Again, this week’s news items are about what you’d expect in a world in which the Economic Democracy Act has not yet been adopted. Of course, you can read all about it by taking advantage of the $5 per copy sale on for The Greater Reset: Restoring Personal Sovereignty Under Natural Law. Or you can read this week’s news items:
• Cleveland Federal Reserve Conference. Yesterday and today the Cleveland Federal Reserve Cleveland is holding a conference and some members of the CESJ core group are attending both in-person and virtually. So far it’s interesting, but completely devoted to the same old thing: more intensive (and expensive) applications of programs that aren’t really working. Despite several questions and comments directing them to the Economic Democracy Act., speakers have carefully avoided mention of expanded ownership as a possible solution.
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| Close enough. |
• Homeless Hotel. Yet again, the experts are discovering that temporary expedients are not long-term solutions. For a while during the pandemic and after, people lacking permanent addresses were (and in some cases still are) being given money that enabled them to stay in hotels and motels. The money is now running out, and the experts don’t know what to do with the people being displaced who will become officially homeless again. Discussion, of course, revolve around how to get more money to sustain the program, rather than to figure out a way to make it possible for the people affected to participate in something more workable, such as becoming tenants in a housing owned by a Homeowners Equity Corporation (HEC). The HEC is only one vehicle embodied in the Economic Democracy Act., but it may be one that can be implemented under existing law.
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| Illusory gain, fake money |
• Housing Price Inflation Is Safe! According to the experts, a.k.a., “the usual gang of idiots, housing prices won’t be falling anytime soon. This is despite the fact that fewer Americans are now able to afford houses, the streets and countryside are filling with homeless people, and inventories of unsold houses are a drag on the market. The problem, as Jean-Baptiste Say pointed out over two-hundred years ago, is that producers are not consuming, and consumers are not producing. This violates “Say’s Law of Markets” which relies on production and consumption being in balance. As Louis Kelso postulated, this balance can be achieved by empowering every person with the ability to produce with both labor and capital, as would be possible with the Economic Democracy Act.
• “Not Cutting It.” As if it is news, the experts are now reporting that the average American income is insufficient to meet common domestic needs adequately. They can blame what they will — and they do — but the simple fact remains that today’s economic analysis takes for granted that only labor is productive when it is becoming increasingly evident each passing day that capital in all its forms is far surpassing labor as an input to production. What’s the answer? Making as many as possible of the people owners of capital so they can be productive and generate sufficient income to meet their needs. This can be done through the Economic Democracy Act.
• Tanks A Lot, Russia. No, this is not about Russian armor, except that between Dictator Putin’s ears. Right now the only thing tanking in Russia is the economy, despite Putin’s glowing reports of economic growth. If Putin — or anyone else — wants to put an economy back together, tell him to get out of Ukraine, get Putin out of power, and get the Economic Democracy Act?
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| And when it's gone? |
• Retiring Millionaires. Evidently quite a few Americans are retiring with a million dollars in savings. The problem is that they view this not as investment in income-generating assets, but as the stored-up demand itself. Conservative estimates nad projections of the accumulations under the Economic Democracy Act, suggest that this million could be well-exceeded, and will consist of income-generating assets that continue to work for you, leaing the accumulation not only intact, but growing.
• Chocopalpse Now. The world supply of cocoa has been in trouble and danger was near. Now it appears that the final chapter of the tragedy is here. No, we’re not mocking the magnitude of the disaster. Just the magnitude of the stupidity of the experts who insist on doing all the wrong things to try and make things right. As we noted sometime back, a significant part of the problem is how cocoa production (and cocoa processing) is financed, a problem that could be solved by adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
• Is China on the Skids? For some time, many western experts have been worried about the Chinese Dragon that is intent on conquering the world for the communist Middle Kingdom. When closely examined, however, the Chinese economy turns out to be a shell, whether the ghost cities with no inhabitants, the belt and road initiative that insists on running empty trains bound for nowhere, or stock market speculation financed by diverting consumer demand into gambling. The Chinese economy not only sounds hollow when tapped, it cracks and begins to crumble. It appears that some experts are coming around to the idea the Chinese Dragon may be a paper tiger, and tissue paper at that. Of course, being built on principles similar to the West’s Keynesian smoke and mirrors, it’s only a matter of time before the West follows suit and outdoes China ain the race to see who can destroy a sound economy at the greatest rate. In this atmosphere, the country that first adopts the Economic Democracy Act, is going to come out ahead to the benefit of everyone.
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| How Hitler got his start . . . |
• Reparations and Reality. The whole issue of Reparations (note the capitalization) has taken on an apocalyptic, sometimes surreal, even comic aspect. It has always had that, of course. The idea that people who were never slaves should receive compensation for slavery from people who were never slaveowners and who never benefitted from slavery has a certain opera bouffe quality. Some advocates of Reparations are now demanding payments that are as cosmic as they would be impossible to meet for things that they didn’t suffer. This is not to say that slavery didn’t have effects that are have lasted to the present day, but even the most vehement advocate of Reparations must admit that being oppressed by a system that resulted from slavery is not the same as being oppressed by slavery. That being the case, shouldn’t reparations for suffering from an unjust system take a different form than Reparations for suffering a direct injustice? Logically, since “reparation” means (in a sense) to restore or repair, wouldn’t it make more sense to repair the system to offer equal opportunity and access to the means of achieving equality than bringing some down for the temporary benefit of others? Wouldn’t the Economic Democracy Act that is intended to provide a continuing stream of income for everybody and pays for itself make more sense than a one-time payment that some people are forced to pay to others, utterly destroying the national credit along with the national credibility?
• Greater Reset “Book Trailers”. We have produced two ninety-second “Book Trailers” for distribution (by whoever wants to distribute them), essentially 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.
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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