This week’s news items are about what you’d expect in a world in which the Economic Democracy Act has not yet been adopted. Of course, you can read all about it by taking advantage of the $5 per copy sale on for The Greater Reset: Restoring Personal Sovereignty Under Natural Law. Or you can read this week’s news items:
• Putler’s Problems. For some odd reason, possibly the incredibly high casualty rates that don’t exist due to what is not happening in Ukraine due to the non-war, Russia is facing the conundrum that Keynes claimed could not exist unless politicians were so abysmally stupid that they wouldn’t listen to him: full employment and inflation. According to Keynes, the only way you can have full employment and inflation is if the politicians keep spending money long after there is no need to. To finance a war when you have full employment — which is what a labor shortage amounts to — you must raise taxes, or you face economic disaster, as even Keynes admitted in a little pamphlet he wrote during World War II. Therefore, Russia is wrong about there being no war in Ukraine, Keynes is wrong that you cannot have both full employment and inflation, both are wrong about the way an economy works, or everybody has been wrong . . . which is strongly suggested by the current situation. What’s the solution? Stop the war and adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
THE Hacker to you!
• Financial Terrorism! Some reactionary capitalist running dog hacker (that’s THE Hacker, to you!) has reportedly drained Russia’s Special Services bank accounts and funneled them to Ukrainian relief organizations. We are shocked, shocked to find this sort of thing going on and will condemn it in the strongest possible terms: Shame on you! You made Putin feel bad and made him cry. Of course, why doesn’t some hacker, the or otherwise, start spreading word of the Economic Democracy Act and really make the Russians throw a hissy fit?
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| Resistance is futile. |
• Is AI a Danger? There is a great deal of discussion and rightly so about the danger that Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds for the future of the human race . . . if we let it. Experts are divided. If people allow AI to start making decisions, it might start running the world to suit itself. Other experts say that since human beings program AI, it’s only necessary to build in safeguards. Of course, the biggest safeguard is ownership, which as Louis Kelso pointed out, means control in every code of law. If we don’t want AI to control us, we must control AI. Human beings — and not just one human being — must have the final say-so on decisions made by AI, and AI cannot be allowed to override a human decision on its own initiative. For example, if an owner tells an AI to murder someone, another human will — we hope! — have programmed the AI to ignore all such orders except to report it to the authorities. There will need to be special arrangements for students of criminology and mystery writers, but thee can be dealt with. The bottom line is that people must own and control AI or AI will own and control them. There is no middle ground, and the best way to do that is with the Economic Democracy Act.
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| Things to come? |
• Is San Francisco Dying? Has “the City on the Bay” become so upscale that it’s going rapidly downscale? That seems to be the consensus. The problem seems to be that the cost of living in San Francisco is now so high and businesses are being driven out at such a tremendous rate that few people other than those in the upper income brackets can afford to live there. What can equalize things and make it once again a good and affordable place to live? How about the Economic Democracy Act?
• The Rising Cost of Housing. According to a recent article, more than 75% of middle-class Americans (whatever that means anymore or ever) cannot afford even to think about buying a house. The “housing market, an “economic indicator” (as if the percentage of Americans who own an adequate stake of income generating assets — capital — can be ignored . . . and is) is apparently in shambles and the experts have no way of knowing how to straighten it out. We have a suggestion or two. In general, adopt the Economic Democracy Act, and in particular start organizing Homeowners Equity Corporations.
• What is Inflation? To anyone who knows basic economic theory . . . or at least what passes for it these days, “inflation” means a rise in the price level caused either by too much money in the system (demand-pull inflation) or a rise in prices due to the natural scarcity of some product (cost-push inflation). The different schools of economics change this basic definition and confuse things, but that’s the definition in common use. Now the experts have noted that the stock market is rising but prices are down, so inflation is under control . . . right? Wrong. Inflation is not under control. All that’s happened is that inflation has shifted from the productive sector of the economy to the speculative sector of the economy, where it has the potential to be just as harmful but in a different way. How can this be straightened out so that inflation is genuinely controlled, even completely eliminated (at least demand-pull type inflation)? Simple, although certainly not easy: adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
• America Has Failed Millennials. According to a recent article, America, an abstraction created by human beings, has failed Millennials, another abstraction created by human beings. How has one abstraction failed another? By not manipulating the system — yet another abstraction created by human beings — to make up for what was poorly structured in the first place. It seems that the cost of living is far outstripping income, which is putting Millennials into a bind. Of course, if Say’s Law of Markets was functioning properly, with the benefits spread out equitably throughout the economy via widespread direct ownership of capital as Kelso noted would restore Say’s Law, production would equal income, supply would generate its own demand and demand its own supply, and income and the cost of living would be equal in aggregate, with only minor individual variations. Instead of enacting the Economic Democracy Act, however, the powers-that-be think only in terms of redistributing existing wealth, not redistributing access to the opportunity and means to generate future wealth.
• Greater Reset “Book Trailers”. We have produced two ninety-second “Book Trailers” for distribution (by whoever wants to distribute them), essentially a 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 new 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, 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 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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