This week we have even more reasons for adopting the Economic Democracy Act as soon as possible, if only to keep the system itself running, to say nothing of protecting individual and social rights that seem to be in the process of being nullified or just completely ignored:
Jesse Rothstein
• Deep Recession Unavoidable. According to Jesse Rothstein, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of California, Berkeley, “It seems almost unavoidable at this point that we are headed for a deep, deep recession. Just based on 200K+ federal firings & pullback of contracts, the March employment report (to be released April 4) seems certain to show bigger job losses than any month ever outside of a few in 2008-9 and 2020.” As noted in an article in The Huffington Post, “The gutting of government is just one Trump policy that economists have warned could plunge America into a new financial crisis. Others include Trump’s imposition of tariffs on imports and his vow to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz earlier this week said the tariffs could cause stagflation — or stagnant economic growth, high inflation and rising unemployment. He added that the U.S. is becoming ‘a scary place to invest’ amid the ripping up of government contracts.” All this could be avoided, of course, by adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
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| Max Stier |
• Economic Disaster. Fortune magazine agrees with Jesse Rothstein (or he’s agreeing with them, as Fortune published first), President Trump’s unilateral cutting of the federal workforce is a sure recipe for “economic disaster” in certain parts of the United States. “Cities and towns with a high number of federal workers have been able to better weather previous economic and labor market downturns in the past, economists tell Fortune. But what was once an asset has now become a liability, and the federal worker cullings could have devastating effects on those local economies. ‘You take a baseball bat to the United States government, and the things that are broken are going to ripple throughout the entire economy,’ Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, tells Fortune.” Again, the solution is not to try and impose desired results, but to organize in social justice, as encouraged by the methods embodied in the Economic Democracy Act.
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| "Useless Eaters" under the Aktion T4 Program |
• Booming Welfare State. According to Moneywise, “Bestselling author and geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan is warning that the U.S. is locked into massive, multi-trillion-dollar deficits for decades — and it’s all because of one generation: baby boomers.” By voting themselves a huge package of entitlements, the so-called “Baby Boomers” have inadvertently put themselves in the category of what the Nazis referred to as “useless eaters.” An aggressive demand to eliminate people who take more than they contribute to society in economic terms was the justification for the Nazi’s “Aktion T4,” a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia targeting people with disabilities in Nazi Germany. Not to be too insistent, but the solution is to make it possible for people to take care of themselves without government assistance by adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
• The Fake Asset. We’ve all been hearing about “fake news,” but no one has been paying too much attention to “fake assets” such as the Bitcoin . . . a “virtual commodity” consisting solely of electronic impulses and representing nothing of value. The question is why something that effectively means nothing — the value of the Bitcoin — has achieved such importance. We need to get away from both fake news and fake assets and adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
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| Elaine Kamarck |
• “All Hell to Break Loose”. According to yet another article in Fortune magazine, “all hell is going to break loose,” at least economically speaking. As Elaine Kamarck, who was senior policy advisor to Vice President Al Gore during the Clinton administration, said, “‘If these 25-year-olds that nobody knows [Musk’s Myrmidons] and nobody has voted on start making changes to the Social Security database, the IRS database, all hell is going to break loose,’ she added. ‘If this goes on long enough, at some point the reverberations are going to be politically deadly.’” What’s the alternative? Adopt the Economic Democracy Act so that government’s role in people’s lives can be reduced naturally, rather than by unilateral fiat.
• 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 (now with an imprimatur), 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., 52 or more copies) at the wholesale price, send an email to info@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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