TruthDig.Org., “The Venezuela Myth Keeping Us From Transforming Our Economy”, 7 Feb 2019:

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is getting significant media attention these days, after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview that it should “be a larger part of our conversation” when it comes to funding the “Green New Deal.” According to MMT, the government can spend what it needs without worrying about deficits. MMT expert and Bernie Sanders adviser professor Stephanie Kelton says the government actually creates money when it spends. The real limit on spending is not an artificially imposed debt ceiling but a lack of labor and materials to do the work, leading to generalized price inflation. Only when that real ceiling is hit does the money need to be taxed back, but even then it’s not to fund government spending. Instead, it’s needed to shrink the money supply in an economy that has run out of resources to put the extra money to work.

Predictably, critics have been quick to rebut, calling the trend to endorse MMT “disturbing” and “a joke that’s not funny.” In a Feb. 1 post on the Daily Reckoning, Brian Maher darkly envisioned Bernie Sanders getting elected in 2020 and implementing “Quantitative Easing for the People” based on MMT theories. To debunk the notion that governments can just “print the money” to solve their economic problems, he raised the specter of Venezuela, where “money” is everywhere but bare essentials are out of reach for many, the storefronts are empty, unemployment is at 33 percent and inflation is predicted to hit 1 million percent by the end of the year.

Blogger Arnold Kling also pointed to the Venezuelan hyperinflation. He described MMT as “the doctrine that because the government prints money, it can spend whatever it wants . . . until it can’t.” He said:

To me, the hyperinflation in Venezuela exemplifies what happens when a country reaches the “it can’t” point. The country is not at full employment. But the government can’t seem to spend its way out of difficulty. Somebody should ask these MMT rock stars about the Venezuela example.

I’m not an MMT rock star and won’t try to expound on its subtleties. (I would submit that under existing regulations, the government cannot actually create money when it spends, but that it should be able to. In fact, MMTers have acknowledged that problem; but it’s a subject for another article.) What I want to address here is the hyperinflation issue, and why Venezuelan hyperinflation and “QE for the People” are completely different animals.

What Is Different About Venezuela

Venezuela’s problems are not the result of the government issuing money and using it to hire people to build infrastructure, provide essential services and expand economic development. If it were, unemployment would not be at 33 percent and climbing. Venezuela has a problem the U.S. does not, and will never have: It owes massive debts in a currency it cannot print itself, namely, U.S. dollars. When oil (its principal resource) was booming, Venezuela was able to meet its repayment schedule. But when the price of oil plummeted, the government was reduced to printing Venezuelan bolivars and selling them for U.S. dollars on international currency exchanges. As speculators drove up the price of dollars, more and more printing was required by the government, massively deflating the national currency.

It was the same problem suffered by Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe, the two classic examples of hyperinflation typically raised to silence proponents of government expansion of the money supply before Venezuela suffered the same fate. Professor Michael Hudson, an actual economic rock star who supports MMT principles, has studied the hyperinflation question extensively. He confirms that those disasters were not due to governments issuing money to stimulate the economy. Rather, he writes, “Every hyperinflation in history has been caused by foreign debt service collapsing the exchange rate. The problem almost always has resulted from wartime foreign currency strains, not domestic spending.”

Venezuela and other countries that are carrying massive debts in currencies that are not their own are not sovereign. Governments that are sovereign can and have engaged in issuing their own currencies for infrastructure and development quite successfully. I have discussed a number of contemporary and historical examples in my earlier articles, including in Japan, China, Australia and Canada.

Although Venezuela is not technically at war, it is suffering from foreign currency strains triggered by aggressive attacks by a foreign power. U.S. economic sanctions have been going on for years, causing the country at least $20 billion in losses. About $7 billion of its assets are now being held hostage by the U.S., which has waged an undeclared war against Venezuela ever since George W. Bush’s failed military coup against President Hugo Chávez in 2002. Chávez boldly announced the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a series of economic and social reforms that dramatically reduced poverty and illiteracy as well as improved health and living conditions for millions of Venezuelans. The reforms, which included nationalizing key components of the nation’s economy, made Chávez a hero to millions of people and the enemy of Venezuela’s oligarchs.

Nicolás Maduro was elected president following Chávez’s death in 2013 and vowed to continue the Bolivarian Revolution. Recently, as Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi had done before him, he defiantly announced that Venezuela would not be trading oil in U.S. dollars following sanctions imposed by President Trump.

