Category: News

Here’s the January issue of Pegasus.

In this edition, we include our 2024 Year in Review (annual report) and a remarkable piece by Michael Hartoonian on a new global ethic, which will also be the theme of our Global Dialogue in April.

I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.

Recently, I sent you a save-the-date notice for our 2025 Global Dialogue to be held at Marymount University in Washington, D.C.

This is a short additional notice with more information and a request for your suggestions.

Our current estimate of a registration fee to cover room arrangements, food, support for speakers and overhead is in the range of $900.

There are the Hilton, Westin, Holiday Inn, Comfort Inn and Residence Inn locations within walking distance of Marymount’s Ballston Center campus.  However, the Placemakr is nice, only 50 feet away and less expensive.

I am hopeful of securing a venue in the Capitol for our sessions on Sunday, April 13.

Please let me know your suggestions for round tables and possible speakers and participants. Again, the overall theme of the dialogue will be a new global ethic.  You can simply respond to this email.

I am intending to ask a former director of U.S. national intelligence, a foreign policy expert in Moscow associated with the Valdai Discussion Club, which advises President Putin (by Zoom), the presidents of several think tanks, a leading journalist involved daily with analysis of American politics and experts on Ukraine, Israel and China, to join us as speakers or participants.  Our colleagues at Marymount are thinking of asking a member of the U.S. Senate to share thoughts on the new Trump Administration.

I look forward to hearing from you.

I’m pleased to announce that the Caux Round Table 2025 Global Dialogue will be taking place Friday, April 11 through Sunday, April 13, in Washington, D.C., in collaboration with the Convention of Independent Financial Advisors and the Center for Professional Ethics at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia and you are invited to join us.

Please save the date.

Our ambition is to provide round table discussions on the elements of a global ethic relevant to our age and new dynamics of our global community.

In some ways, our times are reenactments of ages past.  There is trench warfare in Europe, conflict within the Abrahamic family of religions in the Middle East.  In Africa, the American Secretary of State has just made public his conclusion about genocide in South Sudan and since 1996, war in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has claimed an estimated 6 million lives.  The BRICS alliance recently proposed its own terms for world order, independent of the Pact for the Future proposed by the United Nations.  Russia and China have proposed a world order centered on the prerogatives of “civilization states.”  China, in a move without precedent in human history, seeks to impose its sovereignty over the South China Sea, or what the Vietnamese call the “Eastern See.”  The challenge of clashing civilizational communities – religious and ethnic, the West and the Rest, North and South – is with us still

In Europe, effective and respected governance at the national and E.U. level is hard to find.  In Canada, a political transition is underway.  In the U.S., divisive factionalism – just as feared by its Founders in 1787 – has taken sway over public affairs.  Re-elected President Donald Trump has proposed tariffs as barriers to trade and market rationality and new arrangements for Greenland and the Panama Canal.

What should be done?  What can be done?

The tentative agenda, as of now, with speakers to be added shortly, is as follows:

Friday, April 11:

Location: Marymount University

-Opening Dinner

Saturday, April 12:

Location: Marymount University

-Welcome and Introductions

-Session 1: The New Global Order of Civilization States: BRICS et al; the E.U. in Decomposition; MAGA Isolationism in America

-Coffee Break

-Session 2: The Decline of the West, Just as Ibn Khaldun Predicted

-Lunch: Speaker

-Session 3: Fragmentation of the Global Economy

-Coffee Break

-Session 4: Money, Debt and Storing Value

-Session 5: Summary of Day’s Discussions

-Dinner: Speaker – Prospects for the New American Administration

Sunday, April 13:

Location: Think Tank in Washington, D.C. (TBD)

-Session 1: A View from Asia

-Coffee Break

-Session 2: A View from the Middle East; the Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad; is Islam a Civilization State?

-Lunch: Speaker – What Value is Virtue?

-Session 3: Stakeholders in the Global Economy: Qui Bono?  Qui Dicit?

-Coffee Break

-Session 4: AI and Moral Capitalism

-Session 5: Conclusions

-Closing Dinner: General Discussion

I do hope you can join us.

