press release

Senate Candidate Bets Congress $100 Million That the U.S. Government Cannot Run out of Money

Warren Mosler Offers $100 Million of His Own Money to Pay Down the Federal Deficit If Any Lawmaker Can Prove Him Wrong


WATERBURY, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Warren Mosler, Connecticut’s Independent candidate for U.S. Senate today announced that it is an indisputable fact that U.S. Government spending is not operationally constrained by revenue and will give $100 million of his own money to pay down the Federal deficit if any Congressman or Senator can prove him wrong. “I am running for U.S. Senate to see my policies implemented to create the 20 million jobs we need. And to do this it must be understood that there is simply no such thing as the U.S. Federal government running out of money, nor is the Federal government operationally dependent on borrowing from China or anyone else. U.S. states, individuals, and companies can indeed become insolvent, but U.S. government checks will never bounce,” states Mosler. “Yes, large Federal deficits that push the economy beyond the point of full employment can lead to inflation or currency devaluation, but not bankruptcy and not bounced checks. If lawmakers today understood this fact, they would not be looking to cut Social Security and we would not still be mired in this disastrous recession.”

With 37 years of experience as an ‘insider’ in monetary operations, Mosler knows that President Obama is wrong when he says that the U.S. government has ‘run out of money’ and is dependent on borrowing from China in order to spend. As Fed Chairman Bernanke publicly stated in March of 2009, the Fed makes payments by simply marking up numbers in bank accounts with its computer. Mosler explains further; “The Government doesn’t get anything ‘real’ when it taxes and doesn’t give up anything ‘real’ when it spends. There is no gold coin that goes into a bucket at the Fed when you are taxed and the government doesn’t hammer a gold coin into its computer when it spends. It just changes numbers in our bank accounts.” Mosler likens this scenario to a football game; when a touchdown is scored, the number on the scoreboard changes from 0 to 6. No one wonders where the stadium got the 6 points, no one demands that stadiums keep a reserve of points in a “lockbox” and no one is worried about using up all the points and thereby denying our children the chance to play.

Warren Mosler urges his opponents, Linda McMahon and Richard Blumenthal, and the entirety of Congress to recognize how the monetary system actually works and implement a full payroll tax (FICA) holiday and his other proposals to restore full employment and prosperity while not cutting Social Security benefits or eligibility.

About Warren Mosler

Warren Mosler is running as an Independent. His populist economic message features: 1) A full payroll tax (FICA) holiday so that people working for a living can afford to buy the goods and services they produce. 2) $500 per capita Federal revenue distribution for the states 3) An $8/hr federally funded job to anyone willing and able to work to facilitate the transition from unemployment to private sector employment. He has also pledged never to vote for cuts in Social Security payments or benefits. Warren is a native of Manchester, Conn., where his father worked in a small insurance office and his mother was a night-shift nurse. After graduating from the University of Connecticut (BA Economics, 1971), and working on financial trading desks in NYC and Chicago, Warren started his current investment firm in 1982. For the last twenty years, Warren has also been involved in the academic community, publishing numerous journal articles, and giving conference presentations around the globe. Mosler’s new book “The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy” is a non-technical guide to the actual workings of the monetary system and exposes the most commonly held misconceptions. He also founded Mosler Automotive, which builds the Mosler MT900, the world’s top performance car that also gets 30 mpg at 55 mph.

Comments on the Blumenthal McMahon Debate

Comments on the Blumenthal McMahon Debate

The debate organizers opted not to include me as the representative of the third largest political party in Connecticut, the Independent Party. I did, however, watch the proceedings on television. We are in an economic emergency, and I’m running for the US Senate strictly as a matter of conscience to offer my knowledge, experience, and proposals to fix our broken economy and create the 20 million new jobs we desperately need. To that end I offer my comments.

But let me first respond to the question on the death penalty. Both candidates proclaimed their unconditional support for it, while I am categorically against it. That fact that more than 100 convicted murderers on death row have been found not guilty and released after DNA testing became available is reason enough for me to ban this unnecessary measure which has likely put to death untold numbers of innocent people.

