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| All done with smoke, mirrors, and ice. |
Breaking
news: the latest conspiracy theory is that the Titanic didn’t really sink on its maiden voyage. It was actually a ship named Olympic.
The switch was made to collect the insurance. And if you believe that, Modern Monetary
Theory (MMT) and Keynesian economics should be a breeze for you. (Nobody has bothered to explain where the
actual Titanic ended up, though. Unless it’s that thing floating next to the
rubber ducky.)
To
get back to the real world and the economics of reality, however, this has been
a busy and interesting week for those promoting the Just Third Way:
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| Yes, this really is The Picture at an Exhibition. |
• CESJ intern Eliza R’s original research
survey for the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and Human Subjects Committee of
Brigham Young University has been approved.
It is being administered in the field starting today, Friday, December
2, 2016. The survey is part of a
standard omnibus survey that has been conducted in Ukraine for many years. The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology
(KIIS) conducts the Omnibus, and international clients that have made use of
KISS’s survey services include USAID, the World Bank, UNICEF, Cambridge University,
Duke University, the London School of Economics, and other universities. The research aims to measure how Ukrainians
view property ownership (and the unequal distribution of it in their country)
and its effects on a number of problems facing their country including
corruption, low levels of support for democracy, economic decay, and the
erosion of welfare programs in Ukraine.
This has important implications for CESJ on how to implement legislation
emphasizing universal access to ownership.
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| Does this really need a caption? |
• Dr. Norman G. Kurland travels to
Louisville, Kentucky today to be keynote speaker before an audience of 250-300 people at Churchill Downs in the Triple Crown
Room of the Jockey Club tomorrow, Saturday, December 3, 2016. The topic is “The Game Changer in You.” The closing will be a discussion on of
motivation and mobilization of the Millennial Generation. Participants will discuss workforce readiness
for the future, monetary reform, innovation, and infrastructure for the twenty-first
Century and the responsibility and role Millennials can play in that. Norm will also be speaking on a panel
on sustainability moderated by Martin Smith.
• CESJ will be meeting with the
Chairman of the American Solidarity Party of Northern Virginia next week. The meeting will primarily be to discuss a
possible conference on a “pro-life economic agenda” that would be acceptable to
all sides in the debate, and address concerns of both positions in a
politically feasible manner. CESJ’s past involvement with the Solidarity
Movement in Poland, Costa Rica, and Guatemala should also be of interest to the
ASPNV.
• Due to a delay in submission caused by the press of other writing
tasks, publication of the next Just Third Way column for the Perth Herald-Tribune has been
delayed. In lieu of that, here’s the link to the
column on solidarity, which seems to be getting mentioned fairly frequently
these days in some circles.
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| Senator Russell Long and Dr. Norman Kurland |
• Outreach continues to surface people who can get the CESJ core group
to meet with president-elect Trump and other key figures in the political
scene. It should be kept in mind by
everyone interested in advancing the Just Third Way that the ESOP would never
have been enacted into law except through the efforts of Senator Russell Long
of Louisiana . . . and Senator Long would never have heard about the ESOP if a
number of people hadn’t taken the risk of presenting “prime movers” and door
openers with the genuinely new ideas on which the Just Third Way was developed. The whole process is described in “Dinner
at the Madison.” Today, people in a network
spanning the globe are working to gain access to figures in Church, State, and
Academia who can help move things along, but we don’t know which effort will
pay off first. It could be yours.
• 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.
• 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 61 different countries and 52 states and
provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two
months. Most visitors are from the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom,
Canada, and Austria. The most popular postings this past week in descending
order were “Thomas Hobbes on Private Property,” “Aristotle on Private Property,” “How to Make
America Great Again,” The Feast of Christ the King?!?!?!?!?(!),” and “News from
the Network, Vol. 9, No. 42.”
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#