Third Saturday Seminar 2013-2014
Return of the Elders, Unleash your Wisdom

Session 05

Continuing the Discussion About Enlightenment 2.0

Economics-Justice-Rights-Morals

Curt Gibby

Saturday, 22 February 2014 (yes, it’s the fourth Saturday)
9:30AM til 12:00 NOON

 Room B-102, (the usual place), Lone Star College – Montgomery

  Saturday we will take on Economics-Justice-Rights-Morals.

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” Lincoln’s First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861.

We will work from the following text:

 “Economics 000, First Principles” by Curt Gibby (That’s me) , ©2003, 2004, 2005, 2006,2010. (Source selection #8, 5 pages)  

We will try to establish a grounding of how tribes, communities and societies, towns and nations build, sustain and grow what we loosely refer to as an economy.  And, perhaps we will discover how a successful economy could possibly go wrong!

If you want to sound a lot smarter than I, you may want to visit http://www.economist.com/economics-a-to-z/ and look up words like: “Economics, Economies of scale, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Mercantilism, and Minimum wage.” Since there are no universally accepted definitions for any of these terms it won’t pay to get too invested in any of them, but to understand why they are such unreliable anchors.

Think about how YOU might define the term; “Inclusive Economy”

Enlightenment 2.0 Syllabus Update (as of 18 Feb 14)

Reference/Reading Materials
To help you get started may I suggest reading or skimming some the following short Wikipedia Articles: (your own  sources are welcome too.)

1. Age of Enlightenment  (First page)
2. Islamic Golden Age (Again, the first page)

The following short sections of the Outline of the History of Western Civilization:

3. Renaissance and Reformation 
4. The Reformation 
5. Rise of Western Empires 
6. Dark Ages  
7. List of Revolutions
   (worth scanning to see just to see how being a revolutionary is a good business,
   also a convenient list of historic milestones in the ascent of man.)   
8. Econ 000(Work in progress, will be updated)

As usual we will start out with Current Events

Possible Current Events Topics include: 

Syria – Iran – Iraq – Russia – UN – Rebels (Good and Bad) – etc. 

Privacy vs Security – NSA – The Constitution –  Obama – Target (and others) Hacked – Snowden.

Wendy Davis v. Greg Abbot campaign – Education – money raising – etc.

The Fed has a new Chairman.  Proposed Vice Chairman ran Israel’s central bank. Qualitative easing being eased?

Early Primary Voting for the Primary Started Today

A general election will be held in Texas on November 4, 2014.

All of Texas’ executive officers are up for election as well as a Senate seat, and all of Texas’ thirty-six seats in the House of Representatives.

Primary elections will be held on March 4, 2014 for offices that need to nominate candidates. Primary runoffs, if necessary, will be held on May 27, 2014.

Governor

This will be the first open election for Governor since 1990, when Ann Richards was elected.

Republicans Greg Abbott, Lisa Fritsch, Larry Kilgore and Miriam Martinez and Democrats Wendy Davis and Ray Madrigal and Libertarians Gene Chapman, Kathie Glass and R. Lee Wrights and Robert Bell have declared their candidacies.

Early voting period for the primary election. February 18* thru 28, 2014
*First business day after Presidents’ Day Primary election. March 4, 2014

About the ALL Program 

About the A.L.L. Spring Session :

If you have  not looked at the LSC  A.L.L. Spring Schedule yet, you find the all the programs from all the LSC campuses are published in one book.  The LSC Montgomery schedule starts on page 28.  The Third Saturday Seminar will be found on Page 37.

Spring 2014 Schedule

You will find a rich choice of other A.L.L. courses to choose from in the Spring schedule but for your convenience here is ours. 
Please note that due to the vagaries of the Spring Holidays, 3 out of 4 meetings will fall on the 4th Saturday. 
Please Mark your Calendar. We apologize for the inconvenience.

See you Saturday, 22 February 2014 at 9:30am
Curt Gibby
Director

If you email me – and it’s important, please call my cell and leave a message.  I go days without looking at my inbox.