Running Out of Money?

    “You can never be too rich or too thin” (or something like that) said, uh, somebody or other . . . maybe — it’s attributed to a bunch of people few members of the public today ever heard of.  Leaving aside the “too thin” bit as a bit beyond our competence, we’ll focus on whether you can be “too rich.”  Quick answer: yes, you can be too rich, especially if no one else has any money . . . money here defined as “all things transferred in commerce.”  (That’s in Black’s Law Dictionary, at least the edition we have.)

JTW Podcast: Contemporary Logic, Part III: Current Predicate Logic

This week’s podcast continues the series on contemporary logic.  Yet again, this podcast is for informational purposes since we have no intention of ever abandoning Aristotle, but there are useful things besides information in the different schools of thought.  As Professor Dave says, “We just introduced a lot of notation in order to understand post-Fregean predicate logic. So now let's look at some concepts behind this type of logical thought so that we can compare it to earlier types of logic. In doing so we will wrap up our study of contemporary logic.”:

News from the Network, Vol. 19, No. 03

Again, this week’s news items illustrate what we think is a growing divide between reality and what the powers-that-be would like to be the case.  As the Roman poet Horace said, however, you can chase Nature — reality — out with a pitchfork, but she always comes back.  To avoid having to try and create your own reality and become more truthful (truth, after all, means conformity with reality), people need the power to become virtuous, and — as we have repeated early and often on this blog, quoting Daniel Webster — “Power naturally and necessarily follows property.”  That being the case, the obvious thing for the powers-that-be to do is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act:

Trump’s Morality and the Natural Law

It is a pillar of Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy that the natural law — knowledge of right and wrong constituting the general code of human behavior — can be known by the force and light of human reason alone.  This is because (in Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy) human beings “participate” in God’s Nature, and therefore reason the way God does, at least analogously, and in a far more limited scope.

JTW Podcast: Contemporary Logic, Part II: Current Systems and Methods

 Today, we continue the series on contemporary logic.  Again, this podcast is for informational purposes since we have no intention of ever abandoning Aristotle, but there are useful things besides information in the different schools of thought.  As Professor Dave says, “We just learned about the Fregean revolution, but we have actually adapted logic further still, so let's see what we have been doing with Frege's theory ever since. This will involve learning some new symbols and notation. Let's dive right in!”:

News from the Network, Vol. 19, No. 02

Housing costs and debt seem to be at the top of the list of concerns for many people this week.  We see that reflected in the warnings about the rising national debt of the United States and concerns about housing affordability.  Both could be solved by adopting the Economic Democracy Act, which of course could include the Homeowners Equity Corporation (HEC):

Whither Venezuela?

 After spending most of the first part of this week bemoaning the effect of AI on readin’ and ritin’ after viewing several videos on the subject — we ain’t got no information on no ’rithmetic — we decided to surrender to the machine (while reserving the right to criticize such dependency at such time as we are no longer pressed for time and can take the time to write something ourselves) and steal a summary one of the AI programs generated for a proposal the Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ) put forward a number of years ago and dusted off in light of what we can euphemistically call “recent events.”

JTW Podcast: Contemporary Logic, Part I: Frege’s Revolution

Today, we get into logic.  Today’s podcast is for informational purposes since we have no intention of ever abandoning Aristotle, but there are useful things besides information in the different schools of thought.  As Professor Dave says, “When it comes to logic, there are two figures that stand head and shoulders above the rest. Aristotle defined logic and developed the field profoundly, and as such Aristotelian logic reigned supreme for over 2000 years. But eventually figures like Leibniz and Boole attempted to develop a system of logic that intertwined with a mathematical approach, an endeavor that finally came to fruition with Gottlob Frege, the second giant in logic. What was Frege’s revolution? Let’s get some more details!:

News from the Network, Vol. 19, No. 01

 Welcome to the first “News from the Network” for 2026.  Unfortunately, that’s all that’s new.  The rest — as you can see — sounds depressingly the same.  What we need is immediate adoption of the Economic Democracy Act, and when that is going to happen is anyone’s guess:

A Short Course in Social Justice, I: What is Social Justice?

Ask anybody.  Go ahead.  We dare you.  For best results, carry a microphone and have somebody pointing a videocam at you and whoever (or whatever) you are asking.  And the question? “What is social justice?”

