Although “May you live in interesting times” is probably not an ancient Chinese curse (although it should be), events this week are both interesting and a bit cursed, if that isn’t tangling syntax a bit too much. In any event, the solution to many of the issues and problems we note this week is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act:
• Tariffs and Regressive Taxation. A “regressive tax” is a tax that falls heavier on the poor than on the rich. A consumption tax — such as a “Value Added Tax” or a sales tax — takes proportionately more from people who spend a greater part of their incomes on consumption; i.e., the greater proportion of your income you spend on consumption, the proportionately greater tax you pay. Under conventional economics which recognizes only existing savings as the sole source for investment in new capital and economic growth (a paradox which begs the question of where the original savings came from to kick start the whole process) government cannot afford to tax the rich because (according to conventional thinking) the rich need their money to purchase new capital to create jobs for the rest of us. It therefore makes sense to tax the poor at a greater rate than the rich. That’s why some people are so enthusiastic about Trump’s tariffs although they shouldn’t be. Even so, as Benzinga points out, “A new analysis from Yale’s Budget Lab shows that the sweeping tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump in 2025 act as a highly regressive tax, hitting America’s poorest households more than three times harder than the richest. According to the Nov. 17 update released on Monday, tariffs implemented this year will reduce after-tax income for the bottom 10% of households by 2.45% in the short run. By contrast, the top 10% of earners will see their after-tax income fall by only 0.77% — a burden roughly one-third as severe.” What we need is an equitable and just tax as proposed in the Economic Democracy Act.
• Miffed MAGAites. Rumor hath it Trump’s loyal MAGA myrmidons are not happy campers. According to reports they are, in fact, somewhat disgruntled. As a recent article in the Washington Post commented, “President Donald Trump faces an unexpected rift in the MAGA movement as Republican officials from statehouses to Capitol Hill warn his full-throated embrace of the tech industry’s artificial intelligence boom risks undermining Americans’ economic security and exposing their children to new harms. Trump has appointed influential tech investors and entrepreneurs to key positions in his administration and backed the sector’s ambitions for AI, scrapping regulations introduced by President Joe Biden and facilitating huge investments from foreign companies and governments into American AI firms.” This is troubling in many respects, not the least of which is that if the AI industry requires “huge investments”, why not let the MAGAites and all other Americans become the owners of the AI industry instead of foreigners so that the goodies and benefits stay in the United States? This is the goal of the Economic Democracy Act.
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| Louis Kelso |
• How to Worry the Federal Reserve. There is an “unusual trend” in the economy right now that is worrying the Federal Reserve. As described in an article from CNN, “Something in the US economy isn’t adding up, and it’s rattling the people charged with wrangling inflation and keeping the labor market intact. US companies have sharply slowed their hiring this year, hesitant to invest without knowing the full effects of President Donald Trump’s sweeping economic policies. The economy lost jobs in June and August, and the average pace of job gains for the three months ending in September was only around 62,000, according to the Labor Department.” We hate to be the ones to break the bad news to the Federal Reserve, but this “unusual trend” is built into Keynesian economics, and deliberately so. As Louis Kelso and generations of political scientists and philosophers have pointed out for a few thousand years, when government controls the economy (usually by control of money and credit), then government controls people; political democracy absolutely requires economic democracy to survive for any length of time — and government control of the economy by any means can hardly be described as “democracy.” What’s the solution? Take the money power out of the hands of the government and give it back to actual people (NOT “the People”) as proposed in the Economic Democracy Act.