Additional information, including registration information, will be sent out shortly.

Here’s the December issue of Pegasus.

This edition is all about social capital.

First, Steve Young writes about capitalism and slavery.

Secondly, Michael Hartoonian includes his piece on social capital and the moral infrastructure.

As always, I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.

Best wishes for the new year.

The Caux Round Table is now offering educational certificates, supported by short video modules, on aspects of moral capitalism.  The certificates are honorary and provided at no cost.

The modules have been grouped into nine playlists, available on our YouTube page.

Each playlist presents various insights into moral capitalism.  The presentations provide my thoughts and observations on implications, conundrums, possibilities and negative externalities associated with capitalism, as we experience it.

After you watch all the videos on a playlist, please click here and follow the instructions to send us your thoughts and so receive in the mail a written certificate.

A separate certificate can be obtained for each playlist.

For additional information, please contact us at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

I hope you will take advantage of this opportunity and will gain insights relevant to your career and understanding of our world of possibilities, both good and bad.

Here’s the November issue of Pegasus.

First, Steve Young explores why Donald Trump was re-elected president of the United States.

Secondly, Michael Hartoonian writes about the vital importance of a free press and its role as a “public trust.”

Thirdly, Dave Kansas, a career journalist, discusses how journalism, as a profession, has changed during the course of his career, often and more lately, not for the better.

Also, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes a guest appearance.

I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.

Tomorrow, Thursday, November 21, is Give to the Max Day here in Minnesota and we would be most appreciative of anything you can contribute to support our work.

With war in the Middle East, trench warfare in Europe, a new administration taking office in Washington, uncertainty in Europe, Asia worried over its future on the periphery of China, too much debt and Bitcoin at US$90,000, the need for enlightened common sense is the talk of the town.

The Caux Round Table ethical principles for moral capitalism and moral government provide a very sound foundation for such enlightened thinking about the common good.

Our work to learn more about the covenants of the Prophet Muhammad to respect and protect Christians and Jews is unprecedented.  The covenants have been overlooked for some 1,300 years.  Today, they can advance the cause of peace in the Middle East and throughout the world.  Your support for this work is needed and is most justified by the good that can come from more people learning more about these covenants.

To donate, please click here.

If you rather mail a check, our address is 75 West Fifth Street, Suite 219, St. Paul, MN 55102.

You could also contribute via wire transfer.  Please reply to this message for instructions

I thank you again for your support.

As many of you will remember, the Caux Round Table, with its principles for moral capitalism and moral government, has collaborated on programs honoring the legacy of John Brandl, former dean of the Humphrey School and state legislator.  One of our partners has been the Citizens League.

This year, the League has organized the program, “From Conflict to Convergence: Coming Together to Solve Tough Problems,” to encourage all of us to dedicate ourselves to John’s “uncommon search for common ground.”  Such an orientation towards politics, culture, governance and others is timely and would be most beneficial for our state and country.

The Caux Round Table is now offering educational certificates, supported by short video modules, on aspects of moral capitalism.  The certificates are honorary and provided at no cost.

The modules have been grouped into nine playlists, available on our YouTube page.

Each playlist presents various insights into moral capitalism.  The presentations provide my thoughts and observations on implications, conundrums, possibilities and negative externalities associated with capitalism, as we experience it.

After you watch all the videos on a playlist, please click here and follow the instructions to send us your thoughts and so receive in the mail a written certificate.

A separate certificate can be obtained for each playlist.

For additional information, please contact us at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

I hope you will take advantage of this opportunity and will gain insights relevant to your career and understanding of our world of possibilities, both good and bad.

Here’s the October issue of Pegasus.

Much of this edition is about citizenship.

First is a piece by Michael Hartoonian on a new universal and foundational curriculum.

Next, Steve Young explains why moral capitalists must care about citizenship.

Thirdly, we include an article by guest author, Richard D. Van Scotter, on how universities sell out to the market.

Lastly, we reprint our principles for good citizenship and include a couple other related items.

I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.