Livestream is below the transcript:

Once one understands the simple economic reality that federal taxes do not fund spending, it can change one’s interpretation of many speeches one hears by politicians and many articles one is presented with. Every time we see a meme complaining that the government is spending OUR tax payer dollars on the military INSTEAD of public services and Medicare, when we understand MMT, we know that to be a false narrative. When we understand MMT and we hear politician’s complaining about the “Paradise Papers” and the predictable revelations about billionaires avoiding paying taxes, putting aside for a minute that there IS a purpose for taxation but not how we think it is, and I’ll bring that up later, we often hear the economic lie that those billionaire taxes could have been used on so many public services, but when we understand MMT, we know that’s also a falsehood.

So when one grasps this understanding of how the economy works, it’s hard to stand back and allow these lies go unchallenged, particularly when so many people are suffering under neoliberal government austerity measures and are in terrible debt, when so many are suffering, and dying, often times by their own hand. We just can’t allow this neoliberal lie to continue, because it effects us all, all over the globe.

And we certainly can not stand silent when we are aware of the fountain of spending for the military, while at the same time we are told there is never enough for anything else.

So why the military?

Aside from the obvious imperialist aims of our Western governments, here’s a quote from the recent book publication by Dr. Bill Mitchell and Thomas Fazi titled Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post Neoliberal World :

“The reason why the elites favour military spending over other forms of government spending is easily understandable. An informative Business Week article published in 1949, recognised that social spending could have the same “pump priming” effect as military spending, but pointed out that for businessmen, “there’s a tremendous social and economic difference between welfare pump priming, and military pump priming”. The latter “doesn’t really alter the structure of the economy”. For the businessmen, it’s just another order. But welfare and public works spending “does alter the economy. It makes new channels of it’s own. It creates new institutions. It redistributes income.” And so on.

Military spending enhances capitalist interests and scarcely involves the public, but social spending does, and has a democratising effect. For reasons like these, military spending is much preferred.”

So who of us wants to continue on this neoliberal treadmill? Who of us wants our lives to be made intentionally harder by our so-called public servants, our politicians, and by corporations? Neoliberalism is anti-human. It’s anti-life. And who is keeping us on this neoliberal treadmill? Our government. They have become our rulers, our corporate-serving feudal lords instead of our public servants. That’s what neoliberalism has done for us, and our feudal lords, our politicians are accomplices in a devastating lie. Our government is telling us lies about the economy.

About military spending? You may or may not have seen a recent Department of Defense report which states that the US has been paying a staggering 250 million dollars every day for the last 16 years on the military and its imperialist wars. Have you noticed that the US government has had absolutely no trouble spending 250 million dollars daily for the last 16 years? Do we ever ask ourselves, how is it possible that the United States government has absolutely no problem whatsoever spending 700 billion dollars as it did recently on the military? Just like that. 700 billion instantly! No fuss. No sweating over it. 700 billion just like that.

So how is it, that there was absolutely no hesitation in doing so? And something to note: there was absolutely no mention of raising taxes. Did you notice that? How can they afford to do this? Congress can afford 700 billion! Why? Because taxes don’t fund spending; we can afford it because the US creates the dollar out of thin air! It’s because the dollar is a law, it’s a patent, our government owns it.

As Steve Grumbine pointed out in his essay today titled “How Progressives can win Big”, he posted a quote by Professor Stephanie Kelton where she states it clearly:

“Are you telling me that the government can just make money appear out of nowhere, like magic? Absolutely. Congress has special powers: It’s the patent-holder on the U.S. dollar. No one else is legally allowed to create it. This means that Congress can always afford the pony because it can always create the money to pay for it.”and Dr Kelton goes on to say:
“Now, that doesn’t mean the government can buy absolutely anything it wants in absolutely any quantity at absolutely any speed. (Say, a pony for each of the 320 million men, women and children in the United States, by tomorrow.) That’s because our economy has internal limits. If the government tries to buy too much of something, it will drive up prices as the economy struggles to keep up with the demand. Inflation can spiral out of control. There are plenty of ways for the government to get a handle on inflation, though. For example, it can take money out of the economy through taxation.”

I’ll post a link to that article of Steve Grumbine’s along with this livestream.

So back to the question about how we can afford the military? How can we afford 700 billion just like that in one year, with no inflation? Why don’t we hear anyone talking about inflation when we spend 700 billion for the military?

Because most of us don’t understand how the economy works. We don’t understand that the government once again has been deceiving us. The government has been spinning propaganda about what they can and cannot afford, what they can do.

