Dear Congress, Stop Playing "Chicken" With The Debt Ceiling. Yesterday.

Dear Congress, 

STOP playing "chicken" with the debt ceiling (and thus the global economy) and pass a clean bill to raise it so we don't default.  Yesterday. 

Seriously, KNOCK. IT. OFF.

Better yet, simply abolish the silly concept of the "debt ceiling" that NO other country in the world has.  It serves NO useful purpose except as a political cudgel, which means it has NO useful purpose at all.

If not, the President would have no choice but to either 1) default on its debt obligations, which clearly flies in the face of the Constitution and would be utterly disastrous for the global economy, 2) invoke the 14th Amendment and simply ignore the debt ceiling, or 3) #MintTheCoin, that is, mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin so the government can still pay its bills. Actually, the latter option really wouldn't be a bad idea, come to think of it.

Sincerely, 

Literally everyone with at least half a brain

To Both Parties: Stop Playing "Chicken" With The Economy!

The elephant and jackass corporate duopoly in Congress are at it again.  They are, for the gazillionth time, playing a dangerous game of "chicken" with the "debt ceiling" and therefore with the economy.  Even merely hinting that the US government might default on its obligations is enough to cause real and broad economic damage.  And to add insult to injury, they also risk a government shutdown at the same time.  And to them we say, KNOCK IT OFF!  Yesterday!

We are officially being "governed" by overgrown children now, it seems.  In both parties, no less.

Not only is it a stupid and dangerous game to play, but it is 100% unnecessary.  The USA is the only country on Earth that has a separate vote for the debt ceiling and the budget, and one of only two countries that even has a formal "debt ceiling" at all.  And being Monetarily Sovereign, the USA would only default on the debt if it wanted to, since they could literally just print (or keystroke) the money.  Really.  (Just like that "gaffe" that Trump made back in 2016.)  And even the "debt" itself isn't really debt like occurs in the private sector or households--it is literally nothing more than deposits in Treasury security accounts, which are functionally equivalent to glorified savings accounts for investors.  That's it.  Otherwise, they simply keystroke money into existence every time they pay a bill, all while pretending otherwise of course.

And only due to arcane and archaic rules left over from the now-defunct gold standard (that functionally ended on August 15, 1971), which no longer make sense, is there any reason for this sort of utterly pointless dog and pony show, which means there really are only political reasons for it.  Which thus means there are no good reasons for it.  All they have to do is add the following text to any budget appropriations bill, per Dr. Joseph M. Firestone:

Paging Dr. Firestone indeed!  That would render "teh debt" a non-problem overnight.  And if Congress won't do that, the White House can always simply direct the US Treasury to #MintTheCoin.  Due to a little-known loophole in the law, the US Mint is allowed to mint platinum coins in literally ANY denomination as legal tender.  That means they can mint a trillion-dollar coin, or even a $100 trillion coin for that matter, and use such seigniorage as revenue to pay any bills.  The current White House, however, does not seem to be even the least bit interested in doing so, alas.

The US Constitution makes it crystal clear that the government must never call the public debt into question.  So what are we waiting for?

UPDATE:  The predictable howling about how the platinum coin loophole doesn't really exist (and that using the face value of such a coin as revenue is somehow technically illegal) is back again, and it is neither true nor necessarily in good faith.  This particular criticism appears to hinge entirely on the technical legal definition of "bullion coin" and the relative lack of precedent, but that doesn't mean it is necessary illegal.  Simply call it a "proof coin", and the face value is valid regardless of the value of the metal used to make it.  And the Federal Reserve would have no choice but to accept it as legal tender when deposited at the New York Fed, and thus fill the Treasury's own spending account there with the equivalent amount of paper/electronic dollars of revenue for spending.  Problem solved.  Next.

By the way, if the loophole doesn't really exist, then why did Republican Senator Mike Lee introduce a bill explicitly to close that very same loophole?

Even failing that, other things the President can do is invoke the 14th Amendment to nullify the debt ceiling, issue a new and special kind of bond to make an end-run around the debt ceiling, or even simply issue more debt in the short-term interim as the "least illegal" option under the Constitution, as the Constitution clearly prohibits defaulting on the debt.

In other words, President Biden can end this madness all by himself if he wanted.  So what is he waiting for?

Paging Dr. Firestone (Part Deux)

(For the longer version, see the previous post.)

There has been trouble brewing lately in a little-understood corner of the financial markets, known as the repurchase agreements (or "repo") market.  Since mid-September of this year, when overnight borrowing rates spiked due to a shortage of liquidity (i.e. cash money), the FERAL Reserve has been injecting more new cash into the repo market (a sort of stealth QE) in the hopes of shoring it up.  Though this is really supposed to be a temporary measure.

And the shortage of cash in the repo market was most likely due to too many T-securities (i.e. US Treasury bills, notes, and bonds) on the market at one time, which in turn is a result of this year's high federal "deficit" spending.  (The previously record-high deficits a decade ago during the Great Recession coincided with QE which prevented any liquidity shortage then.)  If not resolved, this could indeed spell trouble far beyond just the repo market as well.

(Note that the repo market, which provides a type of short-term lending, is directly linked to money market funds, and is also directly or indirectly linked to the "plumbing" of the entire financial system as well.)

Of course, even an extreme excess of Treasuries on the market, in and of itself, would be insufficient to cause such a "plumbing blockage" in the repo market.  Also required to cause such a problem is the new rules put in place after the 2008 financial crisis to prevent another Lehman-style meltdown.  Such rules require banks to retain a certain amount of liquidity at all times, and for good reason (as we learned the hard way in 2008).  But when the FERAL Reserve leads banks to prioritize holding cash over holding Treasuries, as opposed to giving equal weight to both (which would have made it a non-problem), then banks will end up hoarding way too much cash, causing a shortage of liquidity in the repo market.   To wit, it is the combination of 1) new liquidity rules, 2) excess number of Treasuries on the market, and 3) lack of QE all creating the perfect storm here.

(Throw in Wall Street greed, and then we really see the picture in much clearer focus, to say nothing of the half-quadrillion+ dollar derivatives bubble too.)

But literally the only reason this would ever even be an issue at all is due to the arcane and archaic rules that require federal "deficits" (i.e. spending not matched by tax revenues) to be matched by "borrowing" in the form of T-securities.  And literally all Congress needs to do is repeal those outdated rules and decouple spending, taxes, and "borrowing", as the TSAP has repeatedly noted.  Yes, really.

