Received during the 2nd Charrette

2. Other Updates


.

LaptopCupGreenMarker

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Ta.
 
 
Mark Rauterkus       Mark@Rauterkus.com
PPS Summer Dreamers' Swim & Water Polo Camp Executive Coach
Varsity Boys Swim Coach, Pittsburgh Obama Academy
Recent Head Water Polo Coach, Carnegie Mellon University Women's Club Team
Pittsburgh Combined Water Polo Team

http://CLOH.org

412 298 3432 = cell

Fwd: BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! New Downsize DC Agenda bill coming soon!


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Downsizer-Dispatch <Newsletter@downsizedc.org>


Joining the One Subject at a Time Act, the Read the Bills Act, and the Write the Laws Act

Share this message from the Downsize DC blog

If all the people who like our transpartisan bills would ACT, America would CHANGE, instantly! Retweet

We're about to unveil a new, "transpartisan" Downsize DC Agenda bill. It's the first bill we've added to our agenda since June 2011! Read on to see how this bill fits into our overall strategy. 

Our main objective is to recruit and mobilize enough people to Downsize DC. Our key strategy for achieving that goal is discovery before persuasion.

  • "Discovery" means that we focus first on finding, recruiting, and mobilizing people who already agree with us.
  • "Before persuasion" means that we attempt persuasion as a secondary effort, or even as a side-effect of our discovery efforts.

We're NOT advocating discovery instead of persuasion, we're advocating discovery before persuasion. We believe in persuasion, but we don't want to prioritize it. We want to discover and mobilize people who already agree, first, and try to persuade people who disagree second.

What does it mean to focus on people who agree?

It means finding people who agree...

  • On individual issues
  • On most issues

The first group can include people from the Left or Right. The second type will be various kinds of libertarians. There are currently about 64-million Americans who either self-describe as libertarian or who hold mostly libertarian views on the issues. Please notice two things about that number...

  1. 64-million people is enough to equalize with the Left and the Right, except that...
  2. Nearly all of the 64-million are currently inactive, probably out of apathy because the Left and the Right control a rigged and exclusionary electoral system. So...

If the electoral strategy provokes apathy, perhaps another strategy could inspire action.

We long ago noticed that electoral change requires a majority -- tens of millions of people -- while grassroots pressure organizations (like the NRA and MPP) can change legislation with mere thousands or hundreds of thousands.

We also observed that libertarians tend to agree with the Left and the Right on more issues than the Left and RIght agree with each other. That means the libertarian view can be the swing position on most controversies, if only libertarians show up.

Enter Downsize DC!

Our strategy gives us two ways to win. We can...

  1. Take advantage of broad agreement on specific issues or
  2. Prevail on most issues as we discover, recruit, and activate the sleeping libertarians.

We think these strategies can work without having to be a majority or win a single election.

For an example of how a vocal minority can triumph, just look at how the populists took over the Republican Party under Trump. Indeed, even the so-called conservatives and liberals are distinct minorities in the broad spectrum of public opinion.

Our transpartisan Downsize DC Agenda is an example of pursuing opportunities for success with individual issues.

If you surveyed all Americans, you'd find that overwhelming majorities would support the Read the Bills Act and the One Subject at a Time Act, and that support would even transcend normal partisan divisions.

These are powerful examples of how Downsize DC looks for areas of agreement as a starting point.

Now we're going to add another bill that should have solid majority support...

We'll tell you more about this bill in an upcoming message. We'll be promoting this bill in concert with another organization that we like very much. This organization aims to show how the non-state sector solves problems better than The State does. The bill we will promote together aims to give Americans more say in how their tax money gets spent. Stay tuned to learn more. In the meantime...

We hope you'll embrace the idea of constantly increasing the amount of libertarian pressure Congress feels each day.

Thanks for being an ACTIVE DC Downsizer,

Perry Willis & Jim Babka
Downsize DC

 


Powered by CQRC Engage
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Ta.


Mark Rauterkus       Mark.Rauterkus@gmail.com
Swimming and Water Polo Coach, Schenley High School, Pittsburgh, PA
http://CLOH.wikia.com
412 298 3432 = cell

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Fwd: PRESS RELEASE


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: The Pittsburgh Project

 
 

BOLDLOGO_transparent.png
PRESS RELEASE




RIVERS CASINO COMMUNITY CHAMPIONS TEAM UP WITH THE PITTSBURGH PROJECT FOR A DAY OF SERVICE
Volunteers to transform youth space in Pittsburgh's Northside

PITTSBURGHJan. 22, 2018 — The Rivers Casino Community Champions will lend a helping hand to the Northside community, as they partner with The Pittsburgh Project Friday, Jan. 26. Team Members will donate their time to assist the staff as they redesign and enhance the youth's creative mentoring and learning environment.

The Pittsburgh Project coordinates service initiatives that improve local residents' homes, maintain community areas and engage Pittsburgh's youth. The organization's service projects include annual free home repair for more than 130 of Pittsburgh's elderly homeowners, maintenance of Fowler Park and Fowler pool and operates a progressive series of after-school and summer programs for more than 250 students.

