Yes, But What Do You Mean by Progressivism?

And, of course, What do you mean by “America”?  U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has come out with a warning against something he calls “progressivism.”  In his opinion, “progressivism” has the potential to destroy America.

The Marriage Tax Penalty

Just in time for “Tax Day,” we have a posting on . . . taxation!  How original!  Today we are taking on the so-called “marriage penalty” that kicks in when people get hitched, specifically, what has been going on in Switzerland.  It hasn’t been getting a lot of (or any) play on this side of the pond, but the Swiss are “equalizing” what people have become accustomed to calling “genders.”

Democratizing Finance

    One of the goals of the Economic Democracy Act is to “democratize” ownership of capital.  By this we do not mean the collectivist “The People” own (meaning everything is owned by the State and controlled by whoever holds political power), the individualist “Democratic Capitalism” (meaning almost everything is owned by a relatively few private individuals holding economic power), or the collective-individualist/individual-collectivist “Servile State” (meaning virtually everything is owned or controlled by a private-public sector economic-political elite holding both economic and political power).

The Monster from SpaceX

No, this is not the title of a 1950’s low-budget sci-fi flick.  Nor is it a cheap commercial from the, er, 1950s comparing what someone is advertising with “Brand X.”  No, it’s just some commentary about the proposed IPO — that’s “Initial Public Offering” for those of us not up on the lingo of financial markets — of “SpaceX” for “Space Exploration Technologies Corporation,” the rather unimaginatively named private American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company.

Inflation Indexing and the EDA

    An article in last week’s Yahoo! Finance, “Inflation slowed in January as consumer prices rise 2.4% over prior year to start 2026,” noted the rate of inflation had, well, slowed in January.  Of course, there is the small issue that there are at least two different kinds of inflation, cost-push and demand-pull.

Faith, Reason, and Irrationality

As we have often noted on this blog, we like it when Faithful Readers send in comments or questions we can answer and use as the raw material for a posting . . . especially when the FR does most of the work him- or herself.  Today’s question-and-answer is from a Reader who is both Faithful and faithful (although not in our faith), whom we shall call “Rocky.”  And what was her (or his, as the case may be) comment or question . . . or a bit of both?  As Rocky (and maybe even Bullwinkle) said,

Trump’s Morality and the Natural Law

It is a pillar of Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy that the natural law — knowledge of right and wrong constituting the general code of human behavior — can be known by the force and light of human reason alone.  This is because (in Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy) human beings “participate” in God’s Nature, and therefore reason the way God does, at least analogously, and in a far more limited scope.

It Ain’t Wealth Creation

 It’s not the main point of the article, but it’s worth looking at, anyway.  But first, a few words on what the article, “White House economist says ‘massive refund checks’ are coming to Americans in biggest refund cycle in history,” is about.  As stated in the article, “The present administration in Washington is promising big, beautiful tax refund checks to big, beautiful Americans.  As reported in an article in Moneywise, “President Donald Trump is promising a windfall for millions of Americans — declaring that spring 2026 will bring the ‘largest tax refund season of all time.’ And one of his top economic advisers says the checks won’t just be big — they’ll be ‘massive.’”

Do You Grok Kelso’s “Second Income Plan”?

 It’s a bit of cultural trivia from Robert Heinlein’s 1961 science fiction novel, Stranger in a Strange Land (it’s a Biblical reference), a with-it neologism that never really caught on, but had a certain vogue into the seventies among geeks and others (like us) grouped among the quasi-normal: “grok.”

Why America Needs an Ownership Reset

Guy C. Stevenson, Guest Blogger

It is being touted as a groundbreaking achievement . . . it is, however, neither groundbreaking nor really much of an achievement.  Recently, Michael and Susan Dell pledged over $6 billion to fund the “Trump Accounts,” as the proposed government-backed savings program for children are being labeled.

Can It Happen Here? Part I: The Problem

 Recently, a Faithful Reader sent us a copy of “Disappeared to a Foreign Prison” by Sarah Stillman, from the November 24, 2025, issue of The New Yorker.  No, this is not a commentary on the New Yorker article, but on a few thoughts that bubbled up as we read the article.

What’s So Great About Louis Kelso?

 Louis O. Kelso is today best known as the inventor of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).  Despite the near-total global hegemony of Keynesian economics which assumes nothing can be done unless wealth is concentrated and government must be in charge of everything, the ESOP remains important to broaden the base of capital ownership.

The Rich are Different

 Ordinary people’s reactions regarding the possibility of getting the Economic Democracy Act adopted soon — or at all, for that matter — often take the form of asserting “they” won’t go for it or allow it.  And who are “they”?  The rich, the powerful, those who rely on the rich and powerful or want to, or who are afraid of them.

Who Will Own America?

Back at the dawn of the 20^th century, Judge Peter Stengar Grosscup (one of Theodore Roosevelt’s “Trust Busters”) published a series of articles on the importance of ordinary Americans becoming owners of the commercial, industrial, and agricultural productive wealth.  One of these articles was titled “Who Shall Own America?”, published in the December 1905 issue of The American Magazine.

Own or Be . . . What?

 AI — Artificial Intelligence — has been in the news a lot recently.  Possibly this is because the powers-that-be and so-called world leaders seem to exhibit so little of the natural kind.  That purportedly being the case, a regular reader of this blog began asking questions of AI (who better to ask?) about what people who have always worked for a living or who expected to have to work for a living are going to do when AI has taken all the jobs, the Universal Basic Income bites the dust, and the government can no longer fund welfare or even Social Security.

The Big Beautiful Boondoggle

 The trouble with even the biggest and most beautiful bill is that eventually you have to pay your bills, and the beauty of what you bought may have dimmed a bit by then.  We realize we’re committing a slight “fallacy of equivocation” by using a word meant in one sense in a different sense, but in this case it works.  We think.

The Wedding of the Century

 Back in 1951 MGM released Royal Wedding, one of the movie musicals for which the studio was noted.  Famous for the scene that has Fred Astaire dancing on the walls and ceiling (done by having a rotating set and a fixed camera . . . with the cameraman strapped into his seat), the film — which is now in the public domain — was a riff on the marriage of then-Princess Elizabeth and Phillip Mountbatten in 1947.

Saving or Investing for Retirement?

 According to a recent article in Fortune magazine, “Boomers” are being forced to “unretire” due to inadequate savings.  That’s bad, of course, but the real point of the article is a wonderful (wunderbar?) new proposal in Germany.  The idea is for the government to fund retirement accounts for children between age six and eighteen.  Cash would be deposited, and the interest would compound.  As described by Fortune,

The End of Private Equity Firms? No Way!

A few years back a member of the CESJ board of directors expressed concern over the Economic Democracy Act and the necessity of shifting new capital formation from past savings to future savings.  There was also the issue of phasing out governments monetizing deficits by emitting bills of credit (the constitutional form of “creating money” out of nothing).

Where is Pope Leo XIV Coming From?

The election of a new pope has repercussions far beyond the Catholic Church, Christianity, and even all religion.  Especially since the Catholic Church became a truly international organization with the loss of the Papal States in the 19^th century, people of goodwill everywhere look to the head of the Catholic Church as a voice for good, even if they do not always agree with what he says.