News from the Network, Vol. 4, No. 34

It has been an interesting week, what with earthquakes and hurricanes coming one right after another. And that was just the stock market . . . .

Of greater importance than the stock market is the news from Jackson, Wyoming. (By the way, that is almost always miscalled "Jackson Hole." No, "Jackson Hole" is the name of the valley. "Jackson" is the name of the town in the valley.) Mr. Bernanke has made it clear that he has no idea what to do in the short run, or to kick off America's long-term economic recovery. He "knows" it's coming. He just doesn't know when.

Here's a clue: unless the U.S. goes with a Capital Homestead Act in the relatively near future, there isn't going to be much of a long-term. The long-term is made up of a lot of short- and mid-terms. If you can't come up with a viable means of getting out of the short-term mess other than to chant the Keynesian mantra that in the long-run we're all dead, chances are the economy isn't going to turn around.

If Mr. Bernanke needs a few ideas other than to remind us that everything will be fine after we're all dead and gone, he might want to familiarize himself with our efforts, such as:

• We sent out a number of letters to the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Once in a while we get an auto-response that assures us that they read every letter. Perhaps if they got more letters from different people on the Just Third Way and Capital Homesteading — it's a free country, and you can send all the letters you want — they might actually start paying attention to them.

• James Kutney's review of Supporting Life: The Case for a Pro-Life Economic Agenda has been posted on Amazon. Mr. Kutney gave the book four stars out of a total of five. Why only an 80% approval rating? He wanted to know more. That means that you aren't getting the word out. The CESJ core group and Executive Committee can't do it all.

• The Mater Dei High School alumni magazine, Red & Gold, featured Michael D. Greaney in its summer issue, focusing on his work with CESJ and the books — especially Supporting Life — that he has authored. Make certain your alumni magazine(s) know what you're doing . . . and that you've got enough Just Third Way news for them to report, such as the doors you've opened for Norm for meetings with legislators.

• There have been a number of interesting discussions on the Just Third Way and Capital Homesteading on the LinkedIn network. A number of people appear to have been surprised that a potentially viable alternative to the current mess exists. Be sure to spread the word in your networks.

• The Woodman clan in Cleveland has been working to get Just Third Way ideas on the table in Ohio. They've been reaching out to local, state and federal officials and legislators. We're currently working on an editorial that they might be able to get placed in a local newspaper, such as the Plain Dealer.

• The first draft of the Wikipedia entry on binary economics has been completed. It is currently in review. The consensus seems to be that it needs a lot of work, but the skeleton is there. The piece should be very useful in correcting some of the misimpressions about binary economics that have been creeping into the marketplace of ideas.

• We've been going through and editing Jean-Baptiste Say's Treatise on Political Economy, the 1821 English translation of it, anyway. What becomes increasingly clear from reading the somewhat massive tome is that the ideas that many of today's academic economists and politicians have congealed into unquestioned dogma are not written in stone. Many of today's ideas are, in fact, based on egregious misunderstanding of Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say (among others), and the fixed belief that these thinkers were saying things other than what they clearly were saying.

• As a result of the discussions in the LinkedIn groups this week, some individuals have expressed interest in getting Norm interviews on radio and television and in the print media. This is good, because we cannot "market" ourselves. We need "third party endorsements" from people like you.

• Also as a result of the LinkedIn discussions, we have been discussing a possible "webinar" on Capital Homesteading monetary and financial reforms. Stay tuned for more details.

• The Coalition for Capital Homesteading had its monthly meeting today, with a number of people present, and the rest telephoning in from across the country.

• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 47 different countries and 46 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from the United States, the UK, Canada, India, and the Philippines. People in Italy, Malaysia, Uganda, Zambia and Canada spent the most average time on the blog. The most popular posting this past week was "History of Binary Economics . . . Sort Of" "Panic in the Streets, Part I," Panic in the Streets, Part II," "Alternative to the Stimulus, Part II," and "Panic in the Streets, Part IV."

Those are the happenings for this week, at least 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 we'll see that it gets into the next "issue." If you have a short (250-400 word) comment on a specific posting, please enter your comments in the blog — do not send them to us to post for you. All comments are moderated anyway, so we'll see it before it goes up.

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