New Economic Perspectives has the article When Will the White House and OMB Ever Learn About Sector Financial Balances? by Joe Firestone.

The Sector Financial Balances (SFB) model is an accounting identity, and these are always true by definition alone. The SFB model says:

Domestic Private Balance + Domestic Government Balance + Foreign Balance = 0.
.
.
.
However, the “accidental deficits” produced will not be big enough, nor targeted well enough to prevent continuing stagnation. In my next post, I’ll look at the Congressional (CPC) budget and see if the CPC has yet learned the lesson that projections that don’t take sectoral financial balances into account project private sector results that are far from consistent with what is necessary for a robust and just economy.

For those of you who don’t cotton to equations, I have prepared a picture for a blog post I will be publishing one of these days. [For a deeper discussion with even more pictures, see my previous post Diagrams and Dollars: Modern Money Illustrated (Part 1 & 2)]

Each  arrow in the above picture represents a flow from one pot to another. A flow into a pot is positive for that pot, and a flow out of a pot is negative for that pot.  If all four arrows at the mouth of any pot sum to a negative number, then you have a deficit for that pot. If greater than zero,  the pot has a surplus.  What is a deficit for a pair of arrows at one end of the pair is a surplus at the other end of that pair.

What Joe Firestone called an “accounting identity”, I explained in the following words:

There is no other flow of money. None rains in from the sky. None falls on the floor.

What the zero on the right hand side of Joe’s equation, (Domestic Private Balance + Domestic Government Balance + Foreign Balance = 0), is the equivalent of what I said above.  The zero accounts for all the other flows.  There aren’t any.

If you can think of a flow of money that is not in one of these sectors, please do enlighten us.  I’d be willing to bet that whatever you come up with is actually in one of the above mentioned sectors (pots).

Oh, and the point is what?  The Republican budgets, the White House OMB budgets, and even Democratic budgets are based on the premise that the equation is not true, or the fact that these three pots are not the only ones.  If you cannot believe what is obvious to me and to Joe Firestone, and the whole world of Modern Money Theorists, then I challenge you to come up with some other explanation.

Please read my subsequent post What Is Missing In Modern Money Theory (MMT)? It casts a little shadow on the certainty of this post. It shows that the other pots can create money that sure economically acts a lot more like USA money than MMT imagines.

Michael Hudson’s book Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy, made me see the key difference between Fed money and private bank money. Essentially, it is all about the interest charges. MMT says that, but the significance didn’t quite strike me until I read the book.

Recently, I have come up with words that better explain the difference between what private banks create and what The Federal Reserve Banks create. MMT calls what the Fed creates “high powered money”. What private banks create are promises of money. Briefly, private bank accounts and loans provide you with a promise of “high powered money”. Private banks only have to fulfill their promise when you try to use that promise outside the bank. If a person deposits your check into his or her account in the same bank, the bank only has to transfer their promise of money from your account to the payee’s account. Given the inflow and outflow of “high powered money”, the bank only has to worry about the net difference between the two flows. Banks know that under normal circumstances, that difference is very small compared to the promises they have made. It is only when that difference is much larger than usual that anybody would even have an inkling that there is a difference between “high powered money” and a private bank’s promise of money.

Here is a recent post that compares my explanation with an old video of the official MMT explanation – Loans Create Deposits: Inside vs Outside Money – March 19, 2020

The Real News Network has a seven part series on the healthcare system in the USA.

I am going to list all 7 parts here. I came into this series at part 7, but all 7 parts are worth watching.

Trump and Pelosi Both Cater to Private Health Insurance – RAI with Wendell Potter (1/7).

Trump’s “great healthcare plan” and opposition to Medicare for All’s “socialism” and Pelosi’s defense of the ACA and opposition to single-payer are both aimed at garnering support from the private insurance industry. Wendell Potter on Reality Asserts Itself hosted by Paul Jay

Riveting Testimony at Historic Hearing on Medicare for All – RAI with Wendell Potter (2/7).

The House Rules Committee heard powerful testimony about the urgency of passing Medicare for All from Ady Barkan, who is in late stages of ALS. Wendell Potter on Reality Asserts Itself hosted by Paul Jay

The Making of a Medical Insurance Spin Doctor – RAI with Wendell Potter (3/7).

