News from the Network, Vol. 5, No. 21

The one question people aren't raising in the whole Facebook financial fiasco is why on earth was there a new issue of shares, IPO or not, when there was no need for a capital infusion? If the idea was to spread out ownership, they should have retired a portion of the currently outstanding shares, and put out a new issue for the public. Instead, they inflated their "company currency" (outstanding shares of stock) by issuing additional new shares without retiring any old shares. With no new capital investment or expansion of the company, the effect was the same as if the government just started printing money . . . like that's ever going to happen.

Oops. It did happen. And what happened to Facebook was entirely predictable if we apply common sense. Even the speculative gains were barely enough to offset the plunge in real value of the shares. When the market closed, share value was 23¢ above the issue price. Facebook's "currency," expected to rake in enormous speculative gains, only held its own. Now the gamblers want their non-gains made good.

In the more rational universe of the Just Third Way, interesting things have been happening that won't cause speculative losses (or non-gains) to anyone:

• A request for a meeting with Senator Mark Warner to discuss Capital Homesteading as a possible solution to the current economic situation was warmly received with a reassurance that "your views and those of your fellow Virginians are very important to me," and that "my office will review your comments carefully as I consider and vote on relevant legislation." We suspect a form letter.

• CESJ was mentioned in Irish American News, a Chicago-based website and paper newspaper on subjects of interest to Irish-Americans in northern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. The article also mentioned Equity Expansion International, Inc., and its focus on justice-based succession strategies for small- to mid-sized companies using the "JBM S-Corp ESOP" model, the closest thing to Capital Homesteading that can be applied under existing law.

• An article by CESJ's Director of Research Michael D. Greaney, "Knowledge is Power, and Power is Knowledge," on the importance of capital ownership in securing personal power was highlighted as an "article of the week" on May 24, 2012 by the Helium Writers' Cooperative.

• The door opening strategy has surfaced a number of contacts that might result in some important meetings.

• That the current so-called economic recovery is only for a few is evident by the fact that, according to an Associated Press study, U.S. CEOs made an average $9.6 million last year.

• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 59 different countries and 53 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, Canada, India, and Australia. People in Mexico, the Philippines, Egypt, Switzerland, and Brazil spent the most average time on the blog. The most popular postings this past week were "Thomas Hobbes on Private Property," "Aristotle on Private Property," "Book Value v. Fair Market Value," "The Global Debt Crisis I: What is the Problem?" and "The Homestead Act, Abraham Lincoln's Greatest Achievement."

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.

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