(You can also add another rule to the mix of arcane and archaic rules that need to be repealed:  the one which prohibits the Fed from purchasing T-securities directly from US Treasury Department, something that was not always the case in the USA.)

Put simply, the entire problem is artificial, both politically and psychologically.  And even that can be solved via what Dr. Joseph M. Firestone calls Overt Congressional Financing (OCF).  As for the specious argument that economic growth must outpace bond yields, that is also just another version of the Big Lie debunked above, as OCF would essentially render it irrelevant and meaningless.

To quote Dr. Firestone:

The national debt exists today because when the nation went off the gold standard in 1971 and adopted its fiat currency system, Congress did not explicitly repeal its mandate (very appropriate when our currency was convertible to gold on demand, at least in theory) requiring that the Government back all its deficit spending with already existing borrowed dollars whose convertibility was covered by our holdings of Gold. This Congressional mandate to borrow funds by issuing debt instruments when the Government deficit spends caused the national debt to persist until 1996. Congress, then, unintentionally, removed the mandate, leaving in its place the perceived compulsion of an old die-hard financial practice supported by the false ideology of neoliberalism, and a real, but unrecognized, option to abandon the practice by using platinum coin seigniorage. 

Had Congress repealed the practice when President Nixon took the country off the Gold Standard, and had we ceased to issue debt at that time, then the Government would have re-paid all of our 1971 debts as they came due, and both our national debt and our debt-to-GDP ratio would be at 0% today.

The following "magic words" can be added by Congress to any appropriations bill to implement OCF:

“Upon passage of this appropriations bill, the Federal Reserve is directed to fill the Treasury’s spending account at the New York Federal Reserve with the addition to its Reserve Balance necessary to spend the appropriation.

“In addition, the Federal Reserve is directed to fill the Treasury spending account with the additions to the Treasury Reserve balances necessary to repay all outstanding debt instruments including principal and interest as they fall due for the fiscal year of this appropriation.”

It would probably also be useful to add that there is a federal statute on the books that codifies the aforementioned arcane and archaic rules left over from when we actually had the gold standard.  That statute is codifed as 2 USC Ch. 20, most notably Section 902.   Simply repeal the text that contains those rules, and insert the aforementioned text in blue above, replacing the word "this" with "any".  The same goes for 31 USC section 3101, which is the statute that imposes that other outmoded contrivance, the so-called "debt ceiling" as well.  Repeal both of these obsolete laws, and set it and forget it.  Problem solved.

Or, to quote Rodger Malcolm Mitchell:

The best way is to eliminate the federal budget deficit and debt: Ending government borrowing. The government has the unlimited ability to create and spend money without borrowing. The process will be: 

1) Congress will create an account called "Money." 

2) Congress will determine how much money this account contains. The process will be similar to the way Congress now determines the debt ceiling. 

3) Federal agencies will write checks against this account according to budgets decided by Congress. If any federal agency needed additional funds, Congress would decide whether or not to allow this spending, in the same way that Congress votes for additional spending by the military et al. 

This would eliminate concerns about "our grandchildren paying for the federal debt." There would be no federal debt.

And while the value of T-securities at any given time will mostly never fall all the way to zero, once they are decoupled from federal "deficit" spending, they will never again be any more than what the market wants, and likely a LOT lower than today, thus no surprise shortages of liquidity in the repo market or any other market that trades such securities.

It's long past time to end the Big Lie already, period.  The very best time to do so was in 1971 when we functionally got off the gold standard and/or 1975-1976 when all remaining nominal ties between gold and the dollar were formally severed for good.  The second best time is NOW.  And with the recent artificially contrived troubles in the repo market, it is more timely than ever now.

Paging Dr. Firestone (Or, The Other Meaning of "Repo")

There has been trouble brewing lately in a little-understood corner of the financial markets, known as the repurchase agreements (or "repo") market.  Since mid-September of this year, when overnight borrowing rates spiked due to a shortage of liquidity (i.e. cash money), the FERAL Reserve has been injecting more new cash into the repo market (a sort of stealth QE) in the hopes of shoring it up.  Though this is really supposed to be a temporary measure.

And the shortage of cash in the repo market was most likely due to too many T-securities (i.e. US Treasury bills, notes, and bonds) on the market at one time, which in turn is a result of this year's high federal "deficit" spending.  (The previously record-high deficits a decade ago during the Great Recession coincided with QE which prevented any liquidity shortage then.)  If not resolved, this could indeed spell trouble far beyond just the repo market as well.

(Note that the repo market, which provides a type of short-term lending, is directly linked to money market funds, and is also directly or indirectly linked to the "plumbing" of the entire financial system as well.)

But literally the only reason this would even be an issue at all is due to the arcane and archaic rules that require federal "deficits" (i.e. spending not matched by tax revenues) to be matched by "borrowing" in the form of T-securities.  And literally all Congress needs to do is repeal those outdated rules and decouple spending, taxes, and "borrowing".  Wait, what?

Earlier this year and last year, we at the TSAP have exposed the Big Lie of Economics, a lie so massive and specious that even WE partially fell for prior to 2018.  The Big Lie consists of the following statement and its corollaries:

• Federal taxes pay for federal spending, and any shortfall in revenues (i.e. "deficit spending") must be made up by the federal government borrowing money to cover the deficit.
• It must be this way, because otherwise the federal government will run short of dollars, which are finite.
• The federal government is literally bankrupt and can no longer afford to keep paying for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, let alone anything more ambitious and progressive.
• Things like Universal Basic Income (UBI), tuition-free public college for all, state-of-the-art infrastructure, a Green New Deal, and single-payer Medicare For All sound like good ideas on paper, but we literally can't get the numbers to add up.  Sorry.  Oh well.
• If the national debt as a percentage of GDP rises above some arbitrarily high level, the federal government will have no choice but to default.
• Thus, we will have no choice but to accept an austerity "menu of pain" at this point, with both large tax hikes and/or deep spending cuts. (Austerity for the bottom 99%, that is.)

