A few things have crowded out Just Third Way-type news this week, such as the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the new offensives in Ukraine that are making astonishing gains. Still, there are a few items of interest:
• Foreign Investment Capital? No. Earlier this week, President Zelenskyy of Ukraine went before the New York Stock Exchange and said that Ukraine is going to need $400 billion in foreign investment capital to rebuild the country. Well, Ukraine ight need $400 billion in investment capital, and likely quite a bit more, but it doesn’t have to be foreign, and in fact it shouldn’t be. With a commercial and central banking system such as Ukraine already has, it can finance its own rebuilding and do it in a way in which every Ukrainian can participate in and benefit from the rebuilding. This can (and should) be done with the Economic Democracy Act.
• Analysts Baffled. Once in a great while the analysists are right . . . but usually for the wrong reasons. As a case in point, “Blackrock” is claiming that the Federal Reserve won’t be able to meet its 2% inflation goal and maintain high employment — true — because the Federal Reserve is tightening up on “easy money” — completely false. The fact of the matter is that the Federal Reserve can’t meet its “inflation goal” for the simple reason that it has an inflation goal! It can’t meet the desired level of employment because it has set it as a goal! Isn’t that a contradiction? No, it’s a paradox, but one that can easily be resolved when we realize that inflation and employment are not things subject to “control.” If the governors of the Federal Reserve realized that inflation and deflation is not even an issue when money is only created in ways found in the Economic Democracy Act, and that the employment rate should be determined by the real demand for human labor, not the demand for consumption income, the world would be a better place very quickly.
• Stupid Economist Tricks. According to the latest dumb thing said by economist, we will never reach peak inflation . . . evidently because it can always go higher! That’s a little like saying with the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass, “Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam today.” “Things can always be worse” is not a good way to run an economy. If inflation is a problem, you don’t try to control it, you get rid of it. And how do you do that? With the Economic Democracy Act.
• The Good Old Days. Once upon a time, when a district wanted a schoolteacher and didn’t have much money, the teacher would be offered free room and board with students’ families in addition to a small cash stipend. It seems that the great state of California is so hard up for cash that some school districts are asking families to take in teachers to save money on housing. Of course, if teachers (and everyone else) had an independent capital income through the Economic Democracy Act, the cost of living would not be a problem, and we’d probably get a better grade of teacher
• Greater Reset “Book Trailers”. We have produced two ninety-second “Book Trailers” for distribution (by whoever wants to distribute them), essentially a minute and a half commercials for The Greater Reset. There are two versions of the videos, one for “general audiences” and the other for “Catholic audiences”. Take your pick.
• 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 20 different countries and 32 states, provinces, and territories in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and India. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “Book Review: A Field Guide for the Hero’s Journey,” “What Does Democracy Mean?” “A University for Justice?” “News from the Network, Vol. 15, No. 34,” and “Social Justice, IV: The Characteristics of Social Justice.”
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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