Not that it’s much of a surprise, but this week’s news items strongly resemble those of last week! I know, you’re absolutely flabbergasted. Fortunately, since the recommended solution is the same this week as last week — viz., adopt the Economic Democracy Act — so it might not matter all that much, except that the degree of the problem is increasing, although not the essence thereof:
• FIVE DOLLAR SALE! It’s opportunity of a lifetime time again! The Greater Reset: Reclaiming Personal Sovereignty Under Natural Law, is currently available from the publisher, TAN Books, an imprint of Saint Benedict Press, and for $5.00 per copy in any quantity, while supplies last. The heart of the book is, of course, the Economic Democracy Act?, but there is much more there in what the “Censor Librorum” of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, called a “real page turner.” Don’t worry — although published by a Catholic publisher, the book is written from a natural law, interfaith perspective, and applies across the board to all human beings.
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| Lots of jobs . . . for robots . . . who don't buy anything. |
• Factories Booming, But Who’s Consuming? The good news is that lots of jobs have been created and “blue collar” workers are back on the job and America’s factories are “booming”! The bad news is that’s it’s almost completely artificial. The ones who are producing are not able to consume everything they produce, and the ones who need to consume aren’t producing. As Jean-Baptiste Say pointed out more than two centuries ago, the only way to consume is to produce, since you obviously can’t consume what hasn’t been produced and therefore doesn’t exist! The only sound way to turn things around and have a sound economy is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act, so that consumers can produce, and producers can consume, putting things back into balance.
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| What saved Keynesian economics. |
• Hard Economic Facts. The consumer credit card saved Keynesian economics in the 1960s, and government debt saved it following the “crash” of 2008. Unfortunately, the “mighty American consumer” (who has actually been on life support for decades) is starting to “hit the wall” as this article puts it. That’s very bad news, and the global debt crisis now afflicts both governments and real people. People can no longer look to government to bail them out, and governments certainly can’t look to people to do so, so what’s left? Well, there is always the Economic Democracy Act, which would allow the economy to focus on production, distribution, and consumption instead of money manipulation . . . in other words, what economics is supposed to be about. Maybe the anticipated “fall” of the American consumer is all that’s needed now to wake people up.
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| Richard Feynman giving his Cargo Cult Science talk. |
• Fed Finishes Again. At least until the next few hours brings up another panic attack and a frenzy of “What can we do this time to screw up the economy that we haven’t already done?” Thus, the news that the Federal Reserve is done with raising interest rates must be taken with a few megatons of salt. The simple fact is that money is only a symbol of real wealth (or is supposed to be) and manipulating a symbol does not affect the underlying reality. That’s an example of what Richard Feynman called “Cargo Cult Science.” You change symbols to reflect reality. You don’t change reality to reflect symbols. Frankly, at this point people have everything so backwards that only a real “Great Reset” — a greater reset — has the potential to set things right again. That greater reset can be found in the Economic Democracy Act.
• Another Housing Crash? A “leading investor” says the housing market is due for another crash . . . which argues yet again that there is something fundamentally wrong with today’s economic system. Evidently, just as is the case with the stock market, people have forgotten the original purpose of what they’re speculating, excuse me, investing in. The stock market is a used debt and equity exchange. The housing market provides, well, housing for people to have roofs over their heads. The moment you start buying and selling these things like commodities, you create the opportunity for speculation, not true investment. To put investment and speculation back in their proper places, the Economic Democracy Act is essential.
• Consumption Demand Drives Capital Demand. Evidently, they have been spending like drunken sailors on leave all summer, but now consumers are expected to slow down. According to estimates, the slowdown should come by early next year. The experts see this as not good, but not for the disaster it really is. You see, it is consumer demand that drives the demand for new capital formation and thus is the heart of any economy. As Adam Smith pointed out as his first principle of economics more than two centuries ago in The Wealth of Nations, “Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production.” Once you produce for something other than consumption, or consumers are unable to produce, the whole thing starts to fall apart, and yet production for non-consumption and consumers who only consume without producing anything is the basis of Keynesian economics . . . and the experts wonder why things are in such bad shape? Of course, the way to restore balance would be to adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
• Poverty Rate Climbing. Giving the lie to the persistent claim that the economy is booming, in recovery, or however the experts put it, the number of people, especially children, in poverty, has increased significantly since the end of the enhanced childcare tax credit. That’s the story anyway. It hides the fact that people receiving the enhanced childcare tax credit were in poverty already, but it was not included in the official statistics. Frankly, if the only thing keeping you out of the official poverty statistics is receiving some form of redistribution, you’re still poor, as is demonstrated by the fact that the moment it stops, you’re “officially” poor again. No, you never stopped being poor in the first place. The way to get people out of poverty is to make them productive, and that can be done by adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
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| Do you really want a piece of this? |
• Small Investors Buying Government Debt. According to the U.S. Treasury, “At a weekly auction in mid-August, so-called noncompetitive bidders, meaning those who don't submit competitive bids and instead take the yield offered, bought a record $2.898 billion of six-month bills at 5.29%.” What does this mean? It means that small investors are likely doing one of two things. 1) locking in relatively high interest rates to get the income, or 2) hoping that the interest rates will drop again, and they can make a huge capital gain by selling high interest bills at a premium. This is not, of course, true investment, but speculation. To reorient the economy to real investment, it is essential to adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
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| Clean battery energy comes from somewhere. |
• “Clean” Energy Gets a Boost? Only if the original source of the energy is clean in the first place. According to reports, an enormous deposit of lithium, which is used in making batteries, has been found in the United States. What nobody seems to be considering is that before a battery can store energy, the energy must first be generated . . . and that is not necessarily in a clean way. Of course, part of the problem is at least rumored to be lack of investment in alternative energy sources due to a monopoly position enjoyed by the oil companies . . . which could be broken without breaking them by making new investment capital available by adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
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| Irving Fisher said the same thing. |
• Jeremy Siegel Says Happy Days Are Here to Stay. According to Wharton Business School professor Jeremy Siegel, stock prices are going to keep on going up, and there’s no end in sight. There is no danger of a recession. Of course, that assumes that rising stock prices are an indication of economic health, which is not the case, and — what no one wants to hear — Yale professor Irving Fisher was saying exactly the same thing in 1929, and continued to insist that everything was alright throughout the Great Depression. According to Fisher, the Depression was an illusion. Of course, if you don’t think economic downturns, whether you call them depressions or recessions, are fantasies, then you might want to consider working to get the Economic Democracy Act adopted.
• 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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