Do you still believe these statements? Well, guess what?  Each and every one of those specious statements is absolutely FALSE.  Period.  Not even a kernel of truth in there, except for the completely contrived self-fulfilling prophecy that believing such lies leads to, starting with the very first statement on that list, and it goes downhill from there. Federal taxes DO NOT pay for federal spending, because our federal government is Monetarily Sovereign and creates all the dollars they need to spend into existence on an ad hoc basis.  Tax dollars merely disappear into infinity, and the so-called "National Debt" is literally nothing more than a National Savings Account consisting of deposits in Treasury securities.  Yes, really.   And the only reason why we must currently match spending with taxes and/or "borrowing" is due to the arcane and archaic rules left over from when we actually had the gold standard.

As for inflation, there is essentially zero correlation between deficit spending and inflation, and history bears that out.  And even if there were inflation that resulted, that could be easily cured by raising interest rates as needed.  And due to the velocity of money, federal taxation of any kind, at even a relatively low rate, can to an extent automatically "claw back" any excesses in the money supply that may result, which can prevent inflation before it occurs.

So having established that, we must now note that sustaining the Big Lie, a lie that really only benefits the oligarchs and their sycophantic lackeys of both corporate duopoly parties in government, is now physically and metaphysically untenable.  Especially given the many converging real and contrived crises now facing our nation and world.  Make no mistake, we absolutely must end this Big Lie YESTERDAY or else face extremely painful austerity, recession, depression, or worse in the very near future.

Thus, we should all write letters to our Congresscritters based on the following sample letter written by the ever-insightful Dr. Joseph M. Firestone and disseminated by the ever-insightful Rodger Malcolm Mitchell:

Dear __________________

At one time or another you and nearly every one of your fellow Representatives (or Senators) have expressed great concern, even alarm, at the size of the national debt and the often increasing debt-to-GDP ratio.

Many of you have pointed out that if the national debt were broken down into how much each American owed that would add more than $50,000 to our individual debts, even though the national debt is not an obligation of each American citizen, but of our government.

You and your political allies have also pointed out that in view of the size of the national debt it is important for the Government to either reduce spending, raise taxes or both.

You have said doing this is necessary to be “fiscally responsible”, and, at least, to reduce the annual deficit, and the debt-to-GDP ratio.

You have voted for and supported legislation in order to be “fiscally responsible” in this way, and in doing so you have cut many programs of long standing that were delivering great benefits to people, harming them and their families.

Some of you have expressed regret and sorrow about this, while insisting on the need for sacrifice in order to be fiscally responsible.

I, your constituent, have heard this fiscal responsibility story from you for many years now, including your sentiments about how much you hate “the national debt,” what an evil it is, and how much we have to lighten its burden on our grandchildren.

In view of all this from you, it surprised me greatly to learn recently, that the very existence of the national debt is Congress’s fault, including your own and your colleagues. I say this for a very simple reason.

That reason is that you and your colleagues can, in an afternoon, make it standard legislative practice to include the following clause, or an alternative formulation meaning the same thing, in every appropriations bill or continuing resolution for Federal Spending. The clause is:

Now here comes the key part:

“Upon passage of this appropriations bill, the Federal Reserve is directed to fill the Treasury’s spending account at the New York Federal Reserve with the addition to its Reserve Balance necessary to spend the appropriation.

“In addition, the Federal Reserve is directed to fill the Treasury spending account with the additions to the Treasury Reserve balances necessary to repay all outstanding debt instruments including principal and interest as they fall due for the fiscal year of this appropriation.”

In short, the Federal Reserve would pay off T-securities, making the so-called “debt” disappear.

The Fed simply would create U.S. dollars from thin air, just as it always has been authorized to do, and just as it does when it buys federal bonds with its Quantitative Easing (QE) programs.

The first sentence provides the reserves necessary for the Treasury to spend its mandate from Congress without issuing new debt.

And the second provides the reserves necessary for the Treasury to pay down the existing outstanding Treasury debt instruments as they fall due within the time period of the appropriation or continuing resolution bill.

If this or similar language were included in every such bill it would mean that (1) deficit spending by Congress would no longer involve issuing new debt instruments, so the debt would no longer grow and (2) that all outstanding debt instruments would be paid off as they fall due as long as Congress continues to include the new language in all its appropriations bills and continuing resolutions.

So, it seems to me that the sole reason why the national debt exists at all in 2017 is that when President Nixon took the United States off the gold standard in 1971, the Congress did not adjust to the new reality of fiat monetary sovereignty by funding Federal spending using language like the above.

I believe that Congress made a grievous mistake in not changing its funding language immediately after the change to a fiat currency in 1971, and mandating the Federal Reserve to fill Treasury’s spending account with the reserves needed to spend its appropriations.

That mistake has led to the whole situation of debt terrorism we see around us now, and to all the damaging propaganda and horrible legislative outcomes we have suffered at the hands of Republicans and Democrats alike.

You have all been very wrong about the need to sacrifice. There was no need to sacrifice!

You have been all wrong about all of that for 40 years now, and you should all wear sackcloth and ashes and hang your heads for the damage you have done to America.

Since the Administration of President Carter we have been treated to these meaningless harangues about a faux financial problem that is purely one of politics and messaging and not one of public financing at all.

And this faux problem, solely of Congress’s own making has led to much suffering among most of the American people, including decades of less than full employment, the denial of universal health care coverage, deteriorating public spaces and infrastructure, refusal to deal with a life-threatening climate change problem, increasing economic inequality, a declining educational system, decreasing life expectancy, and a host of other problems too numerous to mention.

Well, I have had enough of all this, and especially of the pretense that the Federal Government doesn’t have enough money to buy any goods or services for sale using US currency.

I know that using the words above or words very like them, you and a majority of your colleagues in Congress can appropriate funds for anything you want to spend on.

So, never let me hear from you ever again that we can’t afford this good program or that good program or any other program that will benefit a majority of the people of the United States.

I now know that is a lie. And I insist that you never tell that lie again in public, and that from now on you advocate for and insist on legislative language similar to the above, being included in all appropriation bills and continuing resolutions passed by Congress.

I demand, that as my representative, you vote against any bill that lacks that language.

And I tell you now that if you fail to comply with this demand of mine, I will do all I can to defeat you in the next election and will work for and vote to elect any opponent of yours who is willing to promise that she or he will include such language in all appropriations bills or continuing resolutions.

In closing, I hope I have made myself abundantly clear. I insist that the lies and propaganda advancing faux fiscal responsibility stop immediately.

I insist that the issue of the national debt be taken off the table by including the language suggested above or a similar formulation, followed by gradual pay-off of all outstanding Treasury debt instruments. And I insist that you represent me in this way going forward and for as long as you serve.

