The big Just Third Way news this week is the meeting in Rome of two long-time CESJ members and supporters — and we have pictures! This might not seem Earth-shaking, but the fact that people are still fighting for justice in this world ought to get a little recognition, and might ignite a few more people with imagination to start pushing for the Economic Democracy Act:
(Left to right) María Teresa and Rina
• All Roads Lead to Rome . . . Eventually. Rina, who is living in Perugia, and María Teresa, visiting from Argentina, two CESJ stalwarts, met in Rome this week and had dinner on us (and may again, tonight . . . which is right now, given the time difference between Virginia and Italy), and exchanged views on the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism. That’s not unusual, given the fact that María Teresa translated CESJ’s book, Economic Personalism, into Spanish, and Rina checked the translation. The link is to the free e-book edition of the Spanish translation; we’re still waiting for Amazon to put up the listing. We’ll let you know as soon as Amazon makes it available. In any event, although the meeting was (mostly) purely social, we are looking forward to getting something moving in the near future, especially given the recent release of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on the 135th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. This should be interesting, given the request in the new encyclical that people do something. We know what to do — adopt the Economic Democracy Act (EDA) — and all we need to do is let the pope know about it . . . do you think he’d take a bribe? A Chicago deep-dish pizza? How about a couple of White Sox tickets? Or should that be White Socks tix?
• Letter to Trump. You probably didn’t hear too much about it, what with Fight Club getting ready to have an event on the front lawn of the White House and the TikTok dot cake obsession, but this past week President Zelensky of Ukraine sent a five-page open letter to President Trump regarding . . . what was it again? Oh, yes, the largest war since The Big One in Europe and the allegation that perhaps something more might be done to bring the conflict to a speedy end. After all, President Trump stated he could end the war against Ukraine in 24 hours. Of course, he didn’t say which 24 hours, and there still remains the question of how to finance the rebuilding of the country and what is left of Russia as well without bankrupting the world — a question we are prepared to answer with the Economic Democracy Act (EDA). There is, after all, no reason why rebuilding Ukraine can’t benefit the people of Ukraine and be done in a way that it pays for itself and builds ownership of the country into the people of the country.
• Inflation Good or Bad, It’s Still Bad. Yes, we are aware most of the so-called experts these days consider inflation essential to economic growth. People have been brainwashed to accept this, largely because of Keynesian economics, but also because of the fixed — and erroneous belief that you need to accumulate savings to finance economic growth . . . a belief that has been proven wrong so many times that it has become somewhat wearying to keep doing it. That is why the report in Yahoo! Finance is at one and the same time disheartening and meaningless. The plain fact is that production doesn’t come from money, money comes from production. If you increase the amount of money for whatever reason without linking it to production, you will have inflation. That’s why, while such quotes as these are depressing, they are also meaningless: “The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge surged to a three-year high in April, adding to growing concern at the central bank and on Wall Street over broadening price pressures. The Personal Consumption Expenditures Index rose 3.8% in April as the conflict in the Middle East pushed oil prices higher. That was in line with expectations and up from 3.5% in March. Excluding volatile food and energy prices on a so-called “core” basis, PCE was up 3.3%, also in line with expectations, and up a tenth from 3.2% in March. Still, that’s the highest core reading in two and a half years.” Frankly, if the monetary and economic system were put on a rational basis, most of the talk about the “right” amount of inflation to have would disappear because zero inflation is the “right” amount to have: anything else picks the pockets of the poor for the benefit of the rich. And the only way we know of to get a handle on things is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act (EDA).
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| Except legally it's not yours. Or mine. |
• Saving Social Security. If there is one thing people understand less than money, it’s the Social Security system. This is understandable, because a misimpression was deliberately fostered from the very beginning. To avoid being labeled “socialist” in common with other New Deal programs that came out of Fabian socialism, the redistributive, “pay-as-you-go” program was peddled as some kind of savings/investment scheme in which you paid money into “your” account and drew on when you retired. The powers-that-be back in the day were very careful not to point out that you weren’t making contributions but paying a tax and that it isn’t really “your money.” The illusion was legally dispelled in a Supreme Court case in 1960 (Flemming v. Nestor) which held that, no, you do NOT own the money in “your” account. Social Security is an entitlement, not private property. Entitlements can be altered or revoked by legislative action, whereas private property is protected by the Constitution and cannot be seized without due process and just compensation. That’s why every time someone floats the idea that the Social Security trust fund should be invested in the stock market, it’s a no-go from the very beginning — and the experts are starting to catch on. As reported in Yahoo! Finance, “The proposal would create an investment fund financed with $1.5 trillion in borrowed funds that would then be invested in equities. Over 75 years, the government would borrow an additional $25.1 trillion to cover benefit gaps, bringing total borrowing to $26.6 trillion. The appeal is straightforward: Stocks historically generate higher returns than the Treasury securities currently held by the Social Security trust fund. Those higher returns could, in theory, reduce the need for future tax hikes or benefit cuts.” A study delivered the rather sobering news that “even if stocks deliver a strong 6.5% real annual return over the next 75 years, the Cassidy-Kaine proposal would fully repay its borrowing only about 40% of the time.” In other words, things would be much worse than ever before. And the real solution? Adopt the Economic Democracy Act (EDA), which is self-financing and doesn’t rely on borrowing trillions of dollars that the government doesn’t have in the first place.
• Good Luck with That. It’s a little surreal, but the same crop of college graduates that is worried about whether they will be able to find jobs is the same crop of college graduates that is demanding rather large amounts of pay, according to an article in USA Today: “Newly minted college graduates may have to manage their expectations about that first job. The average college student expects to earn $80,000 after graduation, according to a new survey from Clever Real Estate. But the actual starting salary for college graduates is closer to $56,000.” Part of the problem, of course, is viewing a college education as job training or worse as ideological indoctrination. Another problem, of course, is that, yes, there are some graduates who can haul down $80K or even more, but they are usually the people working with AI . . . and who will be actively working themselves out of jobs in a very short time. The only solution is one we’ve been pointing out for years: adopt the Economic Democracy Act (EDA), so that income does not depend on having a job, and people can do the work they want, however much or little it pays.
• 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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