You would think that as world leaders (and world followers) become increasingly desperate to find “new solutions” to increasingly overwhelming problems, they might actually start looking at something new, not just a rehash of failed (usually Keynesian) programs and theories that never could work. Why not consider something that has already been proven to work, although it might upset a few apple carts and certainly damage some extremely large egos. We refer, of course, to the Economic Democracy Act. It certainly couldn’t be worse than what we’ve got now:
Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi
Suzuki
• U.S., Japan, Ukraine and Economics. Concerns are being raised in Japan and the United States about the economic impact of Putin’s War. The concerns, of course, are valid. The problem is that neither Janet Yellen nor Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki are using the right framework for analysis. This is not to say that they might not come up with something good and workable, but — frankly — it will only be by pure chance if they do so. Rather than fix a standard for the currencies and back all new money (or as much as you can) with assets, they insist on using Keynesian prescriptions that have never worked. To be blunt, the only thing that will work at this point is the Economic Democracy Act, as anything else will be either a half-measure or go off in the wrong direction entirely.
• Euro Falls Against the Dollar. For the first time in twenty years — which is to say for nearly the first time since its inception — the Euro has fallen below the U.S. Dollar. The immediate cause, of course, is Putin’s War in Ukraine and its rising cost as well as the general economic instability it has engendered. Underlying that, however, is the fact that the Euro (along with virtually every other currency in the world) is grossly mismanaged, even from a theoretical point of view. As far as we know, every economist with any influence and every central and commercial bank assumes as a given that first you need money before you can do anything, when the real case is that first you need something before you can have money. Money derives from production, not the other way around. In a modern banking system, money can be created as needed if there is something to back it with, something with a present value, whether it exists now or is reasonably expected to exist in the future. This is the whole monetary premise behind the Economic Democracy Act. Instead of the amount of money determining economic activity, teconomic activity determines the amount of money.
• Federal Reserve Will Increase Rates . . . Or Not. Depending on who they’re talking to, the Federal Reserve is considering a whopping rate increase to lower inflation, or will lower rates to calm investor fears. There are so many things wrong with both approaches that it’s difficult to list them all. We’ll just settle for pointing out that neither the Federal Reserve nor any other central bank or agency should be setting interest rates for any reason. They should be set by the market. Adjusting interest rates is rather meaningless, anyway, if you truly understand money. If you know that money is a way of measuring value, and is not in and of itself valuable, then you realize that talking about the “price of money” is like talking about the price of inches or of centimeters. You don’t hear people saying that they want to measure something but don’t have enough inches to do so, so they must go out and buy some more. How much do inches cost these days, anyway? Is there a spot price? How about for 90-day delivery? The only thing that makes sense is to reform the entire money system so that money does what it’s supposed to do, and that means adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
Could be worse.
• Burning the Midnight Wood. According to the Deutches Bank, German are shifting as fast as they can to coal, wood, and other fuels to make up for the anticipated loss of Russian gas and oil. As a result, there has been a 10% drop in demand for oil and gas in Germany, but it may not be enough. We believe that a combination of hydrogen-based fuels and fusion power would completely eliminate the need for the fossil fuels, and that there should be an intensive program to get them developed and commercialized as soon as possible.
• Housing Market Ready to Fall. Anticipating a sharp rise in interest rates, potential home buyers are pulling out of deals at a rate not seen since the beginning of the pandemic. The repercussions of this can spread rapidly throughout the economy as a steady demand for such large ticket items is a key economic indicator of a healthy economy. A temporary lack of demand for housing, automobiles, refrigerators and suchlike was (at least according to Dr. Harold Moulton of the Brookings Institution) a primary cause of the Great Depression of the 1930s . . . which would have recovered by itself if Keynes hadn’t interfered and made the situation much worse. The simple fact is that if money is created in ways detailed in the Economic Democracy Act. Both production and consumption would be in balance, and the so-called business cycle would be a thing of the past.
