As usual, we have nothing spectacularly new to report, although the special segment on Hulu airing tonight might be of great interest. Otherwise, the list of news items is tophevy with stories about people and situations that would e much better off with the Economic Democracy Act, but we may get there eventually:
Harris Neck, Georgia
• Dave Kelly and Harris Neck. CESJ friend Dave Kelly, who has been working for many years with the Gullah community in Harris Neck, Georgia, to reclaim their land that was seized and abandoned by the federal government, let us know about a special segment (Part 6: “Justice”) that will be airing on Friday, February 10th on Hulu. This is part of the controversial 1619 Project conceived of by New York Times journalist Nikole Hanna-Jones. The series examines the largely ignored or trivialized place of slavery and contributions of enslaved Americans and their descendants in the history and economy of the United States. This episode of the 6-part series that started airing in January chronicles the efforts of this unique community, which has maintained many of their African traditions and whose own history is bound up with the story of slavery, emancipation, reconciliation, and continuing struggle of descendants of American slaves to regain ownership of land given to their ancestors by their former slaveowners. Here is the trailer to the series. If you are interested in learning more about the Harris Neck community, you can contact Dave Kelly at dkelly91@hotmail.com.
 |
| Keynes, the Great Defunct Economist |
• Making the Same Mistakes. In an effort to achieve the impossible (at least in Keynesian terms) goal of low inflation and high employment (in Keynesian theory, there is a tradeoff between inflation and employment), the Federal Reserve continues to manipulate interest rates, trying to achieve the right magic spell to make everything come out just righty tighty. They haven’t figured out after nearly a century of complete failure that they are using both the wrong framework for analysis and the wrong prescription to achieve anything but utter chaos. The right framework for analysis is the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism, while the right prescription is the Economic Democracy Act.
• Speculation to the Rescue! Saving the economy, which runs on non-productive speculation instead of doing something that provides people with useful goods and service, is well on the way. It seems that housing prices have slowed their decline somewhat, allowing people who “invested” in housing instead of buying a place to live to reduce their paper losses and thus increased their hopes of turning a profit by flipping their house. Of course, the idea that they might want to do something productive to make money, as encouraged by the Economic Democracy Act, doesn’t seem to enter their heads.
• Live Like Pigs! There’s a new high rise in China, but it’s not in one of the “ghost cities” they build to inflate GDP and lure people into pouring their money into fake investments to keep the Chinese economy running. No, this time it’s a high rise for pigs, to try and increase pork production. It never seems to occur to the Chinese leadership that if allowed to live without government micromanaging every moment of their lives, and with the Economic Democracy Act, the might see things turn around . . . oh, and if they stopped trying to take over everyone else’s lives as well.
• A Russian Goodbye. There may be many things wrong with globalization, but in the wild and whacky world of Keynesian economics, foreign investment is essential for every country. You see, instead of monetizing future private sector growth by using future savings, Keynesian economics mandates backing the entire money supply with government debt, a twist on Georg Friedrich Knapp’s socialist monetary theory called chartalism. This money backed by your government’s debt is sent to other countries to finance private sector development, while their government’s debt-backed money is sent to your country for private sector development. See how it all works out? Faced with foreign companies pulling out of Russia due to a distaste for dealing with a dictator even more greedy, bloodthirsty, and ruthless than a multinational corporation, possible trillionaire Putin has sneered that he doesn’t need to see no one’s stinkin’ badges but his own. Instead of getting foreign money backed by foreign government debt to finance Russia’s economic growth, Putin figures that Russian citizens will invest in his military-kleptocratic complex and be able to absorb the massive amounts of new domestic debt needed to fund the private sector economy, the war in Ukraine, and the lifestyles of the rich and sociopathic. Who will pay for all this debt? Why, the revenues from Ukraine once it has been liberated . . . assuming there is anything left alive in the rubble after the trillions of dollars’ worth of damage done. Why not implement the Economic Democracy Act, you ask, so that money for development and rebuilding can come from future production? You must be mad to think that ordinary people can be permitted to live in peace and prosperity when there’s anything left for Putin to steal.
• REALLY Fake News. Putin’s political pabulum, otherwise known as “Red propaganda” (in this case referring to the ocean of blood shed by his countless victims), has reached a new low, if that’s even possible. In an effort to show that the sacrifices of their (alleged) husbands to the everlasting glory of Putin and his pocketbook weren’t in vain, the dictator’s team rounded up some women who agreed to play the part of widows for a propaganda video, in which they were shown receiving gifts from the government, including fur coats . . . which were taken away as soon as the filming was finished. Since the deal was that they agreed to lie for the government in return for the gifts, they were understandable miffed. After all, you don’t expect someone you agreed to lie for to lie to you in return . . . do you? Lie to a liar? Betray a traitor? What a concept!
• 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 19 different countries and 26 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, Kenya, Ireland, and the Philippines. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “The Purpose of Production,” “News from the Network, Vol. 16, No. 5,” “A Keynesian Contradiction,” “Social Justice, IV: The Characteristics of Social Justice,” and “Did C.S. Lewis Approve of Socialism?”
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.
#30#