I want Job 1 for you to be seeing to it to the best of your ability that this language is in all appropriation bills or continuing resolutions coming out of Congress. I will want other things from you too.

But, as I say, this is Job 1, and if you want my vote in the future you will see to it that it is well done, so that the various lies and fables surrounding Federal spending are at last ended, and so our nation may move forward to true fiscal responsibility, which is Government spending for public purpose.

Sincerely Yours, Your Constituent,

Granted, this letter is probably TL;DR and should perhaps be more concise, but the part in blue is really the heart and soul of the letter.  As Rodger Mitchell further explains:

The above letter is way too long to send as is. Further, I disagree with two of the points it makes: 

1. I disagree that all “debt” (i.e. T-securities) should be allowed to expire...and not [be] replaced. T-securities serve useful purposes. They help the Fed control interest rates and they provide a safe place to hold large amounts of money.
2. I disagree that “. . . Treasury Reserve balances (are)necessary to repay all outstanding debt.” Maturing Treasuries are repaid by transferring existing dollars from the T-security accounts back to the checking accounts of the T-security holders.  [Only the interest needs to be created anew.]

That said, the fundamental idea of having the Fed buy enough T-securities to reduce the outstanding “debt” would change the dialog, and ease the drive to cut social benefit spending.

And there you have it.  A bit more nuanced, but the same basic idea.  It would probably also be useful to add that there is a federal statute on the books that codifies the aforementioned arcane and archaic rules left over from when we actually had the gold standard.  That statute is codifed as 2 USC Ch. 20, most notably Section 902. Once one gets through the legalese mumbo-jumbo, one can plainly see that this requirement for "sequestration" upon "falling short" of federal budgetary dollars to pay bills is an outmoded contrivance that no longer serves any useful purpose at all.  Amending or repealing this obsolete section, or even the entire Chapter 20, is not just a good idea, but a matter of grave necessity to save our country at this point.  The same goes for 31 USC section 3101, which is the statute that imposes that other outmoded contrivance, the so-called "debt ceiling" as well.  Repealing both of these obsolete laws will permanently make it so the text in blue in the aforementioned letter will no longer need to be every spending bill as a formality to work around such laws each time going forward after the first one--especially if that text in blue were to be inserted in whatever remains of the repealed/amended 2 USC Ch. 20.

And instead of so-called "debt ceiling", which almost no other nation in the world has, we could simply have a spending limit that would be deemed automatically raised each time a new budget, continuing resolution, or appropriations bill is passed and signed into law, NOT by a separate vote. And that limit will only apply to spending on any new obligations taken on going forward, not on outstanding obligations.  The only functional reason for this at all would be as a "safety valve" or "circuit breaker" that would stop feeding the beast of inflation in the (unlikely) event of truly excessive inflation.

Or, to quote Rodger Malcolm Mitchell:

The best way is to eliminate the federal budget deficit and debt: Ending government borrowing. The government has the unlimited ability to create and spend money without borrowing. The process will be: 

1) Congress will create an account called "Money." 

2) Congress will determine how much money this account contains. The process will be similar to the way Congress now determines the debt ceiling. 

3) Federal agencies will write checks against this account according to budgets decided by Congress. If any federal agency needed additional funds, Congress would decide whether or not to allow this spending, in the same way that Congress votes for additional spending by the military et al. 

This would eliminate concerns about "our grandchildren paying for the federal debt." There would be no federal debt.

In the meantime, if Congress refuses to act, the executive branch does still have one powerful "ace in the hole":  the trillion-dollar coin.  While a pure "Treasury Warrant" idea is of very questionable legality and would likely be struck down by SCOTUS, under current law the Department of the Treasury has the explicit legal authority to mint platinum coins in literally any denomination.  Thus, they can easily mint one or two (or twenty!) trillion-dollar coins, or even a $100 trillion coin, as an effective workaround for the time being and use the resulting seigniorage to pay any bills and preclude default even if Congress plays "chicken" with the debt ceiling as a cudgel to force a default if they don't get their way.

TL;DR version:  Put simply, the entire problem is artificial, both politically and psychologically.  And even that can be solved via Overt Congressional Financing (OCF).  As for the argument that economic growth must outpace bond yields, that is also just another version of the Big Lie debunked above, as OCF would essentially render it meaningless.

Again, to quote Dr. Firestone:

The national debt exists today because when the nation went off the gold standard in 1971 and adopted its fiat currency system, Congress did not explicitly repeal its mandate (very appropriate when our currency was convertible to gold on demand, at least in theory) requiring that the Government back all its deficit spending with already existing borrowed dollars whose convertibility was covered by our holdings of Gold. This Congressional mandate to borrow funds by issuing debt instruments when the Government deficit spends caused the national debt to persist until 1996. Congress, then, unintentionally, removed the mandate, leaving in its place the perceived compulsion of an old die-hard financial practice supported by the false ideology of neoliberalism, and a real, but unrecognized, option to abandon the practice by using platinum coin seigniorage. 

Had Congress repealed the practice when President Nixon took the country off the Gold Standard, and had we ceased to issue debt at that time, then the Government would have re-paid all of our 1971 debts as they came due, and both our national debt and our debt-to-GDP ratio would be at 0% today.

And while the value of T-securities at any given time will mostly never fall all the way to zero, once they are decoupled from federal "deficit" spending, they will never again be any more than what the market wants, and likely a LOT lower than today, thus no surprise shortages of liquidity in the repo market or any other market that trades such securities.

It's long past time to end the Big Lie already, period.  The very best time to do so was in 1971 when we functionally got off the gold standard and/or 1975-1976 when all remaining nominal ties between gold and the dollar were formally severed for good.  The second best time is NOW.  And with the recent artificially contrived troubles in the repo market, it is more timely than ever now.

How To Prevent--And Cure--The Next (Or Any) Recession Or Depression

With a recession likely coming later this year or next year at the latest, it is important to realize the causes so such recessions can be cured or even prevented in the first place.  Enter Rodger Malcolm Mitchell, the guru of Monetary Sovereignty, penned this important and timely article.