With regard to jobs and the economy, both candidates recognized that small businesses account for about 70% of private sector jobs, and both candidates proposed a variety of tax measures to help small business. And while both candidates favored not letting middle income tax cuts expire next year, and Mrs. McMahon further supported not raising taxes on anyone, neither of those proposals actually lower taxes from their current levels.

Sadly, the problem is that neither candidate recognizes that it is SALES that create jobs. Consequently, they did not focus on proposals designed to increase sales. Restaurants, department stores, and other small businesses don’t cut staff when sales are good and they are full of paying customers. They cut staff when sales fall. We’ve lost 8 million jobs because sales fell and business in general remains slow. So while Mrs. McMahon stated that entrepreneurial activity is what creates jobs through risk taking, she failed to recognize that they do that only when prospects for actually selling their goods and services are favorable, and, particularly, when they have a backlog of orders.

Thus, while lowering taxes for small business certainly doesn’t hurt, it’s not what creates jobs. My lead proposal to create millions of new jobs is a full payroll tax (FICA) suspension for both employers AND for all employees. This will increase take home pay by about 8% which means a person earning $50,000 a year will see his take home pay go up by over $300 per month, which will boost sales and create jobs the right way, from the bottom up, and not from the failed top down trickle down bailout policies of the last several years. It also lowers costs for all businesses, which helps keep prices down. We have to take strong measures to get sales back up to where they should be.

Next, I want to address one of the more famous sound bytes from this debate. Mrs. McMahon specifically stated that “government doesn’t create jobs, the private sector does” and Mr. Blumenthal did not disagree. What both candidates failed to recognize is the government’s central role in private sector job creation. Government’s role is the creation and maintenance of public infrastructure necessary for the functioning of the private sector. This includes in the general sense the legal system, the monetary system, public safety, and other related and essential support functions. This infrastructure employs real people in real jobs providing real benefits without which there would be no viable private sector. So in that sense government does indeed create real jobs, both directly and indirectly.

In summary, neither candidate showed that they understood that sales create private sector jobs, and neither candidate directly proposed measures such as my payroll tax suspension for employees to increase our spending power to restore sales and create jobs. Instead, they proposed measures that certainly won’t hurt, but will fall far short of what’s needed to put America back to work.

Next, Mr. Blumenthal repeatedly called for policy to force China to end its ‘currency manipulation,’ along with ‘buy America’ proposals and proposals to reverse the flow of American jobs overseas, to the point of criticizing Mrs. McMahon for purchasing imported goods. Mrs. McMahon implicitly agreed with the premise, countering by explaining that US corporate tax policy was to blame for companies moving overseas. Again, unfortunately, both candidates have things fundamentally backwards on this issue as well. I suspect that is because the unions they are undoubtedly catering to also have it backwards and are sadly working against their own best interesets.

The real problem is not the imports, or the jobs going overseas. The problem is that we are grossly over taxed for the size of government we have, and don’t have enough take home pay to buy enough goods and services to keep everyone at home fully employed.

As every Professor of Economics knows, and every first year student is taught, imports are real benefits and exports are real costs. You can think of each nation’s real wealth this way: take the ‘pile’ of goods and services we produce at home, then add to that pile the goods and services the rest of the world sends us, then subtract from that the pile of goods and services we send overseas. What we are left with is our real wealth. As you can see, the problem is not what we buy from overseas. That adds to our pile and makes us richer. The problem is the unemployment here at home, which is best addressed by my payroll tax suspension which gives people working for a living enough spending money to increase sales enough to create the jobs we need here at home. The trick is to get taxes low enough so that we have enough spending money to buy everything we can produce here at home with everyone working, plus everything the rest of the world wants to sell us.

