"An ongoing need still clearly exists" for the program, which also is aimed at making sure loans flow to the troubled commercial real estate market, Bernanke said in brief remarks to a conference here [Washington, DC] sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.Thus, the solution to the overwhelming burden of consumer debt and lack of jobs and access to the means of acquiring and possessing capital is . . . more consumer debt, and throwing more money into failed speculative investments, i.e., down a rat hole. This is clearly financial genius of so high an order that no one outside of academic economics can grasp it. Something as pedestrian as the Declaration of Monetary Justice is probably 'way below Mr. Bernanke's head.
• On Tuesday, September 29, 2009, at CESJ, Dr. Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, former Minister of Planning for Bangladesh and current Member of Parliament, will be giving an informal talk to members of the Center for Economic and Social Justice and guests. Dr. Alamgir is a Ph.D. economist with a degree from Boston University. He is on the board of the Institute for Integrated Rural Development ("IIRD") in Dhaka, a non-profit organization credited with lifting thousands of people in Bangladesh out of dire poverty. One of the IIRD's current projects is a proposed worker-owned garment factory, "JBM Garments, Ltd.," to compete with the sweatshops. Dr. Alamgir will be speaking about his experiences as a political prisoner for 22 months, as well as current conditions in Bangladesh, and plans for the future. Due to the short notice, please let CESJ know by noon on Monday, September 28, 2009, if you plan to attend. Contact information is available on the CESJ website. There will be no charge, but space is extremely limited and reservations are required.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." If you have a short (250-400 word) comment on a specific posting, please enter your comments in the blog — do not send them to us to post for you. All comments are moderated anyway, so we'll see it before it goes up.
• On Thursday, September 24, 2009, at the invitation of Rev. Virgil Wood, Michael D. Greaney, CESJ's Director of Research, participated in a panel discussion at Harvard University Divinity School on integrating the concepts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. into a just economic framework. Mr. Greaney briefly presented the outline of the Just Third Way, concentrating on what appears to be the single most significant barrier to economic growth and democratic participation in capital ownership: the dogmatic belief that capital formation cannot be financed except by using existing accumulations of savings, by definition a monopoly of the rich. Students attending the discussion seemed particularly intrigued by the subtitle of the second book by Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler, "A Proposal to Free Economic Growth from the Slavery of Savings," with a number of them writing down the link where the free download is available.
• Unfortunately, neither The Capitalist Manifesto (1958) nor The New Capitalists (1961) is currently in print. People interested in seeing these two critically-needed works back in print should send a note to the Kelso Institute, KELSOINSTITUTE@aol.com.
• On Monday, the foreword for Dr. Harold G. Moulton's landmark monograph, The Formation of Capital, was put into final editing. CESJ's new edition of The Formation of Capital may be available by the end of the calendar year. Norman Kurland has distributed a number of copies via e-mail to highlight the importance of Moulton's work and to emphasize the fact that existing accumulations of savings need not keep the human race in bondage to "the slavery of savings."
• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 41 different countries and 44 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from the United States, the UK, Brunei, Canada, and Venezuela (unless you count the Long Lost Land of Not Set). People in Aruba, the Netherlands, Indonesia, (Not Set), Venezuela, and Brazil spent the most average time on the blog. The most popular posting continues to be "What Caused the Economic Crisis," "Who is Responsible for Our Health Care?" followed by the Keynesian "paradox of thrift," what you can do to end the economic crisis, and the news items. With respect to the amount of time spent reading, the postings on Lincoln's Homestead Act has seen a sudden burst of popularity, followed by the "thoughts on money," usury, the paradox of thrift, the reign of the British Currency School, and William Cobbett.
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