News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 22

Ex-president Trump has been convicted, but what difference will it make?  We predict no difference at all for good or ill . . . unless Congress wises up and adopts the Economic Democracy Act:

Putin’s Tiger by the Tail

According to Renaud Foucart, a senior economics lecturer at Lancaster University in a recent article in Business Insider, Putin has put Russia into a “lose-lose” position.  In a “tiger by the tail” scenario, the country cannot afford to continue the war against Ukraine, but neither can it afford to stop.  According to Foucart’s analysis, the Russian economy has become so dependent on the war that “defense” spending is the only thing keeping up the illusion of viability.

JTW Podcast: Fulton Sheen on Firing Line

William F. Buckley on Firing Line interviewing Fulton J. Sheen.  Buckley tries his usual one-upmanship, and for some reason doesn’t come off too well:

News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 21

Not much has been happening in the Global Justice Movement this week . . .that we can report about!  A great deal has been happening, but mostly setting the stage for what we’re working on, primarily getting the Economic Democracy Act adopted:

Just Third Way Tax Reforms

 As the saying goes, nothing is inevitable but death and taxes, and hopefully not in that order.  That being the case, how should taxation (for we don’t claim any power over death) be made as fair and just as possible?  We have some suggestions, consistent with the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism.

JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Aristotle

A little knowledge may be a dangerous thing, but at least according to Mortimer Adler, you cannot have too much of it, or moral virtue, either.  As for what else Adler has to say, view the video:

News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 20

We can save you a lot of time on this week’s news items.  People who think they are in charge of the economy are making the same stupid decisions week after week, and we are getting nowhere fast as no one considers adopting the Economic Democracy Act:

Keynesian Economics and Income Distribution

Occasionally, we get a question from a reader that forces us to think . . . what on Earth Keynes and his disciples thought they were doing and what they are still trying to do with Keynes’s backwards economics.  Recently we received the following question:

JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Aristotle’s Theory of Happiness

Someone (actually a lot of someones) told they deserved to be “happy.”  Since that usually involved wrecking someone else’s life to get something they wanted, it is hard to see how anyone deserves to be “happy” under those conditions.  What, however, if happiness meant something other than merely satisfying your own selfish desires?

News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 19

The news items speak for themselves, so all we’ll say this week is that someone soon ought to realize the only way out of the current mess is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act:

The Keynesian Fairy State

Today’s blog posting is adapted from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

One of the first things a student must learn about Keynesian economics is there are certain questions one must not ask, such as, How could Keynes reject Say’s Law of Markets when he couldn’t even define it correctly?  What did it mean when Keynes declared inflation — which means a rise in the price level — isn’t really inflation until after “full employment” is reached, and that a rise in the price level before reaching full employment is due to “other factors” and isn’t really inflation . . . meaning a rise in the price level isn’t really a rise in the price level until Keynes said it is a rise in the price level?

JTW Podcast: Mortimer Adler on Reading Aristotle Backwards

Yes, we know some people have enough trouble reading Aristotle (or anyone or anything else) frontwards, but in this instance, Mortimer Adler has some interesting points to make:

News from the Network, Vol. 17, No. 18

Week after week, one thing becomes crystal clear (as if it hadn’t already): Keynesian economics isn’t working and has never worked . . . but the politicians and so-called experts insist with all their heart and our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor that it’s going to work, or they’re going to see that we die while they try.  Or they could do the sensible thing and adopt: the Economic Democracy Act:

The Theory of Certitude

Today’s blog posting is adapted from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Socialism as promoted by Robert Owen, Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, François-Marie-Charles Fourier, and others, sought to abolish traditional concepts of private property, marriage and family, and religion.  In their place would be new institutions that might go by the same name and even have the same outward form as the old institutions (Saint-Simon, for instance, called his system, “the New Christianity”), but the substance would be completely different.