In the debate, both candidates also stressed the importance of deficit reduction, with both concerned about the debt we are leaving our children. The problem is that they have both bought into the deficit mythology that has gotten the U.S. economy to where it is today. In order to restore American prosperity create American jobs it is critical to dispell this mythology, and I am on mission to stomp it out forever.

The fact is that the U.S. government is not ‘out of money’ or ‘about to go broke.’ That talk is pure fear mongering. Unlike state and local governments (which can go broke), the Federal government is the actual issuer and operator of the US dollar. It utilizes its Federal Reserve Bank and the commercial banks (where all of our bank accounts are) to make payments and receive payments. It makes all payments, such as Social Security payments, simply by marking numbers up in our bank accounts. Those numbers don’t come from anywhere, as Fed Chairman Bernanke testified last year and other Fed officials have repeated. There is no gold coin that drops into a bucket at the fed when you pay your taxes and they don’t hammer one into their computers when they pay a Social Security check.

To repeat: There is no such thing as the Federal government running out of money. Government checks don’t ever bounce.

That is not to say that ‘over spending’ can’t drive up prices and eventually result in inflation. It does mean, however, that Social Security is not broken. It can’t be. The checks will never bounce. And I have signed a pledge never to cut Social Security benefits or eligibility. However, unfortunately for all of us, there is a commission on “fiscal responsibility and reform” supported by the Democrats and the Republicans, which, conveniently after the election, will recommend ways to cut Social Security and Medicare. An important part of my mission is to make sure they do not succeed.

Often, when I explain this, people will ask if I am proposing that we just ‘print the money,’ as if today there is a distinction between printing money and some other way of government spending. I tell them that ‘printing money’ is a long outdated gold standard distinction that meant we had printed more paper money than we had gold backing it. Today, you can’t ‘cash in’ your dollars at the Fed for gold. Dollars are just numbers in bank accounts, or actual cash. So all I’m doing is describing the one and only way spending and taxing always takes place with today’s monetary system.

The other question that seems to be on everyone’s mind is how then do we pay off China? The answer is actually quite simple when you understand how it works in its most basic form.

First, one has to understand China doesn’t start out with any dollars. They get them from selling things to us. When China gets paid, those dollars go into its checking account, which is also called a reserve account, at the Fed (Federal Reserve Bank). US Treasury securities including T bills, notes, and bonds are nothing more than savings accounts at the Fed. So when China buys Treasury securities all that happens is their dollars shift from their checking account at the Fed to their savings account at the Fed. That’s called ‘the US going into debt.’ You can call it whatever you want, but it is really just transferring dollars from China’s checking to its savings. The total US debt of about $13 trillion is simply the dollars in savings accounts at the Fed. And how is that repaid by the tens of billions every week as the various Treasury securities mature? All the Fed does is shift those dollars (plus interest) from the savings accounts back to the checking accounts. That’s it, debt paid. And no checks from anyone’s children and grandchildren are involved. But what if China decides not to ‘buy our debt’? This simply means their money stays in their checking account at the Fed and never goes to their savings account. There is no reason for anyone to care in which Fed account China’s dollars are kept. Further, if China doesn’t want dollars at all, their only option is to buy something with them just like anyone else.

All of this causes one to view deficit spending in a very different light. Deficit spending for the Federal government is very different than most people imagine. When the Federal government spends more than it taxes, that extra money spent simply winds up in savings accounts at the Fed. In other words, it adds to the savings of the economy. With this in mind and knowing that, by definition, deficit reduction means either increasing taxes or cutting spending, we can see that both of those actions take money out of our economy – the worst possible thing to do at a time like this. While I strongly favor cutting wasteful and unnecessary Federal spending, I also recognize that with today’s high unemployment any spending cuts must be matched by tax cuts of at least that much to ensure money is not removed from the economy. What actually matters is the real economy, and not the deficit which is nothing more than the savings accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank. Don’t you think that if the debt was really a problem something very bad would have happened long before it got to $13 trillion?