He notes that every single recession and virtually every depression in history has been preceded by a cut in federal deficit spending, or worse, a federal surplus.  That is not coincidence, since cutting the federal deficit slows the growth of the money supply, and surpluses actually shrink the money supply, all else being equal.  (Federal deficit spending = spending new dollars into existence.)  A growing economy requires a growing supply of money, and when the money supply fails to keep up with the demand for money for too long, the economy reacts by shrinking.  Thus, barring a truly massive increase in private debt (i.e. more money lent into existence by banks) deficit cuts ultimately result in recessions and surpluses result in depressions or at least really long and deep recessions.  And recessions and depressions can only be cured by increasing the money supply dramatically, typically by increasing federal deficit spending.  That's it.

And this makes perfect sense, since GDP is literally nothing more than a money measure.  To wit, GDP = Federal Spending + Nonfederal Spending + Net Exports.  Kinda hard to grow that without sufficently growing the money supply as well.

Everything else is basically a sideshow, but that said, sometimes sideshows can be significant too.  Take the current Trump Trade War, for example.  This lose-lose, negative-sum game would have been recessionary by now had it not been for the massive growth in the federal deficit occurring at the same time, and eventually it may still cause the next recession in spite of the deficit.  But if the Republicans decide to cut federal spending because of manufactured deficit hysteria, that will cause a far worse recession or depression, on top of the consequences of the trade war.  And Wall Street recklessness can indeed cause financial crises, which of course can have knock-on effects on Main Street as well, as we have seen numerous times already.  Though even that is most likely due to the fact that stock market crashes--or any other asset price crash--will shrink the money supply, all else being equal.  And that is especially true when there is a "credit crunch" where banks suddenly refuse to lend as much as before, as we have seen in the wake of both the 1929 and 2008 stock market crashes (but not 1987).

What about oil and gasoline prices?  True, 10 out of the past 11 recessions have been preceded by sharp increases in fuel prices.  And that makes sense in a country in which oil is the lifeblood of the economy.  But even this is more nuanced than one may think.  Neither increases in interest rates alone nor increases in fuel prices alone seem to be enough to cause a recession by themselves unless such increases are truly extreme, which is very rare.  But the simultaneous combination of significantly large increases in both (that is, a sharp hike in the Fed Funds Rate by more than 2.00-2.50% AND at least a doubling of crude oil prices within a year or two) appears to be sufficient to cause a recession.  Of course, given how rare it is for recessions to not be preceded by cuts in deficit spending, it is not clear if sufficient deficit spending can be enough to prevent an oil-induced recession while interest rates are also hiked to prevent or cure inflation.  But at the very least, increasing federal deficits will cure such recessions once the inflation dragon is defeated.

Overall, we know what causes virtually all recessions and depressions.  That means we also know how to prevent and cure them as well.  That is, when recession hits, or ideally before it hits, we should increase federal deficit spending, or at least refrain from cutting it.  It's really not rocket science.

The Big Lie of Economics Is Now Completely Unsustainable At This Point, So Let's End It Now

Earlier this year, we at the TSAP have exposed the Big Lie of Economics, a lie so massive and specious that even WE partially fell for prior to 2018.  The Big Lie consists of the following statement and its corollaries:

• Federal taxes pay for federal spending, and any shortfall in revenues (i.e. "deficit spending") must be made up by the federal government borrowing money to cover the deficit.
• It must be this way, because otherwise the federal government will run short of dollars, which are finite.
• The federal government is literally bankrupt and can no longer afford to keep paying for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, let alone anything more ambitious and progressive.
• Things like Universal Basic Income (UBI), tuition-free public college for all, state-of-the-art infrastructure, a Green New Deal, and single-payer Medicare For All sound like good ideas on paper, but we literally can't get the numbers to add up.  Sorry.  Oh well.
• If the national debt as a percentage of GDP rises above some arbitrarily high level, the federal government will have no choice but to default.
• Thus, we will have no choice but to accept an austerity "menu of pain" at this point, with both large tax hikes and/or deep spending cuts. (Austerity for the bottom 99%, that is.)

Do you still believe these statements? Well, guess what?  Each and every one of those specious statements is absolutely FALSE.  Period.  Not even a kernel of truth in there, except for the completely contrived self-fulfilling prophecy that believing such lies leads to, starting with the very first statement on that list, and it goes downhill from there. Federal taxes DO NOT pay for federal spending, because our federal government is Monetarily Sovereign and creates all the dollars they need to spend into existence on an ad hoc basis.  Tax dollars merely disappear into infinity, and the so-called "National Debt" is literally nothing more than a National Savings Account consisting of deposits in Treasury securities.  Yes, really.   And the only reason why we must currently match spending with taxes and/or "borrowing" is due to the arcane and archaic rules left over from when we actually had the gold standard.

So having established that, we must now note that sustaining the Big Lie, a lie that really only benefits the oligarchs and their sycophantic lackeys of both corporate duopoly parties in government, is now physically and metaphysically untenable.  Especially given the many converging real and contrived crises now facing our nation and world.  Make no mistake, we absolutely must end this Big Lie YESTERDAY or else face extremely painful austerity, recession, depression, or worse in the very near future.

Thus, we should all write letters to our Congresscritters based on the following sample letter written by the ever-insightful Dr. Joseph M. Firestone and disseminated by the ever-insightful Rodger Malcolm Mitchell:

Dear __________________

At one time or another you and nearly every one of your fellow Representatives (or Senators) have expressed great concern, even alarm, at the size of the national debt and the often increasing debt-to-GDP ratio.

Many of you have pointed out that if the national debt were broken down into how much each American owed that would add more than $50,000 to our individual debts, even though the national debt is not an obligation of each American citizen, but of our government.

You and your political allies have also pointed out that in view of the size of the national debt it is important for the Government to either reduce spending, raise taxes or both.

You have said doing this is necessary to be “fiscally responsible”, and, at least, to reduce the annual deficit, and the debt-to-GDP ratio.

You have voted for and supported legislation in order to be “fiscally responsible” in this way, and in doing so you have cut many programs of long standing that were delivering great benefits to people, harming them and their families.

Some of you have expressed regret and sorrow about this, while insisting on the need for sacrifice in order to be fiscally responsible.

I, your constituent, have heard this fiscal responsibility story from you for many years now, including your sentiments about how much you hate “the national debt,” what an evil it is, and how much we have to lighten its burden on our grandchildren.

In view of all this from you, it surprised me greatly to learn recently, that the very existence of the national debt is Congress’s fault, including your own and your colleagues. I say this for a very simple reason.

