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2020-04-14 15:24 by Karl Denninger
in Editorial , 409 references
[Comments enabled]  
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The data continues to come in and is clear.

Not only are the hospitalization requirements from nursing home and other "skilled care" institutions for elderly people ridiculously over-represented (in every state where I have found detailed information by forty to fifty times or more their percentage of the population at-large) but they are also ridiculously over-represented when it comes to deaths, usually by the same percentages.

Without these deaths and hospitalizations and deaths, in fact this disease would be of no special concern at all.  Oh certainly, it would kill some people -- but by no means would it rate as a serious public health threat worthy of closing the entire economy and causing an economic depression.

It wasn't originally either, by the way -- this hasn't changed.  "Mitigations" will not change if you will get the virus; that has been admitted since this began.  They only change when you get the virus.  If it's going to kill you, it's going to kill you.

So the plan should have been, and we the people should accept nothing other, than the following on an immediate basis -- under pain of whatever we have to do to enforce it.

1. All skilled nursing home and other similar facilities are locked in.  This includes staff; if there is insufficient housing then rent some RVs or other trailers, stick them in the parking lot, and there you go.  Nobody comes in or leaves unless they have a positive antibody test and a negative PCR test, demonstrating they cannot transmit the virus.  Any staff member who refuses is summarily fired and, if they are a licensed individual, their license is revoked.  Deliveries are made to the curb of the facility with zero contact between such persons and the staff.  Period.

2. Any person who can demonstrate immunity may enter upon and leave said facility as they wish; this includes visitors, workmen and others.  No other person, except in the case of documented emergency (e.g. plumbing malfunction,  emergency transport of a resident to a hospital, etc) may do so and any person who must for emergency reasons must be screened on-site for the virus before being allowed in the building.  If this is impractical (e.g. EMS workers) then the entire path on which they travel and any location where they or any of their equipment goes must be immediately sanitized upon their departure by a person who is antibody-positive.

3. A person (e.g. resident) who leaves may not return until and unless there is a 14-day quarantine facility on site with completely separate airhandling and no physical interconnection or they test positive for antibodies, documenting that they do not have a latent infection that can become transmissible.

Everyone else goes back to work and all constraints otherwise are dropped.

If we had done this at the outset we would have saved roughly half the lives lost thus far and more than half the hospitalizations.  There would have been zero justification for locking down anything.  Likewise, there is no justification for doing so now.

People in this circumstance account for approximately 1/2% of the population of the nation.  We are being collectively punished to "protect" these people and not only are we failing to do so, as they're dying at ridiculously outsized rates, in addition collective punishment when one has committed no offense is both blatantly unconstitutional and a proper casus belli.

Again, there is no particular problem with hospital capacity absent these individuals and, in addition the mitigation measures not only cannot prevent you from getting the virus they were never claimed to be able to either; the entire justification for them was to avoid overloading the hospitals.

Well, that's how you accomplish that -- and any politician who is empowered to drop the constraints and doesn't must be immediately ejected from their office and our economy restarted now.

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2019-10-05 09:25 by Karl Denninger
in Earnings , 335 references
[Comments enabled]  

Sigh....

Yeah, they say, it's all angry white men doing all the murdering.

Uh, no.

75% of the American population is white by last count, ~12.5% Hispanic, ~12.3% black and 3.6% Asian, roughly.  Those are the major represented groups.

So it lines up like this:

75% of the population committed 3,308 murders.

12.5% of the population committed 1,576 murders.

And finally, 12.3% of the population committed 6,318 murders.

Adjusting for population the absolute murder ratios (lower is less-likely to murder) were 4,410.67, 12,608 and 51,365.

Taking the lowest likelihood to murder as the "baseline" (white people) as "1" if you're Hispanic you're 2.86 times more likely to murder and if you're black you're 11.65 times more-likely to do so.

This ignores the "unknown" (unsolved) murders, of which there are many.  But it is a pretty good bet that the division doesn't change much in that regard.

For sex you're 7.14 times more likely to murder if you're male than female. Big shock.

Cut the crap folks -- right now -- when it comes to the "nasty white dude" nonsense.

It simply is not true -- not even close.

Then there's weapons.

6,603 murders by pistol, 297 by rifle, 235 by shotgun and 3,130 by gun but type not specified.

