Here’s how you, too, can make a fortune by speculating in
something that doesn’t exist. First,
invent a virtual (fictional) commodity that can be generated by a computer
program. Next, come up with a snappy
name for it, oh, say, a “Wit-coin.”
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| The South Sea "Bubble" |
Offer the Wit-coin for sale.
You can even sell “Halfwit-coins” and “Quarterwit-coins” just to make it
seem more official, and to get more people to become Wits, Halfwits, and
Quarterwits.
You could even have a special terminology for people
purchasing the virtual commodity, a “Non-existent Internet Transaction,” or
“NIT.” They can then be “Nitwits.”
Then you establish an exchange where this fictional
commodity can be bought and sold. You
will, of course, make quite a “bit” on the transaction fees, but you might want
a bigger payoff. If so, it will be easy,
because there’s no way to leave a paper trail, and there’s no regulation. The record of the “asset” is the asset! All you have to do to move assets is move the
record of the asset. That makes it much
easier to baffle any auditors or intrusive income tax people.
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| The Mississippi "Bubble" |
When the price of the virtual commodity is high enough, you
borrow (without permission) as many Wit-coins as you can, and sell them at the
high price. Then you shut down the
exchange and wait for the price to drop.
As soon as the price drops far enough, you buy back the Wit-coins you
borrowed, make a huge profit on the drop in price, replace what you borrowed,
and reopen the exchange!
Of course, if you’d rather make money honestly by producing
a marketable good or service by means of your capital and labor, well, you
could do that, too, but first we need
a Capital Homestead Act. In order to do
that, here’s what we’ve been doing this past week:
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| Own the Fed! |
• Mark the annual “Rally at the Fed” on your calendar for
the middle of April. This year’s could
be a pivotal event, as the Federal Reserve did not begin operation until
November of 1914, making this year the “real” centennial of the central banking
system of the United States.
• The new CESJ website is making a big hit, and is proving
to be very popular.
• Leda K., CESJ’s new intern, has been making great advances
in understanding of the Just Third Way.
She has made a number of valuable suggestions about communicating with
younger people, which will be seriously considered.
• We have a series of meetings set for mid-March with some
key people in a number of religious organizations. The meetings are scheduled to take place in
Pennsylvania.
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| "Is that a face?" |
• We are also working to schedule meetings with
administrative officials and faculty at Georgetown University and American
University to discuss the Justice University concept.
• Given the good reception that the Just Third Way Edition
of Freedom Under God, “Fulton Sheen
Project” members are considering republishing other works by other
authors. While the titles being
considered are outside CESJ’s area of direct interest, individual members of
CESJ may be able to use CESJ’s connections to assist in the project, for which
CESJ could receive a small honorarium.
• CESJ has received an enquiry about a possible internship
from a student at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. The general level of interns CESJ has been
getting for years has been exceptionally high, and the core group is always
pleased to respond to enquiries. While
internships are not paid, most interns have said that the unique perspective
they’ve gained has been much more valuable than money.
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| Let the sun drive YOUR chariot |
• CESJ’s president, Norman Kurland, had a meeting earlier
this week with the founder of a solar power company in the southern U.S. which
is making great strides in developing alternative sources of energy. The president of the company is very
interested in exploring the possibility of working with Equity Expansion
International, Inc., to develop advanced methods of finance to match the
advanced energy systems. This makes
sense, for while productive activity runs on energy, the economy and the market
run on money and credit.
• As of this morning, we have had
visitors from 60 different countries and 53 states and provinces in the United
States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from
the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Germany. The most
popular postings this past week were “Thomas Hobbes on Private Property,” “Aristotle on Private Property,” “What is a
‘Bill of Exchange’?,” “Raw Judicial Power, V: A Pro-Life Economic Agenda,” and “Social
Justice, IV: The Characteristics of Social Justice.”
Those are the happenings for this week, at least 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 we’ll see that it gets into the next
“issue.” If you have a short (250-400
word) comment on a specific posting, please enter your comments in the blog —
do not send them to us to post for you.
All comments are moderated anyway, so we’ll see it before it goes up.
#30#
