Plans are being finalized for the annual Rally at the Fed
and the CESJ 30th Anniversary Celebration. The fact that CESJ has been in existence
since 1984, and is strengthening its support base is a victory in itself, to
say nothing about the fact that it is becoming increasingly obvious with each
passing day that the Just Third Way is the only realistic and practicable plan
for what Pope Pius XI called “the restructuring of the social order” to restore
what Abraham Lincoln believed to be “the last, best hope of earth.”
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| Charles Stewart Parnell rallying for expanded ownership. |
• Mark the annual “Rally at the Fed” on your calendar for April 11, 2014. This year’s could be a pivotal event, as the
Federal Reserve did not begin operation until November of 1914, making this
year the “real” centennial of the central banking system of the United States. What with the obvious need for an
asset-backed and elastic reserve currency to secure the foundations of the
global financial system, more attention should be paid to the original purpose
of the Federal Reserve. It was not established
to finance government, but to provide an elastic and asset-backed reserve
currency to promote private sector growth and development.
• The CESJ monthly Executive Committee meeting was this past
Monday, March 24, 2014. The main topic
of discussion was the preparations for the annual Rally at the Fed (above) and
the CESJ 30th Anniversary Celebration.
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| The Spirit of '76 |
• Half a dozen people from across the U.S. met via a
teleconference in the evening Thursday, March 27, 2014, to discuss reforming
the “American Revolutionary Party” in time to have a significant effect on the
2016 elections. The ARP is a key element
in the movement to restore the basis and institutions of a just society. People should not be put off by the name, but
should view it as part of the overall “battle” to take back the tool of
language and return meaning to such terms as “revolution,” “money and credit,” “the
State,” “government,” “property,” “life,” “liberty,” and other such radical
concepts.
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| Moulton praised Schacht's financial acumen. |
• Who says the IRS is dumb?
They will be taxing Bitcoins as property. Fake property, but property. It’s not a currency by any definition. You can’t have a currency that doesn’t even
pretend to have a standard or stable value.
This is precisely why the U.S. Dollar is in danger of losing its place
as a global reserve currency. There are
no assets behind it, and the number one rule for a reserve currency is that it
must be asset backed. Period. Hjalmar Schacht (right) taught us that lesson. Too bad today’s politicians and economic and
financial experts weren’t in class that day.
 |
| C. H. Douglas, Founder of Social Credit. |
• A recent spate of comments from supporters of “Social
Credit” on a posting from last year reveals that basic misunderstanding of
fundamental institutions of society are still widely misunderstood. Among these are the natural law, natural
rights, private property, money and credit, and banking and finance. Also, people don’t seem to read very
carefully when they’re enraged. What
excited all the comments were the quoted analyses of social credit by Hilaire Belloc
and Harold G. Moulton. There is also the
problem that people tend not to support their assertions, contenting themselves
with merely proclaiming that we are wrong without bothering to point out
exactly where we are wrong and why.
Informing us that we “just don’t understand” is not very helpful in
resolving issues.
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| Education, not "Job Training." |
• We are working on a funding proposal that will integrate
the initiatives developed by Deacon Joseph Gorini, Chairman and CEO of
Evangelization Enterprises, Inc. with
the “Justice University” concept. Some very important and potentially key
outreach has taken place this past week, and the proposal fleshed out a little
more. We expect to get some positive indications
of interest from a number of Catholic universities and individuals that will
help persuade grant-making foundations of the importance of the
initiative. As soon as we have the
proposal prepared in more detail, we will start circulating it among the CESJ
core group for comment and suggestions.
This particular project is “only” a part of the overall Justice
University concept, a “testing of the waters,” so to speak, but is potentially
a valuable tool in promoting a more just future for everyone.
 |
| ESOP Inventor Louis O. Kelso |
• Judging by much of the commentary surrounding the meeting
of Pope Francis and President Obama (as well as the ongoing misinterpretation
of virtually everything the former says and does), not only the Catholic Church
and the United States would benefit from some clarity on the principles of
economic justice as developed by Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler, but the entire
world. No one really seems able to
decide what is a just way to address increasingly desperate social and economic
problems without these principles.
 |
| "Away at College" |
• And the award for the Stupiderest Idea of the Week is . .
. mandatory college for all! Yes, as the
cost of higher education continues to soar ever higher, and people assume a
lifetime of non-repayable debt to pay for it (we hope you saw the paradoxes
there), not to mention the fact that the promised jobs evaporate like the
morning dew in Death Valley, what’s the solution? Why . . . drive the costs of education even
higher, and increase the supply of degreed unemployables even more! Think this is a joke? Au
contraire.
Take a look at this article that appeared this past Wednesday.
 |
| "Dangerously low inflation"? |
• Also appearing this past Wednesday was an article in the Wall Street Journal that claimed the
European Central Bank was worried about “a dangerously low rate of
inflation.” We’ll nip that in the bud. . . . Or they could
start backing the Euro with actual, genuine, private sector hard assets by
accepting bills for rediscounting instead of monetizing government debt. Then nobody would have to worry about either
inflation or deflation.
• Amazon is still using CESJ Director of Research Michael D.
Greaney’s book, So Much Generosity,
a survey of the fiction of Cardinals Wiseman and Newman, and Monsignor Robert
Hugh Benson, as a “loss leader.” Today
it’s down a few more dollars to $8.04.
While you might have missed the best
deal, that is still more than a 50% savings off the cover price. The book is
published by Universal Values Media, Inc., which has a co-marketing arrangement
with CESJ.
• As of this morning, we have had
visitors from 56 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, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Philippines.
The most popular postings this past week were “Thomas Hobbes on Private
Property,” “Aristotle on Private
Property,” “Capitalist Socialism, I: ‘Private Capital for Public Works’,” “The
Problem with Social Credit, I: The Critique,” and “A Two-Pronged Strategy, I:
The Temporal v. The Spiritual.”
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#