However, 1,515 were by knife and 672 by hands, feet, and other human instruments (e.g. pushed off bridge)

In other words before you ban "nasty black rifles" you need to ban both knives and fists.

Incidentally you'd think that if you don't want to be murdered stay out of the cities.  All but 3,268 murders were committed in one.  If you stay out of non-suburban cities as well then there are only 684 murders left.  Roughly 16.4 million people live there however -- and when you adjust for population the risk isn't that much lower.

In other words "diversity" matters much more than location.  Another inconvenient truth.

None of this fits the narrative, of course..... so you can expect the slime to ignore it.

But facts just are, and since it's your ass maybe you shouldn't ignore it.

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2019-09-22 07:00 by Karl Denninger
in Politics , 276 references
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You have to give Andrew Yang credit for being willing to put forward "UBI" -- a $1,000 a month "stipend" that he foolishly calls a "Freedom Dividend" -- with of course a boat-load of fraudulent claims of how he's going to pay for it.

Chief among these is a 10% VAT -- which sounds good, but it's problematic for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is that it won't raise enough money.

Remember that a VAT exempts government spending, since that's just taxing yourself.  Yang recognizes this and pegs the revenue from a VAT at $800 billion as he also removes groceries, clothing and apparently some other things from it.

He also says he's going to "consolidate" (get rid of) many other welfare programs.  The problem is that the only ones that matter from a budget perspective are health care related.

At the same time Yang wants to expand Medicare to everyone.  The problem is that these two programs are in direct opposition to each other.  He says he'll be able to bring costs under control but Medicare and Medicaid have utterly failed to do so.

In other words Yang is a pie-in-the-sky Democrat protecting and in fact expanding the medical monopolists.

Look folks -- CMS -- Medicare and Medicaid Services, have spent $1.465 trillion through August which is 35% of the federal spending all-in.  The federal budget deficit during that time was $1.067 trillion.

In other words that spending was 137% of the deficit.

If you killed all the medical monopolists and took the "low hanging fruit" as I described in that post you would erase the entire federal deficit, plus some and not one person would be denied medical care.

Further, you'd take roughly another trillion and a half off private forced spending on this alleged "service" since the "service" is 500% overpriced.

This would instantly resolve both the federal debt and all the state and local pension problems -- at once.  It would also eliminate the destruction of personal purchasing power and that of saved funds.

20% of the people in the country -- those who are involved in and require this scheme to make a living -- would hate you.

EVERYONE ELSE WOULD VOTE FOR YOU.

In short this is one of those nearly-impossible to find 80% issues among the electorate.  That's exactly what Trump exploited (a claimed 80% issue that he never actually addressed) to get elected himself -- illegal immigration and displacement of American workers.

He was lying, as we now all know in that instead of resolving any of these problems he has dripped out half-measures where, as the head of the Executive he could have resolved several of them immediately but that sales job is why he's President today.

Yang seems to think that socialism will somehow "work" in health care.  It never has -- in health care or anywhere else.  NHS in Britain is falling apart.  So are the other socialist health care systems.  They're falling apart even though they exist almost-entirely on the back of the 500% overcharge Americans pay in that we effectively fund the R&D and in many cases the reproduction cost of everything they use.  Even with that sort of outrageous transfer and theft they're still fiscally underwater.

Yang could have -- and perhaps, for a very short period of time forward still can -- become a credible candidate.  He needs an 80% issue -- indeed, anyone who intends to try to take on Warren, Bernie or Biden does, just as I've argued for decades that if you want to try to run as a third-party candidate you need to as well.

Remember Ross Perot?  He took up an 80% issue -- the giant sucking sound of "tariff free" trade with Mexico.  Had he not folded his tent he would have likely won too.

There are so many other crackpot ideas on Yang's plate that frankly, I can't take him seriously.  The "vote at 16" idea is one of them.  Representation comes with responsibility, or at least it's supposed to.  Yang is nothing more than pandering with this bullshit -- if my kid can vote at 16 I can eject him or her at 16 and they can go fend for themselves.