"Our community wouldn't be the same without the unwavering dedication and service of The Pittsburgh Project," said Rahmon Hart, director of community relations at Rivers Casino. "We are so grateful for the chance to assist them in their efforts."

This volunteer opportunity is part of Rivers Casino's ongoing community service outreach program. Each month, Team Members assist in a service project that benefits the Pittsburgh community. Most recently, the Rivers Casino Community Champions completed a service project with the American Red Cross and the Southwestern Veterans' Center.

"The Community Champions of Rivers Casino are wonderful service volunteers who help us in fulfilling our mission," said Dennis Allan, board vice president of The Pittsburgh Project. "Our devoted team paired with the added support from Community Champions is what allows us to better our community."

For more information about Rivers Casino, please visit
www.riverscasino.com.

###

ABOUT RIVERS CASINO
Opened in 2009, Rivers Casino has been voted a "Best Place to Work" in the Pittsburgh Business Times, a "Top Workplace" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Best Overall Gaming Resort" in Pennsylvania by Casino Player magazine and "Best Overall Casino" in Pennsylvania by Strictly Slots magazine. The casino features more than 2,900 slots, 92 table games, a 30-table poker room, nine distinctive restaurants and bars, a riverside amphitheater, a multi-purpose event space, live music performances, free parking and multiple promotions and giveaways daily. Already, more than $631 million in jackpots have been awarded to players at Rivers Casino. For more information, visit
RiversCasino.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Hunter Filippo
For Rivers Casino
267-932-8760 x 307

hunter@hornercom.com

 
 

The Pittsburgh Project © 2018
2801 North Charles St, Pittsburgh, PA 15214

 
 
 

Fwd: The Democrats are coming on . . .


From: John H

Well here we go, the establishment Democrats and the DNC are, in the light of 2016's cataclysmic losses, now pushing extra hard to . . . do the same old things in 2018.  Some would characterize this as being stone-deaf to the prevailing attitudes of the electorate.  But the real culprit is almost certainly an unwillingness to wean the Party from tits of big finance and the corporate military/industrial/security complex to which the 'New Democrats' are hopelessly wedded.  Instead of supporting insurgent candidates with wide popular support, the Party is determined to run the same old tired slate of 'moderate' corporatists who can self-finance or raise lots of corporate cash.  This is both a foolish and a losing strategy and will most certainly backfire on the Party and the nation at a time when the world desperately needs progressive victories in coming elections.

The attached article is rather long, but it clearly documents how the Party has done everything in its power to discourage and defeat progressive candidates with popular support all around the nation – and, in most cases, have suffered grievous losses as a result.  The article identifies some of the third-party insider groups which cling tenaciously to Party dogma even when it means a race which could have been won will be lost.  This is a terrible state of affairs when real harm is the outcome of these losses.   It's way past time for the Democratic Party elite to come down from their high-horse and admit that the 2016 debacle was not the result of any alleged Russian interference, but their own stubborn adherence to corrupting corporate largesse from which most of these so-called leaders handsomely benefit personally – and, in particular, their handpicked campaign consultants who formulate and direct so many losing campaigns.


John

Article: The Dead Enders, PDF

Monday, January 22, 2018

Fwd: This is how MONEY works when we understand it

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John H


Jim Kavanagh (The Polemicist) regularly produces some of the best postings of anyone out on the Internet.  Today's article is certainly no exception.  Here he tackles what for most Americans is little more than an enigma wrapped in a mystery, the function of money in a sovereign issuer of its own currency.  Americans have been, since at least 1971, seduced into believing that federal government money is a scarce resource and that our over-spending is certain to lead us into a catastrophic collapse due to a crushing national debt.  This is one of the great myths of our time and is, unfortunately, politically debilitating once citizens have been propagandized into believing it.  The problem is that it seems so normal to equate the federal budget and spending policies with each of our household budgets and spending priorities.  They are, however, nothing alike. 

As Jim explains quite clearly, the federal government is a currency creator of its own sovereign money.  Your and my households are users of government created money.  We, unlike the federal government, cannot create our own dollars – that is called counterfeiting.  This means that we are resource constrained when it comes to money.  We can only spend what we can accumulate by working, borrowing and, perhaps, inheriting.  The federal government is no so constrained, nor is it constrained by debt (at least insofar as its debt is denominated in Dollars).  To be clear, there is no limit on the amount of Dollar debt the federal government can pay, without creating rampant inflation.  And, there can be no adverse consequence for our children or their children as a result of this debt.

Here is the kicker, virtually all of the constraints we face in terms of obtaining meaningful social safety-net benefits, infrastructure, and, yes, even military expenditures are artificially created by Congress (including the existence of the national debt itself) and maintained because this false belief system operates to the great benefit of the plutocracy.  Neoliberalism, the political philosophy which has overtaken our world in recent years, depends upon this myth persisting in order to maintain control and impose austerity everywhere possible – not just in the U.S.

As many of you know, this has long been an issue close to my heart.  If somehow we can get people to overcome their unawareness of how money should work, it will open many minds to the realization of just how messed up this system has become; and, perhaps, give them cause to stand up and say enough is enough.

  Do read Jim's piece.  It is somewhat long, but well worth the effort.


John

A Left Take on Taxes, Spending and Modern ...