Mrs. McMahon’s nonsensical statement about using unspent stimulus money to pay down the national debt would be like saying you are going to use your remaining line on your credit card to pay off your debt. And Mr. Blumenthal’s failure to respond to such an obvious absurdity likewise shows he too is sorely lacking in his understanding of economics and job creation at this time of economic emergency.

The health insurance issue again highlighted their lack of understanding of markets and economics for all parties concerned. Both candidates missed the point that there is not yet an operational plan to guarantee coverage for those with pre existing conditions. The problem is that if you can’t be turned down for insurance because you are already sick, you don’t need to buy insurance until AFTER you need medical attention. To address that situation, they’ve discussed fining people who don’t buy insurance. But if the fines aren’t at least as high as the insurance premiums, people will just pay the fines. And then insurance companies will only be selling insurance to people already in need of treatment, which means the premiums will be higher than the costs of the needed treatment to cover the insurance company’s costs. Unfortunately, however nobly intended, the entire concept is unworkable under the current structure, and neither candidate indicated any awareness of this.

With regard to TARP funding for banks, again, neither candidate got it right. The fact is TARP was nothing more than regulatory forbearance that allowed the banks to continue to function with reduced levels of private capital, along with terms and conditions regarding operations, compensation, etc. No additional public funds were actually involved. The FDIC was, for all practical purposes, already guaranteeing the depositors from loss should all the private capital of any one bank be lost. Adding TARP money to secure depositors from loss when they were already FDIC guaranteed made no sense at all and added nothing. Nor did ‘paying back the TARP money,’ which necessarily did nothing more than let funds sit in reserve accounts at the Fed, make any difference.

To summarize the economic issues, neither candidate showed that they understood that sales create private sector jobs, and neither candidate directly proposed measures such as my payroll tax suspension for employees to increase our spending power to restore sales and create jobs. Instead, they proposed measures that certainly won’t hurt, but will fall far short of what’s needed to put America back to work. During this time of financial crisis, even with the best of intentions, neither candidate is qualified to represent our best interests and fix our economy.

Mr. Blumenthal has been a tireless public servant and advocate for the people of Connecticut for a very long time, and I have no doubt he’ll continue to do that if elected Senator. Unfortunately, much of his understanding of current issues is completely backwards. For example, his tireless and well-intentioned efforts in regard to foreign trade are far more likely to destroy jobs than create them. And nothing could be more subversive than Mrs. McMahon’s promised vote for a balanced budget amendment, which would take over $1 trillion out of our economy, destroying tens of millions of jobs, and threatening our liberties as well in the ensuing social unrest that.

We are in an economic emergency, and both candidates have put forth proposals that would unknowingly destroy millions of jobs in a terrible depression. I am running for the US Senate solely as a matter of conscience as the candidate uniquely qualified to support the proposals that will create the 20 million jobs we need, and defeat the forces at work that are attempting to slash Social Security and Medicare.

Also, unlike the other candidates, creating jobs has been my life work, and not just election talk. My published writings and proposals have already created millions of jobs around the world, and I have met regularly with Congressmen and Senators from both parties promoting full employment and prosperity, as well as fighting back against the proposed cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

I urge you to please visit www.moslerforsenate.com and read my proposals, my qualifications, and my endorsements.

Warren Mosler To Participate In 3 Senatorial Debates

Warren Mosler To Participate In 3 Senatorial Debates To Be Hosted By League of Women Voters of Connecticut


September 13, 2010 08:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time

WATERBURY, Conn.–(EON: Enhanced Online News)–Warren Mosler, Independent candidate for US Senate from Connecticut today announced that he had been invited by the vetting committee of the League of Women Voters of Connecticut Education Fund to participate in a series of 3, 60-minute Senatorial debates to be held in October.

“I am deeply honored by my inclusion in these debates as the candidate of the Independent Party of Connecticut,” stated Mosler. “The League carefully examined my qualifications, my academic and professional endorsements, my career history, and my proposals to fix our economy, before deciding that I could make a positive contribution to the discussions.” Mosler has also requested his inclusion in a debate scheduled for October 4, sponsored by the Hartford Courant and Fox News, however, the lineup has yet to be finalized.