There are acts that should define you as an adult in all respects.  Reproduction and Felonious conduct are two of them.  Voting is a third.  Today we refuse to recognize that exercising the most-profound power a human can have -- to reproduce or not -- does not come with the responsibility commensurate with that power.  This must change and since slavery is immoral (never mind illegal) there's only one direction it can that is consistent: Pregnancy, for both sexes, is an automatic and irrevocably emancipating event.  So is a felony conviction.

Further, Andrew is a pie-in-the-sky economic bullshitter.  "Saving for retirement", which is one of his planks, is impossible in a nation where the federal government runs a 25%+ fiscal deficit and thus destroys the value of all saved capital.  This has to be stopped -- or those who both promote policies that allow and expand that practice must be removed from the public square by any means necessary.

Fortunately for Andrew there is a way to stop the deficit spending and get the 80% issue and greatly improve health care delivery while slashing cost by 80% or more.

But he hasn't taken it -- just like the rest haven't either.

That's because he doesn't really believe in any of it, just as neither do the others -- including our current President.

Sadly they're all bullshitters and con artists.

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2019-08-30 13:12 by Karl Denninger
in Politics , 1586 references
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Here's what you get if you basically draft me, since I don't fit either the RINO or Communist party profile:

  • Wage, environmental, IP theft, government oppression/subsidy and currency manipulation tariffs.  There will be zero incentive for any entity selling to anyone in America to place manufacturing or anything else (assembly, sourcing, etc) in a foreign nation to try to arbitrage poor people, dump poison in their water, into the air or on their land instead of here, etc.  Each class of goods will have the appropriate tariff calculated on a per-nation basis with no exceptions.  Any nation or firm attempting to circumvent this by cross-shipping or falsifying records will lead to an immediate, 100% embargo of all involved goods with them seized and destroyed on entry.  Again -- no exceptions.  Yes, this includes (but certainly isn't limited to) China, Vietnam, India and Mexico.

  • 100% E-Verify now.  All employers have six months to comply for existing employees, all new hires must have it run.  Liability is personal and cannot be thrown off on a staffing company or other scheme.  All 941s (quarterly withholding filings) must include E-Verify control numbers on them.  Congress will receive a bill on my first day in office to upgrade failure to include same on 941s, hiring or paying people without reporting accurately on same, or any other form of evasion by any means to a criminal felony with 5 years in the slam-slam for each person so not-reported or evaded, served consecutively, with no pleas or reductions allowed along with a $50,000 fine per person, per year who is not reported accurately.  That ends the BS.

  • It shall be the policy of this nation that no free trading relationship nor normal customs and immigration relationship shall exist with any nation that permits either their nationals or foreign nationals to travel through or use their border with our nation for the purpose of unlawful entry into the United States, nor shall such a relationship exist with any nation that suborns or permits its nationals to violate our laws whether in regard to people, goods or services.  Mexico in particular shall cut this crap out or the border will be closed -- period.  The National Emergency required to do this has already been issued by Trump and I will execute on that on my first day in office.  This shall also be applied to China as a consequence of its export of fentanyl and precursors intended for unlawful distribution in the United States.

  • H1b visa sponsors shall be required to pay 200% of the prevailing wage in America.  If there is truly a shortage or is being used to import those who are truly exceptional minds, to the point that we simply can't meet the challenge here, so be it -- the cost of doing so compared to the benefit will be tiny.  If this visa is being abused by corporations a wage suppression artifice, and today it is, that's ending.  Right now.

  • As President my first and foremost duty is to protect the integrity of the United States.  This includes physical security at the US border.  If necessary the military will be deployed to defend same against any and all invaders.  Our military exists for the primary purpose of preventing and repelling any attempted invasion of United States territory.  This is not only Constitutionally permitted it is Constitutionally required of the Commander in Chief.  This does not violate The Posse Comitatus Act; the military will not be there to execute a civilian police action, they will be deployed to prevent and turn back invasion.  If you want to come and apply as an immigrant, whether claiming asylum or otherwise, do it lawfully at a port of entry or US Embassy.

  • 100% enforcement of 15 USC Chapter 1.  Amazon is the poster child in the retail space but hardly the only offender.  The entire medical space will also have this enforced against them.  See my model bill for how to fix it entirely.  Until passed I'll be content to throw lots of hospital executives and virtually every pharma company head in the slam-slam and destroy every one of their firms with ruinous fines.  Yes, as the head of the Executive (law enforcement) I can do that without ANY new laws, and will.

