This week’s news items are a replay of past weeks that suggest the only way to solve a lot of the problems affecting the economy is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act:
• Functional Unemployment. According to an article in Moneywise, the current official unemployment rate — hovering at around 4%, give or take — is deceptive. The “functional unemployment” rate, meaning people who are working but who are not making enough from their labor to meet common domestic needs adequately, is around 25% . . . which was the unemployment rate during the depths of the Great Depression. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the average unemployment rate during the Great Depression in the United States rose to a peak of 24.9% in 1933. Not by coincidence, it was during the depths of the Great Depression that Louis Kelso started thinking about the problem and developed his solution. That is, if people cannot make enough income by selling their labor, they should become owners of capital. It’s not necessary to rely on a job or welfare to gain income. That’s the idea behind the Economic Democracy Act.
• Five-Minute Budget Relief. It sounds simple, and Elon Musk has endorsed it . . . what could go wrong? “‘I could end the deficit in five minutes,’ [Warren] Buffett told CNBC’s Becky Quick in a 2011 interview. ‘You just pass a law that says that any time there’s a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.’” There are a few problems, however. Government spending is, in a very real sense, a tiger by the tail. It sounds good just to cut spending, but as the activities of DoGE have shown, the government has become such an integral part of the economy that you simply can’t cut it out and expect to have no adverse results. To avoid disruption, it’s better to phase it out and ease in the new system instead of going cold turkey. That is one of the strategies to implement the Economic Democracy Act.
• Market Focus Shift. They can’t eliminate the disruption caused by President Trump’s chaotic economic policies, but the financial powers-that-be have been shifting their focus to what the Federal Reserve is doing and away from a concern about tariffs. Of course, neither a focus on political paradox or financial fiascoes is a good way to run an economy, but it’s a step forward. To go the full way to financial and economic sanity, it would be far better to adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
• Explain Again How Government MAKES Money By Spending It. The Big Beautiful Bill is promoted as making money for the country and . . . well, let them speak for themselves: “President Trump and his aides have . . . offered claims that the bill will make money and that the final tally for both the tax-cutting legislation and other parts of the Trump agenda will usher in a new golden age not just for the US economy but also for government debt.” On the contrary, people with a slightly tighter grip on reality claim the Big Beautiful Bill will not make money but will cost anywhere from $8 to 11 trillion. The only real solution is not to think government is going to make money when that’s not it’s job of government to make money, but to govern. That is the idea behind the Economic Democracy Act.
• Contradictory Goals. This looks like a job for “Captain Obvious.” As reported in Fortune magazine, “For months, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has been nervous that the two sides of the Federal Open Market Committee’s dual mandate will end up in opposition.” And what is the Federal Reserve’s “dual mandate”? To keep inflation low and employment up . . . which is a contradiction in the Keynesian system! This is because Keynes assumed the only way to finance new capital and thus employment is to have inflation. That means you can have either low inflation or low unemployment, not both . . . unless Keynes was wrong. That he was wrong is obvious if you accept binary economics, which is the economic theory behind the Economic Democracy Act. You don’t need the Keynesian tradeoff. You can have high employment and low inflation without government deficits.
• 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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