Each of the The League of Women Voters of Connecticut Education Fund and the Hearst Connecticut Media Group Senatorial debates will be paired with a 60-minute Gubernatorial debate. These debates will be held at various locations throughout Connecticut with the order of the debates being determined by coin toss. The first one-hour debate will begin at 7:00 p.m. and conclude promptly at 8 p.m. to be followed by the second debate, from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. All media outlets will be invited to cover the event. An experienced representative from the League of Women Voters of Connecticut Education Fund will moderate.

Debate Locations:
October 7, 2010 The Portuguese Cultural Center, Danbury
October 21, 2010 The Ferguson Library, Main Branch, Stamford
October 28, 2010 The Klein Theater, Bridgeport

About Warren Mosler

Warren Mosler is running as an Independent. His populist economic message features: 1) a full payroll tax (FICA) holiday so that people working for a living can afford to buy the goods and services they produce. 2) $500 per capita Federal revenue distribution for the states 3) An $8/hr federally funded job to anyone willing and able to work to facilitate the transition from unemployment to private sector employment. He has also pledged never to vote for cuts in Social Security payments or benefits. Warren is a native of Manchester, Conn., where his father worked in a small insurance office and his mother was a night-shift nurse. After graduating from the University of Connecticut (BA Economics, 1971), and working on financial trading desks in NYC and Chicago, Warren started his current investment firm in 1982. For the last twenty years, Warren has also been involved in the academic community, publishing numerous journal articles, and giving conference presentations around the globe. Mosler’s new book “The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy” is a non-technical guide to the actual workings of the monetary system and exposes the most commonly held misconceptions. He also founded Mosler Automotive, which builds the Mosler MT900, the world’s top performance car that also gets 30 mpg at 55 mph.

Learn more at www.moslerforsenate.com

7 more weeks until Nov 2

The election is November 2.

All contributions I receive are used to promote my message above and beyond what I was going to spend anyway.

And, in a recent development, the actual number of people donating is suddenly a criteria to get into the televised debates.

For that purpose a $25 donation counts the same as a $2,400 donation which is the max allowed.

So if you’re interested in making a contribution please do so by clicking here

(If you have a problem with the link let me know asap!)

Thanks again to all of you who have already done so- you have been heard!
MMT is all over the internet, and quickly being recognized in academic and financial circles

Most of the talk of a payroll tax holiday can be traced directly to our efforts,

And the ideas that:

Federal taxes function to regulate demand, and not to fund expenditures,

The US, UK, Japan, etc. are not the next Greece

Social security isn’t broken

The only thing we owe China is a bank statement

Federal borrowing is nothing more than shifting dollars from reserve accounts to securities accounts

etc. etc.

are gaining substantial traction,
though clearly are not yet in the mainstream media the way the payroll tax holiday is.

Anyway, I’m standing by to act as your agent.

The maximum contribution to Mosler for Senate is $2,400 per person,
but additional donations up to a max of $5,000 per person are allowed to the Indendent Party of Connecticut,
where all donations will go to support the same message, as all of our candidates have read ‘The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds’
and are ‘onboard’ with using any donations to support that message.

And no worries to those who don’t contribute for any reason- completely understood!!!
If you do something, it’s for yourself, your family, the world, etc, but not for me!
(I take what the market gives me. If I don’t get into the debates I get to do something more fun those nights.
If I do get in, it’s your fault…)

This email is for information purposes only, not active solicitation!

And again, thanks very much to all who’ve contributed in any amount,
and especially those that have done their part to spread the word.

Best!
Warren

Update: Warren’s Interview at 12:30pm Thursday

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I just wanted to provide an update. The interview has been scheduled for this Thursday at 12:30 pm on Bloomberg Radio. The show is called “The Hays Advantage”. Warren will broadcast with her live from the U.S. Open in New York. Everyone be sure to tweet, post, and tell your contacts to listen at that time.