Wendell Potter, author of ‘Deadly Spin: How Corporate PR is Killing Healthcare and Deceiving Americans’, traces his life from growing up poor and Republican in Tennessee, to radicalization during the Vietnam War, to cynical journalist who just wanted to make money – on Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay

Medical Insurance Companies Can Decide Who Lives and Dies – RAI with Wendell Potter (4/7).

Whistleblower Wendell Potter says the death of a young woman denied care by the insurance company he worked for was a turning point in his life; he says these practices are still taking place under the Affordable Care Act – on Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay

Health Insurance Abuses Continue in Spite of ACA – RAI with Wendell Potter (5/7).

We revisit Wendell Potter’s whistleblowing testimony that exposed how the insurance industry is more interested in pleasing Wall Street than in people’s care, and asked him if these abuses continued after the passing of the ACA–Wendell Potter on Reality Asserts Itself, hosted by Paul Jay

More Die From Medical Insurance ‘Aggressive Prior Authorization’ Than Before ACA – Wendell Potter RAI (6/7).

Wall Street demands medical insurance companies maintain their profits under the Affordable Care Act, which means they get even more aggressive in denying coverage and creating insurance models that under-insure patients – Wendell Potter on Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay

Without Medicare for All, the Healthcare System Will Collapse – Wendell Potter RAI (7/7).

The healthcare system is unsustainable; without a Medicare for All system, only the wealthiest will be able to afford decent care – Wendell Potter on Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay

Here is a link to Wendell Potter’s web site tarbell.org.

Tarbell is pioneering journalism that informs, galvanizes and changes America.

We take a unique approach to coverage of money in policy, not just politics. We uncover how powerful people and companies use their influence to shape a system that works for them, not you. We highlight solutions to pressing problems. Our fiercely independent, unbiased news inspires our members in all 50 U.S. states to take action.
.
.
.

The Real News Network has the video The Doomsday Machine: The Big Lie of the Cold War – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (1/12).

On Reality Asserts Itself, Daniel Ellsberg tells host Paul Jay that US intelligence agencies knew that Stalin was not planning to invade Western Europe or seek world domination, but based on the myth, the world came close to nuclear war – and it’s all happening again

The above video is only the first episode of a 12 part series. Below are the links to the first eleven episodes. I’ll put in the 12th as soon as it is published.

The Doomsday Machine: The Big Lie of the Cold War – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (1/12)

Hitler Wouldn’t Risk Doomsday, But The United States Did – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (2/12)

Truman Delayed End of WWII to Demonstrate Nuclear Weapons – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (3/12)

The Largest Act of Terrorism in Human History – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (4/12)

Russian “Doomsday Machine” an Answer to U.S. Decapitation Strategy – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (5/12)

U.S. Planned Nuclear First Strike to Destroy Soviets and China – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (6/12)

U.S. Refuses to Adopt a Nuclear Weapon No First Use Pledge – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (7/12)

Once Fired, There’s No Calling a Nuke Back – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (8/12)

The Discovery That Should Have Changed the Cold War – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (9/12)

A Strategy of War Crimes, Killing Civilians to Win a War – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (10/12)

The Doomsday Machine and Nuclear Winter – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (11/12)

Counter Current News has the article No Outrage For Palestinian Cartoonist Who Was Arrested and Jailed In Israel.

The State alleged that Saba’aneh had contacted a publishing company about publishing his cartoons in a book. That Jordanian publisher also put out a book about Palestinian prisoners. The State of Israel said that this book was a threat to national security. Saba’aneh’s contact with this publisher was thereby used as a pretext to lock up the controversial cartoonist before he could connect with a broader audience via this publishing house.

Saba’aneh was ultimately sentenced to five months in jail after serving out his informal and continuously extended detention. He was also fined 10,000 shekels for his “contact with a hostile organization.”

Well, I mean jailing someone is not like a terrorist attack that killed people.  OK, what about the article These 17 Journalists Were Killed by Israel In Gaza?

It should be emphasized that killing of journalists and media workers is a violation of international law.

Thanks to Tim Wise for posting this on his Facebook page.

January 12, 2015

Just to give myself some cover against people who might think this post is outrageous for whatever reasons, I have this additional information from one of the respondents on Tim Wise’s post.