  • 100% legalization and regulation of marijuana immediately by de-scheduling.  The DEA is under the DOJ, and as the head of the Executive I'm their boss.  THC will be de-scheduled immediately.  Period.  In addition a full review of the medical and scientific evidence will be undertaken for every drug currently on said schedule and they shall be adjusted accordingly.  No ifs, ands or buts.  States can do what they wish but on a federal level it's done on Day #1 and I will fire as many people as necessary and replace on an interim basis until it happens.

  • BEA and BLS will be directed to remove all "hedonic" and similar adjustments immediately and permanently.  As they are under the Department of Commerce and Labor, respectively, they too are under the Executive.  Therefore said order will be issued on Day #1.  Inflation numbers shall have all hedonic adjustments removed immediately and on a forward basis, and in addition productivity shall be removed from inflation numbers as well.  That is, inflation is inflation and we're going to stop lying about it.

  • The Fed will either adjust policy to meet its mandate of stable prices over the medium term or I will do whatever I must to destroy and replace it.  Period.  They do not have the privilege of re-writing legislation and "stable" means unchanging, not 2% "doctored and fraudulent" inflation.  Specifically they will control money and credit aggregates to reverse the scam of the false inflation numbers via hedonics and productivity that were unlawfully applied over the last 30+ years.  I understand doing this in a week can't happen, but it will happen and they will run policy commensurate with their Congressional mandate or I will find a way to remove them by whatever means it takes.  Cue President Jackson on this one, if it comes to it; Treasury can be directed to buttfuck The Fed under Executive power, that's already obvious and actually not even slightly difficult given the will and I will do so.

  • A National Emergency will be declared on the first day of my Administration relating to the Internet and threat to our Republic that the current abuse of same both foreign and domestic has incurred.  The specific demands for reform will include separation of utility and application functionality with the former being absolutely barred from discrimination in sales of like kind and quantity for any firm with more than $100 million a year in revenue worldwide.  Any firm that refuses will have all foreign transactions blocked in accordance with the 1970s NEA powers and all dollar-denominated transactions and assets frozen.  Further any coordinated action to ban particular political perspectives, points of view or publishers shall bring instant prosecution under 15 USC carrying felony criminal penalties.  I will perp-walk every single major social media, transport, cloud and DNS company executive straight into federal prison if I must. The bullcrap we're dealing with now will stop or the firms doing it will be destroyed with their executives asset-stripped to their underwear.

  • The 2nd Amendment shall be restored.  I shall seek declaratory judgment from the Supreme Court on the fraud in Miller's instance and, once having secured same shall move to have the entire body of existing "gun control", other than actual commerce between states which does remain a federal power, declared void.  In addition the 14th Amendment guarantees incorporation against State Laws on matters of civil rights.  Any state or local government official who disagrees will find themselves in the federal slam-slam facing 18 USC 242 charges.  Until that is accomplished the DOJ shall be directed to ignore that blatantly unconstitutional set of laws and if they or any other federal agency refuses I shall issue pardons to anyone they arrest on any non-violent firearms offense.  If you want to make, own and carry a firearm, suppressor or whatever -- have at it.  If some federal agency cop shows up and tries to bust you the next morning you'll be pardoned.  I don't care if I wear out 1,000 pens signing pardons.  This bullshit will stop -- right now.

  • The 4th Amendment shall be restored.  The entire "policing for profit" revenue share model on civil forfeiture is rankly unconstitutional and the entirety of that program will be scrapped by Executive Order on my first day in office.  Any state, county or local official who continues it beyond that day shall be subject to arrest and indictment by the federal government under 18 USC 242 which explicitly prohibits the violation of Constitutional Rights under color of law or authority.  That is a criminal statute and I will be more than happy to put 50,000 local cops and county sheriffs in the federal slam-slam if I must.  We'll have plenty of room with all the weed violations that will be released.  This crap will stop; if some copshop claims that money or property is the fruit of an illegal act before they can seize and attempt to forfeit it they must obtain a felony criminal conviction on the underlying offense and prove the connection beyond a reasonable doubt.  Period.

  • The Glo-bull warming scam will be stopped dead.  All federally funded research and data, past, present and future shall be declared as public domain.  Mann and his cohorts will be forced to disgorge same or be charged with theft (or destruction, if they try to evade it via tampering) of government property.  Enough.