Kind regards,

Will Thompson

Here’s how you can find/listen to it… AM 1130 in New York,
By satellite radio: Sirius: Channel 130 or XM: Channel 129

Or listen online at www.bloomberg.com/radio Just click the large play button on the front page.

Stiglitz Warns US Economy May Contract Next Year


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Unfortunately, he and all the other deficit doves still can’t refute, and thereby tacitly support, the notions that include ‘we have to borrow money from China to pay for it.

So, while probably right on the prognosis, he remains part of the problem rather than part of the answer as The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds continue to take their toll.

Stiglitz Warns US Economy May Contract Next Year

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz warned there’s a “significant” chance the U.S. economy will contract in the second half of next year, and urged the government to prepare a second stimulus package to spur job creation.


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Re: “The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds” DRAFT comments


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(email exchange)

>   
>   Here are some comments — this was interesting reading, and I do think it
>   makes sense on strictly a macro level (which is obviously what he’s going for).
>   

yes!

>   
>   #1 explanation is interesting, especially regarding the example of parents and
>   children with coupons. I do feel, however, that the author doesn’t give much
>   consideration to the inflationary results of the ‘govt check don’t bounce’ thesis
>   (I’m referencing the debate the author describes at the Australia conference).
>   While it’s probably true, I do think inflation has a material impact (at least at
>   the micro level, which I suppose isn’t really the point of this article).
>   

Right, the point is inflation is the issue, not solvency or sustainability. But critics of deficit spending never even attempt to quantify the inflationary aspect.

Instead, they seem to focus on ‘money supply’ for their inflation forecasting and ‘inflation expectation’ issues, both of which are not causal, but that’s another story.

>   
>   Under #2, I think the rhetoric about do we have to send goods and services back
>   in time to pay for historical debt is a red herring and not applicable (and I’m not
>   surprised the Senator couldn’t really say much about it off-hand while his wife ‘got
>   it’). It’s the debt servicing that people worry about, and that is in current terms
>   (no time machine required). However, the thesis of gov’t checks not bouncing
>   speaks to how the debt can be serviced.
>   

yes, and that distribution is entirely in the hands of the living who are in no case ruled from the grave.

>   
>   Paying off China — to book a Treasury Note sale, the gov’t on its own books would
>   debit cash (for the receipt)

yes, and the Tsy’s account at the Fed is debited. right now we have a self imposed constraint that says the tsy’s balance at the fed can’t be negative.

but that is not an operational constraint, just a self imposed constraint

>   and credit the liability (to book the obligation).

again, via the Fed.

>   The buyer’s accounts mentioned wouldn’t really be booked by the gov’t I don’t think,
>   but I get the point.

the buyer’s funds go to the fed where they are ‘accounted for’ as owning the securities.

>   
>   #3 and #7 go together in what is really being discussed is the use of leverage
>   (spending more than what you have). As long as the discussion stays at the macro
>   level, that’s fine as the gov’t can just keep printing money (again, ignoring any effects
>   of inflation).
>   

and by printing you mean simply ‘spending’ as that’s all there is- changing numbers on bank accounts. using the word ‘printing’ rather than ‘spending’ is used by the mainstream to color thinking in a fixed fx direction that no longer is applicable.

>   
>   But, it is quite a slippery slope to intertwine micro-level examples such as a hybrid car
>   factory and such as once you leave the gov’t level, leverage can have catastrophic
>   results (see the current deleveraging in the economy and how that’s affecting people on
>   a micro level). All this is fine as long as you have no monetary constraints, but for anyone
>   with no access to a US$ printing machine, it falls apart.
>   

Included with my 3 current proposals to reverse the current situation is the govt funding an $8 hr job for anyone willing able to work.

The other two are a full payroll tax holiday and $300 billion to the states on a per capita basis with no strings attached. Together they restore demand, output, and employment.


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