The notorious Elliott Abrams has now been appointed as special envoy to Venezuela. Considered a war criminal by many for covering up massacres committed by U.S.-backed death squads in Central America, Abrams was among the prominent neocons closely linked to Bush’s failed Venezuelan coup in 2002. National security adviser John Bolton is another key neocon architect advocating regime change in Venezuela. At press conference on Jan. 28, he held a yellow legal pad prominently displaying the words “5,000 troops to Colombia,” a country that shares a border with Venezuela. Clearly, the neocon contingent feels it has unfinished business there.

Bolton does not even pretend that it’s all about restoring “democracy.” He blatantly said on Fox News, “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” As President Nixon said of U.S. tactics against Salvador Allende’s government in Chile, the point of sanctions and military threats is to squeeze the country economically.

Killing the Public Banking Revolution in Venezuela

It may be about more than oil, which recently hit record lows in the market. The U.S. hardly needs to invade a country to replenish its supplies. As with Libya and Iraq, another motive may be to suppress the banking revolution initiated by Venezuela’s upstart leaders.

The banking crisis of 2009–10 exposed the corruption and systemic weakness of Venezuelan banks. Some banks were engaged in questionable business practices. Others were seriously undercapitalized. Others still were apparently lending top executives large sums of money. At least one financier could not prove where he got the money to buy the banks he owned.

Rather than bailing out the culprits, as was done in the U.S., in 2009 the government nationalized seven Venezuelan banks, accounting for around 12 percent of the nation’s bank deposits. In 2010, more were taken over. Chávez’s government arrested at least 16 bankers and issued more than 40 corruption-related arrest warrants for others who had fled the country. By the end of March 2011, only 37 banks were left, down from 59 at the end of November 2009. State-owned institutions took a larger role, holding 35 percent of assets as of March 2011, while foreign institutions held just 13.2 percent of assets.

READ MORE...

A court today heard Louella’s boyfriend, Ceon Broughton, pictured with Louella above,  gave her a ‘bumped up’ dose of the class A substance and ‘failed to act’ for six hours. Court shown harrowing footage of Louella as she overdosed. Rapper sent texts to friends as girlfriend died.

Daily Mail, “Rapper boyfriend of Holby City star’s daughter ‘filmed her dying and called her a drama queen after he gave her psychedelic drug at Bestival - but didn’t call 999 in case he was arrested”, 5 Feb 2019:

- Ceon Broughton, 29, denies the manslaughter of Louella Fletcher-Michie, 25

- He ‘filmed Louella during and after she died but said she was a drama queen’

- She was found unresponsive on edge of festival site, at Lulworth Castle, Dorset

- Her father John Michie raced to camp after hearing her ‘screeching’ on phone

The daughter of Holby City actor John Michie was left to die from a drugs overdose by her rapper boyfriend who didn’t seek help ‘because he didn’t want to be arrested’, a court heard today.

Former Coronation Street star Michie, 62, and his wife Carol Fletcher made a 130-mile dash to musical festival Bestival as their daughter Louella Fletcher-Michie was dying after taking party drug 2C-P.

A court today heard Louella’s ex-boyfriend, Ceon Broughton, gave her a ‘bumped up’ dose of the class A substance and ‘failed to act’ for six hours despite her needing urgent medical care.

Instead Broughton, 29, stayed in a secluded wooded area with Louella as her condition severely worsened and made a series of video recordings of her on his mobile phone. 

Louella and Ceon (bottom right together) at a family dinner with, clockwise from left: Her actor father John, his wife Carol, brother Sam, sister Daisy and her boyfriend Jamie Jamieson.

Her brother, Sam, contacted Broughton urging him to seek medical help. But Broughton sent Sam a message which said ‘call back in an hour’ and referred to Louella as a ‘drama queen’, the court heard.

Broughton, who has recorded with top rap artists Skepta and Wiley, even filmed Louella after she died - an hour before her 25th birthday.

Jurors were today shown 15 minutes of the shocking footage, in a series of clips. At one point he recorded non-stop for 51 minutes of the evening. Louella could be seen shouting loudly, repeating incoherent sentences and even hitting herself.

The hospital area of Bestival in Lulworth Castle, Dorset, was just 400 metres from the wooded spot where Louella died.

Prosecutor William Mousley QC said Broughton had been given a suspended sentence a month before the incident on September 10, 2017, and didn’t seek help as he ‘didn’t want to be arrested’.

