Some of this week’s news items might come across as a trifle surreal but we can assure you they are drawn from today’s headlines. The stories are true. None of the names have been changed because there are too few innocents to protect. Of course, many of the non-innocents would lose their opportunities to inflict themselves on others if legislatures would adopt the Economic Democracy Act:
"WHAT??? I lost my seniority at Walmart??"
• Fall of the Machines. Chalk it up to the victory of man over machine, but not in a good way. Walmart has decided to start phasing out self-checkout due to a massive increase in theft by people circumventing the system. This presumably means they will replace the self-checkout with human beings, but not necessarily. Nor does it mean that human wages will increase to allow for the increased productivity or at least the greater workload. In any event, there is nothing we can do about the increase in theft, but we could suggest a change in the compensation system that would allow Walmart to have more people as checkers and pay them more: shift from fixed costs to variable, at least above a certain level. By shifting as much compensation to profit sharing people can be paid more without adding to costs . . . which means less fixed costs and thus greater profits to be shared. Walter Reuther, president of the UAW, recommended this back in the late 1960s as a way of saving American industry, and it would have worked, except “they” wouldn’t go for it, and as a result, a lot of American industry moved to other countries. It’s not too late to fix it, though. Adopting the Economic Democracy Act. would go a long way toward restoring the American economy back to sanity.
• More Complicated Deliberations. According to a report on Monday in Yahoo! Finance, “President Trump’s weekend strike on Iran’s nuclear sites will likely make that path [to the Federal Reserve making a decision about interest rates] even cloudier in the near term.” That’s one way of putting it. Of course, since the interest rate as determined by the Federal Reserve is based on bad, even false assumptions about money, credit, and reality, “that path” is not merely cloudy, but completely obscured. Yes, the attack on Iran’s nuclear sites (or anything else) can reasonably be expected to influence interest rates whether set artificially or determined by the market, but in the former case it means having to second guess or even attempting to create reality, while in the latter case it means letting it happen naturally . . . as proposed in the Economic Democracy Act.
Krishna Guha
• Dead Economists Society. According to a
Reuters finance news article, “‘Nominating the next Fed chair now with the
expectation that this person would be an active alternative voice on monetary
policy for the best part of a year would confuse the market...in ways that
would not help advance rate cuts,’ [Evercore ISI vice chair and former New York
Fed official Krishna] Guha wrote. ‘The intended nominee . . . would be unable
to exercise real influence on policy for some time, and could lose credibility
critiquing a Committee he would need to manage upon taking over.’” With all due respect to Guhu, though, Powell
doesn’t have the power “to exercise real influence on policy” either. Under Keynesian economic theory, the Federal
Reserve, the U.S. government, and every other central bank and government on
Earth are mindless robots. As Keynes declared
in his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, “Practical men, who believe themselves
to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of
some defunct economist.” Of
course, the defunct economist to which they are enslaved is Keynes himself, but
why be picky? On the other hand, why be
a slave at all? Why not adopt the
Economic Democracy Act.
• Running Out of Money Again. According to an article on Yahoo! Finance, the United States is going to run out of money unless Congress allows itself to create more money to spend so the economy doesn’t crash and burn; “A new projection of Washington's looming ‘X date,’ when the US government will be unable to pay its bills because of the debt ceiling cap, finds that the deadline is likely to fall between Aug. 15 and Oct. 3 unless Congress acts.” First, the fixed idea that money can’t exist unless the government issues debt is a socialist idea that came from Georg Friedrich Knapp by way of John Maynard Keynes. (It’s right there in the opening passages of Keynes’s Treatise on Money, 1930.) Second, since when do a bunch of politicians who don’t understand money have the smarts to know how much money to create? (They don’t.) Third . . . we’ll stop, because we could go on forever. The answer is to pass the Economic Democracy Act which eventually would result in phasing out all government money creation and thus the debt ceiling problem at the root.
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| Addicted to money |
• Another Era of Drug-Induced Good Feeling. In case you were not aware of it, money is a drug. Weirdly, unlike other drugs, not only is money a drug, but the hope of getting some of it, as well as getting more of it is also a drug. As the Bible has it, money isn’t the root of all evil. LOVE of money is the root of all evil. That is why the news from USA Today is a little bit of meaninglessness: the stock market is soaring again on receipt of news about a “deal” with China. As the article says, “U.S. stocks extended gains by midday, with the broad S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq climbing to record highs, on a final trade agreement with China, an expected trade pact with the European Union by President Donald Trump’s July 9 deadline, and hopes for more to come.” The answer? You guessed it. Adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
• Draw the Graph Then Plot the Points. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has expressed concern about the reliability of the economic data on which the Federal Reserve bases its decisions. This, frankly, is one of the biggest problems with the global hegemony of Keynesian economics. One of the principles of Keynesian economics is that the State has the power to “re-edit the dictionary” regarding the definition of money or anything else, according to Keynes in the opening passages of his Treatise on Money (1930). That being the case, what the data mean — or even what the data are — is often a matter of expedience or even ignorance. Everything is subject to change at a moment’s notice whenever someone with the power to do so decides X is really Y or up is really down, left is right, or anything else. The only solution we can see to this Orwellian situation is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
• 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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