If there is one thing painfully evident from what is going on in the world, it is that few — if any — of the people we call “leaders” have a clue about what is going on in the world. As you might expect from that, they spend most of their time implementing programs and solutions that have never worked, and then spend the rest of their time explaining why they didn’t work and why we need to keep on doing the same thing over and over to get different results. Of course, the one thing they don’t consider is the one thing that has been proven to work. If they actually wanted to be effective, they would adopt the Economic Democracy Act:
"Own or Be Owned!"
• The Robots are Coming! According to Fortune magazine, the robots are coming, and that’s not a good thing for American workers or anyone else. Not only will workers (or former workers) not have income, the owners of the robots won’t be able to sell the products their mechanical slaves produce. Walter Reuther once toured a Ford plant and the executive said to him that he’d have a hard time collecting dues from the robot machinery, whereupon Reuther replied that Ford would have an even harder time selling them automobiles. Of course, from the Just Third Way perspective the solution is obvious. As Louis Kelso was quoted back in 1964 in an editorial in Life magazine, “If the machine wants our job, let’s buy it.” One way of doing that is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
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| Federal Reserve policy, you say? |
• It’s Up! It’s Down! It’s All Around! We have noticed one very strange thing about the Federal Reserve and the way it is attempting to play around with interest rates as if money and credit is a commodity instead of a means of measurement and the medium of exchange. No matter what they say one moment, a moment later they may say exactly the opposite. Their fixed idea — and their greatest error — is to assume that economic activity derives from money instead of what really happens: that money derives from economic activity. Of course, the Federal Reserve wouldn’t have to worry about interest rates at all if the U.S. adopted the Economic Democracy Act, but that doesn’t seem to occur to them in any way.
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| Say, wuh? |
• Following Up on What We Just Said. If you just read the item above, then this one will sound remarkably similar. A definition of insanity is that you keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results. That is what happens with the Keynesian economics that currently has the world in its grip. Of course, it is very simple to get out of it, although it doesn’t appear to be very easy. All they would have to do is adopt the Economic Democracy Act, and things will fall into place very quickly.
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| No, we didn't make this up. |
• The “Most Chilling Metric”? If you were to ask us what the “most chilling metric” is in the economy, it is the growing number of people who are unable to be productive through ownership of either labor or capital. This, as far as the usual suspects, er, experts are concerned, is completely wrong. The “most chilling metric” is the fact (alleged) that seven million men have given up looking for jobs . . . that probably don’t even exist in the first place. Of course, in the Keynesian economic religion, a “job” is the only way most people can gain income . . . which, astonishingly, is exactly what the Fabian socialists say. You know the Fabians. Their emblem is the wolf in sheep’s clothing and their stated goal is to implement socialism without calling it socialism or admitting that they are socialists and thus promoters of “the New Things” that have been undermining Church, State, and Family for the past two centuries. All of this would be moot, of course, if some country adopted the Economic Democracy Act, but no one seems to consider it.
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| Talk about living the dream . . . |
• Another Recession on the Way? As we keep saying, nothing seems to change except the tenacity with which our so-called leaders insist on doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. Now the experts (so-called) are telling us to expect a new period of “stagflation.” How is that possible? Simple. By thinking that economic activity comes from money and not the other way around, they think they “stimulate” the economy by printing more and more money. This leaves productivity activity starved for credit at the same time that consumers are provided with increasing amounts of cash to spend on goods and services that have higher and higher prices in response to the increase in the money supply. What would really solve the problem, of course, would be to adopt the Economic Democracy Act, but they are locked into the weird Keynesian fantasy and insist that you need inflation for economic growth when that is economic insanity.
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| High Value Men? |
• Money and Status. In a shocking discovery, a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston reveals that a large number of men have left the work force not because of inadequate pay and benefits (a Keynesian dogma), but because they don’t find the work or job fulfilling to their status as human persons. Increasingly, men without college degrees see themselves as viewed by society as “low value men,” and see no reason to waste their time doing work that labels them as basically waste. At the same time, numerous studies have been done showing that many women are having a hard time finding “high value men,” especially as their own status rises, thereby dramatically decreasing the number of available “high value men” relative to their higher status, so they remain single and childless. Of course, all of this would be moot if people could see others as actual human beings instead of labeling them by income or job and people could do the work they want regardless of status or income. Louis XVI of France loved to work with iron and was an expert locksmith, taking time every day to go to his workshop. George III of England thought being a farmer was the noblest thing anyone could do. If we had the Economic Democracy Act, they and others could do the work they love, instead of worrying about whether they are high or low status, and maybe men and women wouldn’t find it so hard to find relationships.
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| It comes from somewhere. . . |
• Electricity Comes from Somewhere. It sounds as if someone in Switzerland finally figured it out. Electric cars are non-polluting themselves . . . but the electricity they use often comes from some very polluting sources, usually the fossil fuels. Consequently, Switzerland is considering putting limitations of electric vehicles in order to reduce electricity usage rates and keep inflation down. It sounds as if there should be a push to get fusion power as soon as possible.
• 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.
• 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 27 different countries and 29 states, provinces, and territories in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, India, the Philippines, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “Book Review: A Filed Guide for the Hero’s Journey,” “Social Justice, IV: The Characteristics of Social Justice,” “Reflections on Biafra,” “Inequality is the Root of All Social Evil,” and “When to Institute a Fixed Monetary Standard.”
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