• Healthcare is Killing Us. It might seem something of a paradox (so what else is new?) but the rising cost of healthcare is enough to make people sick. When added to the rising cost of food (11%+), clothing (5-6% or so overall, 24% for some items), and shelter (3.8%+), many people see the cost of living far exceeding the cost of dying. As noted in an article in Politico, “Charities that help people cover their medical bills say they’re seeing an alarming increase in requests for help. Worse yet, they say, it’s coming even before cuts to Medicaid in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act take effect and the potential expiration of Obamacare subsidies at year’s end. The charities are warning of exploding medical debt and lower survival rates for diseases like cancer if Congress doesn’t act.” We agree that Congress should act, but in addition to taking care of the short-term problem of immediate healthcare cost increases, there needs to be an actual solution put in place instead of merely (if you’ll excuse the expression) a band aid. That means in addition to immediate help, which may take the form of public and private assistance, something needs to be done to make it possible for people to meet their own healthcare and other needs with their own resources — and that means adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
• The Price of Anti-Vaxing. Recently in a discussion in social media we were informed that forcing military personnel to submit to COVID vaccination was a “war crime.” We eventually got the individual making the ludicrous claim to be quiet about it but not issue a retraction. Yes, we’re aware it might hurt some people’s feelings, and, yes, we are aware the anti-vaccination movement has been gaining ground in recent years . . . and so have several diseases formerly under control, such as measles. As reported by NBC News, “The surging number of measles cases around the world is a stark warning sign that outbreaks of other vaccine-preventable diseases could be next, the World Health Organization warned Friday. ‘It’s crucial to understand why measles matters,’ said Dr. Kate O’Brien, director of the WHO’s Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals. ‘Its high transmissibility means that even small drops in vaccine coverage can trigger outbreaks, like a fire alarm going off when smoke is detected first.’ That is, measles is often the first disease to pop up when vaccination rates overall drop.” This is the sort of thing that happens when people turn medicine — or anything else — into a political issue, as they are wont to do when they feel powerless. And why do people feel powerless? Because they don’t own capital, and that can be remedied with a shot of common sense called the Economic Democracy Act.
• If I Had a Hundred Thousand. According to word on the street about the dating scene (as if we knew anything about it) what women want (at least the ones who appear on the social media and who might [cough, cough] not represent the real views of women and what they want) is the 6-6-6 in prospective “Significant Others” of the male sex (yeah, SEX, not “gender”; sex is a biological term, gender is a grammatical term on this blog). And the 6-6-6 is . . . what? Six feet in height, six-pack abs (we had to look that one up), and a six-figure income, i.e., at least $100,000. Presumably, men looking for Significant Others are also looking for something similar (well, maybe not the six-pack abs) but are not quite as vocal about it. Well, sorry, ladies (and gentlemen), but according to Fortune magazine, even “earners” (both men and women) making six-figure incomes are having a hard time making ends meet: “Even Americans earning six figures are feeling squeezed as the rising cost of living forces those in top income brackets to cut back on expenses and look for ways to stretch their dollars, according to a survey from the Harris Poll. The findings reveal a surprising sense of economic anxiety, with 64% of six-figure earners saying their income isn’t a milestone for success but merely the bare minimum for staying afloat.” Yes, it’s easy to feel a bit cynical about people making more than the median income ($83,730 in 2024) and megabucks more than the individual poverty line of $15,650, but these are statistics, which notoriously often have little to do with reality. The solution, of course, is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act as soon as possible.
• Booming Economy, Disappearing Jobs. Although many commentators are, er, commenting on the (to them) bizarre paradox of a booming economy and job disappearance, few if any of the so-called experts know what to do about it except, perhaps, spend massive amounts of cash and valuable resources “creating jobs” in a futile attempt to make it possible for people to gain an adequate and secure income. That ordinary people realize the futility of artificial job creation for the sole purpose of redistributing existing wealth instead of making it possible for people to become genuinely productive with their labor and their capital is demonstrated by the fact that — according to the Associated Press — layoffs are “piling up” and anxiety among those still employed is rising. As noted in the article, “Amid wider economic uncertainty, some analysts have said that businesses are at a ‘no-hire, no fire’ standstill. That's caused many to limit new work to only a few specific roles, if not pause openings entirely. At the same time, sizable layoffs have continued to pile up — raising worker anxieties across sectors. Some companies have pointed to rising operational costs spanning from U.S. President Donald Trump's barrage of new tariffs and shifts in consumer spending. Others cite corporate restructuring more broadly — or are redirecting money to artificial intelligence. Federal employees have encountered additional doses of uncertainty, impacting worker sentiment around the job market overall. Shortly after Trump returned to office at the start of the year, federal jobs were cut by the thousands. And the record 43-day government shutdown also left many without paychecks.” Whatever the reason, it becomes increasingly clear that something other than the usual Keynesian solution is required, and people can become productive by owning capital — including AI — in addition to or instead of their labor and becoming independent of government aid or subsidies. That is the goal of 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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