Now that Easter is over and the pinch of high egg prices has somewhat ameliorated and people are fed up (literally) with chocolate bunnies, it’s time to get back to the real world of Keynesian economics . . . just kidding. Keynesian economics is more of a fantasy than the Easter Bunny, for Easter comes with or without chocolate eggs or bunnies, but a Keynesian economy can’t even exist without the Great Defunct Economist’s fantasies, as he himself admitted. We have to lie to ourselves until the lie becomes reality, as Keynes declared in 1931. He gave it a century to work, and the situation is worse than before. Time is running out, and the only hope is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act:
• Apartment Foreclosures. As the real economy continues to spin out of control while the speculators continue to make money, many condo owners are being foreclosed on. This — like virtually every other time — is perfect to implement the Economic Democracy Act which would put the primary economy of marketable goods and services such as housing back on a solid footing.
• Dropping Like Flies. Somehow, in spite of the booming stock market and a strong jobs market, companies are starting to go bankrupt at an alarming rate. Apparently the high inflation which is supposed to guarantee a thriving economy with high wages, high prices and reduced consumption (no, really: Keynesian economics relies on the idea of “forced savings,” which allows producers to accumulate more savings by selling the consumer fewer goods at higher prices, thereby creating the environment within which labor can be productive and produce more goods that people can’t buy except at even higher prices . . .) Adopting the Economic Democracy Act would go a long way toward solving the problem, but nobody seems to think of that.
Russian Economy Reels. While Putin pours a plethora of pelf into his campaign of world conquest, the Russian economy which has to sustain his megalomania is starting to implode. It seems that the only things keeping the Russian economy afloat are the fake statistics Putin’s lackey’s feed him and the immense amounts of money being spent on the war effort, much of which goes into the pockets of Putin’s lackeys . . . who feed Putin fake statistics to keep the money flowing. What many people don’t realize is that most of what Russia has been expending in Ukraine has already been paid for. It is sunk cost, expended during the Soviet era to build up immense stockpiles of munitions. This is how the Russians can use up munitions at a tremendous rate and yet be unable to pay their soldiers or provide them with adequate equipment. Of course, the entire war would be a moot point if Russia wised up and got rid of Putin and adopted the Economic Democracy Act, but so far that doesn’t seem to have occurred to them.
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| Labor Market |
• Jobs Market Cooling. The “jobs market” or the “labor market” — interesting concepts in themselves — are starting “cool down.” Since under Keynesian economics a “job” supplemented with welfare is the only legitimate way to get income — unless you are a capitalist-politician — this is bad news, unless the economy shifts to a welfare-supplemented with jobs approach as proposed by Klaus Schwab’s “Great Reset” . . . but it still doesn’t get at the underlying problem: how do you make people productive when machines are doing the bulk of production? The obvious answer in the Just Third Way is not to redefine ownership as the Great Reset proposes, but to turn everyone into a real capital owner, which can be done with the Economic Democracy Act.
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| Low interest rate disaster |
• Low Interest Rate Disaster! Time is running out to save the west from the disaster of low interest rates. Without low interest rates, speculators won’t be able to borrow money to buy and sell shares on Wall Street and keep the economy running. Of course, high interest rates will force more and more businesses to close up shop as they won’t be able to afford to borrow the money they need to keep going, but that’s okay, since there isn’t any money available at low interest rates because it’s all going to the speculators. The only real solution to this Catch-22 is the monetary reform package in 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 20 different countries and 27 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 United Kingdom, Ireland, and Canada. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “Did C.S. Lewis Approve of socialism?” “News from the Network, Vol. 16, No 14,” “JTW Podcast: How to Win an Argument,” “Economic Justice I: What is Economic Justice?” and “The Attack on Fulton Sheen.”
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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