Mr Mousley QC said Broughton ‘put his own liberty before her life’ and said his ‘failure to get her treatment was borne out of selfishness and self-preservation’. He also revealed medical experts believe Louella would have had a 90 per cent chance of survival if she had been given treatment.

Louella Fletcher-Michie was found dead after taking party drug 2CP at the Bestival siteLouella’s boyfriend, Ceon Broughton, gave her a ‘bumped up’ dose of the class A substance and ‘failed to act’ for six hours despite her needing urgent medical care, the court heard.

Louella could be seen shouting loudly, repeating incoherent sentences and even hitting herself in a series of clips

Jurors were shown videos of dancer Louella visibly distressed from the effects of 2C-P and heard Broughton had texted a friend saying ‘I can’t get bagged’ in reference to being arrested.

He also ignored messages from Mr Michie and Louella’s brother urging him to get help after he had spoken to Mrs Fletcher-Michie on the phone and she realised her daughter was unwell.

READ MORE...

LONDON (AP): Liam Neeson says he’s ashamed to admit he had violent thoughts about killing a black person after learning that someone close to him had been raped.

Neeson says that after being told the attacker was black, he “went up and down areas with a cosh [stick or truncheon]” hoping a black person “would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could kill him.”

THE GAME IS OVER. THE PATRIOTS LOST: Though I cannot recommend Matt Parrott for his foolish and unwarranted misdirection away from and against the platform here, he is clever enough to turn a good phrase, as in this article, where the issue isn’t too deep for him. However, for one thing, he needs to understand that the Christards are playing a suckers game in line with propositional nationalism, and being beaten badly for it as well.

Since the time in the late 80’s when I prioritized racial interests over the entertainment of sports and music, when I do observe race mixed sporting events or statistics, I root for the individual performance of White players and against individual black players.

Over at Amren, Paul Kersey entitles an article, “Root for the Patriots in the Superbowl”

Although there is something to be said for the Patriots success while using White players in positions usually associated with black skills, as rather an expression of White selection and identity, betraying negrophila some along with its taken for granteds, the teams are still mercenary, not particularly representing a place or race. Thus, I can’t agree with his conclusion that Whites should feel ok about rooting for mixed race teams as it perpetuates the idiot cuckoldry of White fandom and support of the race mixing agenda through one of its most seductive means - visually exciting sports, adulation of athletic skills beyond merit, way beyond real world value and just reward, while ensconced in the deceptive, soothing pretext of passive objectivity.

Kersey writes:

The white quarterback, Tom Brady, along with white wide receivers Julian Edelman and Chris Hogan, white tight end Rob Gronkowski, and white running backs Rex Burkhead and James Develin, are an anomaly in the “vibrant” NFL. They have a vast overrepresentation of skilled white players who not only excel, but dominate.

[...]

With all this whooping about diversity, an anomaly does not go unremarked: the whiteness of the New England Patriots during their historic run under Tom Brady. For this year’s Super Bowl in Atlanta, all eyes are on Mr. Brady, the 41-year-old quarterback, who will be playing in his unprecedented ninth championship game in 18 seasons (this will be his third consecutive shot at the Lombardi Trophy, and Mr. Brady holds a 5-3 record in the Super Bowl).

With that, he suggests:

Root for the Patriots in the Superbowl

It’s OK to be white.

On Sunday, more than 110 million Americans will huddle around their television sets and watch the 53rd Super Bowl, a matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots.

After two seasons marred by black NFL players taking a Colin Kaepernick-style knee or raising a ‘Black Power’ fist during the National Anthem, television ratings slightly improved during the 2018 season.

[...]

So even if you are not a fan of the NFL, or don’t like the antics of black players who knelt during the National Anthem, there’s nothing wrong with rooting for the New England Patriots and Tom Brady to win Super Bowl 53. In a league where 72.6 percent of the players are POC, there’s nothing wrong with cheering for a team that looks a little more like you.

It’s the white thing to do.

He supplies one good reason NOT to root for the Patriots or any NFL team, here:

Ibid. That year, largely because of pressure from the owners of NFL’s 32 franchises, the league saw only a handful of black athletes—who account for 69.7 percent of the players—take a knee during the anthem. A recent poll of NFL fans shows only 24 percent of white fans strongly support the anthem protests, while 59 percent of blacks do (47 percent of white fans and 7 percent of black fans strongly oppose them). Though the kneeling stopped, the owners did create an $89 million fund for the players to hand out to “improve social justice and racial equality in our country.

