Again, the Big News is today’s Rally at the Fed. Other than that, most of the efforts this
week have been directed at preparing for the rally and the CESJ celebration
tomorrow. Still, a few things have been
happening:
 |
| Rally 'Round the Fed, Boys. |
• Today is the tenth annual “Rally at the Fed.” If you’re reading this early enough in the
morning, the rally will begin at 11:00 am on the Mall side of Constitution
Avenue, right across from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors Building, and
go until 1:30 pm. We should have a full
report on the rally and tomorrow’s 30th anniversary celebration
(below) for CESJ next week.
• As noted, tomorrow is CESJ’s 30th anniversary .
. . plus five days. CESJ was founded
during a meeting at American University on Saturday, April 7, 1984 to
integrate, study, and promote the principles of what we now call “the Just
Third Way.” The principles are based on
the social doctrine of Pope Pius XI as analyzed by CESJ co-founder Father
William J. Ferree, and the principles of economic justice developed by Louis O.
Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler. For a quick
overview — or even an in-depth treatment — of the Just Third Way,
[http://www.cesj.org/] visit the CESJ website.
 |
| Leo XIII: the "Social Justice Pope" |
• There are increasing signs that Justice University may
well be the wave of the future. First,
we recently received a newsletter issued by a religious group focused on
economics. Everything was directed
toward how best to redistribute existing wealth, not assist people who are
currently unproductive to become productive.
We sent a lengthy response, pointing out that any program to address the
current global wealth and income gap had to take a “two-pronged” approach: 1)
take care of people now (charity), and 2) restructure our economic institutions
to empower people to be able to take care of their own needs through their own
efforts (social justice). Although CESJ
is an interfaith group, we believe that of all the groups promoting programs
that they call “social justice,” the principles of the Catholic Church are the
soundest and most consistent. Combined
with the economic justice principles developed by Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer
J. Adler, these principles, both Catholic and catholic, represent the best hope
of reestablishing the global economy on a sound and sustainable basis, so that
it operates to the benefit of everyone, not just a few.
 |
| Starving for knowledge. |
• Other signs that Justice University is critically needed
are a little more mundane. Commonweal magazine recently had an
article on “Graduating with a Degree in Debt.”
Students are paying astronomical sums for an education that presumably
prepares them for jobs and careers that do not exist. Yesterday’s Washington Post drove this point
home with an article, “A Choice Between Buying Books and Eating.” College has gotten so expensive that a high
percentage of students have a serious problem with being able to afford to buy
adequate food. Of course the article
claimed that with students dropping out because of the high cost of education
and food, they wouldn’t be able to get all those great jobs waiting for them
once they graduate. . . .
 |
| Free access to capital: the key to personal and national prosperity. |
• The Wall Street
Journal had another article on the terrifying dangers of low inflation
yesterday. There does not seem to be any
appreciation in the centers of financial power of the fact that during the
latter half of the 19th century, at a time when the economy was
experiencing incredible growth, prices
were falling. Part of this was due
to the at-first official, and then unofficial policy of deflation followed by the
U.S. government to restore parity of the paper currency with gold. This, however, was achieved by 1879 and
convertibility restored. The real reason
for the falling price level was the rapid expansion of agricultural,
commercial, and industrial capacity and production, spurred by Abraham Lincoln’s
1862 Homestead Act. To duplicate the situation
in the U.S. during that period and improve upon it, CESJ’s proposed “Capital
Homestead Act” should be enacted. It is,
frankly, economic suicide to weaken the currency further and expand the
national debt at a time when the currency should be strengthened by restoring
an asset backing, and promoting productive activity to restore the tax base and
pay down the debt.
• 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 $6.81.
While you might have missed the absolute 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 64 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 India. The most
popular postings this past week were “The Problem with Social Credit, I: The
Critique,” “Thomas Hobbes on Private Property,” “Aristotle on Private
Property,” “Economic Emancipation, III: Why NOT Capital Homesteading?” and “Why
Did Nixon take the Dollar off the Gold Standard?”
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#