The good news this week is that Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” has definitely been scheduled for release on Monday, May 25, 2026. A follow-up to Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, we expect Magnifica Humanitas to be intended as a springboard for the program the previous Pope Leo proposed, but — we’re assuming — will not address the critical expanded capital ownership issue.
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| Fr. William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D. |
That’s not a criticism, but an observation. In our opinion, so long as the world fails to grasp the importance of 1) Louis Kelso’s breakthrough in applying modern methods of corporate finance to the problem of turning people into capital owners without redistribution and 2) the Act of Social Justice as analyzed by CESJ co-founder Fr. William Ferree, S.M., Ph.D., such efforts as Magnifica Humanitas will continue to present a badly needed what needs to be done, but not how to do it. Until people are convinced by their viability by such moral leaders as Pope Leo XIV, then, programs with the immense potential of the Economic Democracy Act will remain only potential benefits, and we will continue to suffer from the sort of thing that fills this week’s news items:
• Spreading the Word. One of the more difficult tasks in the Just Third Way is getting the word out about a genuinely “new” (at least to people today) paradigm. Not only have attention spans declined to near-infinitesimal (“The Incredible Shrinking Attention Span”) so that if you can’t make the sale or explain it in one second or less, forget it, but the Just Third Way integrates two key aspects that are completely alien to people today: 1) the Act of Social Justice, and 2) Future Savings. Either alone is a huge shift for most people. Together, acceptance becomes a gargantuan task. That is why we are greatly encouraged when CESJ members undertake initiatives such as an art auction to raise funds for the cause — as did Micheal Bijkerk. As he reported on the “Art & Justice Auction of (Mostly) Local Artworks” held May 16, 2026, “I am looking for ways to perpetuate the JTW work. The foundation Golden Meand Society (you will understand that I consider the JTW to be the Golden Mean) spends its money on supporting principled Court Cases. The foundation also has a tiny JTW library. As tiny as Bonaire, but it is there. The first Art & Justice Art Auction has produced more money than we had hoped for. So now, I am going to try and interest artists for the JTW. And hopefully, the foundation can keep on functioning with an annual ‘Bonaire Art Festival Week’ ending in an annual Art & Justice Art Auction, long after I will be gone. And then, hopefully, some people will begin reading our JTW books. It is possible …” Micheal has downloaded the Spanish translation of Economic Personalism (Personalismo Económico) for the library, and we encourage you to do the same, with the Spanish translation or the English original. We are in hourly expectation of the listing appearing on Amazon, and we will notify you immediately, so that you can order copies for yourself and your local library — and don’t forget the original in English, now in its second printing! If you’re interested in a bulk order (ten or more), let us know at info@cesj.org and we’ll work out a price and other details. The book, in both English and Spanish is a good way to let people know about the Economic Democracy Act (EDA).
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| Bill Bengen |
• The 4% Rule for Retirement Savings Now Outdated. Throwing decades of retirement planning into a cocked hat (which is as outdated as the 4% rule is now purported to be), the inventor of the rule, financial advisor Bill Bengen, is now saying for various reasons it should be 4.7%. We are shocked, shocked. So much so we won’t link to the obvious video. Instead, we’ll report on what the article in USA Today said: “The 4% rule says you should plan to spend 4% of your savings in the first year of retirement, and spend the same amount, adjusted for inflation, every year after that. It caught on because it’s a simple formula to solve a complex problem: how to fund your retirement. The 4% rule has drawn praise and pillory for years. Now, Bengen says it’s time for a revision: The 4% rule has become the 4.7% rule.” We have a better idea. Instead of figuring out how much of your savings to spend each year, why not invest the savings and live off the income they generate without spending any of the savings? After all, it is an economic axiom that “savings equals investment.” That way you won’t have to keep calculating how much of your savings to spend before you run out of money. And how can people with no savings to speak of reach the level of what Louis Kelso called “capital self-sufficiency”? By pushing for the adoption of the Economic Democracy Act (EDA).
