As
the world’s central bankers try to figure out what a central bank is supposed
to do, and the commercial and mercantile banks follow suit, the stock market
continues its wild gyrations. We believe
that this will continue (if it doesn’t crash and burn) until a Capital
Homestead Act is passed and the stock market can return to its proper role as a
Second-Hand Shoppe for used debt and equity.
To help a CHA along, here’s what we’ve been doing for the past week:
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| Power follows property, not jobs. |
• Norman Kurland met briefly with
the Dean of the Chicago Law School this week, and discussed the contribution of
William Winslow Crosskey (1894-1968) to constitutional law. Crosskey’s analysis is key to CESJ’s
understanding of how the growth of State power proceeded apace with the loss of
economic — and thus political — power by ordinary Americans.
• The CESJ core group had an
interesting discussion with an inventor and entrepreneur in Maine who talked
about the possibility of building new, self-liquidating cities owned by the
inhabitants to take care of the refugee situation. The I&E was particularly fascinated by
the possibility of using “pure credit” for financing, which would free the
refugees from the necessity of either accumulating sufficient savings to build
a city (estimated initial cost of $1 billion for a place that could house
10-12,000 people) and attract business to create an “export economy” to provide
the future savings essential to retire the debt and then provide incomes for
all citizens.
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| "It ain't over even when I say so!" |
• Discussions were also held with CESJ friends in Houston, Richmond, and
Washington, DC about the possibility of inserting the Capital Homestead Act
into the political dialog even at this late date by getting to key religious
and civic leaders with ties to the different political campaigns. The thing to keep in mind is that in
politics, it ain’t over even after the fat lady sings. In the 1884 presidential campaign, a
vindictive and malicious remark by Samuel D. Burchard about the Democratic
Party being the party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” cost front-runner James
G. Blaine the election after the Democrats spread the story, falsely either
attributing the comment to Blaine, or claiming that they represented Blaine’s
true sentiments . . . which they did not.
As a result, Grover Cleveland became president with very narrow margins
in key states.
• CESJ’s intern, Eliza R., has returned from a trip to Belgium. Unfortunately, scheduling difficulties
prevented her from meeting with Astrid U., CESJ’s Fellow currently at Louvain
University.
• CESJ friend Masako T. just celebrated her 103rd birthday to
the congratulations of the core group and the entire membership.
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| Print and spend gives us money to burn! |
• We (re) surfaced candidate Donald
Trump’s remarks on monetary theory from May of this year. In light of what we know of binary monetary
theory, Say’s Law of Markets, the Banking Principle, and just plain common
sense, his ideas appear to be . . . unsound.
“Print and spend” is not good fiscal or monetary policy.
• This is not to say that candidate Hilary
Clinton’s economic ideas are any better from a Just Third Way perspective.
• CESJ’s latest book, Easter Witness: From Broken Dream to a New
Vision for Ireland, is available from Amazon
and Barnes
and Noble, as well as by special order from many “regular” bookstores. The book can also be ordered in bulk, which
we define as ten copies or more of the same title, at a 20% discount. A full case is twenty-six copies, and
non-institutional/non-vendor purchasers get a 20% discount off the $20 cover
price on wholesale lots ($416/case).
Shipping is extra. Send enquiries
to publications@cesj.org. An additional discount may be available for
institutions such as schools, clubs, and other organizations as well as
retailers.
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| "WHAT? You haven't signed up for the Smile program?" |
• Here’s the usual announcement
about the Amazon Smile program, albeit
moved to the bottom of the page so you don’t get tired of seeing it. To participate in the Amazon Smile program
for CESJ, go to https://smile.amazon.com/. Next, sign in to your account. (If you don’t have an account with Amazon,
you can create one by clicking on the tiny little link below the “Sign in using
our secure server” button.) Once you
have signed into your account, you need to select CESJ as your charity — and
you have to be careful to do it exactly this way: in the
space provided for “Or select your own charitable organization” type “Center for Economic and Social Justice
Arlington.” If you type anything
else, you will either get no results or more than you want to sift
through. Once you’ve typed (or copied
and pasted) “Center for Economic and
Social Justice Arlington” into the space provided, hit “Select” — and you
will be taken to the Amazon shopping site, all ready to go.
• As of this
morning, we have had visitors from 45 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, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia,
and India. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “News
from the Network, Vol. 9, No. 33,” “Thomas Hobbes on Private Property,” “A Look
at the Future, II: Labor Productivity?” “Let’s Talk About . . . Job Creation,”
and “Is the United States the Enemy of Freedom and Democracy?”
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#