Again, the Initiative on Economic Personalism is still making steady progress, with the recent election results possibly giving people pause and a reason for leaders in both parties to consider something new for a change — for a change. And that would be to adopt the Economic Democracy Act:
• Initiative on Economic Personalism. The CESJ team is again still reaching out and networking but is also preparing to make definite plans for moving forward with the Initiative. We have two meetings scheduled for next week with potentially key people (of course, in this Initiative, everyone is key) and will report on the outcome — assuming we don’t violate any confidentiality. And what do you think of the idea we have for a logo for the Initiative? We're still deciding, but we think this is a good start.
"No more Miss Nice Princess!"
• Unhappiest Place on Earth.
These are the times that try animated
characters’ souls . . . if they had times and souls to try. Human beings do, however, and as
reported in Bloomburg, “Walt Disney Co. is moving toward thousands
of job cuts with the entertainment giant asking some managers to target 20% in
annual cost savings, according to people familiar with the matter. . . . Disney
has cut billions of dollars worth of costs and eliminated thousands of
positions in recent years, with reductions impacting every division including
ABC, Pixar, ESPN, the film studio and the experiences unit. The company had
231,000 people worldwide at the end of the last fiscal year.” Now, this should probably not come as much of
a surprise, even with the rise of AI and the resultant job loss across the
economy, although Disney’s Decision is due to other factors as well. Still, it’s another example of the so-called “K-Shaped
Economy” in which those at the top are sharply divided from those at the bottom,
with very few in the middle . . . and which is starting to look more like an “Upside-Down
T-Shaped Economy” instead of the letter K.
The solution? Why not an “O-Shaped
Economy,” which could be achieved by adopting the
Economic Democracy Act (EDA)?
• Computer Covetousness. Here is your moral philosophy lesson for today. Do you know what “covetousness” is? It’s an inordinate, insatiable desire for wealth, possessions, or the goods of another. It is often treated as synonymous with avarice or greed, but with a specific emphasis on wrongfully desiring what belongs to someone else or failing to find contentment in one’s own sphere. In ethical and philosophical frameworks, covetousness is rarely viewed as a simple desire for survival or comfort; instead, it is classified as a moral vice because of how it distorts an individual’s character and harms the community. So, it’s kind of bad to desire what already belongs to someone else, especially if you’ve already got far more than you could ever use. That’s why a recent article in Yahoo! Tech is more than a little . . . nauseating in its implications. As it states in the article, “Among the many impacts the AI industry has had on the world in the last several years, the ongoing memory shortage is one of the biggest. OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and other tech giants are gobbling up the world's memory supply to power their data centers, sending prices for consumer electronics skyrocketing. Given that context, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman thinks it's ‘quite terrible’ that you have memory sitting in your computer that AI companies could be using instead.” In other words, the same argument Ayn Rand used against Native Americans being allowed to keep their land because they did not have valid property rights to their ancestral lands because they lacked the concept of private property, did not establish a settled “civilization,” and wished to leave the land unused or untouched is what Altman wants to use against everyone (else) in the world. Of course, if the world were to adopt the Economic Democracy Act (EDA), he might not have the power to force his covetousness on everyone else, but that is another issue . . . or is it?
• The Money and Savings Question. Buying votes with money is not unheard of . . . but what do votes buy? Evidently, according to an article in Bloomberg, what you buy with votes is . . . money: “Many voters now expect their newly elected leaders to do something to lower the cost of living and help them save. But it’s rarely that simple. Congress can’t control markets and GDP growth, much less gas prices and groceries. And while candidates have pledged to push back on tariffs and the Iran war, much still lies in President Donald Trump’s control. Nevertheless, elections matter, and the results could have long-term consequences in areas like taxes, retirement, AI regulation and more.” We beg to differ. Now, we know regular readers of News from the Network expect each item to end with a plug for the Economic Democracy Act (EDA). This time, however, we’re ending with a plug for something built into the EDA as an essential feature, and which Congress could do something about simply by allowing the Federal Reserve to rediscount eligible agricultural, industrial, and commercial paper (“bills of exchange”) to finance new capital formation and stimulate economic growth without the use of existing savings . . . because “bills of exchange” use future savings, i.e., the present value of future increases in consumption instead of past decreases in consumption. This is key, because while few (if any) people can go back in time and cut consumption in the past (or pick the right ancestors who did so), everyone has the ability to increase production in the future with labor, capital, or both. This is the whole idea behind Louis Kelso’s invention of the ESOP and even answers the unasked question in today’s Wall Street Journal in Mike Pence’s op-ed piece, “Begin the Conservative Revival.” How? You can turn any liberal into a conservative simply by making him or her a capital owner with the full rights of private property and cutting everyone else in on the deal . . . which is what the Economic Democracy Act (EDA) is designed to do.