• Attention, K-Mart Shoppers! K-Shaped Market, that is. If you want the “real” K-Mart, you’ll have to go to Miami, Guam, or the Virgin Islands. The latest victim of the “K-Shaped Market” is housing. It turns out that most of the people in the United States have lost the last vestige of the “American Dream,” even distorted as it was. According to an article in Yahoo! Finance, “This spring, the housing market is split between haves and have-nots. Demand for high-end homes has been booming, with sales at the $1 million-plus price point growing faster than any other part of the market. At the same time, sales at the lower end of the market — sub-$250,000 homes typically targeted by first-time homebuyers — have dropped in the past year.” In other words, ordinary people are being priced out of the housing market, and the only thing selling is for the rich. It used to be that the American dream was to own your own farm or business. Then it was to find a good job and buy a house. Now — at pretty much the same time (and it’s no coincidence) — it’s to find some kind of income source and a place to sleep. There may be a stopgap solution in the form of the Homeowners Equity Corporation, but even that relies on sidestepping the real, underlying problem: institutional barriers that prevent people from becoming productive and generating the income they need to live in a manner befitting the demands of human dignity. And how can that be solved? We think it can be done quite easily by adopting the Economic Democracy Act (EDA).
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| More like ZERO percent |
• The Tax You Love to Hate. Well . . . that describes every tax in history of which we are aware, but for some reason the income tax excites a greater animus than almost any other form of tax, even though an income tax is inherently more just than most other forms of taxation — as originally conceived, the income tax meets all four of Adam Smith’s principles or “canons” of taxation: 1) Equity (paid by those who can afford to pay), 2) Certainty (the tax rate is fixed, easy to understand, and the same for everyone in every circumstance), 3) Convenience (levied at the time or in the manner that is most convenient for the contributor to pay it), and 4) Economy (inexpensive to administer and collect). The problem is not that the income tax as conceived doesn’t meet these criteria, it’s that — at least in the United States with the New Deal — the income tax began to be used primarily as a means of social control by the government, and its revenue raising function was shifted to the Federal Reserve, an egregious misuse of both the tax system and the financial system. Originally, hardly anyone in the U.S. paid the tax; government was much smaller, and most people made nowhere near the very generous exemption: In 1929, the exemption was $1,500.00 for a single person, $3,000.00 for married couples, and $400.00 for each dependent. This was at a time when the average annual U.S. income was $1,368.00, and the poverty line for a “typical” family of four (well . . . 4.3 in 1929) was $2,500.00. In other words, average families in the U.S. would not pay a cent of income tax until household income was more than $4,600.00 (that would be about $89,584.33 today) — and not too many people were making that — only 8% of the population. In other words, 100% of the income tax burden was borne by less than 10% of the population. In a rather weak attempt to return to those halcyon days of yore, CBS News reports that bulti-millionaire . . . we mean multi-billionaire Amazon (the bulti is found in the Nile, not the Amazon) founder Jeff Bezos has an idea. As the article reports, “Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told CNBC on Wednesday that the bottom half of U.S. earners should pay no federal income tax, arguing that eliminating those taxes could ease financial strain and encourage entrepreneurship.” We have a better idea: raise the tax exemption level to realistic levels but also make it possible for people to raise their real income so that everyone pays income taxes — and that can be done by adopting the Economic Democracy Act (EDA).
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| You can't buy anything if you're the only one with money. |
• A Blessing in Disguise? There are some significant problems, even dangers associated with the proposed IPO of “SpaceX,” as this article from CNN notes. Perhaps the biggest is that Musk is retaining full control . . . which means ownership in all codes of law. He is, essentially, selling nothing. One of the problems that is not mentioned, however, is the danger that the IPO has the potential to drain available liquidity out of the financial markets for an extremely speculative venture. It might also induce investors to liquidate their current portfolio in the hope of cashing in, thereby exacerbating a credit crunch. This would “starve” other private sector businesses in industry, commerce, and agriculture, cutting them off from essential capital and liquidity. Paradoxically, this could be a very good thing IF — and only if — existing businesses realize they need not be enslaved to “past savings” and thus dependent on the currently wealthy or the government for funding. They can start using the commercial and central banking system in the way it was designed and intended to be used: to provide adequate liquidity (“accommodation”) for agriculture, industry, and commerce. And that is what the Economic Democracy Act (EDA) is designed to do, at least in part.
• 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 (now with an imprimatur), 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., 52 or more copies) at the wholesale price, send an email to info@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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