That reason is that you and your colleagues can, in an afternoon, make it standard legislative practice to include the following clause, or an alternative formulation meaning the same thing, in every appropriations bill or continuing resolution for Federal Spending. The clause is:

Now here comes the key part:

“Upon passage of this appropriations bill, the Federal Reserve is directed to fill the Treasury’s spending account at the New York Federal Reserve with the addition to its Reserve Balance necessary to spend the appropriation.

“In addition, the Federal Reserve is directed to fill the Treasury spending account with the additions to the Treasury Reserve balances necessary to repay all outstanding debt instruments including principal and interest as they fall due for the fiscal year of this appropriation.”

In short, the Federal Reserve would pay off T-securities, making the so-called “debt” disappear.

The Fed simply would create U.S. dollars from thin air, just as it always has been authorized to do, and just as it does when it buys federal bonds with its Quantitative Easing (QE) programs.

The first sentence provides the reserves necessary for the Treasury to spend its mandate from Congress without issuing new debt.

And the second provides the reserves necessary for the Treasury to pay down the existing outstanding Treasury debt instruments as they fall due within the time period of the appropriation or continuing resolution bill.

If this or similar language were included in every such bill it would mean that (1) deficit spending by Congress would no longer involve issuing new debt instruments, so the debt would no longer grow and (2) that all outstanding debt instruments would be paid off as they fall due as long as Congress continues to include the new language in all its appropriations bills and continuing resolutions.

So, it seems to me that the sole reason why the national debt exists at all in 2017 is that when President Nixon took the United States off the gold standard in 1971, the Congress did not adjust to the new reality of fiat monetary sovereignty by funding Federal spending using language like the above.

I believe that Congress made a grievous mistake in not changing its funding language immediately after the change to a fiat currency in 1971, and mandating the Federal Reserve to fill Treasury’s spending account with the reserves needed to spend its appropriations.

That mistake has led to the whole situation of debt terrorism we see around us now, and to all the damaging propaganda and horrible legislative outcomes we have suffered at the hands of Republicans and Democrats alike.

You have all been very wrong about the need to sacrifice. There was no need to sacrifice!

You have been all wrong about all of that for 40 years now, and you should all wear sackcloth and ashes and hang your heads for the damage you have done to America.

Since the Administration of President Carter we have been treated to these meaningless harangues about a faux financial problem that is purely one of politics and messaging and not one of public financing at all.

And this faux problem, solely of Congress’s own making has led to much suffering among most of the American people, including decades of less than full employment, the denial of universal health care coverage, deteriorating public spaces and infrastructure, refusal to deal with a life-threatening climate change problem, increasing economic inequality, a declining educational system, decreasing life expectancy, and a host of other problems too numerous to mention.

Well, I have had enough of all this, and especially of the pretense that the Federal Government doesn’t have enough money to buy any goods or services for sale using US currency.

I know that using the words above or words very like them, you and a majority of your colleagues in Congress can appropriate funds for anything you want to spend on.

So, never let me hear from you ever again that we can’t afford this good program or that good program or any other program that will benefit a majority of the people of the United States.

I now know that is a lie. And I insist that you never tell that lie again in public, and that from now on you advocate for and insist on legislative language similar to the above, being included in all appropriation bills and continuing resolutions passed by Congress.

I demand, that as my representative, you vote against any bill that lacks that language.

And I tell you now that if you fail to comply with this demand of mine, I will do all I can to defeat you in the next election and will work for and vote to elect any opponent of yours who is willing to promise that she or he will include such language in all appropriations bills or continuing resolutions.

In closing, I hope I have made myself abundantly clear. I insist that the lies and propaganda advancing faux fiscal responsibility stop immediately.

I insist that the issue of the national debt be taken off the table by including the language suggested above or a similar formulation, followed by gradual pay-off of all outstanding Treasury debt instruments. And I insist that you represent me in this way going forward and for as long as you serve.

I want Job 1 for you to be seeing to it to the best of your ability that this language is in all appropriation bills or continuing resolutions coming out of Congress. I will want other things from you too.

But, as I say, this is Job 1, and if you want my vote in the future you will see to it that it is well done, so that the various lies and fables surrounding Federal spending are at last ended, and so our nation may move forward to true fiscal responsibility, which is Government spending for public purpose.

Sincerely Yours, Your Constituent,

Granted, this letter is probably TL;DR and should perhaps be more concise, but the part in blue is really the heart and soul of the letter.  As Rodger Mitchell further explains:

The above letter is way too long to send as is. Further, I disagree with two of the points it makes: 

1. I disagree that all “debt” (i.e. T-securities) should be allowed to expire...and not [be] replaced. T-securities serve useful purposes. They help the Fed control interest rates and they provide a safe place to hold large amounts of money.
2. I disagree that “. . . Treasury Reserve balances (are)necessary to repay all outstanding debt.” Maturing Treasuries are repaid by transferring existing dollars from the T-security accounts back to the checking accounts of the T-security holders.  [Only the interest needs to be created anew.]

That said, the fundamental idea of having the Fed buy enough T-securities to reduce the outstanding “debt” would change the dialog, and ease the drive to cut social benefit spending.

And there you have it.  A bit more nuanced, but the same basic idea.  It would probably also be useful to add that there is a federal statute on the books that codifies the aforementioned arcane and archaic rules left over from when we actually had the gold standard.  That statute is codifed as 2 USC Ch. 20, most notably Section 902. Once one gets through the legalese mumbo-jumbo, one can plainly see that this requirement for "sequestration" upon "falling short" of federal budgetary dollars to pay bills is an outmoded contrivance that no longer serves any useful purpose at all.  Amending or repealing this obsolete section, or even the entire Chapter 20, is not just a good idea, but a matter of grave necessity to save our country at this point.  The same goes for 31 USC section 3101, which is the statute that imposes that other outmoded contrivance, the so-called "debt ceiling" as well.  Repealing both of these obsolete laws will permanently make it so the text in blue in the aforementioned letter will no longer need to be every spending bill as a formality to work around such laws each time going forward after the first one--especially if that text in blue were to be inserted in whatever remains of the repealed/amended 2 USC Ch. 20.

And instead of so-called "debt ceiling", which almost no other nation in the world has, we could simply have a spending limit that would be deemed automatically raised each time a new budget, continuing resolution, or appropriations bill is passed and signed into law, NOT by a separate vote. And that limit will only apply to spending on any new obligations taken on going forward, not on outstanding obligations.  The only functional reason for this at all would be as a "safety valve" or "circuit breaker" that would stop feeding the beast of inflation in the (unlikely) event of truly excessive inflation.

