Once again, the news items from this week sound like a fantasy writer who might have snacked on the wrong pan of brownies and got kicked off the writing team of Killer Klowns from Outer Space for being too far out. Ironically, many of the world’s problems could be solved or at least ameliorated by adopting the Economic Democracy Act:, returning economic (and thus political) power to people, and getting rid of a few of the dictators and wannabes:
"Something missing somewhere?"
• Getting It Backwards. To overcome low “productivity,” Greece is going to try out increasing the work week from four days to six days for certain businesses. Aside from complaints from labor advocates and general dissatisfaction from the workforce, there is a serious problem with the program. It assumes as a given that labor is the only input to production. Thus, when “productivity” falls, you should add more labor . . . and then wonder why “productivity” falls even more! This paradox can easily be resolved by realizing human labor is not the sole factor of production and looking at the concept of productiveness instead of productivity. Both labor and capital produce, and produce in the same way, by turning things into marketable goods and services. Everything else being equal, a good or service produced by human labor is identical to that produced by technology. Technology — “capital” — is cheaper per unit of output than “labor,” however, because as technology advances, “capital” becomes more productive than “labor.” A machine might cost ten times what it costs to hire a human being, but it produces a hundred or a thousand times as much as the human being. Thus, if you define “productivity” as “output per labor hour,” you increase productivity when you remove labor, not when you add it! Increasing labor input by 50%, which is what the Greek proposal does, therefore potentially decreases productivity by a third — everything else being equal. Of course, it will not decrease by that much, as workers will produce something during the added two days, but except in labor intensive industries, it will not offset the increased costs of production as businesses add to output at increased cost and thus lower, even nagative marginal profits . . . causing them to lay off workers to increase productivity. The real solution? Replace as much human labor with machines as possible and make certain as many people as possible own the machines. That’s the idea behind the Economic Democracy Act.
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| How to lose by winning. |
• All Attacks Short of War. Before December 7, 1941, the United States promised Great Britain “all aid short of war,” meaning the U.S. would provide everything to Great Britain except boots on the ground. At the present time in Putin’s war of conquest against Ukraine (and then the rest of the world once Ukraine is secured) the dictator of Russia is employing everything against NATO except actual warfare. This tells us a few things. One (as the headline of the article says), Putin doesn’t (yet) dare to confront NATO in battle. Two, Russia’s military is stretched to the limit trying to overcome a significantly weaker opponent and is making gains only at hideous cost and by having soldiers behind other soldiers to shoot deserters and force them into what has been described a meat grinder. With such tactics, Russia might take territory, but there is no way it can be held. It is what is called a “Pyrrhic victory,” from King Pyrrhus of Epirus, who won the battle of Asculum against the Romans in 279 BC (after a similar costly victory at Heraclea in 280 BC) but lost so many men he is reputed to have said, “Another such victory, and we are lost.” Russia is now losing in Ukraine every two weeks as many soldiers as it lost in Afghanistan in ten years. Putin is “winning,” but is destroying two countries and hundreds of thousands of lives to gratify his own ego and greed. The moment Ukraine adopts the Economic Democracy Act, it will be obvious the end is near . . . for Russia, and thus Putin.
• The Cost of Civil Suits. In a move illustrative of Russia’s desperate financial situation, the legal fees for filing civil lawsuits have been dramatically increased to finance Putin’s effort to conquer Ukraine. For example, where it formerly cost 650 Rubles to file for divorce, it now costs 5,000. On the other hand, Russia does not recognize adultery, bigamy, or polygamy in its Family Code, but neither are they criminalized. It therefore costs about two weeks’ pay to get a divorce, but nothing to have a mistress/lover or two, or multiple wives, even if they are not legally recognized as such. So, will Russians be patriotic and get divorced, or save money and stay married or shack up informally with a new partner or series of partners? There is also Putin’s expressed concern that families aren’t having enough children for him to enslave and put to work for him or use as cannon fodder. He thinks women should be at home having babies and men should be doing the [other] work [to increase his wealth]. He doesn’t seem to realize that starting wars of conquest is not a good way to encourage sound family life, and punishing people who do not conform to his vision of ideal slaves to enhance his glory is not going to create solid families out of thin air . . . especially after you’ve killed off all the available men and the available women are leaving the country or facing a very lonely future . . . unless one of the favored few takes them on as mistresses or other disposable partnership arrangements. The only real solution is to stop the war, get rid of Putin (not necessarily in that order), and adopt the Economic Democracy Act.
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| "Ya got me beat!" |
• A Modest Proposal. One thing Russia might try to raise revenue to finance its foreign conquests is letting draftees buy substitutes, as the Union permitted in the American Civil War. For a maximum of $300 — a year’s pay for the average working stiff — a draftee could hire a substitute to fight in Mister Lincoln’s Army in his place (in the Confederacy, prices for substitutes got as high as $50,000 in inflated Confederate currency). The median annual income in Russia is 1,240,000 RUB (about US $14,771), so the cost of an exemption could be 1,250,000 RUB to round it off. Russia is losing upwards of a thousand soldiers a day, so Putin needs at least 30,000 new soldiers each month just to maintain the army at its present strength. (In comparison, over ten years in Afghanistan the Russians lost 14,000 soldiers, and now is losing more than that every two weeks in Ukraine.) Drafting 30,000 Russians each month would generate 37,500,000,000 RU (about U.S. $447 million) in gross revenue if they all purchased exemptions, while buying mercenaries from Africa or Asia at 885.30 Rubles a head (about US $10 or 50 shillings — £2, 10s — what the British paid to purchase Hessian troops during the American Revolution), rounded to 1,000 RUB per head, would cost 30,000,000 RUB, or about U.S. $340,000. The cost of training would be negligible and a waste of money, as new recruits receive virtually no training, anyway, and most die within two days of going to the front lines due to their role as cannon fodder. This also saves on having to pay the new troops. By instituting a draft exemption program, therefore, Russia could net 37,470,000,000 RUB per month, or about 450 trillion RUB (more than U.S. $5 billion) a year. After Putin’s rake-off and other bribes, say, 50% of the net, Russia would show a clear profit of 225 trillion RUB per annum on a draft exemption program. Or Russia could arrest Putin and his cronies and turn them over to the ICC, withdraw from Ukraine, dissolve the Russian Federation, adopt the Economic Democracy Act, and pay reparations. Mmmm . . . naw, that’s crazy talk.
• Can Anyone Translate This? Jerome Powell claims that “cooler inflation data” (like, wow, man, inflation data are totally cool!) means that we could be getting back on a “disinflationary path.” The problem is that we don’t know what “disinflation” means. Is it deflation? Is it a lower rate of inflation? Is it a lowering of the price level (currency appreciation)? Or — in Keynesian Economics Lalaland — does it mean we are reaching full employment and there will be no “Keynesian inflation”, which means a rise in the price level after reaching full employment? Or (since Keynes said inflation is only real inflation if it consists of a rise in the price level after reaching full employment) does it mean that we are not reaching full employment, and rises in the price level should not be called “inflation” as they are “due to other factors”? Of course, we could simply ignore all this doubletalk and gibberish, and acknowledge that “demand pull” inflation is caused by printing money backed only by government debt. If you want to get off the inflation rollercoaster, you need to abandon Keynesian economics altogether, along with all Currency Principle schools of economic thought, and link all money creation to existing marketable goods and services and the present value of future marketable goods and services. This is a key component of the Economic Democracy Act and would put the monetary system back on a sound foundation.
• 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, 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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