• Ukrainian Legal Reform. There appears to be a consensus that a key element in rebuilding Ukraine will be legal reform to increase transparency and reduce corruption. That is important, of course, but unless the citizens of Ukraine has the personal economic power to back up their political power, things will go back to the way they were — as Daniel Webster noted more than two centuries ago, “Power naturally and necessarily follows property.” If you want to maintain political democracy, you must establish and maintain a private property-based economic democracy along the lines of the Economic Democracy Act.
• The Greater Reset. CESJ’s new book by members of CESJ’s core group, The Greater Reset: Reclaiming Personal Sovereignty Under Natural Law is, of course, available from the publisher, TAN Books, an imprint of Saint Benedict Press, and has already gotten a top review on that website. It can also be obtained from Barnes and Noble, as well as Amazon, or by special order from your local “bricks and mortar” bookstore. The Greater Reset is the only book of which we’re aware on “the Great Reset” that presents an alternative instead of simply warning of the dangers inherent in a proposal that is contrary to natural law. It describes reality, rather than a Keynesian fantasy world. Please note that The Greater Reset is NOT a CESJ publication as such, and enquiries about quantity discounts and wholesale orders for resale must be sent to the publisher, Saint Benedict Press, NOT to CESJ.
• Help Joe Walk Again for Economic Justice. Just a reminder, if you haven’t already done so, to visit the GoFundMe campaign and consider making a contribution and spreading word out among your social media networks. It’s off to a good start, but it’s still just a start.
• Hortense and Her Whos. In case you’ve been wondering how you might advance the Just Third Way by introducing it to legislators at any and all levels of government, we’ve made it easy for you, with the “Hortense Hears Three Whos“ initiative. Visit the explanatory website, and consider downloading the postcard to send to people in government. Don’t worry if you think they won’t be open to it, as the postcard is intended to get them to open their eyes.
• Economic Personalism Landing Page. A landing page for CESJ’s latest publication, Economic Personalism: Property, Power and Justice for Every Person, has been created and can be accessed by clicking on this link. Everyone is encouraged to visit the page and send the link out to their networks.
• Economic Personalism. When you purchase a copy of Economic Personalism: Property, Power and Justice for Every Person, be sure you post a review after you’ve read it. It is available on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble at the cover price of $10 per copy. You can also download the free copy in .pdf available from the CESJ website. If you’d like to order in bulk (i.e., ten or more copies) at the wholesale price, send an email to publications@cesj.org for details. CESJ members get a $2 rebate per copy on submission of proof of purchase. Wholesale case lots of 52 copies are available at $350, plus shipping (whole case lots ONLY). Prices are in U.S. dollars.
• Sensus Fidelium Videos, Update. CESJ’s series of videos for Sensus Fidelium are doing very well, with over 155,000 total views. The latest Sensus Fidelium video is “The Five Levers of Change.” The video is part of the series on the book, Economic Personalism. The latest completed series on “the Great Reset” can be found on the “Playlist” for the series. The previous series of sixteen videos on socialism is available by clicking on the link: “Socialism, Modernism, and the New Age,” along with some book reviews and other selected topics. For “interfaith” presentations to a Catholic audience they’ve proved to be popular, edging up to 150,000 views to date. They aren’t really “Just Third Way videos,” but they do incorporate a Just Third Way perspective. You can access the playlist for the entire series. The point of the videos is to explain how socialism and socialist assumptions got such a stranglehold on the understanding of the role of the State and thus the interpretation of Catholic social teaching, and even the way non-Catholics and even non-Christians understand the roles of Church, State, and Family, and the human persons place in society.
• Shop online and support CESJ’s work! Did you know that by making your purchases through the Amazon Smile program, Amazon will make a contribution to CESJ? Here’s how: First, go to https://smile.amazon.com/. Next, sign in to your Amazon 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.
• Blog Readership. We have had visitors from 26 different countries and 36 states, provinces, and territories in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Ireland, and the Philippines. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “Breakthrough for Democracy in St. Louis,” “Book Review: A Field Guide for the Hero’s Journey,” “Did C.S. Lewis Approve of Socialism?” “News from the Network, Vol. 15, No. 25,” and “JTW Podcast: Aristotle, The Politics.”
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 well see that it gets into the next “issue.” Due to imprudent and intemperate language on the part of some commentators, we removed temptation and disabled comments.
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