One thing that struck us this week about the news is how often experts and dictators who aren’t succeeding at solving their own problems are busily solving everyone else’s or threatening to do more of the same. How about if we adopt the Economic Democracy Act and the economists and dictators can do as they want to themselves and their warships and leave the rest of us alone?
• A Phony and Meaningless Economic Indicator. In a rather hysterical (though far from funny) series of analyses, the “experts” are concerned that “M2”, the part of the “Money Supply” composed of savings has been rising steadily for decades. Disaster! Catastrophe! Panic in the streets! There is not enough consumption and too much money for capital investment!! Of course, this is all Keynesian, “Currency Principle” analysis, which assumes as a given that money and credit are a commodity, not the medium of exchange as it is in the Banking Principle. The result? Politicians and economic experts try to fiddle with the “Money Supply” to achieve desired results. There’s just one problem: money derives from economic transactions; economic transactions don’t derive from money. It’s a little like assuming cattle derive from manure, rather than manure derives from cattle. The politicians and academic cattle experts decide to increase the number of cattle, so they manipulate the amount of manure, creating a mountain of artificial manure in the belief this will increase the number of cattle. Obviously, the only real result they would get is to have so much manure in the system it finally breaks down and they end up with no cattle at all as they’ve buried their livestock in a tsunami of their own fake bullsh . . . well, you know. The way to have more cattle, of course, is to get rid of the “residue” by collecting it and putting it to its proper use, keeping a clean range and letting the cattle take it from there. Similarly, if you want to increase economic transactions, you make it possible for people to produce, which gives them the power to consume (Say’s Law), and you do that by giving them access to money and credit creation as needed for actual transactions, not by creating money and hoping the transactions magically appear. And how do you do that? By adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
• Americans Economic Misconceptions. Why are Americans so stupid about the economy . . . according to the experts, anyway? Why . . . because Americans aren’t listening to the experts, of course! All those stupid Americans can’t keep up with how fast the politicians and economists change definitions to create their new realities and (as Keynes put it) “re-edit the dictionary”! Oh, if only governments would implement Keynes’s glorious vision of socialism for the poor, capitalism for the rich, and . . . oh, wait. Never mind. Let’s just dump all the Keynesian fantasy and adopt the Economic Democracy Act instead of trying to create our own weird realities based on false assumptions.
• The Wealthy Have Never Been Wealthier! In a completely surprising revelation — right — a recent study finds that the world’s richest people have more wealth than anybody ever had at any previous time in history! And what are they going to do with it? Accumulate more! The world is saved!! Of course, once the rest of us stop producing what the rich need to live because we die because we can’t afford to live as the rich have all the money, all that wealth will be of no use whatsoever. Why don’t the rich get behind the Economic Democracy Act. so their wealth will mean something? We don’t know, but it might be because being rich doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to do anything other than get rich. The rich are demonstrably very good at that, but evidently not much good at anything else, even spending money, which is why you have money in the first place, or so dumbos like Aristotle thought.
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| “¡Joder, buque de guerra ruso!” |
• Putin Rattles Bigger Sabers. It’s rumored Putin is sending Russian warships to the Caribbean as a show of force to intimidate the United States and the other countries that invaded Russia in a move so secret nobody knows about it . . . except Putin. Aside from wondering if everyone’s middle finger is sufficiently limber to tell the Russian warships what they can do with themselves, there is a question as to whether the Russian navy is in any shape to intimidate anyone. The answer is, of course it is . . . if anyone wants to be intimidated. A warship, no matter how stupid a nation’s policy or incompetent its leaders, is dangerous . . . but Russia might want to be a little circumspect about expanding a war in which after expending incredible effort and resources all they’ve achieved is a stalemate against a country they expected to conquer in three days . . . and which doesn’t even have a navy in any real sense of the term, including the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet, the first such loss since the Russo-Japanese War more than a century ago. So, the real question may be how to say, “FU, Russian warship!” in Spanish. (We have it on good authority it’s “¡Joder, buque de guerra ruso!”)
• Putin Issues More Threats. Putin is now ranting he will provide long-range weapons to other countries to use against the “west” if they don’t allow him to conquer Ukraine and then the rest of the world. Of course, there might be a slight problem if Russia’s current suppliers either can’t keep up with Russia’s own demands or aren’t willing to supply Putin’s latest demands. If Russia has the weaponry to spare, it is certainly not evident in Ukraine.
• 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 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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