As usual, reports and predictions of economic disaster are coming as fast as glowing reports of economic health and growth. What’s the real story? Paradoxically, both reports and predictions could very easily be true . . . depending on who you are. Like “the Great Reset” of Klause Schwab and the World Economic Forum which has capitalism for the rich and socialism for the poor, today’s economic growth benefits the rich, while the recession/depression affects the non-rich. Of course, the Economic Democracy Act would benefit everyone, but no one seems to think of that.
Social Security is a Fabian program
• Salvaging Social Security. In yet another self-defeating effort to save something from the wreck of the Social Security system, the powers-that-be have decided to discourage people from claiming benefits too early. Although they can’t put it this crudely, they are hoping that more people will have the decency to die an ease the strain on the system. The one thing they don’t dare do, of course — even though they have the power to do so — is reduce benefits . . . which might actually work, at least for a while. By making receipt of benefits need-based, the system could be returned to its original purpose, to provide a core retirement income for those who were unable to provide for retirement. Even that, however, would only be a temporary stopgap, as the Social Security plan was based on the increasingly flawed assumption of “full employment” that came in with the Fabian socialist-inspired New Deal. According to Fabian dogma, labor income is the only real income. Capital ownership is unnecessary, as it only provides the environment within which labor can be productive . . . even as capital produces far more goods and services than labor could ever dream of doing. The real way to save Social Security instead of just trying to salvage something from the wreckage is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act, so that people can build a capacity for a lifetime capital-based income instead of a retirement labor-based income, retaining Social Security as a backup and failsafe.
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| Ho, hum. Another round of economic disaster . . . |
• Another Disaster Prediction. Evidently, going by the aphorism that even a broken clock is right twice a day, the experts are again predicting economic disaster. Frankly, this does not take too much expertise, except in coming up with innovative ways to admit you don’t know what is going on. As it is, today’s systemic flaws are so obvious that it is incomprehensible how even the experts don’t see it: too few people own the means of production yet do most of the consuming, those who are productive consume relatively little, consumption is financed by creating money backed not by production, but by government debt that decreases consumption at the same time it attempts to stimulate it, the Federal Reserve raises the cost of production in order to stimulate it, and cut consumption that drives production . . . the list could go on ad infinitum, but what should be abundantly clear is that a restructuring of the entire system along the lines of the Economic Democracy Act is necessary, and nobody is even thinking about it.
• The Burden of Debt. One of the things the modern generation has failed to learn is how to distinguish good debt from bad debt. Following Keynes, they believe that government debt is good debt because it stimulates consumption which stimulates production which create jobs . . . or so the theory goes. That being the case (despite Keynes’s claims of a fallacy of composition by which government debt is good but private debt is bad, except when it isn’t), anything that stimulates consumption must be good because it kicks off the process. As a result, an entire generation has become convinced that they can enjoy an expensive lifestyle now and pay for it later when they get high-paying jobs to produce the goods and services they’ve already consumed. Since you can’t produce what has already been consumed, and you can’t consume without producing, the belief that you can finance consumption on debt forever is clearly impossible, which is why the mountain of debt under which millennials are struggling will never go away until they can start to produce before they consume — which will only happen with the Economic Democracy Act.
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| "It's okay, I'm a Keynesian!" |
• Slash and Burn Economics. One of the things accountants learn — or should learn — is that a good accountant knows how to cut costs, while a great accountant knows how to increase revenue. The idea is that cost-cutting should be a normal operating procedure for any business or government; money is a valuable resource, and no business or government can afford to waste resources if it expects to stay in business or remain in power. Austerity and cost-cutting is only useful in the short term and as an emergency measure until ways can be found to bring in more money — which means figuring out ways that ordinary people can be productive so they can afford to purchase what others produce, whether it be private sector goods and services, or government. That is why when lawmakers try to cut costs without at the same time working to increase production (not “productivity”, which is a meaningless concept in binary economics), they are only delaying the inevitable; you cannot continue to consume without producing. Once everything is consumed and nothing is produced, it’s all over. The only real solution is not to cut costs, but to increase production, and that will only happen when lawmakers adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
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| If you don't see it, it doesn't exist |
• Most People Won’t Notice the Recession. Whether it’s because things have become so bad for most people all the time now, or because most people are just plain stupid, the CEO of the Bank of America has declared that the country is going into a recession, but most people won’t notice. As a result, interest rates will remain high so as to slow economic growth that isn’t happening in the first place! This presumably makes sense in Keynesian Looking Glass Land, but nowhere else. All it does is lure people (who are too stupid to know any better) into false sense of security so that they never adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
• Jeremy Siegel Says Workers Are Behind! Just as if Keynesian economics wasn’t specifically designed to “keep workers behind,” Wharton Business Professor Jeremy Siegel has announced that the Federal Reserve’s policies are keeping workers behind. So, what else is new? The only way “workers” are going to catch up is to become owners . . . which is the one thing that Keynesian economic policies are specifically intended to prevent. That is probably why the powers-that-be resist adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
• 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.
• Blog Readership. We have had visitors from 22 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, the United Kingdom, India, Canada, and Kenya. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “JTW Podcast: Fusion Power and Kilowatt Hour,” “Activism v. Leadership,” “News from the Network, Vol. 16, No. 09,” “What is a Bank,” and “The Purpose of Production.”
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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