We have been living in fear in the US for a very long time. We’ve been told to be afraid of this country or that group of people, and that paralyzing fear has been a useful tool for the government to continue their wars of choice for resources and hegemony. Living in fear is almost a permanent state for many US citizens. The US government HAS to have enemies, it has to invent enemies, so it can continue on these wars. And US citizens have been indoctrinated every day to love and serve the flag. We tell those the government uses as cannon fodder that we support them. It falls off our tongue: “I support the troops”. But it’s a meaningless platitude. What does it really mean? It’s hollow because unless we understand how our economy works and understand that our politicians are at best ignorant or at worst, telling lies about the economy. Unless we are part of an anti-war movement, these are hollow and selfish words. Many in the military are part of a poverty draft. And in reality the military is not here to protect you or me, they are really protecting and serving the same folks and corporations that are lying to you about the economy.

That’s who the military are really protecting and serving, and for us to not acknowledge that even to ourselves is somewhat frightening. Like I said it’s a poverty draft. And oligarchs use the indoctrination of God = flag = love of country to deceive us all. To shame those who call for peace. It’s perverse. And something many of us don’t realise is that those young people who join the military for financial reasons (and there are many) are dying and suiciding in part because most of us don’t understand how our economy works. There are

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some who love a good war but let’s face it, if we are not speaking out against the war, then we are at {best?} OK with it.

Are we afraid that all the many enemies our government has made over the centuries will come for revenge if we don’t have the biggest military in the world? Are we afraid we will run out of resources if we don’t continue on invading sovereign countries and taking their resources through force? But that’s a truth we would never say out loud would we? So there’s the folks who believe in American exceptionalism, and there’s those of us on the left who would never admit it, but we are OK with the government invading countries because we need our “things”.

But back to the economy: The US government has to sustain the economy and the way they do that is via the military. So when we say “How come they have money for the military, but not single payer health care? The reason is that the government is rigging the game. It’s trying to keep the economy going, and it does this by pumping money into the military. It’s not the petrodollar. It’s not any of that nonsense. Americans love the red, white and blue, the jingoism, the flag waving, the 4^th of July banners. Pumping money into the military is all about keeping the economy afloat. The truth is the minute the US government cuts military spending, the US would have an epic depression. It would be an epic depression because it’s really about spending into the economy. Of course spending trillions of dollars on this death machine is not good spending. It’s not good at all..

So how can we change this? The only way that this death machine spending is EVER going to change, is when people stop talking about affordability. It will never change until the public stop thinking that we have to raise taxes to pay for Medicare. It will never change until we stop believing and saying that we’ve got to raise taxes to pay for social services.

So we need to change our way of thinking. We need to question what is happening, over and over again. We need to ask ourselves why is it that the only thing the US government doesn’t have to raise taxes for is the military. And the answer is, because they do not have to raise taxes at all.

What’s that you say?

Taxes literally DO NOT PAY for spending. They’re deleted, they literally deleted. They’re used to keep the economy afloat, to keep the dollar’s value but they don’t pay for anything. They are literally physically destroyed, literally deleted at the federal level. I’ll say again taxes are literally deleted at the federal level and DO NOT pay for spending. That’s why out of nowhere, we can come up with 700 billion to fund the military.

If we do not grasp this fact we will continue to complain that we also seem to have money for the military but never for medicare for all, not for free college, not to eradicate student debt, not for green energy, not for infrastructure, not for a federal job guarantee, not for expanded social security.

UNTIL we grasp this important fact that federal taxes do not fund spending, we are going to continue to let the oligarchs in Congress spend all day long on the military, and put their foot on the necks of the rest of us. All of us need to understand this. All of us need to understand this and then act from that understanding.

And we should cease the worship of politicians because it doesn’t matter how nice or wonderful or saint-like you may think those politicians are, if that politician spreads falsehoods about the economy stating that taxes pay for spending, then THEY are part of the problem. They are helping promote this military charade. That politician is helping the continuance of wars for oil. They are propping up all these terrible things because they refuse to address the propaganda war waged on us all. They refuse to address the LIE, that federal taxes are needed to pay for spending. Let’s not get caught up in drama that goes nowhere. Let’s ignore the naysayers, and those who obsess over mass shootings. Let’s ignore the trolls that say MMT is a cult, because just like gravity, it’s not something we need to “believe in”. MMT is just a description of an economic reality that exists right now. It doesn’t need to be implemented, it exists right now. It just needs to be brought to other’s attention so we can act on this understanding. We simply have to understand it and wake up to this economic lie. And when we do, we take ourselves off this endless treadmill. We take power with this understanding. Understanding MMT is about hope. We can crush neoliberalism with this understanding and live the kind of lives we should be livng right now. Why would we want to deny ourselves and deny others the knowledge about this economic reality that exists right now, something we can all benefit from tremendously? And if we are trying to sabotage this understanding, we need to ask ourselves why? My apologies if there were any mistakes in this livestream. As I said, I’m just a complete novice on this issue, but I thought I would talk about this one issue. Till next time. Bye for now.

For those new to the issue of MMT, here’s a good introduction: Explainer: what is modern monetary theory? https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-modern-monetary-theory-72095

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