In the meantime, if Congress refuses to act, the executive branch does still have one powerful "ace in the hole":  the trillion-dollar coin.  While a pure "Treasury Warrant" idea is of very questionable legality and would likely be struck down by SCOTUS, under current law the Department of the Treasury has the explicit legal authority to mint platinum coins in literally any denomination.  Thus, they can easily mint one or two (or twenty!) trillion-dollar coins as a workaround for the time being and use the resulting seigniorage to pay any bills and preclude default even if Congress plays "chicken" with the debt ceiling as a cudgel to force a default if they don't get their way.

It's long past time to end the Big Lie already, period.  The very best time to do so was in 1971-1973 when we functionally got off the gold standard and/or 1975-1976 when all remaining nominal ties between gold and the dollar were formally severed for good.  The second best time is NOW.

The Trump "Gaffe" That Wasn't

Back in 2016, then presidential candidate Donald Trump said a lot of outrageous and controversial things and too many gaffes to count.  But one in particular stands out in light of recent posts and current events, namely, the one in which he implied he would default on the national debt if he couldn't negotiate a better deal.  Now that is clearly not something for a politician or candidate to even joke about, let alone actually do.  But it was what he said after he was criticized for it and he backpedaled on it which was actually much more noteworthy:

This is the United States government. First of all, you never have to default because you print the money. I hate to tell you. So there’s never a default.

And that second "gaffe", ladies and gentlemen, was actually NOT a gaffe at all.  Why?  Because it is actually TRUE, believe it or not.  Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, after all.

Wait, what?  You read that correctly.  Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has actually been arguing this for years now, as has Rodger Malcolm Mitchell and his own theory of Monetary Sovereignty (MS).  That is, a Monetarily Sovereign government like our own federal government and many others (but unlike the euro nations or any US state or local government) has the inherent and unlimited power to create money by fiat.  The only limits such a government has are those it chooses to impose on itself, such as the remaining arcane and archaic rules left over from when we actually had a gold standard before we got off of it in 1971.  The world changed in that year, but our "leaders" have apparently not gotten the memo.

You might want to sit down before you read any further.  Taxes do NOT actually pay for federal spending, rather, the government simply creates the money they spend ad hoc with a few clicks of a computer as they go along.  Nor is there any physical need for them to borrow money, but they do so anyway by issuing Treasury securities (i.e. T-bills, T-notes, and T-bonds) whenever they create new money that is unmatched by taxes in order to match it with borrowing--all because of those arcane and archaic rules that they could remove with a stroke of a pen if they chose to.  That is, IF they actually chose to.

So where do our tax dollars actually go then?  Well, one could argue that those dollars are effectively taken out of the economy and needlessly destroyed.  And yes, some of those dollars are ultimately destroyed in practice if not in theory.  But it is worse than that, for at least at some point before destruction, they first have to make a pit stop at the privately-owned FERAL Reserve, where they do little more than further enrich the bankster oligarchs.  Again, all because of those arcane and archaic rules.

And that big, scary number that we see on the National Debt Clock?  Well, nowadays the national debt is literally just an accounting gimmick.  What it really consists of are deposits in federal Treasury security accounts, not debt in the way that private debt is.  Effectively, it is really a national savings account, and deficit spending is simply when the government puts more money into the economy (via spending) than it takes out (via taxes and fees).  Thus, a deficit for the federal budget is actually a surplus for the rest of the economy, and vice-versa.

Of course, Rodger Mitchell has an even better, more fundamental idea that makes it so the government would never need to borrow a single penny ever again, and it doesn't require raising taxes OR cutting spending.  Not only that, but it would guarantee that Social Security and Medicare, and any other program, would remain fully funded indefinitely as well without the use of FICA taxes (or any other tax for that matter).  The solution, in his exact words:

The best way is to eliminate the federal budget deficit and debt: Ending government borrowing. The government has the unlimited ability to create and spend money without borrowing. The process will be: 

1) Congress will create an account called "Money." 

2) Congress will determine how much money this account contains. The process will be similar to the way Congress now determines the debt ceiling. 

3) Federal agencies will write checks against this account according to budgets decided by Congress. If any federal agency needed additional funds, Congress would decide whether or not to allow this spending, in the same way that Congress votes for additional spending by the military et al. 

This would eliminate concerns about "our grandchildren paying for the federal debt." There would be no federal debt.

And as long as such money were created without any interest or related fees (as per Ellen Brown) such a solution would actually work.  Modern Monetary Theory indeed supports such an idea.  But before we can do that, of course, we must first have an independent Treasury and/or a public national bank in place of the privately-owned FERAL Reserve.  (And since he mentioned the debt ceiling, that is another thing we should really get rid of as well in the meantime, since it does far more harm than good.)

Before that, there actually is a painless (albeit unconventional) method of paying off the existing debt in one fell swoop.  Not just this year's deficit, but ALL of the cumulative $21 trillion of the debt. It's called the Noble Solution (named after its creator, Richard E. Noble) and does not involve any significant tax hikes or spending cuts. So what is it? It's something we never would have advocated just a few years ago:  printing (electronically creating) money out of thin air to pay it off all at once.  After all, FERAL Reserve has been creating money out of thin air for decades now (including that recent whopping $16 trillion secret bailout of the banks, which eventually rose to nearly $30 trillion) so we might as well put this practice to productive use.  Money is really nothing more than an accounting entry nowadays, so let's make the entry and be done with it for good.

But wouldn't that lead to hyperinflation? Not if it is properly done with due diligence.  Noble points out that while creating such money is undoubtedly inflationary, using it to pay off the debt (which is in Treasury bonds and is thus already part of the money supply) would be deflationary in that it would shrink the money supply by an equal amount. Thus, the two effects would cancel each other out, as paper (electronic data) would be exchanged for paper (data). Of course, we would have to bypass the FERAL Reserve to avoid creating more debt in the process, such as #MintTheCoin. Or better yet, abolish or nationalize the FERAL Reserve entirely and return the power of money creation to its rightful owners, our elected representatives in Congress and the Department of the Treasury.  America would then be free and clear for the first time in history since Thomas Jefferson.  And it would cost us NOTHING.

