Everyone is obsessing about the results of the U.S. election this week, but life goes on (and on, and on, and on). Regardless how it would have turned out, in our opinion the only thing that will Make America Great Again is to make AMERICANS (or any other nationalities) great again, and that means adopting the Economic Democracy Act:
• A Cost-Increasing Measure. President-elect Trump has made reducing the cost and size of government a priority. One of his proposals is to eliminate what he considers unnecessary departments. There are a few difficulties with that, such as having members of the Civil Service who can’t just be laid off or fired without cause, and a few other things. The biggest problem, however, is that for more than a century, governments all over the world have taken over more and more of the responsibilities — and therefore costs and size — of the private sector, especially families. This looks and sounds good so long as the money is there and the goodies get distributed equitably, but what happens when government can or will no longer take up the slack? Getting rid of departments as a cost-saving measure sounds great but is extremely harmful in practice if people can’t cover out of their own resources what was being provided by government . . . and the reason government was covering it in the first place was people were unable to meet their own needs through their own efforts. What’s the solution? Empower people with the means to meet their own needs through their own efforts by adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
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| Dr. Harold G. Moulton |
• Arguable Point? Not Really. Jerome Powell, the Current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, has declared President-elect Trump cannot “fire” him, no matter how hard he tries. It is evident from the way Powell has been running the Federal Reserve that neither he nor any of the heads of the central bank for nearly a century have any idea how the institution is supposed to function or its primary purposes (to say nothing of the politicians responsible for getting the country into the mess it is in), but you would think Powell and his confreres would at least know who their ultimate boss is, speak softly, and don’t carry any stick at all. Under the Banking Act of 1935, one of the New Deal reforms, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve is a political appointee who serves at the pleasure of the president. As Harold Moulton noted in the aftermath of the 1935 Act, “[T]he Board of Governors [of the Federal Reserve] has been placed more definitely under political control. This is accomplished through that provision of the law which makes the governor of the Board [i.e., the Chairman] removable at the will of the president.” (Harold G. Moulton, Financial Organization and the Economic System. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1938, 417.) Whether that power will be exercised is another matter, as is the prudence of such an arrangement, but the fact remains the president of the United States does indeed have the power to “fire” the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Is there a solution? Yes. The banking reforms of the Economic Democracy Act would put power over the Federal Reserve directly in the hands of the citizens, not politicians.
• Guns or Butter? Putin once declared, despite his war on Ukraine and all the Jewish Nazis of the world, Russians would never have to choose between “guns or butter” . . . and he was absolutely right (“Putin Is Always Right” is painted on water towers all over Russia . . . isn’t it?). Russian soldiers aren’t getting guns, and the price of butter is shooting sky high. It’s not a choice when you don’t have either guns or butter to choose. A woman was caught shoplifting about half a kilo of butter in Russia this past week and was given the choice of prison or being drafted into the military and sent to Ukraine. Even more weirdly, in addition to getting its “guns” from fellow terrorist states, Russia has been forced into buying butter from some of the Arab states at high prices . . . which obtain their butter from Ukraine. Maybe the shoplifter should take the deal. At least she’d be able to get her butter at the source. Or, Russia could dump Putin, stop the war, and adopt the Economic Democracy Act, which would put them in the position not only of being able to pay the monumental reparations the country will be levied for damages and war crimes, but produce their own butter. The task of rebuilding Russia will keep them busy and unable to think about making war on others for at least a century or two once they start digging out from Putin’s imperialism.
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| Getting money the hoard way. |
• Investing in Cash. Yes, this item is labeled “investing in cash,” but you don’t really invest in cash. You speculate in cash and other commodities . . . or you hold them for use or sale. In this case, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is dumping its Apple stock, which it evidently considers overvalued (or why get rid of it?), and holding massive amounts of cash. Why? As an investment? Hardly — Buffett is one of the smartest stock market gamblers in history. He knows full well you don’t “invest” in cash. No, you build up cash reserves in anticipation of spending it or because there’s nothing safe to spend it on . . . and with the stock market soaring like an eagle (supported by the euphoria over Trump’s election), no prudent investor is going to be putting money in the market, but selling short (expectations are too high, and the smart money, e.g., that of Buffett and similar gamblers, is going to bet short rather than long). Our guess is Buffett is building up his cash reserves, selling high and waiting for the inevitable downturn when Trump fails to meet expectations that no one could reasonably meet. Buffett will then swoop in and pick up bargains, buying the now-undervalued shares at cents on the dollar as soon as the market bottoms out in response to people’s disappointment. The alternative? Put the secondary market back on a sound basis by adopting the Economic Democracy Act and put the emphasis back on the primary market in which people produce for consumption, not create fake investments for gambling.
• The Plan is Not Entirely Clear. The Federal Reserve has announced it is cutting interest rates by twenty-five basis points. What does this mean? Frankly, your guess is possibly as good as ours. It is an application of Keynesian theory, and Keynesian theory is based on false assumptions and fantasy. There is also the egregious misunderstanding of the Quantity Theory of Money that thinks you can have a single mathematical equation with three unknowns and think you’re going to be able to come up with a reasonable or even predictable solution. It simply is not possible. The only realistic thing to do is to realize Keynesian economics does not work and adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
• Marriage or Wedding? Once upon a time, people got married to build a life together, have a family, all that sort of thing. The emphasis was on things like dowries (money the bride brought in), marriage settlements (money the groom assigned to the bride), houses, investments, jobs, all that sort of thing to ensure the marriage was at least on a financially sound footing, and the husband and wife could fight about more important things, such as whose in-laws were eviler, why the pie didn’t taste like mother used to make, or why are you wearing that again? The wedding, while not exactly an afterthought, was just the entrance into the stadium, not even the kickoff, and certainly not the main event. Then came the Royal Wedding of Queen Elizabeth II and, with all due respect to Her Majesty, she skrood all of us by raising the bar a little bit too high, creating generations of “Bridezillas” and fantasy wedding entitlements. Too many people nowadays put all the emphasis on the wedding itself and give little if any thought to the reason for getting married. Gone are the days when Marryin’ Sam the Preacher Man would get y’all hitched in a jiffy with his thirty-five cent special, and even supply the boo-kay fo’ fifteen cents extry. Now some people spend more on a wedding than they make in a year, and prospective brides make unrealistic demands of prospective grooms (and probably the other way around, too, although they don’t usually make the news). Case in point: the prospective bride whose demands were so outrageous the prospective groom decided to bag it. This item is a subtle suggestion that people might want to return to reality and focus on future finances for the family, not twinkly trinkets for the twits, and work for the adoption of the Economic Democracy Act.
• Mortgage Rates Rise. Long-term mortgage rates are rising, which means costs are rising and that is the definition of inflation. Housing was already becoming prohibitively expensive for increasing numbers of people, and it doesn’t need increasing costs or economic uncertainty. The only realistic thing to do is adopt the Economic Democracy Act. An important feature of the EDA is the Homeowners Equity Corporation or HEC, which has the potential to get housing costs under control.
• 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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