Paul "Clueless" Krugman
• No Inflation if You Don’t Buy Anything! According to the Keynesian economic guru Paul Krugman, there is no inflation if you exclude most of what people buy from the calculation! After all, as Keynes said, rises in the price level before reaching full employment are not inflation but are due to other factors! Pure genius! Of course, Keynes declared that you can change reality by “re-editing the dictionary” and having the government enforce it, so if the government re-defines inflation, we have nothing to worry about. Unless, of course, you prefer the economics of reality, in which case we need to adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
• Didn’t Get the Memo. Evidently Federal Reserve Chairman Powell didn’t get the Krugman memo that all we need to do is ignore reality to reach a new reality (above). He thinks that inflation is still too high and is warning that to combat increases in the price level, the Federal Reserve will raise the price of the most basic input to economic activity, i.e., raise the interest rates. Of course, if Powell wanted to get away from worrying about interest rates or the debt or any other of the usual problems associated with Keynesian economics of unreality he would immediately get behind the Economic Democracy Act . . . but what would be the fun of having a well-run economy that makes sense?
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| Plenty of room for taxes. |
• Plenty of Room to Raise Taxes! It’s always a dangerous thing to ask somebody with more money than he can ever spend how other people should spend theirs. Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones, the founder and CEO of Tudor Investments, a hedge fund, has declared the way to national solvency is to tax (other) people more and cut benefits, especially Social Security for (other) people. As we’ve been saying for years, however, if you want to put the social order on a sound basis and put government in its place, we need to adopt the Economic Democracy Act., so that people control their own income and don’t have to rely on redistribution or government spending to survive.
• In the Country of the Blind. It appears that China may be falling behind in its quest to become the largest economy in the world, displacing that of the United States. This is being touted as a great victory for the United States, but all it really means is that the United States isn’t losing ground as fast as China. Sometimes who “wins” the race isn’t really a winner, but the one who loses last. Both China and the United States are trapped in the illusion that stock market speculation and government spending are real economic growth. Ordinary people are considered subjects of government benefits or taxpayers, but never as productive people in their own right — which is the principle on which the Economic Democracy Act. is based.
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| "You peasants need to stop being so greedy." |
• No, It Depends on Asset-Backing and Elasticity. Another investment guru, Jeffrey Gundlach, has declared that the way for the United States to maintain the U.S. dollar’s reserve currency status is to cut government spending. Any decent accountant can tell you that merely cutting spending is a clear sign that a business — or a country — is on the skids. Frankly, neither a business nor a country should ever be spending anything that isn’t absolutely necessary in the first place. To cut spending, then, is a sign of defeat and a clear white flag of surrender. The real answer to money troubles is not to cut spending, but to increase revenue — and that means increasing production and that in turn means putting the monetary system in order. A reserve currency needs to be asset-backed and elastic, and that is what the Economic Democracy Act. proposes, along with expanded capital ownership to make everyone productive and revenue generating.
• The Private Sector Doing the Fed’s Work. According to Federal Reserve Chairman Powell, the fluctuations in the bond market as it responds to manipulations in the interest rates by the Federal Reserve is doing the central bank’s job for it by tightening the money supply. That is, by having bonds giving greater yields, people are putting their money into bonds rather than investing in equities . . . which suggests Powell has very little notion of corporate finance. Whether people are putting their money into existing debt or existing equity, it makes no difference to the primary economy because the companies don’t see any of that money. Conditions in the real economy remain the same, and the only question is which hand the Federal Reserve is using to strangle the private sector to favor speculators and politicians. Of course, this would all be a moot point if the country were to adopt the Economic Democracy Act, but nobody seems to be considering that for some reason.
• Why Just Jobs? Why Not Ownership? Word on the street — Wall Street, that is — is that because there is a weak “jobs market,” the country is facing a recession. That, of course, assumes a “job” is the only way that ordinary people can gain income and thereby generate the effective consumer demand essential to keep an economy going . . . since that is the reason for having an economy in the first place. As Adam Smith said is the first principle of economics: “Consumption is the sole end and purpose of production.” Capital ownership can generate consumer demand far more effectively than mere jobs, and that is the assumption behind 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 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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