Alternatively, Joseph M. Firestone points out that the very same effect can also be had more gradually, with Congress passing an Act (such as the very next budget or appropriations bill) that removes those arcane and archaic rules entirely, and mandates/guarantees than any new deficits as well as any outstanding Treasury securities (i.e. national debt) be funded / paid for automatically with the very same ad hoc money creation that they already do in practice, but no longer needing to match it with new borrowing or tax revenues.  Thus, the federal government would no longer need to borrow even one penny (i.e. issue any new Treasury securities) unless they truly wanted to for reasons unrelated to the federal budget.  And according to Rodger Mitchell, such bonds do, in fact, have other useful, unrelated functions (i.e. providing a safe haven for investors to park their money, and an effective platform for the government to control both short and long-term interest rates, and thus the demand for dollars).  But the point is they would no longer HAVE to do so just to meet their current and future fiscal obligations, so the national debt would stop increasing and gradually decrease as any existing  Treasury securities mature and/or are redeemed. And thus the 100% contrived political issue (and cudgel) that is the national debt / deficit would quickly become a dead issue, and we can finally focus on other, real priorities for a change.

So what are we waiting for?

The $21+ TRILLION Question

Although the government shutdown and debt-ceiling brinksmanship has been averted (for now), the $21+ TRILLION question remains:  what are we going to do about the national debt?  Especially now that it is set to skyrocket even further into the stratosphere due to both massive tax cuts (mainly for the rich and mega-corporations) and spending increases, including on our already over-bloated and over-extended military.  It is now mathematically impossible to pay it off at this point.  So what is the solution, then?

Obviously, if we find ourselves in a hole (especially one as deep as this), the very first thing we should do is stop digging.   That is known as the First Law of Holes.  That means no more deficit spending for the foreseeable future, period. But unfortunately, that's a lot easier said than done. Taxes will have to go up and spending will have to go down--dramatically.   And that would do more harm than good at the levels it would need to be done.  There is really no way around that.

However, there actually is a painless (albeit unconventional) method of paying off the debt in one fell swoop.  Not just this year's deficit, but ALL of the cumulative $21 trillion of the debt. It's called the Noble Solution (named after its creator, Richard E. Noble) and does not involve any significant tax hikes or spending cuts. So what is it? It's something we never would have advocated just a few years ago:  printing (electronically creating) money out of thin air to pay it off all at once.  Alas, the genie is out of the bottle now, as the Feral Reserve has been creating money out of thin air for decades (including that recent whopping $16 trillion secret bailout of the banks, which eventually rose to nearly $30 trillion) so we might as well put this practice to productive use.  Money is really nothing more than an accounting entry nowadays, so let's make the entry and be done with it for good.

But wouldn't that lead to hyperinflation? Not if it is properly done with due diligence.  Noble points out that while creating money is undoubtedly inflationary, using it to pay off the debt (which is in Treasury bonds and is thus already part of the money supply) would be deflationary in that it would shrink the money supply by an equal amount. Thus, the two effects would cancel each other out, as paper (electronic data) would be exchanged for paper (data). Of course, we would have to bypass the Feral Reserve to avoid creating more debt in the process, such as #MintTheCoin. Or better yet, abolish or nationalize the FERAL Reserve entirely and return the power of money creation to its rightful owners, our elected representatives in Congress and the Department of the Treasury.  America would then be free and clear for the first time in history since Thomas Jefferson.

Of course, while doing it once may not be harmful, doing it regularly can be.  To make sure we never have to do this again, we must make sure the debt never, ever, reaches such stratospheric levels again, period.  In addition to nationalizing the Feral Reserve to make it a public national bank that creates interest-free currency, fiscal policy must be tightened after the Noble Solution is implemented and the debt is paid off.  We have already outlined in previous posts what must be done as far as taxes and spending are concerned.  Alternatively, or in addition to the above, there is also the legendary Warren Buffett's clever idea:  make a law that anytime the budget deficit exceeds 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election, period.  Problem solved.

Of course, the longer-term drivers of future debt obligations are the programs that make up so-called "entitlement" spending, mainly Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.   But even here, there is less than meets the eye.  For Social Security, that can be resolved by 1) scrapping the wage cap on FICA taxes (or raising it to an arbitrarily high level like $1 million or $10 million), 2) indexing initial benefits to prices or median wages instead of average wages, and 3) very gradually raising the full retirement age to 70 for those born after 1980 or so.  In fact, if we did all those things plus a very slight 0.2% hike in the FICA tax, we could even expand Social Security (and perhaps briefly lower the retirement age a bit in the short term) while still keeping it solvent for the foreseeable future.  For Medicare and Medicaid, the only real long-term solution to their burgeoning fiscal woes is a truly universal single-payer healthcare system that can bend the cost curve downward by taking the profit out of healthcare and especially tackling the price-gouging of Big Pharma.  Any other proposed solutions are mere window-dressing at best.

Of course, Rodger Mitchell has an even better, more fundamental idea that makes it so the government would never need to borrow a single penny ever again, and it doesn't require raising taxes OR cutting spending.  Not only that, but it would guarantee that Social Security and Medicare, and any other program, would remain fully funded indefinitely as well without the use of FICA taxes (or any other tax for that matter).  The solution, in his exact words:

The best way is to eliminate the federal budget deficit and debt: Ending government borrowing. The government has the unlimited ability to create and spend money without borrowing. The process will be: 

1) Congress will create an account called "Money." 

2) Congress will determine how much money this account contains. The process will be similar to the way Congress now determines the debt ceiling. 

3) Federal agencies will write checks against this account according to budgets decided by Congress. If any federal agency needed additional funds, Congress would decide whether or not to allow this spending, in the same way that Congress votes for additional spending by the military et al. 

This would eliminate concerns about "our grandchildren paying for the federal debt." There would be no federal debt.

And as long as such money were created without any interest or related fees (as per Ellen Brown) such a solution would actually work.  Modern Monetary Theory indeed supports such an idea.  But before we can do that, of course, we must first have an independent Treasury and/or a public national bank in place of the privately-owned FERAL Reserve.  (And since he mentioned the debt ceiling, that is another thing we should really get rid of as well in the meantime, since it does far more harm than good.)

But the bottom line is that the debt must be defeated, and soon.  We simply cannot afford to continue kicking this can further down the road.  Otherwise we may very well go the way of the Romans.  The greatest tragedy of which being the fact that it was all 100% contrived and therefore 100% avoidable all along.