Here's a prediction: the Greek government is going to fall, followed soon after by that of Great Britain — or at least a "no confidence" vote in the latter. No one is coming to grips with the real issue: what is money? How is it created? Until those questions are answered, no discussion will go anywhere, no solution will be effective, and things will continue to get worse until they collapse.
What should be done, e.g., in Greece? First, impose an immediate moratorium on all payments of interest and principal. Second, immediately stop spending for all non-essential services — all of them. Third, immediately implement the essential elements of Capital Homesteading. Fourth, reschedule all outstanding non-productive debt. Fifth, anyone who took a reduction in pay or benefits should receive a pro rata additional capital credit allocation.
Obviously no one has done any of these things . . . yet. That being the case, here's what's really been going on:
• Shocking news (and confirmation of the fact that you can't copyright a title). A recent search on Amazon revealed thirty books with the title "Capitalist Manifesto," albeit including about a dozen duplicate listings and different editions of the same book. Most shocking was A Capitalist Manifesto from 1954, a 30-page self-published pamphlet by L. L. B. Angas, an English- (we think) born (1893) investment analyst and financial consultant, who wrote at least two other, lengthier books, Investment for Appreciation (1936) and The Problems of Foreign Exchanges (date unknown). The Capitalist Manifesto pamphlet is not listed among his works. Nobody appears to have a copy. We're guessing that it's probably not significant. L. L. B. Angas retired to the U.S. in the 1930s, and maintained residences in New York and London. Given the paucity of information, it's highly unlikely Kelso and Adler were even aware of the pamphlet.
• We have finished what looks as if it might be the almost final version of our response to the non-reviewer of Supporting Life. With any luck, it will go out next week.
• We had a follow-up meeting today with two prospective interns — doctoral candidates — from one of the area universities (that's the DC metro area, which seems to have almost as many universities and colleges as lawyers). They are in economics, so it will be interesting to see how far things go before the contradictions inherent in the Currency Principle begin to have their due effect.
• We're investigating getting some of CESJ's materials out in inexpensive "Kindle" editions, and (with a great deal of luck) might have something ready next week so that we can kick the tires. If successful, this initiative will enable us to issue CESJ "Green Papers" almost as fast as we can write them, and sell them on Amazon for less than it would take us to print them up and mail them out — and we wouldn't have to ask for postage reimbursement or an additional contribution to cover costs. This would be a much less expensive proposition all around for everyone, and speed up production of our educational materials. We're estimating that, in many cases, the cost to the buyer would be less than the postage reimbursement, as we're looking at the lowest price: 99¢.
• There will be no posting on Monday, July 4, 2011.
• We have submitted an article on "Economic Development" to an up-coming encyclopedia focusing on the American experience.
• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 43 different countries and 43 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, and India. People in Portugal, Venezuela, Greece, Canada and India spent the most average time on the blog. The most popular posting this past week was yet again "Thomas Hobbes on Private Property," followed by "Aristotle on Private Property," "Nader Kindles Fires of Revolt," the sixth posting on "Economic Recovery," and "A CESJ Orientation in Brief."
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.
#30#
THE Global Justice Movement Website
This is the "Global Justice Movement" (dot org) we refer to in the title of this blog.
