The Initiative on Economic Personalism is in the process of getting organized and progress is being made, although nothing that can yet be reported except to say it is going well. As for the rest of the world, it appears that the need to adopt the Economic Democracy Act as soon as possible becomes more critical by the minute:
• The Crummy-Good Economy. It’s all how you look at it. If you’re rich with piles of stocks and bonds and the stock market is booming, then the economy is doing good and so are you. If, however, you’re maybe not so rich and own nothing in the way of capital investments, your real wage rate is going down even if you have a job, and the future is looking increasingly grim. Evidently, the usual economic indicators don’t indicate what they used to. That is why, as reported in an article in Yahoo! Finance, people are feeling “crummy” in what looks like an economic golden age . . . on paper. As the article states, “By many economic measures, these are boom times. But for millions of Americans, it doesn't feel that way. Even though inflation has cooled from earlier this year, it's still climbing, and living costs have steadily been outrunning wage growth for several months. That divergence helps explain why buying groceries, opening utility bills, and browsing home listings feels so dispiriting.” Ordinary people just aren’t able to keep up. The solution, as you might expect, is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act (EDA).
• Vatican Solar Farm. What with all the bad news, it’s nice to hear something nice. Or at least not naughty. According to BGR, the Vatican is going green and will soon be getting all its energy needs met with a “solar farm.” Now all they need is for everyone in the world to have a Capital Ownership Account by having each country adopt the Economic Democracy Act (EDA) so that everyone who works in the Vatican doesn’t have to worry about the cost of living in a country that has no productive industry.
• Fo’ Fifteen Cents Extry. In the musical play, “Li’l Abner,” Marryin’ Sam the Preacher Man specializes in the $2 wedding, in which he doesn’t even take off his hat, although “Fo’ fifteen cents extra [he’ll] furnish the bride’s boo-kay.” The cut-rate wedding — with or without the bride’s bouquet — is achieving a new level of popularity and not just in Dogpatch. As reported in an article in Cosmopolitan magazine, “TikTok is filled with people talking up the perks of having a micro-wedding, raving about how they’re ‘low stress’ and ‘intimate.’ But there is also a big theme that plenty are calling out, too: These smaller weddings can be one way to cut costs when money is tight, as it is for most people right now.” We don’t really take a stand on weddings being cheap or expensive, but if people had access to capital ownership through the Economic Democracy Act (EDA), they could have the wedding they want, without worrying about the cost one way or another.
• Caring About Bond Yields. To be sure, the last thing on the mind of a typical reader of this blog is the effect a rise or fall in bond yields will have on his or her life. That is about to change, at least according to an article in Yahoo! Finance. As the article states, “A worldwide government bond sell-off intensified today with a ferocity that should alarm every investor, big and small. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note — the single most important interest rate in the world, the rate that sets the price of everything from a mortgage to a car loan to a credit card — just hit its highest level since January 2025.” Further, this seems to be happening throughout the world. It doesn’t matter, then, if you don’t own any bonds. The “hit” is going to, er, hit you right between the eyes in the form of higher prices for virtually everything. And this is on top of the problems resulting from Trump’s tariffs, Trump’s war, Trump’s market manipulation, and so on. Aside from being a very negative effect of having the State play such an important role in the economy, it emphasizes the fact that so many people have so little control over their own lives that the internet on government debt actually makes a difference in people’s economic wellbeing. What’s the solution? You mean aside from adopting the Economic Democracy Act (EDA)? There may not be one . . . except for adopting the Economic Democracy Act.
• Saved By Tariffs . . . Or Not. Despite all the problems with Trump’s Terrible Tariffs, such as being levied without the consent of Congress for purposes that at best seem based on whim, are an additional tax on American consumers already being crushed by rising prices and falling incomes, are completely arbitrary and chaotic, at least they saved the automobile industry in the United States . . . right? Wrong. According to an article in Time magazine, the data tell a different story than the Trump narrative (so what else is new?). As the article states, “‘I’ve revived, and indeed saved, the Automobile Business in our America,’ Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social. ‘That’s because of what I've done with TARIFFS.’ Manufacturers, however, have reported substantial tariff-related costs, and the auto industry’s production, sales, and employment have all declined since Trump returned to the White House. Experts tell TIME that Trump’s escalating trade war with Canada could put further pressure on a $1.2 trillion industry, weakening its global competitiveness. . . . Trump now plans to double existing tariffs, despite warnings that doing so could drive up production costs and undercut a vital American industry.” Frankly, the only thing we can say at this point is to recall how the late Walter Reuther of the UAW proposed to save the U.S. auto industry. As he said, “The breakdown in collective bargaining in recent years is due to the difficulty of labor and management trying to equate the relative equity of the worker and the stockholder and the consumer in advance of the facts…. If the workers get too much, then the argument is that that triggers inflationary pressures, and the counter argument is that if they don’t get their equity, then we have a recession because of inadequate purchasing power. We believe this approach (progress sharing) is a rational approach because you cooperate in creating the abundance that makes the progress possible, and then you share that progress after the fact, and not before the fact. Profit sharing would resolve the conflict between management apprehensions and worker expectations on the basis of solid economic facts as they materialize rather than on the basis of speculation as to what the future might hold…. If the workers had definite assurance of equitable shares in the profits of the corporations that employ them, they would see less need to seek an equitable balance between their gains and soaring profits through augmented increases in basic wage rates. This would be a desirable result from the standpoint of stabilization policy because profit sharing does not increase costs. Since profits are a residual, after all costs have been met, and since their size is not determinable until after customers have paid the prices charged for the firm’s products, profit sharing as such cannot be said to have any inflationary impact upon costs and prices…. Profit sharing in the form of stock distributions to workers would help to democratize the ownership of America’s vast corporate wealth. (Testimony before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, February 20, 1967.) It is still not too late to implement Reuther’s vision by adopting the Economic Democracy Act (EDA).