The comment mentions the article Death threats to Haaretz journalists appear on right-winger’s Facebook page. In commenting on a political cartoon that Haaretz had published, this article said the following:

The cartoon that sparked the death threats (captions in Hebrew read: 10 journalists killed in attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris (top), about 13 journalists killed last summer in attack on Gaza (bottom)

What I take away from this exchange is that if an Israeli newspaper can remark about journalists killed in Gaza, then the topic should not be taboo for me to even mention. This is to say nothing about the reported comments from the right wing in Israel. I’ll let you think about that part of the story on your own.

Democracy Now has a two part interview that begins with Henry Siegman, Leading Voice of U.S. Jewry, on Gaza: “A Slaughter of Innocents”

I previously blogged about a book that is mentioned in this interview – The State of Israel ‘My Promised Land,’ by Ari Shavit.

The second part of the interview is U.S. Jewish Leader Henry Siegman to Israel: Stop Killing Palestinians and End the Occupation.

The segment ends with an exchange that I was hoping someone would state.

AMY GOODMAN: Henry Siegman, I wanted to ask you about media coverage of the conflict right now in Gaza. In a comment to close the CBS show Face the Nation on Sunday, the host, Bob Schieffer, suggested Hamas forces Israel to kill Palestinian children.

BOB SCHIEFFER: In the Middle East, the Palestinian people find themselves in the grip of a terrorist group that is embarked on a strategy to get its own children killed in order to build sympathy for its cause—a strategy that might actually be working, at least in some quarters. Last week I found a quote of many years ago by Golda Meir, one of Israel’s early leaders, which might have been said yesterday: “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children,” she said, “but we can never forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”

AMY GOODMAN: That was the host, the journalist Bob Schieffer, on Face the Nation. You knew Prime Minister Golda Meir.

HENRY SIEGMAN: Yes, I did. I wasn’t a friend of hers, but I knew her, and I heard her when she made that statement. And I thought then, and think now, that it is an embarrassingly hypocritical statement. This statement was made by a woman who also said “Palestinians? There are no Palestinians! I am a Palestinian.” If you don’t want to kill Palestinians, if that’s what pains you so much, you don’t have to kill them. You can give them their rights, and you can end the occupation. And to put the blame for the occupation and for the killing of innocents that we are seeing in Gaza now on the Palestinians—why? Because they want a state of their own? They want what Jews wanted and achieved? I find that, to put it mildly, less than admirable. There is something deeply hypocritical about that original statement and about repeating it on the air over here as a great moral insight.

I am sick and tired of hearing this quote from Golda Meir as if it were a piece of wisdom.

RT has the article Footage of chemical attack in Syria is fraud.

There is proof the footage of the alleged chemical attack in Syria was fabricated, Mother Agnes Mariam el-Salib, mother superior of St. James Monastery in Qara, Syria, told RT. She says she is about to submit her findings to the UN.

Mother Agnes, a catholic nun, who has been living in Syria for 20 years and has been reporting actively on what has been going on in the war-ravaged country, says she carefully studied the video featuring allegedly victims of the chemical weapons attack in the Syrian village of Guta in August and now questions its authenticity.

See, isn’t this what I have been telling you.  To add to the credibility of this story, let me fill in some of the missing pieces.  RT did or  does stand for Russia Today.  (I used to work for RCA, the former Radio Corporation of America, that put on all its written press releases something like, “The name of our company is RCA.  The letters do not stand for anything else.”)

Mother Agnes Mariam el-Salib is concerned about the Christian minorities who have been attacked by the rebels. She also mentions “the brutal killing spree in Latakia on Laylat al-Qadr” carried out by by Jabhat al-Nusra according to the interviewer from RT.  In a question about some hostages taken by the rebels Mother Agnes says:

A total of twelve Alawite villages were subjected to this horrendous attack.

According to the reports I read Jabhat al-Nusra is related to Al Qaeda, and Bashar Assad is from the Alawite tribe.

So, clearly Mother Agnes is a disinterested party, as is RT, a Russian news organization.  We have every reason to take these sources at their word as opposed to believeing anything that President Obama has to say.

All kidding aside, it is very difficult to sort out the truth from the propaganda or how much of either type of journalism may or may not appear in any news source you read.  Stay skeptical, keep your wits about you, and try not to be blind-sided because of anything you heard, read, or saw.

The heading I used when I cross posted this article on Google+ and on Facebook was the following:

Do not kid yourself into thinking that if you read the news from both sides, you can take the average and come up with the truth.  The truth may be way off in the distance of the line handed to you by either side or the line that runs from one side to the other.