Related at Majorityrights:

Seduction of NFL Films, Appeal of L.A. Rams 60’s, 70’s, dodging legacy of sports-fan cuckoldry

Our football coaches weren’t Marxists imposing black integration

(((Schultz/Starbucks vulture capitalism - governmental collusion with NGO’s and tribal interests)))

I haven’t visited Morgoth’s for several months, and not for more than a moment in over a year… but having taken a peek today, a fine comment jumped out…

Augur Mayson rendered a fine comment in response to the question of why people hate journalists.

In regard to his example that the (((media))) conveniently promulgated Harold Schultz’ crypsis, referring to him as “a white man”, Augur might have added discussion of which (((Frame Games))) spilled the beans - it is still on line: [url=The Perplexing Case of Starbucks The Perplexing Case of Starbucks) about the scheme that Starbucks is involved in, making deals with black NGO leaders in order to buy-up inner city property on the cheap and then gentrifying it to turn huge profits in sales and rent. ...while these blacks were moved in as block busters to begin with by tribal elders who benefited by driving out Whites, taking advantage of driving down property values and welfare slum lording.

A Starbucks in your neighborhood means this racket is coming to your city.

One wonders, given Starbucks property vulturism, if Trump and his cronies don’t figure into the Schultz deal - as Kumiko surmised, they are mostly about a second tier of wealth, based on real estate investment, particularly U.S., and their concerns as such.

* I took the liberty to correct the malapopriative term, “left”, for him and replaced it with what it should be - “liberal”

Augur Mayson • 6 days ago

Because journalists enhance Jewish racial crypsis, is my current reason. They’re statists posing as rebels. The major media outlets either through commingling with the state or via self-interested owners of a certain ((( race ))) typically parrot whatever ridiculous claims are coming out of the government, either about domestic social issues or correctness of foreign policy. They are not some unelected but real check against government abuses. They are attack dogs. They are megaphones for the rich and the state. They are overwhelmingly leftists liberals* and disproportionately Jewish.

For example, in America now the presidential election in 2020 is shaping up as follows: Trump for the Republicans, because it’s unprecedented for a party to not run an incumbent, unknown candidate for the Democrats, maybe Mrs. Clinton, maybe Joe Biden, maybe someone else, they have a young gay guy they’re trying to talk up now. And the only big independent as yet talked about in the media is former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who’s a Jew, who has used Starbucks to push progressive social policies. For example a few Blacks got thrown out of a Starbucks for presumed loitering; media uproar ensued, Schultz declared to do the exact opposite in future, now they have beggars out front, heroin needles in one bathroom and people giving birth in the other.

So this article in the Judenpresse in America talks up Schultz and says point blank he’s a White man.

“And at 65, he’d have to do that as an older white man who’s never run for office before and has zero national name recognition.” https://www.theatlantic.com...

False, as a CEO of a major corporation he had major exposure and name recognition only second to say Hollywood stars and politicians and media. So the journalist paints Schultz as an unknown (read: underdog, as in, a fetching backstory) and says he’s White when he’s really a Jew.

This is why I hate journalists. Plus if you have a Jewish war you’d like to wage in the desert for no good reason you can always count on the likes of CNN or the BBC to carry the load of b.s. you’re pushing.

NEW YORK: Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz, credited with taking the company from small beginnings to an international behemoth, is stepping down as CEO to focus on new high-end coffee shops, handing the reins to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Johnson.

Schultz, 63, will continue to serve as chairman of the Board and will be appointed executive chairman effective April next year. He handpicked 56-year-old Johnson, the company’s president, chief operating officer and a 7-year member of the Starbucks Board of Directors, to serve as the new CEO.

The Seattle-based company said in his new role, Schultz will focus on the “next wave of retail innovation”, design and development of Starbucks Reserve Roasteries around the world, expansion of the Starbucks Reserve retail store format and the company’s social impact initiatives.

“I will remain Starbucks executive chairman, focusing full-time on the incredible growth opportunities we have in expanding Roasteries and building out our portfolio of Reserve stores and on Starbucks social impact agenda which will be a significant part of the focus going forward,” Schultz said in an investor and media conference call yesterday.