• Consumer Debt Divide. A good argument can be made that the credit card saved Keynesian economics by allowing people to buy now and pay later with cheaper inflated dollars. Unfortunately, the combination of inadequate income and inflation is eventually deadly; like the high one gets from drug addition, the victim needs to keep increasing the dose until it kills him. Similarly, not only does the consumer credit addict need more income to meet today’s needs and repay yesterday’s debt, but the rising price level also ensures he will need ever-increasing amounts of consumer credit just to keep falling behind as labor becomes worth less in competition with advancing technology. That is why, as reported in an article in Yahoo! Finance, “Growing credit card balances are a reality for many Americans in 2026. Since the second quarter of 2025, U.S. credit card balances have increased from $1.21 trillion to $1.26 trillion, according to the New York Fed's Household Debt and Credit Report. Experian data shows average consumer credit card balances are also up slightly, from $6,618 in 2025 to $6,659 today.” That doesn’t sound too bad until you realize the “K-shaped economy” virtually ensures that the lower (and lower and lower) income levels are unlikely ever to get out of debt and face ultimate disaster. Again, as we keep saying, the only solution is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act (EDA) as soon as possible.
• A Love-H-AI-te Relationship. Everybody loves AI . . . except when they don’t. According to an article in Politico, Americans love AI, but they don’t like the infrastructure that presumably necessarily accompanies it. As the article explains, “They're ugly. They're noisy. They sprawl across the landscape. They gobble up energy and water. Americans hate data centers and don't trust the Big Tech companies that need them. But they love using the artificial intelligence models they power. More than half of Americans used an AI chatbot in July, according to new data from Morning Consult. And it's not just experimenting — Americans are increasingly using AI chatbots multiple times a week. Yet 70 percent of Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their community, according to a Gallup poll from May.” What’s the solution? First, a moratorium on further AI implementation until control issues and the data center problem is resolved. Second, adopt the Economic Democracy Act (EDA) — which might lead to a data center solution, as people tend to get very creative once they have the resources to work with.
• It’s a Gas on Labor Day. As the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. We might amend that a bit and say there are lies, damned lies, and campaign promises. Not that anyone with an ounce of common sense or a good memory really expects politicians to keep their promises, but they at least make noises about it or take a stab or two, and if they fail, have the decency to keep quiet about it. The current administration seems to be taking a somewhat different tack, one borrowed from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. In that tome, Der Führer accused the Jews of fabricating “fake news” about the greatness of Germany and its defeat in World War I, which was sold to Germany as an Armistice. As he said, people generally tell small lies in their own lives, so they cannot conceive that anyone would have the “impudence to distort the truth so infamously” on such a grand scale. Therefore, they are more likely to believe a truly colossal lie because they assume it must have some basis in fact. Nazi leadership then used lies as standard propaganda, leading Germany to defeat once again. According to CNN, the present administration, however, is having a terrible time convincing people prices are down as gasoline and other prices keep going up. As CNN reports, “Americans will likely face the highest Labor Day gas prices on record this holiday weekend. It’s another blow to a ‘drill, baby, drill’ president who campaigned on affordable energy.” What to do? Well . . . how about stopping a senseless war and adopting the Economic Democracy Act (EDA)?
• Benefits, They Are A-Changing. The one-time “third rail” of politics, Social Security, is, in a rather half-vast way, trying to keep pace with the modern economy and the looming official bankruptcy of the system. We say “official” because by normal standards, the system has been bankrupt for years: every cent in the so-called trust fund is invested in U.S. government bonds. That means the government-run and owned pension system has all its assets tied up in its own debt. It’s a little like if you borrowed money, wrote an IOU to yourself, spent the money, and then assured the lender you had the money because the IOU was good. For what, we don’t know. In any event, the tweaks to the Social Security system as reported by Yahoo! Finance are akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic in the hope that will save the ship. The only thing that is really going to work is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act (EDA) which in its Capital Homesteading incarnation was presented as a way of saving Social Security.
• People’s Car Not for People. Even someone like Hitler can have a good idea. After all, as they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. The Volkswagen was Der Führer’s plan that every German family should be able to afford an automobile. The factory was financed in part by people ordering a Volkswagen and making instalment payments. Alas, all production was diverted to the war effort, and it was not until a few years after World War II that people who had paid in got credit for the purchase of the civilian market vehicle, the famous “Bug.” Now, as Business Insider reports, Volkswagen is planning on reducing its work force by 50,000 over the next three years. You read that right. Fifty-thousand people are scheduled to lose their jobs as Volkswagen’s response to cheaper Chinese imports. We recall what the late Walter Reuther, then president of the United Auto Workers Union, said in response to a Ford Motor Company executive’s little dig about how hard it would be for Reuther to collect union dues from robots. Reuther responded, “You’ll have an even harder time selling them automobiles.” Later, Reuther gave practical recommendations on how to handle the problem: let workers buy shares in the companies which employ them, pay for them with future dividends on the shares, and thereafter take compensation increases in the form of profit sharing which does not increase costs, and thus allows the company to remain competitive. The problem, of course, is how to get word to Volkswagen so they can once again be the “people’s car” instead of just another heartless corporation. This would be one benefit of the Economic Democracy Act (EDA).
• 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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