  • I shall demand of Congress that the current law permitting International Cartels to operate in facial violation of 15 USC Chapter 1 be repealed.  This is an outrage passed in the 1970s in response to the Arab Oil Embargo.  Congress shall be called upon to repeal it on their first day in session.  Period.  Until they do I shall tariff all cartel-controlled products, including oil, sufficiently to make them non-economic for import and sale in the United States.  We can be oil-independent today and until Congress puts a stop to the OPEC rape-job one way or another we shall be.

  • I shall demand of Congress an immediate rescission of (1) all federal funding of student loans and (2) immediate removal of the "privileged" status of such debt on a forward basis from bankruptcy discharge.  All such lending on a forward basis shall be private and shall be subject to the risk of bankruptcy discharge.  This will instantly collapse the cost of college to something you can afford to attend and engage in by working at Starbucks.

  • It shall be the national energy policy of the United States to explore and, if justified, develop LFTR-based nuclear energy, including using coal as the Thorium feedstock, so as to become entirely energy independent through its use and CTL technology within 20 years.  The math and basis for this is found in this post from 2011, or if you prefer in my book Leverage.  This is achievable given the technology of today and we shall do it as a nation so as to never again be able to be held hostage for electricity, transportation or war-fighting fuels.

  • It shall be the foreign policy of the United States that unless (1) an American or (2) a piece of American property, including a flagged vessel, aircraft, embassy or other item is damaged or destroyed it is not a matter for our military.  The United States shall respect the sovereign power of all nations.  However, no nation shall enjoy a free and open trading relationship nor shall the ownership and control of any US property whether physical, intellectual or otherwise be recognized on an equal and unimpaired basis by any of their firms or nationals if said nation does not afford all of its citizens on a substantially equal basis the freedoms guaranteed by the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments to the US Constitution along with substantially equal rights without regard to sex, race, color and creed.

  • It shall be the goal of my administration to fire half of all Federal Employees within my first term and shrink both the Federal Statute Books and CFRs by 50%.  I think I can do better, but that's the goal for the first 4 years.  We'll see.

  • I shall neither submit or sign any budget that runs a deficit except in a time of declared war and in fact shall sign no budget that does not run a surplus as a percentage of GDP equal to the previous 12 months productivity gain or more if same is positive.  End of discussion, full stop.  Whatever the government wishes to do it will pay for, and all such shall include the room for whatever supplemental appropriations may arise including disasters.  No exceptions.  Disasters are not known in advance but that they happen every year is.  Further the government shall not steal the natural improvement in purchasing power that belongs to the citizens as a consequence of their improvement in productivity either.

  • No, I will not stop using "colorful language" when it is appropriate.  Running a nation is an adult job.  Children do not have a seat at the table -- not because they aren't respected but because they lack the experience, wisdom, impulse control and judgment to be considered an appropriate resource in such matters.  If you're incapable of dealing with adult matters then feel free to go hide in your "safe space" and let the adults do what has to be done -- including, occasionally, erecting a well-earned middle finger.

  • No, I will not publish my tax returns.  The requirements to run for President are in the Constitution.  Tax returns are confidential, period, end of discussion.  Incidentally, so are medical records (HIPPA) so no, I won't be taking any public medical exams either.  However, you're welcome to peruse my running time records in races where I publicly appear and there is a publicly-visible clock, and draw from that whatever conclusions you wish.

To the extent any of this requires Congressional approval I will veto at my discretion every single bill that comes across my desk until the necessary statutes are enacted or repealed.  This specifically includes but is not limited to all spending bills.  In addition to the extent spending is constrained by said vetos I will direct that the first cuts are to all security, maintenance, utility and other facilities and programs that benefit any member of Congress or their staff.  They will either do their damn job or they'll take the brunt of their refusal, unlike Barry Soetero who punished ordinary Americans when Congress didn't do what he wanted.

There's plenty more but this will be a good start for my platform.

I'm available for public debate on any or all of this platform against anyone else who believes they have better ideas and wishes to take the left seat.  As noted, since I'm aware of no party interested in these positions one of them will have to draft me....

As for electors and the state filings for same we'll cross that bridge if there's enough to be worth doing what has to be done to make that happen.

