News from the Network, Vol. 2, No. 4

The Big News this week was, of course, the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. While many people seemed to think that the inauguration itself was the culmination of everything, the fact remains that Mr. Obama has some very big problems to deal with, not the least of which is overcoming the fixed belief in the Keynesian free lunch, which results in monetary and fiscal policy that has the goal of trying to get something for nothing. Consistent with our continuing efforts to bring the Just Third Way to the attention of the powers-that-be, here is a listing of what else happened during the week.

• On Monday, January 19, a group was formed to "market" the Just Third Way. Enthusiastic participation is already in evidence, with proposals and even draft marketing materials in preparation. The two coordinators are Brent Ritzel and Steve Neskis.

• Evidently due to the posting on President Obama's failure to mention justice in his inauguration speech, this blog received more hits on Tuesday than on any previous day since its inception, and "Inauguration Means Beginning" became firmly entrenched in first place as the most popular posting.

• On Wednesday, in response to an op-ed piece by Juan Williams in the Wall Street Journal ("Judge Obama on Performance Alone" 01/21/09, A17), Norman Kurland put in a telephone call to Mr. Williams, with whom he has interacted before, most notably with the receipt of a handwritten note from Mr. Williams when he was with the Washington Post on receipt of information about the Just Third Way. As Mr. Williams stated, "This material is critically important to broadening the nation's appeal to the non-rich, especially disadvantaged minorities. I'm not an economist but I think you are on to a powerful concept. All the best, Juan Williams."

• Thursday night Norman Kurland met with a group of students from the Ave Maria School of Law who were in town for the annual March for Life. While CESJ is not a Pro Life organization, it has a firm commitment to all principles of the natural law, especially our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the means to acquire and possess private property in the means of production, as well as pursue happiness and safety (acquire and develop virtue). Norman Kurland reported that the students expressed a great deal of enthusiasm for the idea of an economic agenda that would support the Pro Life cause and which is based on these fundamental natural rights. In contrast to the failure to acknowledge justice during the president's inauguration speech, the Ave Maria law students gave evidence of a firm commitment to justice, both in principle and in practice.

• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 17 different countries and 37 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Over the same period we have had nearly a 30% increase in readership. Since our most popular postings have to do with the problems associated with Keynesian economics and the seriously flawed solutions that are being implemented to solve the world's economic and financial problems, we might reasonably take this as a sign that dissatisfaction with the Keynesian free lunch program is beginning to spread, and people are becoming suspicious of the number of policymakers and prime movers who are revealed as slaves to Keynesahol, a virtual flood of Keynesaholics, staggering from one Keynesian fix to another in a hopeless quest for just the right stimulus to carry them through to the next election.

Those are the happenings for this week, at least that we know about. If you have an accomplishment that you think should be listed, send us a note about it at mgreaney [at] cesj [dot] org, and we'll see that it gets into the next "issue."