It is very tempting to give the blogging equivalent of “Nothing to see here, move along,” when reporting on various events that advance the Just Third Way (rare) or actively inhibit or prevent the Just Third Way (far too common). Sadly, too many people seem to be convinced that if we just continue to do what isn’t working and has never worked instead of adopting the Economic Democracy Act, things will be fine:
If you don't know, we ain't tellin'
• See Them Tumbling Down. No, we’re not talking about one of the hits by the Sons of the Pioneers, or even Leonard Slye and the Rocky Mountaineers. This is the plunge in share values on Wall Street as the Federal Reserve meets to decide on monetary policy. Here’s a wild and crazy idea: why not use the central bank to provide money directly for industry, agriculture, and commerce as it was originally set up to do, and let the government live on tax revenues? That will reduce corruption, probably get inflation under control, create jobs, and so on, and all without trying to change reality by manipulating the money supply artificially. That is the whole point (or one of them) behind the Economic Democracy Act.
• How Long Will Savings Last? Retirement planners — along with a host of other people — continue to ask the wrong question about retirement . . . we mean, apart from the obvious one about the whole retirement concept in the first place. That is, the question is always, “Have you saved enough for retirement?” or some variation thereon. This is then usually followed by how much you should spend each year to avoid running out of money. The question should be, “Have you invested enough to generate the income you need for retirement?” It’s an entirely different mindset and requires an entirely different approach. Instead of cutting consumption and setting aside what you think is enough out of current income, you should be investing enough in self-liquidating assets that pay for themselves with their own future profits and thereafter provide you with a living income. This is what the Economic Democracy Act is about.
• It Was Never an Investment. People in “the Know” are evidently getting ready for a big “correction” in the housing market. This is causing a (small) panic on the Street . . . at least among people who bought houses thinking the price would go up and they could sell at a huge profit without having to pay for it, so they didn’t worry about being able to make the monthly mortgage payment. Of course, people who bought a house and assumed a mortgage it was within their power to meet with their existing resources don’t have anything to worry about. They purchased housing, not an investment. People do, however, have to get it into their heads that you invest in something that generates an income, whereas speculation consists of purchasing something in anticipation of a change in the price of what you bought. See the difference? People who buy and sell houses in the hope that they will make a profit off of that instead of renting it out for the income are speculating, not investing. Of course, this still leaves a lot of people in the lurch, which is why CESJ came up with the Homeowners Equity Corporation or HEC, a “rent to by” arrangement by means of which people can acquire home ownership at non-speculative prices.
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| Central banks aren't the problem, but how they're used. |
• Stupid Federal Reserve Tricks. In the misplaced but eternal hope that the Currency Principle will finally begin working after more than a century and a half of failure, the Federal Reserve has announced a new phase of fiddling with interest rates and people’s lives, attempting to “fine tune” the economy when the engine is on fire. What they need is a fire extinguisher, not more fuel for the fire in the form of Keynesian monetary and fiscal policy, and then a way to rebuild the economic engine so that it functions properly for the good of everyone, not just the elite. This is found in the Economic Democracy Act.
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| A.K.A., "Keynesian Economics" |
• Exactly Backwards. The whole idea of the Economic Democracy Act is that money is only created in ways that, one, will turn non-owners of capital into owners of capital, and two, is only created AFTER a viable and financially feasible capital project is located. Not surprisingly, first creating money and then desperately searching for ways to spend it results in corruption, as this story about possibly fraudulent COVID-19 loans suggests. Tying money creation directly to what is being financed, whether it be existing inventories of goods or services performed, or future marketable goods and services with a reasonable present value, is the only realistic and sensible way to regulate the money supply naturally, not artificially by printing up a bunch and hoping it does something good instead of ending up in a politician’s sofa, no, really. That is why the binary economics of Louis Kelso is based on the Banking Principle, which says that the level of economic activity determines the amount of money, and not the Currency Principle, which says that money determines the level of economic activity.
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| "I think I"ll wait for the elevator . . ." |
• Is This Any Way to Run A Country? The Empire State Building in New York City was erected in record time when the United States was suffering through a Keynesian-enhanced depression. A new railway station was built in New York City and was just finished . . . after half a century of construction and $11 billion cost. Can you imagine how long it will take to rebuild Ukraine if it is left to good old American know-how and financed in the usual way? That’s why we would recommend the Economic Democracy Act that has the potential to rebuild Ukraine in a way that not only benefits every Ukrainian directly, it doesn’t put the cost on others, not even Russia . . . which doesn’t excuse their obligation to make reparations and pay for war crimes.
• 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.
• 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 21 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, Mexico, India, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “Activism versus Leadership,” “Social Justice, IV: The Characteristics of Social Justice,” “Did C.S. Lewis Approve of Socialism?” “JTW Podcast: John Paul II’s Personalism,” and “News from the Network, Vol. 16, No. 04.”
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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