News from the Network, Vol. 13, No. 05

This week we have a number of news items relating to the great Keynesian economic illusion that government creates wealth by issuing debt, and that inflation is essential to economic growth.  Neither assumption is correct and is easily disproved, but you can’t seem to get today’s academics or politicians to understand that:

Part 2½: What About the Universal Basic Income?

It’s true that no good deed ever goes unpunished . . . sort of.  In the previous two postings on this subject, which we imaginatively called Part I and Part II, respectively, we were asked the burning question whether the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism/Capital Homesteading, etc., could be considered communist.

Part II: Is the Just Third Way Communist?

As we noted in the previous posting on this subject, we sometimes get letters asking about the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism, and once in a while we answer them . . . okay, we almost always answer them, except when someone is obviously trolling or trying to start a fight.  It’s even better when somebody else answers them so that we can steal the answer and use it as a blog posting.

Part I: Is the Just Third Way Communist?

As we’ve said before on this blog, we like it when people ask us questions (coherent ones, anyway) that we can answer and then “recycle” what we wrote as blog postings.  It’s even better when somebody else answers a question instead of us.  That way we can steal the question and answer and use it as a blog post without actually having to do any work. . . .

The Homestead Act of 1862

This video might help people to understand why the idea of the 1862 Homestead Act should be duplicated today by extending the concept to all forms of capital:

News from the Network, Vol. 13, No. 04

Some interesting items this week on the global justice (or lack thereof) front . . . mostly lack thereof, and the obvious need for the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism.  Of course, getting people to understand that may be another matter, but there is certainly enough evidence that something needs to be done:

Life, Charity, and Justice

In classic Thomist philosophy, as we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the four natural virtues are temperance, fortitude, prudence, and — above all — justice.  According to Aristotle (and thus Aquinas), the capacity to acquire and develop these virtues is built into human nature.  No one is human without the capacity to acquire and develop these virtues, for that capacity (which is the good common to every human being) is what defines human beings as human beings.

The Meaning of Life

A sketch on the old Muppet Show with their very special guest star Harvey Korman had a panel discussion on The Meaning of Life.  Harvey Korman came down on the side of “Life is like a tennis game,” with which Miss Piggy disagreed, while one of the other panelists favored “Life is like a garbage dump.”  The discussion ended with a general exchange of insults and the announcement that the next discussion would cover whether conversation was a dying art . . . whereupon all the Muppets keeled over leaving Korman shaking his head.

We the People

It’s an absolute dogma of modern politics and economics.  Everyone has the right to what they need to live a decent life.  If people do not have what they need to do so, it is the responsibility of the State to see that they do, and all efforts are to be directed to the end of providing people with what they need.

Martin Luther King Summit

This week we bring you a repeat of the Summit on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Just Third Way.  Enjoy!

News from the Network, Vol. 13, No. 03

We didn’t get too much news from our network this week, but there are a number of items of interest to adherents of the Just Third Way.  It’s just a coincidence it’s mostly about food and drink this week:

A Missing Link

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, in response to the “new things” of socialism, modernism and the New Age, in 1891 Pope Leo XIII proposed a program of expanded capital ownership.  This would empower people and families, giving them the opportunity and means to overcome the growing social alienation that had led to the development and growth of the new things in the first place.

New Things

In case you haven’t noticed, it has become increasingly frequent over the past couple of decades to demonize anyone who disagrees with you on virtually any subject.  We’d say, “on any subject,” but there must be some things that people don’t disagree on.  Somewhere.

Backwards It Getting

No, we’re not trying out a bad Yoda impression, although that might not be a bad idea if it brings in readers.  Or maybe a Darth Vader as (apocryphally) done by Tony Curtis in The Black Shield of Falworth?  “Luke, I am yer Fada.”

The Just Third Way on EWTN Live

Okay, admittedly the Just Third Way only comes in around the last quarter of the show, but at least half the studio audience stated explicitly that it was the best part of the show, and a number of other people concurred, judging from the mail we've received.  So, just in case you missed it when it was live or on some of the reruns, here is the January 8, 2020 EWTN Live show with your host Father Mitch Pacwa interviewing CESJ's Director of Research, Michael D. Greaney:

News from the Network, Vol. 13, No. 02

Perhaps the most unusual thing this week from the Just Third Way perspective is how no one seems to be questioning the incredible rise in share values on the stock market that is not linked to any discernible increase in the quantity or quality of marketable goods and services, i.e., “economic growth.”  Instead, the rise in share values is itself taken as “economic growth,” even though shares are not actually marketable goods or services.  Be that as it may, here are the Just Third Way highlights for this week:

Debt and Taxes

According to an article in the December 27, 2019 Washington Post, in the middle of a presumably booming economy, Americans are drowning in non-mortgage consumer debt. (“Americans Piling Up Near-Record Levels of Credit Card Debt,” A-3.)  Unacknowledged in the story — or anywhere else — is the depressing (and sobering) fact that Keynesian economics and all derivatives, absolutely rely on non-productive spending for consumption, what Jean-Baptiste Say called “multiplying barren consumptions.”

Rethinking Saving for Retirement

It’s a truism that has become engrained into American life.  Go to school to get good grades.  Get good grades to get a good job.  Get a good job to get a good pension for retirement.  Be sure to save enough on the side in an IRA or 401(k) to supplement your pension and Social Security so you can afford to do all the fun things you see other people doing on TV.

The Idea of “Leisure Work”

In the previous postings on this subject we looked at the effect two key inventions, the cotton gin and the McCormick Reaper, had on society, whether for good or for ill.  The cotton gin made raising cotton profitable, while the McCormick Reaper made it possible to think about ending world hunger and famine.

Norman Kurland on the Harold Channer Show

Here's a video from not too long ago, September 18, 2000, featuring Dr. Norman G. Kurland, president of the Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ), having a conversation with Harold Channer on his show.

EWTN Live! and Ten Battles Everyone Should Know

A relatively short time ago the principal author of this blog had a book published by TAN Books.  With the title Ten Battles Every Catholic Should Know (2018), which will be featured — along with the author! — on EWTN Live! January 8, 2020, 8:00 pm EST on the EWTN Television Network, a cable television channel.  Check your local listings for when it airs in your area.  If you miss it or don’t have cable, EWTN usually puts the show up on YouTube within a couple of days.

News from the Network, Vol. 13, No. 01

The big news this week is actually for next week: Michael D. Greaney, CESJ’s Director of Research, is scheduled to appear on the Eternal Word Television Network’s show EWTN Live! with Father Mitch Pacwa, S.J.  In the expanded ownership arena, we kick off the year with the SECURE Act, that puts more power in the hands of participants in qualified retirement plans:

A Tale of Two Machines, II: The McCormick Reaper

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the invention of the cotton gin revolutionized cotton production and, in a horrifying twist of fate, revived what to all appearances was a dying institution at the end of the eighteenth century: human chattel slavery.  Cotton was now phenomenally profitable as the world’s leading fiber, cheap, durable, and economical to produce . . . if you ignored the fact that it provided an excuse to enslave millions of human beings and wore out land at a tremendous rate.  When money talks, human dignity walks.

Happy New Year!

Since it's a holiday, the blog is also taking the day off. . . .