Schultz, who was named by Fortune magazine this month in its list of Businessperson of Year is credited with doubling the company’s revenues since he returned for his second stint in 2008, surpassing USD 20 billion for the first time over the past 12 months

Read more at:
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/55746311.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Related at Majorityrights:

(((Frame Games))) Hardens-Up and Greg Johnson Presents His Right-Wing Rear For Entryism (as does JF)

(((Frame Games))) on ethnic component of 2008 crisis & why you need to care about identity politics

Test Your Capacity To See Through Jewish Crypsis: Which ones are Jewish?

Related:

The Perplexing Case of Starbucks: Frame Games discusses Starbucks with Gariepy

UK: More than Half under 18s in Jail Nonwhite, Quarter are Muslim

New Observer, 29 Jan 2019:

A photograph taken inside the prison at HMP Feltham “Young Offenders Institute,” during an abortive attempt to teach the inmates “entrepeneurship” skills.

More than half of all the under 18s currently in jail in Britain are nonwhite, and a quarter are Muslim, despite nonwhites allegedly only making up 13 percent of the population, new official figures from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons has revealed.

According to the report titled “Children in Custody 2017–18 An analysis of 12–18-year-olds’ perceptions of their experiences in secure training centres and young offender institutions,” more than half the under-18s held in young offender institutions in 2017–18 were from a “black or minority ethnic background” (BME).

This figure is a three percent increase on the previous year, when it stood at 48 percent. The figure has been growing steadily ever since the HM Inspectorate of Prisons began carrying out the analysis in 2001—a figure which is perfectly explicable by the growth in the nonwhite population.

6.5164_HMIP_Children-in-Custody-2017-18_A4_v3

The report’s key findings include:

In relation to [secure training centers] STCs, our survey findings during 2017–18 show that:

– 42% of all children in STCs identified as being from a black or other minority ethnic background;

– 8% of children identified as female;

– one in eight (13%) children identified as Muslim;

– the proportion who said they were from a Gypsy, Romany or Traveller background was 11%, which compares with estimates of 0.01% in the population as a whole;

In relation to [young offender institutions] YOIs, our survey findings during 2017–18 show that:

– over half (51%) of boys identified as being from a black or minority ethnic background, the highest rate recorded through our surveys in the secure estate;

– the proportion of boys who had experienced local authority care was 39%;

– nearly a quarter (23%) of boys identified as Muslim;

– almost one-fifth (19%) of boys reported having a disability;

– fewer than one boy in 10 (6%) identified themselves as being from a Gypsy, Romany or Traveller background.

In addition, half of the “children” (50%) “reported that they had been physically restrained in their establishment”—in other words, were so violent that they could not be left unshackled.

It took no time at all for whites to be blamed—as usual—for the nonwhite crime statistics. A report in the Daily Mail quoted black Member of Parliament David Lammy as saying that “We are not only failing to make progress to address these racial inequalities; things are getting significantly worse. From childhood right through to courts and adult prisons, our justice system entrenches and exacerbates the divides in our society.”

In other words, it is not the nonwhites’ fault that they commit more crime, but rather it is the “fault” of white society in general. This is the standard excuse use whenever statistics show that nonwhites commit more crime than whites: it is never their fault that they get arrested more, it is always “racist police,”; and it is never their fault that they get sent to prison in larger numbers, it is always the “racist judicial system.”

This is the same sort of logic that claims that nonwhites do poorly academically because of “racist teachers”—and similar excuses heard ad infinitum all over Europe, America, and Australia.

This endless “blame whitey” is, of course, founded on the essential problem of race-denial by the liberal establishment. Until that issue is resolved, and race is acknowledged as a biological reality and is taken into account in the structuring of states, the current situation will continue.

Donald Trump is President of The United States because he vowed to overturn the Iran Deal for Israel. Overturning the deal was not in the interest of most of the world, except for Israel, Saudi Arabia and The Russian Federation. By contrast, the rest of the world was served by the deal in its business resource interests and more - while the focus on commerce and modernization served not only practical and humanitarian ends but also contributed to a gradual process of liberalizing Iran away from Islam.

Britain, France and Germany are taking steps in their rational interests to skirt the sanctions:

Skirting U.S. sanctions, Europeans launch trade mechanism for Iran

PARIS/BERLIN (Reuters), 31 Jan 2019: France, Germany and Britain have set up a mechanism for non-dollar trade with Iran to avert U.S. sanctions, although diplomats acknowledge it is unlikely to free up the big transactions that Tehran says it needs to keep a nuclear deal afloat.

Related at Majorityrights: Iran protest, organic grievances real, but tactless Trump endorsement abets reactionary entrenchment