The late Justin Wilson once related the story of a Catholic
boy and a Protestant boy who were best friends.
One week the Protestant boy went to mass with the Catholic boy. Through the service, the Protestant boy would
ask, “What’s that mean?” and the Catholic boy would explain, “That’s th’
‘introit’ th’ comin’-in song. It means
we’re all welcome. That’s th’ ‘First
Readin’ from th’ Old Testament, th’ ‘Second Readin’ from th’ New Testament, an’
the Gospel Readin’. That means we
believe th’ whole Bible ties together for all Christians. That’s th’ ‘Eucharist.’ It means we believe it’s th’ actual Body and
Blood o’ Christ under th’ ’pearances of bread an’ wine.” And so on.
The next week the Catholic boy went to service with the
Protestant boy. Naturally the Catholic
boy asked what things meant. The
Protestant boy started explaining, or ’splainin’, depending on how far South
you’re getting. “What’s that mean?”
“That’s our entrance hymn, our comin’-in song, it means we’re all welcome,
too.” “What’s that mean?” “That’s our
Bible readin’, the Scripture passage we’re gonna reflect on.”
Then the preacher took out a big pocket watch and laid it on
the pulpit next to the Bible he had just read from. “What’s that mean?” asked the Catholic
boy. The Protestant boy said, “That
don’t mean a damn’ thing.”
Are you keeping a close eye on the stock market? Don’t bother.
Like the preacher’s timepiece, it don’t mean a damn’ thing. The stock market produces no marketable goods
or services. If you want to find out
about the primary market, the productive sector, just look and see how well you
and your neighbors are doing — and ask yourself how much better you could be
doing under Capital Homesteading.
That’s why you might want to support the “Five for the Family” campaign,
and — more important — spread it around your networks. The more people know about it, the more
likely we are to catch the attention of gatekeepers and prime movers to
champion the idea of Capital Homesteading for every child, woman, and man.
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| Fr. Cassian Yuhaus presenting CESJ book to the pope. |
• Speaking of the “Five for the Family” campaign,
it’s off to a pretty good start. We have
already started receiving contributions on the crowdfunding webpage, and the
FaceBook page has received nearly 50 “likes” and over 500 “reaches” in less
than a week — this is pretty good, starting from zero for a campaign that is
somewhat different from the vast multitude of extremely worthy causes (and the
way the number 5 keeps appearing is pretty cool). Be sure to “like” and “share” the campaign on
FaceBook, and consider making a donation yourself, but more important, spread
word of the campaign around your network.
The more people know about this, the better — and the sooner we’ll reach
our goal.
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| "He's giving cybercriminals a bad name!" |
• You may have heard about the
“Flash Crash” caused by a hacker (“that’s THE Hacker, to you” — insider
Christopher Lloyd joke) who manipulated the market with false trades and
parallel transactions and who knows what-all . . . who is now out on something
like £5 million bail. Don’t worry, he
can cover it. He made much more than
that with his shenanigans. It won’t be
party time, however. The hearing for his
extradition to the United States is coming up, and in the meantime he and his
parents had to surrender their passports, he’s not allowed anywhere near a
computer, he can’t go out after dark, and a few other restrictions due to his
being something of a “flight risk.” Just
another instance of the secondary stock market being mistaken for the primary
productive sector — which Capital Homesteading might not eliminate, but it
would render it pretty much meaningless in economic terms and in the lives of
ordinary people.
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| N.B.: in Europe, a billion = 1,000,000,000,000. This note is less than U.S. $1. |
• The C.I.A. (not
“Certified Internal Auditor”) claims that triggers
are now in place for a crash that will cause a depression lasting at least 25
years. We’ve been saying the same
thing all along. There is hope,
however. The indemnity Prussia imposed
on France following the Franco-Prussian War was intended to destroy France
economically forever as a potential rival to the Second Reich. It was paid off in 2½ years. How?
By France becoming hyperproductive in goods that were in exceptionally
high demand in the global market, by having its productive capacity broadly
owned by families instead of large trusts and monopolies, and by Bismarck not
understanding money and letting the French pay in silver Five Francs at a time
when the price of silver was falling through the cellar. The German hyperinflation following World War
I? It looked like economic
Armageddon. Within ten years, however,
Germany had become strong enough to almost conquer the world. How?
By implementing an asset-backed reserve currency and aggressively
promoting production. Capital Homesteading
could do the same for the United States — and without having to wait for the
system to collapse to do it, either.
• According to a
recent report (yes, we know, these things are funded to have anticipated
results, but in this case it’s probably correct), most Americans
are, to all intents and purposes, delusional about when they will be
financially able to retire, as in at least a decade or more off. Frankly, we need to rethink the whole
retirement schtick, anyway, and shift from “saving for retirement” to
“investing for life” under Capital Homesteading.
• Follow this link and see if you can answer
the three simple financial questions that students were asked recently . . .
and that most of them got wrong. Then
ponder why so many people can’t understand the simplicity of the Just Third
Way. Something like this might alleviate
some of that wonder. The fact is that
economics and finance is made so complicated by bad assumptions about money,
credit, banking, and finance that people can’t understand even easy questions
like these.
• Paul
Voelker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, thinks that inflation might
not be all that it’s cracked up to be, and that maybe we shouldn’t be worried
about the lack of it. We agree with his
conclusion, but some of his reasoning might be a little off. See what you think.
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| A short detour on the way to reality. |
• Nobel
Laureate Stiglitz solves all our problems.
He claims the “American Dream” is a myth, blaming it on inequality, for
which he has the solution: 1) Tax reform to soak the rich to fund more
redistribution by government, 2) reform of corporate governance and anti-trust laws to allow more government control, and 3)
equal access to education in government schools. The problem
is that all of these things are either symptoms or stopgaps. Yes, we need tax reform to ensure that
everyone pays his or her fair share — but we also have to be sure we define
“fair” fairly. It’s not right that the
rich pay less proportionately . . . but it’s also not right that they pay more
simply because they’re rich. Everyone
should pay the same rate above a meaningful exemption to cover ordinary and
reasonable living expenses. Yes, we need
to reform corporate governance and anti-trust laws . . . but that is only
meaningful if and only if more people are owners, which Stiglitz does not address. Yes, we need equal access to education, but
education in and of itself does nothing to decrease the wealth and income
gap. Making it possible for everyone to
become productive through both labor and capital would do much more than simply
imposing desired results the way Stiglitz demands.
• As of this morning, we have had
visitors from 66 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, Kenya, Poland, and Australia. The most popular
postings this past week were “The Purpose of Production,” “Thomas Hobbes on
Private Property,” “Aristotle on Private Property,” “Halloween Horror Special
XIII: Mean Green Mother from Outer Space,” and “You Asked, Kelso Answered.”
Those are the happenings for this week, at least those 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, so we’ll see it before it goes up.
#30#