As they say in the journalism biz, no news is good news . . . and none of the news items we have this week are good, and not even all that new. It has become a depressing and endless round of trying to figure out what a certain U.S. president has done and what he is going to do next and then reverse himself completely before he throws his next ally under the bus so fast you can hear the bones crunch and then goes back to whatever he was doing in the first place. Or second. Would you believe third? Why doesn’t Congress adopt the Economic Democracy Act so the rest of us can get back to real life and the rich and powerful can perform their antics for our entertainment instead of to our detriment:
• Feeling Like Owners. Walmart says it pays its “star managers” huge salaries so they “feel like owners.” Here’s a wild and crazy idea: Why not turn every Walmart employee into an owner, pay managers (and everyone else) a market-determined wage or salary, cut everyone in on profit sharing instead of raising fixed wages and benefits for a few (increasing costs and keeping prices high), deliver the highest value at the lowest price to consumers, and watch profits soar? Increasing fixed wages and salaries — often the single largest item on an organization’s income statement — increases fixed costs and thus fuels inflation. As labor leader Walter Reuther pointed out in the late 1960s, this makes America less competitive. As he went on to say, however, turning ordinary workers into owners and having increases in pay and benefits come from profits instead of adding to costs would make America more competitive AND raise quality standards naturally as owners tend to care more about such things than mere hirelings. Experience has proved Reuther correct. As studies by the National Center for Employee Ownership have shown, worker-owned companies with profit sharing and participatory management are 150% more profitable than otherwise comparable companies. In other words, if you want your company to come out ahead, make every worker an owner and make sure they have the full rights of ownership. They won’t just “feel like owners,” they will act like owners because they are owners. If you want your country to come out ahead and be “great” again instead of a pariah and a laughingstock when it is not viewed with anger or dread, adopt the Economic Democracy Act and see how fast it takes the lead among nations . . . in a good way.
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| Henry George |
• Trump’s Tariffs and George’s Single Tax. We finally figured out where President Trump might have gotten his theories about how tariffs work and what they will do: the “single tax” proposal of the 19th century agrarian socialist Henry George. According to George, turning the State into the “universal landlord” by taking all rent of land-as-land as the only tax would free non-landowners from all taxation, lower prices, create jobs, spur manufacturing, and basically establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. Only landlords would be taxed. Everyone else would get off scot-free. (BTW, a “scot” is a special kind of tax, not a reference to Scotland.) In reality, landlords would simply raise rents on everything else (e.g., the buildings and other fixtures) increase fees, and so on, to cover the single tax out of other sources of income. This is similar to the way some universities in Europe offer “free” tuition to all students . . . and raise the fees for everything else to high levels, making it economical for students to study in the U.S. or in tuition-charging European universities. President Trump still seems to be laboring under the delusion that exporters pay tariffs (e.g., a “tuition free” public university might charge €0 in tuition, but €50,000 in various fees, while a private university might charge €40,000 in tuition but €5,000 in various fees). No, importers pay tariffs, and pass the costs on to the customer, in this case the American consumer (or to manufacturers, who pass the cost on to the consumer), who ends up paying the entire tax; tariffs are extremely regressive taxes that fall most heavily on the poor whose income is spent on consumption, and affects the ultra-rich hardly at all . . . until the economy takes a downturn due to decreased consumer demand and they aren’t raking in the money as fast as they were before. Tariffs won’t Make America Great Again, but the Economic Democracy Act could, if Congress would adopt it.
• Deliberately Crashing the Markets? Earlier this week before backpedaling on his resolve never to backpedal, President Trump released a video claiming he was crashing stock markets around the world on purpose. The rationale is extremely unclear, but the results are only to be expected when attempting to manipulate any kind of market: complete chaos. The rational or logical alternative is, of course, the Economic Democracy Act, with the real problem being how to get the powers-that-be to consider the EDA instead of just running around panicking as things fall apart.
• Fake Social Security News. The Social Security Administration, which has itself been the victim of “fake news” and weird audits conducted by DoGE non-auditors, this past week inadvertently spread its own fake news: millions of Social Security recipients received notices that their payments had been stopped. What caused this was a series of glitches in the computer system that were not fixed because the people who had the responsibility for fixing them had been dismissed by DoGE in the name of efficiency. Of course, the real way to make the system more efficient is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act and keep the Social Security system in place as a social safety net.
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| "My beautiful hair . . ." |
• Making Showers Great Again. In a rather surreal turn of events, President Trump has issued an executive order eliminating water conservation measures: “President Donald Trump, after complaining about it for years, signed an order to lift restrictions on water pressure in showers on Wednesday, saying he wanted to ‘take care of my beautiful hair’.” As the article from Reuters put it, “Trump’s executive order is aimed at reversing efficiency and water conservation steps taken by the last two Democratic presidents, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.” We’re not sure how the Economic Democracy Act would resolve this situation, but there’s probably something that could be done.
• 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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