This page is subject to update but no commitment above shall be materially weakened or changed to the detriment of the people of this nation, and if challenged on same I will produce the entire audit log of this page back to the original posting of this message. -- Karl

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2019-08-10 07:00 by Karl Denninger
in Monetary , 200 references
[Comments enabled]  

If you wanted to accelerate the collapse of America and bring on a Civil War you could hardly do it better than by advocating for and managing to enact this nonsense.

A key figure in the “Modern Monetary Theory” economic camp, her assertions that the federal government could spend freely for things like a jobs guarantee or Green New Deal without risking runaway inflation, a debt default or a clubbing by global creditors have been Twitter-bombed by mainstream economists as left-wing free lunchism.

Well that's because it is -- but not really much different than the free lunchism that has been going on for the last 20 years.

Let me remind you that in real terms there has been no economic growth of substance since 2000 and only one positive year -- under 2% at that -- since 2007!

 

This is in a world where interest rates (since 2008) were indistinguishable, on government debt, from zero in real terms.

Therefore we've already had our experiment and it has failed.  We can fail it harder and more-seriously, and walk right down the road into a literal destruction of our nation, by continuing this crap.

The basic argument made by the MMT "theorists" is that since "inflation is low and contained" we can simply "print" the money we want, spend it, and that's constrained only by inflation, of which there is none of seriousness at present.

The problem isn't the claim of where the constraint comes from -- it's that the claim of "low and and constrained inflation" over the last two decades is a lie.

The cost of medical care has skyrocketed over the last 20 years.  So has post-secondary education.  So has actual housing expense; witness the housing market meltdown in 2008 and the resulting re-inflation of said bubble, which has done exactly nothing in terms of price compared with salaries.

Ditto for a whole host of other mandatory spending.  Property taxes in many jurisdictions have more than doubled in the last 20 years.

Your salary hasn't doubled over that period of time.  In fact quite to the contrary.

The number of households that pay more than half of their income in rent has skyrocketed in the last decade -- it is up by about 50%.  Clearly, they don't think inflation is "low and controlled."

Indeed that's the problem and it's not just rent; it's total cost of basic needs.

It's extraordinarily misleading to cite numbers like "GDP per-capita" as justification for this sort of nonsense, since there's not even a passing shot at reasonably-even distribution of same.  Believing that one can somehow "print" one's way to prosperity is a complete crock; all that emitting more money into the system does is raise the price level, and since you cannot and will not make sure that everyone gets the same amount (not a percentage of their income but in gross dollars) from federal deficit spending the accrual simply screws those on the left side of the curve.

Of course there have always been poor people -- here and everywhere else.  But what's happened over the last 30 or so years in this country is outrageous.  Technological advancement means you can do more with less; that is, it takes fewer hours of labor to produce the minimum requirements for living in a reasonable manner.  Rather than have that outcome on a continuing basis, however, we've seen the opposite over the last 20 or so years in America.

Why?

It's not because there is an insufficient amount of money around.

It's because people collude and either screw you, forcing you to pay more for less, or just flat-out steal it.

At its core MMT is simply a means to steal more and faster.  It's entirely possible for the United States to run a budget surplus, as I've pointed out, simply by taking on the medical monopolists.  In addition were Congress to demand that The Fed stop running interest rates below the federal deficit level as a percentage of GDP then Congress couldn't spend in deficit at large scale without rates going up dramatically and immediately.  This in turn would force the fraud out of the system and it is that fraud and unpunished felony that has hosed everyone in America on the left side of the bell curve and is now reaching well into those on the right side!

A restive population eventually revolts -- one way or another.  It does so at the ballot box if it can effectively do so but if prevented from doing so, say, if every candidate that can be and is elected makes the problem worse for those on the left side then eventually you wind up with the destruction of that government and often destruction of the society itself.

MMT, in short, is a fraud.  It is simply an attempt at extending the frauds that allow "professors" to sit in their ivory towers while their students are buttfucked within an inch of their lives with $100,000 student debts.

The correct answer to people running crap like this, no matter who they are, is to force them into said refrigerator box as their best and highest place of residence -- complete with rats and drug-abusing homeless individuals, many of the latter who are there precisely because of the policies they promoted.

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