Obviously, Putin’s War in Ukraine is at the top of the list of what’s in the news this week, but there are one or two other items of interest:
• Help Joe Walk Again for Economic Justice. Just a reminder, if you haven’t already done so, to visit the GoFundMe campaign and consider making a contribution and spreading word out among your social media networks. It’s off to a good start, but it’s still just a start.
• Possible Russian Default. Russia is facing either a de facto or outright default n its sovereign debt. The last we heard, Putin is mandating payment of interest on its Dollar- and Euro-denominated debt in worthless or near-worthless Russian Rubles — if it’s paid at all. As Russian Rubles are now worth cents on the Dollar or Euro, even when they are accepted (which virtually no one is doing at this point), this would amount to a default on the debt. What does that mean? In the short term, it means that Russia is unable to raise foreign hard currency or float new debt to support the Ruble. That means every new Ruble printed by the Russian central bank (digitally or any other form) for military or government expenditures is purely inflationary, particularly since the Russian economy is already in a nosedive. In the mid- to long-term, it means foreign investors will not “invest” in Russian sovereign debt (we put that in quotes, because from the Just Third Way perspective, purchasing government debt is not, properly speaking, investment, even for the best rated debt). What the so-called experts are worried about now is that if Russia isn’t bailed out, investors won’t be willing to invest their past savings into anything risky. This is easily solved, however, by reforming the money system so that new money is created for private sector investment, not government spending, and it’s done in a way that creates new owners of capital, as in the Economic Democracy Act.
• Foreign Investor “Green Card” Program. The United States is thinking of reopening a program that grants people green cards if they bring investment capital to the country. This is rather silly and even insulting, as it effectively says you can buy your way into the U.S. Not that we think borders shouldn’t be completely open, but the idea that residence leading to possible citizenship can be purchased is shameful and completely unnecessary, especially if we were to enact the Economic Democracy Act.
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| "I screwed up the world. Don't fix it." |
• Labor Shortage and Inflation. Charles Goodhart, formerly with the Bank of England, has said that because the labor shortage due to the pandemic, inflation is here to stay. This is pure Keynesianism, that inflation comes after full employment has been reached. Of course, if Keynesian economic theory were to be discarded (as it should have been, decades ago), and — you guessed it — the Economic Democracy Act passed in any country, you could kiss both inflation and deflation goodbye, along with the whole idea of full employment, job creation, wage slavery, and a lot of other discredited concepts.
• A Picture of Two Presidents. Consider Putin and Zelenskyy. The former is an experienced politician hailed as a genius by a small but diminishing number of fans who has caused an enormous public relations disaster and brought eternal shame to his country, and is believed to be both insane and a pathological liar by a growing number of people. The latter is a former comedian, previously considered something of a joke by many people, who has united virtually the whole of his country behind him in standing up to what can only be described as an attack by a psychotic killer. Outside of Russia, it’s doubtful that Putin could be elected to anything, even garbage collector, while Zelenskyy has become an international hero.
• TAN Roundtable. While it might not be to everyone’s taste, CESJ’s Directors of Research and of Communications recently appeared on the second “TAN Roundtable” to discuss their upcoming book, The Greater Reset . . . and actually got a word or two in edgewise! There were some more or less amusing technical difficulties early on (and continuing), but for some part did manage to present the Just Third Way, at least some aspects of it.
• Audio Version and E-Book Available. The audio and e-book editions of The Greater Reset, the hardcover of which is due out March 15, are now available, and can be purchased directly from the website of TAN Books as downloads. The Greater Reset is different from most books that bring in economics (possibly because it’s about natural law and not focused on economics exclusively) because it describes reality, rather than a Keynesian fantasy world.
• Hortense and Her Whos. In case you’ve been wondering how you might advance the Just Third Way by introducing it to legislators at any and all levels of government, we’ve made it easy for you, with the “Hortense Hears Three Whos“ initiative. Visit the explanatory website, and consider downloading the postcard to send to people in government. Don’t worry if you think they won’t be open to it, as the postcard is intended to get them to open their eyes.
• Economic Personalism Landing Page. A landing page for CESJ’s latest publication, 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., ten or more copies) at the wholesale price, send an email to publications@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 person’s place in society.
• Shop online and support CESJ’s work! Did you know that by making your purchases through the Amazon Smile program, Amazon will make a contribution to CESJ? Here’s how: First, go to https://smile.amazon.com/. Next, sign in to your Amazon account. (If you don’t have an account with Amazon, you can create one by clicking on the tiny little link below the “Sign in using our secure server” button.) Once you have signed into your account, you need to select CESJ as your charity — and you have to be careful to do it exactly this way: in the space provided for “Or select your own charitable organization” type “Center for Economic and Social Justice Arlington.” If you type anything else, you will either get no results or more than you want to sift through. Once you’ve typed (or copied and pasted) “Center for Economic and Social Justice Arlington” into the space provided, hit “Select” — and you will be taken to the Amazon shopping site, all ready to go.
• Blog Readership. We have had visitors from 36 different countries and 45 states, provinces, and territories in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and India. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “The Truth About the ‘Great Reset’.” “Before and After,” “News from the Network, Vol. 15, No. 07,” “Activism versus Leadership,” and “The Purpose of Production.”
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 we’ll see that it gets into the next “issue.” Due to imprudent language on the part of some commentators, we removed temptation and disabled comments.
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