Solution or bigger problem?
• You’re OUT! It seems not even America’s great past time is
exempt from today’s economic angst. As
reported in USA Today, “Five recently retired umpires including Joe
West — who officiated more games than anyone in baseball history — have filed a
federal lawsuit against Major League Baseball claiming they were wrongfully
underpaid in the MLB umpires’ retirement income plan.” Not knowing the ins and outs (or innings and
outs) of the MLB umpires’ retirement plan, we cannot comment on the justice of
their complaint. We can, however,
comment on the justice of the retirement system itself, and the whole concept
of retirement. Why is it set in stone
that before a certain age you absolutely must have a job and after that no
job? Why are wages and welfare the only
acceptable sources of income for most people?
. . . And how much would the MLB umpires be complaining if both their
wages and their retirement income were in part tied to profits or they were
able to accumulate an independent capital stake sufficient to generate an
adequate and secure income regardless how well or poorly they played the game? Such a scenario is possible (we might even
say probable) under the
Economic Democracy Act (EDA) which would allow everyone into the game and
thus, well, “play ball.”
• Just Because You’re Rich . . . . . . doesn’t mean you understand much of anything, even money. It just means you’re rich. Nowhere was this more obvious than with Elon Musk’s extraordinary statement that the (U.S.) Treasury should just issue checks rather than taxing the rich. As Musk was quoted in an article in The Street, “In a July interview with The Economist Editor-in-Chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, Musk was asked directly whether wealthy people like him should pay more to fund income programs for workers displaced by artificial intelligence. His answer skipped taxes altogether. ‘I think that the Treasury should just simply issue people checks,’ Musk said. Beddoes wasn’t about to let that slide. She pushed back right away, warning that handing out checks with no revenue behind them could send inflation climbing. Musk had his counterargument ready. Inflation, he said in The Economist interview, comes down to how much money is chasing how many goods and services. If AI and robotics send production soaring, the money supply can grow without pushing prices higher.” Musk then into a rigmarole about how AI is so productive, the problem is going to be deflation! Uh, huh. Sorry, Musk, Old Boy, it doesn’t work that way. This is a variation on Major Douglas’s discredited “Social Credit” scheme from the 1920s. Here’s the problem. If government creates money out of thin air (which is what Musk is proposing), there is no way of cancelling that money except by taxing it away and not spending it but destroying it. What would happen in Musk’s scenario is money would get issued and not cancelled. Money would be handed out to people who would spend it, putting it into the pockets of the owners of AI who would, of course, use it to produce more goods and services at higher prices to reflect what they need to recover costs. More money would be created. Prices would rise again. Soon the price level would start to rise faster than money could be created — hyperinflation. Yes, in a sense the problem would be deflation if by deflation you mean the government cannot print money fast enough to keep up with the price level. This was the situation in Germany and Austria-Hungary after World War I when the backing was removed from the currency and the government couldn’t tax as the reparations were taking everything. The only real solution is to tax the rich fairly instead of taxing the non-rich through inflation. That is one of the provisions of the Economic Democracy Act (EDA).
• Petition to Stop the Public Execution. As we noted last week, the petition to stop the public broadcast of the execution of Nidal Hasan has to all appearances been rendered moot by President Trump’s announcement that it will not be broadcast. Nevertheless, given the somewhat mutable decisions made by the current administration, it will not be closed until the matter is resolved.
• 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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