JTW Podcast: Continental Philosophy Part 3: Existentialism and Postmodernism

Today, we get back to continental philosophy and present Part 3 of Professor Dave’s talk on it.  As Professor Dave says, “We've learned a bit about continental philosophy and the Frankfurt School. Let's continue this thread by examining existentialism and postmodernism. This will include figures like Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, and others”:

News from the Network, Vol. 18, No. 52

 For the 2025 Year-End News Roundup we decided to try something different and just take what seemed to be the most significant story from each month . . . more or less, and there is no doubt some valid disagreement regarding our admittedly quick and dirty choice.  Whatever you think should have been selected, however, the most significant story was one that didn’t happen: adoption of the Economic Democracy Act:

It Ain’t Wealth Creation

 It’s not the main point of the article, but it’s worth looking at, anyway.  But first, a few words on what the article, “White House economist says ‘massive refund checks’ are coming to Americans in biggest refund cycle in history,” is about.  As stated in the article, “The present administration in Washington is promising big, beautiful tax refund checks to big, beautiful Americans.  As reported in an article in Moneywise, “President Donald Trump is promising a windfall for millions of Americans — declaring that spring 2026 will bring the ‘largest tax refund season of all time.’ And one of his top economic advisers says the checks won’t just be big — they’ll be ‘massive.’”

JTW Podcast: Contemporary Ethics Part 3: New Deontologies and Moral Concepts

 Today, we present Part 3 of Professor Dave’s talk on Contemporary Ethics . . . which, if you’ve been following all of this, helps explain why the world today seems so surreal.  As Professor Dave says, “To wrap things up with contemporary ethics, let's pivot away from metaethics and look at the development of deontology. To do this, we will look at figures like William Ross, John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, Hilary Putnam, and others”:

News from the Network, Vol. 18, No. 51

 Unfortunately, to paraphrase a trivial Christmas song, “Jest afore Christmas we’re as pessimistic as kin be.”  The surreal nature of the news items each week speaks for itself, much of which would disappear or fade away by adopting the Economic Democracy Act:

Do You Grok Kelso’s “Second Income Plan”?

 It’s a bit of cultural trivia from Robert Heinlein’s 1961 science fiction novel, Stranger in a Strange Land (it’s a Biblical reference), a with-it neologism that never really caught on, but had a certain vogue into the seventies among geeks and others (like us) grouped among the quasi-normal: “grok.”

JTW Podcast: Contemporary Ethics Part 2: Metaethics and New Virtue Theories

 Today, we present Part 2 of Professor Dave’s talk on Contemporary Ethics.  As Professor Dave says, “Continuing with our discussion of metaethics, how did this field develop from Moore's initial proposals? Let's talk about new virtue theories, along with figures like Richard Hare, Bernard Williams, Gertrude Margaret Anscombe, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Philippa Foot, the author of the famous trolley problem”:

News from the Network, Vol. 18, No. 50

 Yet again this week the news items are more of the same only more so.  And yet again, the usual solution is to adopt the Economic Democracy Act:

Why America Needs an Ownership Reset

Guy C. Stevenson, Guest Blogger

It is being touted as a groundbreaking achievement . . . it is, however, neither groundbreaking nor really much of an achievement.  Recently, Michael and Susan Dell pledged over $6 billion to fund the “Trump Accounts,” as the proposed government-backed savings program for children are being labeled.

JTW Podcast: Contemporary Ethics Part 1: The Birth of Metaethics

 Today, we present Part 1 of Professor Dave’s talk on Contemporary Ethics, “The Birth of Metaethics.”  As Professor Dave says, “Until the 20th century, discussions of ethics had been centered around Aristotle's virtue ethics, the Kantian/Platonic deontology, or the utilitarian model known as consequentialism. But in the early 1900s, the field of metaethics was born, which was a novel manner to identify how we can discuss ethical subjects in general. What was metaethics all about, and what innovations did it bring? Let's find out!”:

News from the Network, Vol. 18, No. 49

 It’s astonishing how each week’s news items resemble those of the previous week . . . Not.  The simple fact is that this is going to keep up until the powers-that-be adopt the Economic Democracy Act:

Can It Happen Here? Part II: The Solution

 Last week we took a look at a book with a hook in a nook with a cook.  That in itself is not unusual, even without a visit from Dr. Suess.  We read a lot of books.  We even write a lot of books.

JTW Podcast: More on Language and Meaning in Analytic Philosophy

Today, wondering what happened to Part 2 of Professor Dave’s talk on Epistemology, we present his talk on “More on Language and Meaning in Analytic Philosophy.”  As Professor Dave says, “We've already talked about the linguistic turn in analytic philosophy, so let's return to this school and learn about some more figures in this tradition that followed after Wittgenstein. This will include Donald Davidson, Peter Strawson, and Herbert Peter Grice”:

News from the Network, Vol. 18, No. 48

 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: