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Well... let's not forget payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, sales taxes, state, county, city, and luxury taxes. Oh, and then the death tax when you check out. I'm sure i'm forgetting any number.
The Galt thing an analogy. The problem isn't that a certain number of people are going to hang em up and let the economy rot. The problem is that millions of people are going to all be doing a little bit less than they might every time it becomes less profitable for them. The aggregate is a huge loss in the creation of wealth, which means fewer jobs, which means more government programs, which means higher taxes, which means less wealth... That's why this stimulus plan is so useless. Theoretically it works. In the real world, people rationally make the decision that if the government is spending like drunken sailors now, they will be coming for their money later, and hence it pays to save and is less profitable to risk capital now to make money in a future where taxes will be higher. Somehow Paul Krugman missed that simple truth in all his years of study.
He didn't miss it, he disagrees with it. In Krugman's world not matter how high taxes are people will continue to work the same amount instead of taking more vacations and playing golf. You'd think he'd have heard of a guy named Ed Prescott, he apparently won some big economics prize some years ago...
Why not make bundles of money and conceal in oversas accounts as so many of the wealthy have been doling for years?
(Like being forced to live in a little apartment with a little government cheese for dinner)
The hell she didn't. What else was the Oren Boyle character?
That's just the income tax rate. Add it to the other taxes we are inflicted with - and will be inflicted with.
Add that to the fact that about 45% of people pay no income taxes; so the ones who do pay a larger % of taxes than even when it was 90%. So less people are paying to support more people.
Think. Would ya?
This statement is COMPLETELY wrong. Some of the worst villains in Atlas Shrugged are businessmen such as Jim Taggart and Orren Boyle who try to use government force to destroy their more-competent competitors.
“I don’t see why Rand lovers would defend financial executives.”
Rand would not defend incompetent fincancial executives or those who run to the government for help. She would absolutely defend those numerous financial executives (e.g., in regional banks) who didn't take on subprime loans, did a good job of risk management, and are now being smeared by the government along with the others.
The difference is, most of us would have been happy to have them leave.
Those who are tired of punitive taxes and confiscatory legislation are the ones propping up this society. If they give up, there will be hell to pay. Mayor Bloomberg estimates that 0.5% of the population of NY City pays 70% of the tax revenue for the city. Are those people not propping it up?
And going John Galt (withdrawal from the system) does not need to be petulance. If you assume that people value both their income and their time, then you alter the money they get to keep from their effort, they will find a new balance to maximize their personal happiness. And that balance will include less work. Get it? They value their free time and their income. You tax their income more, but you can't tax their free-time, so they will shift more of their time away from income generation, into free time.
They have just gone Galt.
Atlas Shrugged was about a smaller and smaller group of people keeping the country afloat, while politicians and corrupt businessmen looted their output, while demonizing them in speeches and in the media. They needed to demonize them to get public support, so they could pass new laws which would confiscate more and more of their output.
That is why it rings so relevant today.
What must occur is more akin to what our forefathers did. Paul Revere, and the rest of the Boston Tea Party gang realized that in order to stop tyranny, you must eliminate the government's ability to collect taxes.
Once the government cannot collect taxes, then other governments won't lend to it (think China buying US Treasury notes).
So, simply not working won't be enough. Active measures to prevent the collection of taxes must occur. For most people, that means not paying your house note ... since it is through your house note that the government collects the most amount of tax (your property taxes, not income taxes, are the greater source of revenue for the government).
Along with "Going John Galt" and refusing to work, the real power of the people is their ability to choose not to pay their house note, thus depriving the government of its ability to collect taxes AND borrow money.
Your take on property taxes is mistaken as those taxes go almost exclusively to the county where the property is located. The bulk of property taxes goes to local schools. Not paying those taxes results in an investor paying them until you make them up. If you don't make them up, you lose the property and someone else buys it and pays those taxes. But no one can simply "replace" income taxes that are avoided by not producing income. I currently pay about $35,000 in federal taxes per year, but only about $12,000 in property taxes (only a tiny percentage of which goes to the feds). Next year I will pay less than $2,000 in federal taxes, and about $4,000 in property taxes, due to selling properties. One closes next month, and my house will be sold by summer. What you must learn is that there are ways to make money that don't incur federal tax payments. I'm changing my production to minimize earned income.
Yes, the govt will borrow, but that ponzi scheme will collapse at some point. Also, I'm not saying I'm going to stop anything by going Galt. I'm saying I'm withdrawing my assistance to non-producers and the federal government that supports them.
Here is one woman describing how she is doing that:
http://pursuingholiness.com/2009/03/going-john-...
As for "going Galt", I haven't read nor do I intend to read the book, but did those who "went Galt" realize that if not for the rest of the U.S. - specifically the defense infrastructure only possible when supported by millions of people - "Galt's Gulch" would be speaking Russian?
One of the key problems with libertarians is that - in addition to proving themselves to be nuts time and time again - they just can't figure out all the things involved in their policies and their side-effects. For instance, their support for massive immigration would give more power to those who are as far from libertarians as it's possible to be, resulting in policies that would not be libertarian in any way.
http://24ahead.com/s/question-authority
Rand did portray men like Merrill's John Thain - if you know anything about the character James Taggart, you will know what I am talking about.
Not every person who has read the novel is a "Rand lover." Many of us disagree with her politics, for instance. But we do admire her unique stance in the history of philosophy. Some dismiss her ideas as "reactionary." Well, they were - and are. Rand went toe-to-toe with every subjectivist philosopher since Plato and his fellow cave men. And she is winning. Why? Because her readers understand that we are in the philosophical fight of our lives. And that nothing short of an intellectual revolution is called for.
We are ready. Bring it on.
I can see the parallel. However...the real question is whether they actually follow through, unlike the anti-Bush people. If they do in any significant numbers, it might not be good.
The difference is that, while one cannot decamp partially to Canada, one can make small and even substantial modifications to one's business/career that fall short of "Going Galt" yet profoundly impact the economy and society.
Fool Mr. Grasshopper once, shame on you, Mr. Ant. Fool Mr. Grasshopper twice, shame on Mr. Grasshopper.
Maybe I just want to build gadgets in the garage if I'm going to be taxed too much for working hard...
Collectivists just can't get the 'my' concept... They think my time / life belongs to them.
I can't speak specifically to Thain's situation, but Tuccille should recall "Atlas" characters James Taggart and Orren Boyle. Both ran corporations and used government pull in order to pull off their looting schemes.
Jerome, you awake?
Ayn Rand said of that quote, when Dagny landed in Galt's Gulch: "perhaps the most important point in the whole book…that one must live for the sake of such exalted moments as one may be able to
achieve or experience, not for the sake of suffering." And "that the most fundamental division among men is between those who are pro-man, pro-mind, pro-life--and those who are anti-man, anti-
mind, anti-life." (Letters of AR, 583-4)
“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”
The Galtists are not proposing to "put their bodies" anywhere. Arguably, they are more moral in that they are not impeding anyone else from doing their thing. They are simply "removing their bodies" from the process entirely, since they are not bound to anyone for servititude. But the passion is the same, the immorality that they oppose is real and growing monstrous, and Obamites and ilk dismiss them contemptuously at the same peril a conservative academia dismissed Savio back in the day.
History and irony are long, long, long-time drinkin' buddies.
Perfectly stated! Many wish to paint the Galtists as "pouty, temper tantrum elitists" who are trying to show everyone "how necessary and valuable they are to the world--boy they'll sure miss us", but it's not it at all. Galtists are simply deciding that they want no part of funding the looters and the moochers. They're kicking back a bit and taking a holiday. If others decide they want to work hard and pay for moochers and looters, fair thee well :).
Forced labor and productivity are not the country's MO (yet), so going Galt shouldn't be a concern to anyone nor ruffle anyone's feathers, it's simply a personal choice--an alternative lifestyle choice :).
Ayn Rand observed that people of ability have always resisted being controlled and punished for their ability, which she described through numerous examples. "Let me remind you," she wrote, "that in Atlas Shrugged, John Galt states, referring to the strike [in Atlas Shrugged]: 'I have done by plan and intention what had been done throughout history by silent default.'"
But she did not advocate a strike as a strategy in contemporary society. "The purpose" of Atlas Shrugged, she wrote, "is to prevent itself from becoming prophetic." A strike, she believed, would be ineffective, and she explained why she thought that. The strike in the plot of Atlas Shrugged served as an accelerated, fictional device to illustrate the theme of the novel -- the role of the mind in man's existence -- by illustrating what happens when it is withdrawn from a society of looters.
Most important, Atlas Shrugged and her subsequent non-fiction work, presented her famous ideal of what is right, defending the moral right of each individual to live for his own life and his own chosen values in accordance with his own rational mind, neither sacrificing himself to others or others to himself. If this is not recognized, America will continue to deteriorate over time whether or not there is a planned strike resisting the now accelerating imposition of progressive social and economic controls.
"There is no fatalistic, predetermined historical necessity", Ayn Rand said in 'Is Atlas Shrugging?'. "Atlas Shrugged is not a prophecy of our unavoidable destruction, but a manifesto of our power to avoid it, if we choose to change our course. It is the philosophy of the mysticism-altruism-collectivism axis that has brought us to our present state and is carrying us toward a finale such as that of the society presented in Atlas Shrugged. It is only the philosophy of the reason-individualism-capitalism axis that can save us and carry us, instead, toward the Atlantis projected in the last two pages of my novel."
The audio of the original lecture "Is Atlas Shrugging?" can be heard at the Ayn Rand Insititute web site at http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename..., along with many other Ayn Rand lectures and interviews.
Also, I would recommend upgrading your browser to chrome or firefox. They have great spell checkers build it, and will help you sound better educated.
First, you all act like you make $250,000 per and I'm betting that you don't. Maybe a couple of you, but not very many. That's why it's the top two percent.
Second, we're talking about paying an extra three cents on your 250,001st dollar. Get a grip. All you top two percenters did just fine in the '90's when the rate between $250,001 and $357,000 was 36%. I'm betting you will survive this time, too.
Third, nobody gives a shit if you "go Galt" anyway. You ain't as great as you think you are. You don't work harder than other folks, like you seem to think you do. If you want to find out what real work is, get a job laying pavement in Houston, Texas in July, Your soft little lawyer hands will soon learn that's real work. Thank your lucky stars if you make over $250,000 and quit being such a pathetic whiner.
The top 2% already pay over 40% of the federal income tax. See http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html. We are quickly approaching a point when a majority will not pay any federal income taxes. I cannot speak for others but I am not whining and I do know what real work is. I am just done accepting insults for sacrificing, working hard, and succeeding. That is it. You have the absolute right to speak your mind and I can choose to spend my money as I see fit. I am conserving my resources as much as possible to prepare for an even worse economy. My mother taught me to expect the best, but prepare for the worst. So I expect the Obama administration and Congress to all wake-up tomorrow and put aside their desire to fundamentally change this country and instead focus on sound fiscal management. But I will prepare for the economy to tank and the world to become an even scarier place with Russia, China and the Middle East realizing that this administration does not have the guts to hold their feet to the fire. I hope that I am being too pessimistic and Obama matures into a great president. Thanks for laying pavement in Houston. I drive to Houston every day.
A smart man once told me that the difference between someone who makes "real money" and someone who does not, is that for the former the work week is just getting started at 40 hours, not coming to an end.
From these novels and others, of course, I took substance that has helped me survive the good and bad times, but WOW I'm not sure about now.
Rand wasn't the only one. Go read Hayek, Von Mises and Haslitt.
The only people that were for socialism were the control freak elite and their useful idiot followers.
This notion that Obama's current actions are having no effect is ridiculous, the Stock market is usually always looking to the future, and has spiralled downwards since it was apparent he would be winning the election. Even after the Dot Com Bust and 9/11 the markets lost less than 4,000 points and at that time we thought we were looking at bankrupt airlines, banking institutions going under and so on, Time to clue in and see how serious the problems with an Obama Administration really is,
Okay. Look, maybe you can explain this to me, Ring: the tax "increase" we're facing under Obama is essentially moving the top marginal rate back to 39.6%, which is what it was 10 years ago. Why is a top marginal tax rate of 35% capitalism, but a top marginal tax rate of just under 40% socialism? If this is true, then we were apparently living in Soviet Russia during the first part of the Reagan administration when the top marginal tax rate was OVER 40% ... and it's actually been over 40% for all of the time since the Great Depression. In Rand's heyday, the top marginal tax rate was well over 50%, but somehow, she failed to consider that reason enough to move back to Russia.
I'm serious here. Have any of you Ayn Rand fans actually LOOKED at the tax rates you're protesting? Are you aware that all those "creative types" earning less than $250K a year are going to see their taxes go DOWN under Obama's plan? (They would have under McCain's plain as well, for the record: these particular details were announced well before the election.)
Last but not least, as for fixing health care having nothing to do with fixing the economy -- we spend more of our GDP than any other industrialized nation on health care, and unlike any other industrialized nation, we fund it primarily on the backs of employers. I can just about guarantee you that if we ever get something like "universal health care" in this country, it's not going to be driven by the socialists of your imagination -- it's going to be driven by corporations.
Next, will come inflation so I best get busy and buy some of the things I may need in the next few years.
You are all screaming now that you have to pay the price for the incredibly stupid policies that your loopy movement is, in a large way, responsible for. Go Galt? Go to the john instead. At least in there you won't be crapping on the economy anymore.
So don't go running around blaming free markets and capitalism for todays problems. They are the result of socialist policies and fraud. You don't even know what it means to be an American. Go read the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith - one of the founders of this nation. America was not founded by Karl Marx you fool.
So don't go running around blaming free markets and capitalism for todays problems. They are the result of socialist policies and fraud. You don't even know what it means to be an American. Go read the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith - one of the founders of this nation. America was not founded by Karl Marx you fool.
So don't go running around blaming free markets and capitalism for todays problems. They are the result of socialist policies and fraud. You don't even know what it means to be an American. Go read the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith - one of the founders of this nation. America was not founded by Karl Marx you fool.
http://blip.tv/file/1802381/
Otherwise, you're just whining again.
Men are hopelessly lost in sin and reject Christ, the only one without sin and the only man that can save them. They continue in their self-destructive path of folly until the entire show collapses and finally Christ returns to restore order and to deal with the underlying problem, sin.
"Luskin, who named his daughter Roark after the hero of Rand’s novel “The Fountainhead,” sees basic economic concepts explained through the novelist’s work. “One of the reasons that the Laffer Curve works is because of the John Galt effect of creative people finding ways to cut back on their output if they know they’re going to be taxed, and demonized, for their success"
Ummm.....when did the Laffer curve "work"?
Sounds like Jerome Tuccille never read the book. James Taggert? Oren Boyle? Hello?
Think on this for a moment: a business that is losing money, pays no taxes. Hence, on your schedule C, you show a negative - a loss for the year - you pay nothing!
But a W-2 earner has to pay taxes - they have "income". So, who really is going to pay?
If you make over 250,000 after profits, that will be taxed at 3% more, you might be paying a bit more. The tax decrease that you've benefitted from, brought to you by the Republicans had a sunset clause in it anyhow, it was always intended to expire in 2011. This way they could look like heroes, then bludgeon the next administration with it when it was time to expire.
If you work less, you will give another person the opportunity to take the work you don't want, that's a pretty good thing. Someone who would be otherwise on unemployment would have a job and pay taxes. Someone whose job might have been outsourced by a company that receives a lot of tax breaks already. It would be a good thing if you stayed home and relaxed with your family, that's a great idea, you should be happier. Hmmm... working less and being happier, that's two more good things coming out of this new administration. Not too shabby!
I think... there are a lot of creative people, hard working people who are now struggling financially. For example, a lot of architects have lost their jobs because building has halted. I don't think that people who make over 250,000 have cornered the market on creativity.
What ? Clearly we will miss your brain power
So go live in your conservative "Gulch" Just be sure to provide your own food, water, power, and all of the other infrastructure you're now sucking down off the public commons. Be sure to build your own roads too.
No one makes money in a vacuum.
You Republicans are the biggest cry babies I've ever seen. You had all the years since Regan managed to con you into scapegoating the Government to make money. Now that the system of unrestrained greed reached its logical conclusion, and the gov is again going to restrain your excesses you think you are being punished. If you could have voluntarily restrained your greed your government would not have to do it. If CEOs did not value their Sooo valuable company leadership by the size of their compensation and compete to see who could grab the most you would not have the government in your company lives.
You think I'm wrong. How do you rationalize a CEO of a company ASKING for GOVERNMENT MONEY to bail out his failing company, and then giving himself a bonus after he gets it? Where's his Galtian philosophy? Why didn't he just blame the government for all his problems and go to his velvet lined cave? His belief in some system where he is entitled to a bonus for allowing his company to fail is the problem. Its called unrestrained greed. Its called unconscious greed. Its called the natural consequence of Capitalism.
If you republicans, you heroic entrepreneurs, you great capitalist philosophers really believed in what you are blathering about, and you really believed in your Galtian philosophy you would have said I don't want government money and gone broke.
Unfortunately that means all the labor folks that made your products, the ones that you said to make, and the ones that didn't manage to compete in the world market, the capitalist market that you love so much, would suffer. They would suffer from your inability to predict that capitalist market you love so much. Take some responsibility for your own choices.
What you professed to want for too long is what you got. Free competition. You got it. Live with the consequences or don't, but grow up, take responsibility for the consequences of your system and don't cry about it, Galt was a cop out. He was not a capitalist
"Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Friday that he will decline stimulus money specifically targeted at expanding state unemployment insurance coverage, becoming the first state executive to officially refuse any part of the federal government’s payout to states. "
There are plenty of people who are refusing to opt into the spending going on in Washington. Republican or Democrat, it doesn't matter who is running the show since the state is always against the private individual. The investment bankers and CEO's are a product of their environment: of course the the best dealmakers and big talkers with rockstar egos floated to the top of the industry. They had to, since that was the only way to deal with the crushing amount of regulation heaped on the industry.
Tinker here, tinker there... make a new law here, make a new law there. Ever stop to wonder just why it is that we have new laws created each year since the dawn of the country? Do we really need that much "protection?" Regulation breeds influence peddling, and THAT is what we are seeing exposed here.
There are a few govenerors that for political noteriety are opting out of
federal unemployment money.
Note the S. Carolina (?) Legislature just passed a law saying their governor
could not refuse the money on behalf of the state.
I suggest you ask those that are unemployed if they want to refuse the
money. When you get a significant amount (over 20) say, that are real
unemployed in serious need whose benefits have run out to say they don't
want anymore, I'll agree with you. Til then I don't think a govenor has the
right to say no for all.
Thanks for the reply,
I plan on going there if Obama gets worse.
BIG TALK........LIKE ALL OF YOU REPUBS ! !
PS. Singapore is not a democracy and doesn't exactly have freedom of speech so don't shoot off your mouth there.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the rest of us could try to restore and build on the prosperity laid waste by your fanatical dismantling of the social safety net and de-regulation of the financial markets.
What will we DO if the go Galt on us?
What will we DO if the go Galt on us?
I for one will rejoice....all of these corporate rapists should be rounded up and hung with their Gucci underwear.
Can you imagine what such a place would be like in the real world? Joe the Plumber wouldn't qualify, but just imagine all the CEO's and Wall Street board members beached on an island somewhere. /giggle
That statement misses a central point of the novel, which is that you didn't have to literally move to "Galt's Gulch" in order to "go Galt". The point was that your mind was going on strike, not your body. Many skilled, talented professionals made the choice to stay within "the world" and simply put their talent on strike; engineers gave up their jobs to become janitors.
Just like they're starting to do in the real world.
For every would-be John and Jane Galt that goes on strike, a thousand hungry people will eagerly claw and scratch to take their place. They'll miss a paycheck, but the world won't miss a beat.
Ironically, if they were unionized, their collective action might mean something (lol).
My other brother in law is an architect. He also voted for Obama and believe me, he doesn't make nearly the $250,000 rate that kicks in the marginal tax rate. Architects just don't make that much money. Actually it doesn't matter, not many architects make anything anymore because they're all out of work because all the building has ceased.
Atlas Shrugged is a novel, there's so much more that moves the world than capitalism, the free market and taxes.
That's great that you live so well. You're healthy and educated and work hard. I'm sure that there are a lot of people who help you as well, if you have children, they teach your children, nurses who provide care and other people who work really hard also but now are having financial problems partly due to being uninsured or underinsured. Our country has one of the highest infant mortality rates. Statistics show that most personal bankruptcies are due to hospital stays and medical treatments, even for people who have insurance. I don't understand why this is OK with people, we aren't a third world country. I see every day, everywhere I go people are working really hard, providing assistance to everyone. I mean, the woman who helps me clean my house, she works harder than anyone I know! She helps me make my life a lot easier and boy do I appreciate it and pay her well!! It seems like everyone thinks that unless you make over 250,000 you're lazy and are holding out your hand. Actually, the opposite is true, the people with their hands out are the heads of banks and the auto industry. I guess they are the ones having trouble succeeding right about now.
I've never understood how this argument exists in the face of basic socio-economic statistics. I teach at a poor, largely immigrant K-12 school, where the 16 year old, sophomore mothers' babies will be entering Kindergarten in 5 years. The research on human development/learning overwhelmingly points to parenting, genetics, peers and schooling as explaining just about every developmental outcome imaginable. If you remove those factors, there is literally no other explanation for human achievement.
Everyday I see anecdotal evidence of this over, and over again. And I can't thank society enough for having the wisdom to invest in our well-trained, albeit always under-resourced staff. Whether it's having an extra minute to spend on a kid's reading skills, helping two angry boys learn to peacefully resolve conflict, inspire a neglected child's artistic abilities, provide counseling on career options, or translate a confused parent's concerns about her daughter's test results... the list is literally endless.
And it is all about helping people to succeed.
* There are exceptions but by and large this is not the case.
If you have decided that the marginal benefit to working one more hour is not worth the marginal utility of the leisure you would have to forego, that's fine, but I don't see what is so earth-shattering about your decision. Especially as, at a moment when the unemployment rate will soon be close to 10%, plenty of people will be glad to take the work you don't want.
1. You don't pay "several percent to FICA" when you're in a 35% tax bracket (hell, you don't even pay it in a 28% bracket). You pay 1.25 for medicare (2.5 if you're self employed).
2. There are many tax deductions that would make you pay far less. Try getting a better accountant.
Nobody who actually contributes anything to society worth a damn is going to change any of their work habits because of the current government's tax policy. Of course, 90% of the people bitching about it don't currently and never will make enough to actually be impacted by these policies anyway.
Rather than follow empty minded platitudes (like those espoused in this 'article'), it may be helpful to invest in understanding actual conservatives thinking about the economy -- there's large #s of brilliant and conservative economists, none more notable than Martin Feldstein. Consistent with the empty-headedness of the conservative movement, though, people would rather take their cues from a know-nothing drug addict adulterer (Limbaugh) than truly thoughtful (and conservative!) people like Feldstein and Greg Mankiw.
I'm not poor (I'm college grad, though, so I soon will be), but I'm interested in 'going Galt' because I love the earth and want to get away from all this consumerism. The idea of a bunch of wealthy people moving out into the wilderness sickens me a little because I feel they're doing it to avoid responsibility for the amount of money they have and they just don't care about other people who work hard to bring them their food and provide them with services.
I do not want Obama to fail, but I do want to be well-informed about both sides of the argument so I can make my own decisions about what to support and what to debate. Any other sane conservatives who I could look into?
Everyone who participates in the economy eats and consumes services. Everyone pays for them as well. Your idea that social responsibility is requisitely associated with wealth is exactly why people align themselves with Rand's ideas. If I go knocking on doors and mow lawns, and you come over asking for a cut of my income, I am rightly so irritated at a very primitive level, as you are assuming some level of ownership over the fruits of my labor. The fundamental argument is there is no original sin, or in this case, preexisting societal debt. I will pay the market rate to take part in your society, but you don't own me, and I reserve the right to walk away from this arrangement if I become dissatisfied with your terms.
GWB was the culmination of that strategy: eight years of pillaging of the civic good.
Anyone who thinks unregulated markets work after the financial disaster is displaying willful ignorance far beyond the warped reasoning of a heroine addict in pursuit of their "precious"
In Ayn Rand's dedication to exposing the miserable USSR, she tolerated personal associations with some of the most dysfunctional and unattractive people on the planet. It's a shame that in a way, this is happening yet again, as quite a few extremist Republicans are apparently the latest people to discover Atlas Shrugged.
At which point they'll be forced to hire immigrants - who will eventually form unions and protest unfair working conditions, demand public education, clean streets, parks, streets, legal representation, etc.
Uh, yeah. Good ol' Ayn Rand.
Uh no. Idiot.
Its more like "if you're going to punish me for working hard, I'm less inclined to work hard".
Poor baby!
That is all...
If the government should stay out of business's way, perhaps we should start with the FDIC and shut that program down.
Would George Bush be considered socialist then because he sent out stimulus checks last year? That wasn't even to do anything productive, it was to get people to buy more stuff and that was just handing out money, a very temporary solution.
"Would George Bush be considered socialist then because he sent out stimulus checks last year? That wasn't even to do anything productive, it was to get people to buy more stuff and that was just handing out money, a very temporary solution."
No that is NOT socialist in the slightest. As far as "wasn't even to do anything productive," goes, it was. Giving people money to SPEND will theoretically triple the money in the economy. In layman's terms for you: Spending money allows business' to pay employees. It allows those employees to spend that money. When they spend that money it passes on and on, after awhile it effectively becomes MORE money and raises the GDP.
Now the biggest problem/argument against the stimulus is that people weren't using it correctly, they were using it to pay off their debt they created by living beyond their means. Paying off debt doesn't add anything to the economy.
READ: Keynesian multiplier
See: http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=... for a brief example additional fallacies in Keynesian "economics".
When someone answers a question with an insult, it's obvious they have nothing important to say. I asked a legitimate question in my post. You're getting defensive. There are never stupid questions, only stupid answers. Now try being civilized.
"Giving people money to SPEND will theoretically triple the money in the economy. "
That's it? That's your argument? We are even in agreement. Paying people to do things like build bridges and fix roads will also give them money. To spend. And pay taxes. And pass that money on.
Keynes argued that the solution to depression was to stimulate the economy ("inducement to invest") through some combination of two approaches: a reduction in interest rates, and government investment in infrastructure. Investment by government injects income, which results in more spending in the general economy, which in turn stimulates more production and investment involving still more income and spending and so forth. The initial stimulation starts a cascade of events, whose total increase in economic activity is a multiple of the original investment.[2]
And my question wasn't literally, is GW a socialist, I know he isn't. It was a more subtle why does it seem like it's OK for him to try to stimulate the economy by distributing money but it's not OK for Obama to invest in infrastructure. I'm trying to understand the distinction. I also perfectly well understand why people didn't use the money so it didn't work.
Mostly i am trying to understand to understand why people are so upset about the stimulus package, which is supposed to help our own people for example, but not protesting how much money we spend on the military which I believe is over 600 billion a year, and far exceeds China's and exceeds the military spending of all other countries combined. Do you think that's an asinine question? Are people not allowed to ask questions on this site?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/...
On a side note, while I want the federal govt. to be as small as possible and stay the hell out of my business, I actually consider myself more of a liberal locally. I want to pay my taxes to my CITY, and to a lesser degree, my state. I will vote yes for any program in my city that would be better for the people of my city, even if that means higher taxes! I just don't want to pay for the iraq war, subsidizing businesses, supporting unions, federal welfare, and the general govt waste.
My question still stands though, why people are complaining about big government now, when George Bush expanded the roll of government with things like the Patriot Act:
The Act increases the ability of law enforcement agencies to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records; eases restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering within the United States; expands the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those involving foreign individuals and entities;
and so forth
I don't recall the Going Galt battle cry then, only now. Why now? Why not then when government's control was expanding and the level of spending unprecedented? Where were the senators with their copies of Atlas Shrugged then?
I want to see a third party revolution, we need a real choice. Visit campaignforliberty.com to help this along.
John Galt (and Ayn Rand in particular) were Atheists so it is not palatable to the neo-con breed.
I could go on and on...
But is this truly "going Galt"? Inquiring minds want to know.
She smokes and made undercarriage available to some wealthy capitalists. She is not missed.
Spread the word, people.
Socilist programs remain widely praised today, even given their failures. They are features of every socialist "democracy". Keynes himself admired the Nazi economic program, writing in the foreword to the German edition to the General Theory: "[T]he theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under the conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire."
Keynes's comment, which may shock many, did not come out of the blue. Hitler's economists rejected laissez-faire, and admired Keynes, even foreshadowing him in many ways. Similarly, the Keynesians admired Hitler (see George Garvy, "Keynes and the Economic Activists of Pre-Hitler Germany," The Journal of Political Economy, Volume 83, Issue 2, April 1975, pp. 391–405).
Even as late as 1962, in a report written for President Kennedy, Paul Samuelson had implicit praise for Hitler: "History reminds us that even in the worst days of the great depression there was never a shortage of experts to warn against all curative public actions…. Had this counsel prevailed here, as it did in the pre-Hitler Germany, the existence of our form of government could be at stake.
Vicente Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d'Anconia Martinez
your marginal taxes are going from ~35% to ~39%. So tell me, where in that four percent is the line between unacceptable socialism and capitalist nirvana?
Anything more than ZERO percent is socialist and anti-freedom.
Anything more than ZERO percent is stealing my personal property at gunpoint because you do not trust me to serve the general welfare voluntarily.
The Republican party is dead because of all of us who wised up to this in the last three years. It's going to remain dead until it realizes that it can't win without our votes.
I don't care who is trying to steal my money or what reason is being given. It's theft, whether you're threatening my employer with jail to get them to steal it preemptively so you can fight wars, or whether you're making the county charge me rent on property I'm supposed to own so other people's brats can spend six hours a day not learning to spell.
FEMA - I avoid living in disaster prone areas, and don't care to pay to help those who don't do the same.
NIH - Why not the National Institute of Science too?
Homeland Security - give me a break. This, on top of local police, FBI, CIA, and five branches of the military.
FDA - looks good on paper.
The bottom line is this: in a democracy, the peons will one day realize that they can vote for programs that benefit them while also voting that the minority should pay for them. This is the beginning of the end of the democracy, which in the USA seems to have happened early last century.
Yeah, Obama's really screwing you alright...
Oh and F you. I earned the luxury not to work.
Roads? Most in Texas are state funded. Do you look to the fed to do everything?
I believe the financial system needs to be regulated heavily because the money supply is just as important to our society as good soil was/is to an agricultural soceity.
Everybody should not own a home. Irresponsible people should and will remain that way. If you resent thinking or acting intelligently because someone is trying to "make you do something" you're an idiot and heck if I care if you're making 18 an hour as the ceiling wage in your life.
Charity could solve most of our problems of redistribution. Noblesse Oblige or whatever. Also a lot of fashionable ways of giving to charity do not have a lot of utility, cancer research is....well....someday maybe there will be a breakthrough, until then.....give to disadvantaged children's education funds or something worthwhile. Too much Leukemia research going on, not enough truly effective ways of voluntary redistribution.
Unfortunately, the Leftists never moved to Canada. Conservatives are capable of going on a creative "strike." Not only capable but in a lot of cases willing and able. It's a lot like civil disobedience, I'd say, only without the disobedience.
But the Galt complaint is that of being robbed every day. Very different from hypocritical moralizing upon which the moralizer does not follow through for reasons of personal comfort... We taxpayers are being robbed every day, quite literally. Taxation is theft, the taking of what belongs to you against your will with use of threat of force. We endure theft on the grounds that the thieves have no other recourse to fulfill constitutional duties, and in return we demand from them fiscal and fiduciary responsibility, the stealing of as little as possible and the most efficient possible use of the loot.
Needless to say, in my lifetime the failure of government to fulfill these two responsibilities has grown steadily worse, with a very refreshing pause in the 1980s... now the fulfillment of responbilities to the taxpayer has simply been defenestrated, tossed out the window, and they are literally spending as MUCH as possible as fast as possible.
We cannot overthrow government (yet), and our remaining recourse is the refusal to be slaves and have the fruits of our labor simply taken from us. I refuse. We refuse. So far, at least, Ogabe has not indicated he will FORCE productivity from the productive, but honestly, if a leftist government has obligations to its voters and revenues continue to decline, I fail to see how they will NOT consider forcing productivity at some point.. it is the great failure of socialism, that human nature will not permit the productive to meekly be harnessed to the wagon like that... freedoms are necessary to encourage the productive..
and I seriously doubt that high earning Dems will just sit and let this happen to them. Perhaps the wealthy will remain, but after all, they don't pay much in tax. Buffett says his secretary pays more than he does. It's the difference between earning and HAVING money.
You need to realize that you're not really talking to Hannity zombies and dittoheads. Significant numbers of us hold an ideological position that is at odds with government spending of any sort, regardless of who it benefits.
We don't want to saddle Leviathan and ride it in the direction we want to go. We want to kill it.
Bush is a decent and good man who tried to do what he believed was right. He was not, and is not, a conservative. As always, politics renders our choices far narrower than we would like.
The drum was indeed there. It's louder now because this administration is gouging deeper... and very honestly, I didn't think that was possible 45 days ago.
people of accomplishment, and people of talent and energy?
Are you kidding me???
The people Obama is going after are the farthest I could imagine from that description.
We had 8 years of unchecked incompetence (from the top), it's time for a little accountability and competence.
Accountability is a bedrock of strong capitalism.
I will make this controversial suggestion though-- if in fact shareholders (not the general public!) have actually lost money due to a next-feathering executive, then those shareholders should --
1) take disciplinary action, including sacking and perhaps even demanding payback of the company funds stolen by the feathered fiend, and
2) create company policy on behalf of all the shareholders that roots out this kind of behavior and better answers it in the future.
It is NOT for Barney Frank, not a law enforcement officer, to pursue, arrest and jail the 'offenders'. It is for the corporations to deal with their own. Unless it radically alters the economic landscape of the nation to the worse, I see no reason such matters should even be brought UP except by the newspapers.
If, of course, damage has been done to the general public, then there should be laws and actions available for use by government, in a transparent and limited way. Barney Frank shouting for hides from the House floor is not what I have in mind.
Those who ascribe to an objectivist or libertarian perspective are often the most vile sort of self-centered idealist, and we would be well rid of them. It is in fact a misattribution to lump them with "conservatives" and other people considered right of center. They are not "American Conservatives" - their world-view does not draw from right-wing classical liberalism but rather from an obscene mixture of staunch traditionalism/mysticism and utterly irresponsible focalism; it rests upon pride, greed and self-delusion in equal parts.
A much, much more common situation will be the employer faced with a higher tax bill, who will decide that he is not going to take a pay cut, and will lay off a couple workers. In this economy, the money is going to come out of payroll, and not at the top, like they think.
This really was the wrong time to tell business' to watch out for big brothers boot, while they are already down. Obama's progressive policies will doubtless result in a lot of additional lost jobs, just from the threat of higher cost burdens on business and I don't mean just the taxes.
Already job losses are higher than the administration projected. This is partly, because of the fear factor. They have already made threats, and business reacts to what they believe will happen.
hmm Ayn Rand, the same one that dated Greenspan and the one Greenspan idolized??
Good luck
Second of all, Ayn Rand was certainly NOT thinking of stock brokers when she wrote about "creative and talented people." In fact if you had actually READ the book instead of the cliff notes, you'd see that the bureaucrats were in fact all greedy businessmen who had taken over the government.
Here's the truth: The creative and talented people have already been shut out of society, know why? Because they all became stock brokers and investment bankers, instead of scientists, architects, artists or engineers. Its known that most high school kids who score incredibly well on standardized tests either go into business or law, and only a handful into science or the arts. This isn't because they aren't interested, but rather they think that they can make a ton of money really fast and then do what they really want to for the remainder of their lives.
What we're seeing now is a RETURN to fostering of creativity and intelligence. No one in their right mind graduating from high school now would want to be a stock broker or investment banker, and with higher availability of college loans, we will see in the next 4 years a huge influx of bright creative minds into working society.
Now...If you have read this article or have read 'about' "Atlas Shrugged" (or "The Fountainhead"), dont you DARE attempt to reference either of these books in conversation in the way that the author of this article has. In the rare chance someone in your conversation has actually read the book, they will know immediately that you have not, and your argument becomes transparent.
So this is my challenge to you. If you read this article and felt good about it, go read Atlas Shrugged. Even if you read it when you were young and think you remember what it's about, read it again.
Here's the truth: Ayn rand wasn't thinking maglevs when she wrote Atlas Shrugged. That was probably just because they weren't around then. Now that's not to say that there were no stock brokers as there are now, but you have to keep in mind that back then the dollar was a hard asset. It meant something that it simply couldn't mean now.
What we're seeing now is in many ways the darkness that led to the appointment of Wesley Mouch. The creativity that you're seeing is just a new toolset that has become available at the apex of what we currently think of as the digital age - a computer in every home and classroom... People are able to do more than they have in the past because it's easier to do. Everyone has a blog. Everyone has a digital camera. Everyone has a forum to be heard. The problem is that just because everyone has a place to be heard, everyone does not have anything worth hearing. There may be more creation happening now than has ever happened before, but any trip through youtube will show the quality that is generally being created.
And because of the heightened availability of college loans we are simply seeing more people going to school. That does not increase the creativity of people anymore than locking people up rehabilitates them. I'm not saying that school is hurting everyone's quality of life - far from it. I'm saying that, in general, school is more destructive to the upper echelon of intellect and creativity than it is helpful. Don't believe me? Go to a school board meeting or talk to the dean at a school. If school is a place where everyone "gets their chance" as they are sure to tell you, the top students must be held back to work at the pace of the slower students.
So, this is my challenge to you, if you read Atlas Shrugged, looked around at this country, and felt good about its direction, go reread Atlas shrugged, and as you do, don't assume that you're a Galt or a Dagny. You're probably a James Taggart who feels pretty good about everything because you know you can keep up your facade of control knowing that your position secured by the talents and creativity of others. And please don't ever come into a room calling one of the most influential idealists (right or wrong) of the century batshit crazy because you read a book in high school one time.
Looters are the same breed, be it government looters or corporate looters -- they are parasites which feed on the hard work and determination of all workers.
"Those who ascribe to an objectivist or libertarian perspective are often the most vile sort of self-centered idealist, and we would be well rid of them."
Personally I've never heard of a libertarian advocating for getting rid of 'parasites and looters". We just want to be left alone. You are another just another Hitler or Stalin preaching the use of force to exploit a nation.
Is it irresponsible to be proud of yourself? (pride) to have the ambition to feed and educate your children? (greed) to think that your accomplishments mean something (self delusion). If these are 'irresponsible' then clearly you don't know what responsibility is.
No one's being forced to do anything. You don't have to work if you don't want to.
When I still worked for someone else, there were times I would call off because the extra hours put me into a higher bracket and ended up paying more in taxes. I could actually work less hours and take home more. I also remember one year that I made $75 that put me into the next bracket, and instead of receiving a $200 refund I was forced to write out a check for another $500.
And, by the way, sometimes your payroll deduction was much higher if you earned more for that period than normal because of the way the payroll deduction was calculated by your employer. But you got it back at the end of the year.
The income tax is SOLD as something to punish the "greedy rich people," but that is lie. The federal "income tax" was created (along with the Federal Reserve System) because the financial elite (those who drafted and benefit from our monetary system) wanted it. THEY get to create money out of thin air, THEY get to create crises like the one we're in right now and then shift all the costs on to the back of the taxpayers. ...THEY get to seize more power without any accountable whatsoever while all of you think you're "helping out" by "chipping in."
Worried about the poor and middle class? Don't want to see them screwed by untouchable financial elites. Good. Learn a little about our monetary system and maybe you'll start to see who the government really serves. (It isn't us.) Here is a short / FREE book on the topic: http://joeplummer.com/meet_the_system.html
That's why the Randians are pushing her books onto high-school reading lists (that is, when they can get them past school boards unaware of Rand's glorification of rape and subjugating women -- she was not into sisterhood). They have to nab the kids then, because by the time a kid's made it two years into college, it's generally too late: He or she has too much real-world knowledge and too realistic a view of his or her own ego for the Randian virus to infect him or her. (Beware anyone who becomes a Randian after the age of twenty-five. That's about as sure a sign of looniness as use of multiple exclamation points or Comic Sans IT font.)
Go, the sooner, the better
Drop out. Get out. Fuck off. Good riddance.
I'm sure Rand fans swoon over these heroes, thinking, "boy, that's me through and through!" but they are a cartoon. The bad guys are as two-dimensional as children's unflattering stick figure drawings of people they're mad at.
A simplistic book for simplistic people.
All you commenters with your phony threats of cutting back your work load and withholding from the world the benefits of YOUR amazing brain power seem to think that you're all John Galts and Hank Reardens, that surely nobody else could step in and do what you do. Your threats are hollow because you aren't Ayn Rand's supermen - other people can take your place and they will jump at the chance.
I believe I understand what you're saying, you want government out of your life, you want the government to be reduced in size and you don't want to see the built in sunset clause on the tax code go into effect. You want to keep your hard earned wealth, decide where your money should go and leave well enough alone. I can completely appreciate that and see your point of view.
If your hard work isn't paying off for you any longer and you want to "Go Galt", you absolutely should. You're right. It may actually benefit to you to do so. You can spend more time with your families, pursue a hobby, learn a language, take care of your health and exercise and enjoy yourself. You deserve it, you absolutely do, take advantage of it, it's an opportunity. It could have the additional benefit of allowing you to live longer and healthier and possibly decreasing the need for prescription medication later on, saving you even more money. It's a very good thing.
One person who should set an example by doing this is Rush Limbaugh. He works really hard, makes a lot of money but he doesn't look well at all. He needs to address his eating problems and his health before he finds himself having a heart attack over a fettucini alfredo. He will be affected by the tax increase on his salary and he should also battle Obama by either reducing his salary, reducing his hours, or leaving the country because I am pretty sure he doesn't want his tax money going to the looters either.
Meanwhile, there are all kinds of people who make up this world and there are many world views. For every business owner who wants to contract their business, there is a business owner who will expand. There are many brilliant, creative people who voted for Obama, doctors, professors, scientists, business owners, entrepreneurs. Rightly or wrongly, they were done with the shenanigans of the previous administration and elected Obama. They will continue to work and earn and progress and be ambitious because they just look at things differently and are motivated differently.
1 - There are a hell of a lot of people on the right who delude themselves into believing that they are not only creative geniuses who work so much harder than most people, but also contribute so much to our society that their withdrawal would cause a great collapse.
2 - This comment board is the rarefied domain of that 2% of our populace who make over $250,000 per year.
3 - the right is afflicted with an even greater hysteria than has thus far been evident.
I love the sheep-like bleating of conservatives who label Democrats or any policy that benefits society as "socialist". Eight years of rabid republican conservative ideological lockstep have taken discussion into that gutter. Most of the righties on this board seem content to parrot Rovian talking points and mantras mindlessly. Most of the Galtist cheerleaders simply are not the creative geniuses whom they claim to be, will not be taxed excessively by the Obama policies, work no harder than those they decry as looters and socialists, and will indeed benefit from reforms made to a system that they and their ideological soulmates have badly broken.
The collective amnesia on the right about the past eight years is notable for its idiocy. The financial meltdown is the result of what you and your Bush administration wrought on this country and the world over the past eight years. Blaming Obama won't change that. At least his administration is going about trying to fix what is obviously broken instead of presiding over the destruction and congratulating itself on how well it's running things. Those who wish to take their ball and leave the game a la Galt should be encouraged to do so. Society will most probably be better off without you.
Please go. I look forward to taking your job and paying the extra taxes on money I would not have had otherwise.
Thanks,
Currently underpaid smart people
Yes you would, and then you would be on our side. The only way for you to get our jobs (as you admit) is if you drop out. Are you starting to get the picture?
So, you lose. We all lose. The economy loses. Not 2% of the people.
Are you satisfied being a part of a nation that punishes the successful and rewards the unsuccessful? I'm not. Socialist policies are destroying the foundation of this nation.
Taxation is "punishment"? Really? You and your ilk say it as though you are the only ones who pay taxes. I'd say that Americans have been collectively punished over the past eight years by your Bush admin.
Let the healing begin.
If you think you are capable of working in the jobs that people are leaving through Going Galt, then prove yourself by taking action now instead of waiting for people to give you the "ok". Feel free to enter the competition of the market today if you truly think you are better than them. None of them waited to take someone's place.
You write as though anyone who isn't in ideological lockstep with your bankrupt conservatism is an underachiever or a freeloader. Delusional thinking on your part, simply a way of compartmentalizing those who disagree with you as unqualified to be a part of the discussion.
I completely disagree with you, and I run my own business, and I compete in the market, and I don't wait for anyone to give me the ok before I take action. Initiative and hard work are not the exclusive domain of conservatives. It's also not about thinking about being "better than them". They aren't the yardstick by which I measure myself. And it's not about taking someone's place - just because your notions about getting ahead involve shoving someone else aside doesn't mean that's how everyone else operates.
Oh, that's hysterical. Point out one comment that suggests, "Oh my God! They're going to go Galt! Stop them before it's too late!"
Go ahead, do it. Please go Galt. The country needs a laugh.
I am willing to stay, I will help business grow without abandoning morality, i will help the young and gifted see their visions can be the future. I will stay and see these difficult times through. And my reward is to have lived well. No pie in the sky bullshit, no obtuse sci-fi, no empty rationalizations. I will STAY.
to read and write and to think critically. You should do the same.
You cannot use the rantings of some deluded dreamer to form policies upon which to run a nation. What is good microeconomic decision making for an individual has zero to do with good macroeconomic policy for a nation.
Jeeze people, get a grip!
Are you going to say that they are disadvantaged and can't? Ok Fine. I can't pay for these services anymore either, I'm disadvantaged too. Will you say that I'm doing this on purpose so therefor it's not the same? Well, thats your opinion, as I have my own opinion about the moochers who have have done so for many years. The fact is, I no longer make enough money to pay income taxes, like lots of others in country, I have become one of the masses, where is my love?
If those "Going Galt" are stupid and will have no effect on this country, why does this matter to you? Why are you here, why did you read this story? Why are you responding?
Check your premises.
I "shrugged" in early '08, I beleived that regardless of who won, we were headed for this mess. We've been headed here for 40+ years and I dont think anything can stop it. This is not a Republican vs. Democrat or even Rich vs. Poor. This is a generational war.
As a country we have been divided and subdivided, pitted against each other using labels and "wedge" issues. We are all firing at each other, while the real culprits stand to the side and sell us ammo and encourages the fight. I just choose not to fight anymore, you should do the same.
Let them have it. (You can define "them" however you want, you'll be right).
Sure, I'll field this one:
Because reading stories about petulant, self-indulgent, self-described--what was it--"people of accomplishment" is always hilarious reading. And to hear them talk about retreating to the caves if marginal tax rates are raised to Bush I era levels is *beyond* hysterical.
The red-state folks the Congressmen in the piece represent are--best case scenario--shower ring factory owners and exterminators. More likely, they're folks like Joe The $200k/year Plumber--you know, the guy who wasn't actually a plumber, was making $40k/year, and wasn't actually named 'Joe'. You know, "people of accomplishment" without whom US society would collapse.
The creative class, who actually generating wealth in this country, predominately live in blue-states and urban areas like to read stories like this and laugh heartily, then go back to pursuing the things that interest us, that make us wealthy, and that make America great.
Meanwhile, you go ahead and close up your carpet remnant business and "go Galt." This is straight out of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Oh Noes! The telephone sanitizers and Wal-Mart greeters are leaving us to our fates!!!"
Classic.
Does anyone else think it is funny that a book that most intelligent people considered to be naive when we were in 10th grade is now the new Republican victory manual? You just can't make up this stuff.
Please, do the US a favor and move into a cave, the rest of us want to get on with the current century.
When Ayn Rand talks about the creative impulse that drives industry, she uses in terms of creating something, or driving something, being productive.
I don't think that any of the popular politicians qualify under that scheme; neither do the scheming bureaucrats that used regulation to their favor to create this mess.
No, it's the Captains of industry, the mechanics, the construction workers, the computer programmers, the engineers, the artists, that have the productive creative impulse that separates the good from the leeches.
If you ask me, in that scenario alone, liberal thought has already beaten the pulp out of conservative irrational allegiance to redneck tradition. Isn't it funny how selective memory works?
But her restoration is precious! We have conservatism's new icons. Joe the Plumber, Bobby the Exorcist Jindal, Sarah 'family values' Plain, Rush the addict Limbaugh, Michael 'hip hop' Steele. Sure let's add Ayn "logically greedy" Rand as their iconic thought leader.
She can mix it up with left counterparts John Dewey, James Madison, John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. Seems unfair, but what you gonna do?
...it just gets better and better.
I'd love to see the a**holes who are convinced they're indispensable get out of the way. The world will move on without them, and they'll get a great chance to sit back and stare at their empty lives.
Exactly whom are the "moochers, freeloaders and thieves", and what is their relevance to the discussion of the Galtian cowardice that you espouse? The Obama admin and Democrats in general? Everyone I know who voted for Obama is educated, accomplished and pulls their own weight. People who make positive contributions to society. People who don't seek to minimize their input while maximizing their returns. For many the return is seeing the positive outcomes of their input. This doesn't describe everyone who voted for Obama, but it's not as though everyone - or even a minor fraction - who voted for the others is someone who picks up slack, or is one of the few who carry the burden for the many, or is someone who built our (that is OURS, not yours, Self Interested) society.
Your moniker, Self Interested, says it all about you. You couldn't give a damn about anyone but yourself. You're all about you, so why should I care about you? Go fuck yourself, that way you can give and receive to the only person who matters to you - you.
There are plenty of folks who care about the common good, who understand that people's well being in our society is inter-related, and who are driven by far more than the self absorbed narcissistic impulses of you and people like you. Since that reality is such a problem for you and your ilk, by all means, go live in a cave, get out of our way, and stay out of the affairs of a civil society in which you obviously have no place.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/business/28no...
1. This is unlikely to occur, as Weigel is subtly mocking this idea. It is as if you asked someone who doesn't believe in global warming to drive a hydrid, or who believed the Iraq war was a mistake to join the military and request service in Iraq, or a teabagger to mail a contribution to the DNC.
2. Also, if you want Weigel to "go Galt", which in his case would be to stop writing, why do you read him? I read people I disagree with, either because sometimes they make interesting points I hadn't considered before (Larison, Douthat), or because they are unintentionally hilarious (Gellar, Swank). But if I don't find value in someone's writing in some manner, I don't read them. Why would I? Limited hours in the day, and I'm sure I spend too much time online as it is.
So why read someone who you find to be horrible or stupid and not in an amusing way? I've never understood this.
I, for one, think that the best thing about American democracy is that it works hard to prevent Raskolnikovs and all other species of the ubermensch from seizing absolute power. I intend to do my part to support American democracy by scoffing hard at these people for being the morons they are.
I mean, seriously. You give a copy of Ayn Rand as a GIFT? It more or less announces your intention to blow up, set fire to, or otherwise destroy that which alters your personal creative vision. NOT a cheery accompaniment to a fruit basket.
Nat Taggart murders a state legislator for revoking his charter?
I mean, the woman testified before the House Unamerican Affairs Committee (the McCarthy hearings) -- as a FRIENDLY WITNESS.
Do your reading!
Rand is a pathetic, philosophically bankrupt hack that repubs are clinging to because they need something, anything, that has any kind of legitimacy that transcends the TV and radio talking heads that have taken over what used to pass for intellectual philosophy for their DEAD movement.
You shit republicans lost. You fucked up for eight years. You put an idiot geezer and a dim bulb cunt forth as candidates, and you were rejected. Shut up, step aside, or get crushed. I'd like to be the first to grind my boot into your fucking face.
Bush, whose family
The choice to work outside the system is inherently marginalizing and muffles one's voice. I choose to work with the people within the system who are closest to my values system. A least at that point my voice can be heard.
Ayn Rand is a delusional moron. A novelist. Novelists don't need to think of practical applications of their ideas. Actual thinkers don't take Rand seriously, Trickster. Consider the real world, grasshopper, not the fictional terra Rand stipulates.
Why are people against mutually beneficial free trade?
To those linking Rand to fascism, look up the word in the dictionary.
Fascism:
A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
C'mon Galtists, now's your chance! Congregate in Utah! Actually do something useful and DIE! We worthy human beings might theoretically be able to use your remains for fertilizer or animal feed. YEEEEAAAHHH!
No, you braindead moron, Atlas Shrugged was a piece of fiction that, while it might be a fantasy for you and your scum to masturbate over, is not a masterplan, like that of Hitler or Mussolini or Franco or Pinochet or Chavez, it's fiction that is irrelevant to the real world. Your bankrupt philosophies have run their course, you people had your chance and you blew it in spectacular fashion. Sit back and take your medicine, or better yet make good on your threats to drop out, get lost, and by all means FUCK OFF. We've had enough of you and your bankers and your speculators and your greed and your narcissism and your thoroughly useless, self-serving crap. Do the world a favor and fuck off post haste - you've done actual human beings no favors, your "god" that you use to try to pacify people understands that you're subhuman, and so do we. The people have spoken. Democracy sucks for losers who have it worked out that they're superior doesn't it? Cry motherfucker.
Rand was a FASCIST and so are you
Here's a plan, why don't you send your little precious cunt of a daughter or little cock rooster of a son off to face bullets? It's really about elitism, isn't it? You and your scum spend so much time accusing those whom you have so much contempt for of elitism, but that's just to cover for where you're really coming from.
I don't own a gun, I'm not putting it to your head, and nor have I ever. And no one else is either. Get over your drama queen crap. I'm not your oppressor. You people loved Bush and Co when they were committing their crimes, or if you didn't you sure as hell didn't have the nuts, guts, spine or intelligence to speak up. It's not your repub world now, you lost, you're wrong. You people made this mess. Shut up and step aside while we clean up after you.
Haven't you been contributing to the distribution of wealth and thievery all along, all through the Bush years? You've been contributing to the contractors in Iraq, they've made tons and tons of money off your hard earned tax dollars. GW was the biggest thief of all, look around on this list, you'll see that everyone on all sides agree. The tax code that GW set up had a built in sunset clause in it of 2011, we all knew the break would end, so you can talk to your Republican representative about that.
You don't have to work if you don't want to, there's no gun to your head, if you feel that way, you are probably not well and should seek help. Who is standing over you with the gun?
It sounds like you are a believer in a very small federal government. That's absolutely fine, that's your belief. Consistency is important, though because I mean there are always stories about people who don't believe in social programs or universal health care yet received Social Security and Medicare themselves. I personally know 2 people like that.
What I want to know is, GW's administration grew the government so much, he borrowed so much money, he funneled so much to the contractors in Iraq, an enormous transfer of wealth over the years, all on my hard earned tax dollars and yours. He is the very definition of a looter so when did you "Go Galt"? 3 years ago? 5 years ago? it sounds to me like no one on this list was living by their principles then, sounds like they were taking what they could get.
There's no real point to the republican smears other than to try to tear someone down in the absence of a point (remember Limbaugh's Chelsea Clinton jokes -"family dog" - ha ha ha, how funny to say that about an adolescent girl on nationally syndicated media). I've already heard the quotes of the Stones "Brown Sugar" regarding Michelle Obama - how long is it going to take for the right's heros to "quote" what they've heard, over and over and over?
"All the men who have vanished, the men you hated, yet dreaded to lose, it is I who have taken them away from you. Do not attempt to find us. We do not choose to be found. Do not cry that it is our duty to serve you. We do not recognize such duty. Do not cry that you need us. We do not consider need a claim. Do not cry that you own us. You don't. Do not beg us to return. We are on strike, we, the men of the mind."
Hilarious. No wonder the crotchety infants who keep threatening to "go Galt" eat this crap up. She sounds *exactly* like one of the unhinged Randian commenters. Philosophically bankrupt; aesthetically bankrupt; morally bankrupt. Looks like Rand hits the trifecta!
"That crack head bought gum with food stamps!!"
Pathetic.
Someone else may have come up with the idea, or something close to it, maybe. Maybe not. The people who invent, who produce, not who labor, those are the people who are important in society. The people who are always seeking to expand, to grow, to make new and more. They push the limits of society and push us all along. They are irreplaceable.
I'm replaceable in my job, I'm guessing you think you are too, but some people aren't. They are the John Galts of the world, and instead of punishing them for their success we should realize and appreciate that we stand on the shoulders of giants.
"Going Galt" is a moral stand against the cabal in Washington. Moving to Canada is a cowardly retreat.
Standing your ground takes a lot more mettle than merely running away.
Stop whining and do something YOURSELF. You'll be amazed at how good it feels to take your own stand instead of demanding (and stomping your foot) that others DO SOMETHING!
What kind of a stand are you taking now, specifically?
Make a statement!
And I agree with that assessment. There is only one explanation why the Demoratic Leadership refuses to fight against the crazier-than-John-Birch Republican Party: The Dems are directly controlled by the GOP!
I spent a great part of my youth devoted to Ayn Rand and her philosophy as wonderfully woven through those magnificent figures of Howard Roark, Dagny, Dominique and Galt. We use to start our conversations with: 'who is John Galt?' So this is what I've learned and how I connect what is happening today with Rand's vision: I will say to all of you who are reading her for the first time: 'look and think deeper than the surface and you will see the real truth of our times as Rand would see it. It is far too
insulting to her philosophy to look at what has happened in the past eight years and displace the blame on the 'have not's' Conservatives are confusing those who have money with those who are creative and productive. There is a difference and that difference is at the core of the issue at hand.
In fact if RAnd were alive she would be the first to scream out that the thieves are those who take from those who have. But look at that concept closely in terms of our times. It is those investment bankers,
those empty, pitiful, impotent shells of what could have once passed for men that have stolen from the
creative potential life of those who 'have.' You have to define 'have' in Rand's terms. To 'have' isn't simply dollars if they are not earned by real substance and genuine effort. Rand saw those who stepped on the creative potential of others to falsely inflate themselves as the criminals. Conservatives can do what they always do, spin and twist and even steal a philosophy to justify that
in fact it is their actions that have crippled the potential of a society to rise to greatness, greatness
based on something earned.
The concept of 'poor' to Rand isn't a reflection of a bank statement, it's a reflection of character, genuine talent, passion, devotion, depth in terms of mind and spirit.
In fact, it is those who have these qualities that are being stolen from to feed the 'empty' people who
lie and cheat their way to positions of power and the ability to steal the spirit and soul of those who are anything but empty.
Rand would have been sickened by the administration of the last 8 years. A stolen election would have brought her to tears, Bush to Rand would have been the architypical Eddie Willers, the puppet
who is used to help feed the evil vampires i.e., Cheny, the true embodiment of an empty person who feeds on others to make himself appear as if there is something there. RAnd would have been nauseated to see how Bush lied to go to war. To her, that would be the thief. To see the idea of deregulation used essentially to steal. The idea that those who have not earned it are being given
goldenparachutes as a reward for 'not' doing their jobs would be disgusting on every level.
AS for Obama, she would have admired and adored his mind and his vision and seen him as the
John Galt to step in and attempt to fix the mess caused by the last administration. RAnd would have
gotten the obvious, it is those at the heart and soul of America, who are actually going to work every day and earning their way and participating in their society whether it be by actually paying taxes (instead of looking write-offs and a way out) and even joining the military.
Obama is our modern day John Galt and it is the people of America that are the heart, soul, talent and mind of our society whose passion and purpose has been stolen by those who rose to undeserved positions by syphoning off their strength and even their money through these banking and mortgage schemes. Obama is the 'idea' man and Rand would view his energy and devotion and quality of mind as characteristic of Galt's genious. Rand would see Obama is the 'liberator' from those that have put in the position we are in. The same cast of characters that now want to displace the blame for their mistakes onto Obama. How long has he been in office, 6 weeks? He has already done more and is trying to do more than most President's do in their entire terms.
And now, to add insult to injury these very same 'old white impotent men' and for some reason they are always the old white men who wear perfect suits and show up at religious services have the nerve
to use Rand's great vision to justify their theft. These are vampires in every sense of the word, sucking on the rich blood of those who seek life because they don't have any real talent other than the ability to
steal it from others and make it appear as if it is theirs.
To that end, in this is the thing and it's sad because it is as if our country is being held hostage because the banks and car companies who either produced nothing or a lousy product feel justified
in receiving a bail out. No those at the top of those companies don't deserve a thing, they got us into this mess but because if the companies go, the people who actually worked hard and have talent will
be punished without the bailout. The answer lies somewhere in getting rid of those that caused all of this and somehow go directly to the heart and soul of the American people who didn't deserve the idiots who ran these industries. Giving to Americans who are holding up America would be supported by RAnd, bailing out the jerks at the top who intentionally produced lousy cars and loans
based on nothing - they only deserve to be in jail, and they should start with Paulson and the last administration with their endless efforts to take care of themselves at the expense of the country.
I have no sympathy for a car industry that intentionally built cars that would break down. That is exactly what RAnd despised and cried out against. Anyone who had a part in that should get nothing.
But somewhere in those companies there are the guys with the mind and talent that wanted to build something better and stronger and where shut down because most likely that wouldn't have resulted in a big enough undeserved and unearned profit. It is that person, those millions of people across our country that RAnd wants to have the opportunity to rise and use their ability and yes be rewarded for it, because they will deserve it, they will have earned it. Everything about the last administration was about stealing from those with true stature as human beings and selling it as cheaply as possibly while they smoke a cigar in a back room, snickering all they way at the expense of millions.
So far all new Rand readers, look deeply and read the lines between the lines and truly understand that each and every person has greatness within them if they live in a society that allows it to come to fruition. Another great writer, Steinbeck wrote in Grapes of Wrath, and I'm paraphrasing the thought which goes something like: 'We're the people, we go on -' Those who are doing all they can to beat
us down, there is nothing in them and without us they can't last.
Obama is our John Galt and our Howard Roark, he gets that it is the American people that have the mind and the talent to rebuild our country. He'll need an awful lot of courage and strength to circumvent those that want to undermine his efforts to reward those who actually deserve it.
I once had a professor that said: 'it can be a good thing to have to face who you really are, to not
be bailed out if it's not deserved, in that way you can start over and find out if in fact you've got anything of substance to offer.
To all new RAnd readers: Don't let the conservatives tell you how to interpret her philosophy. That in and of itself is a violation of her beliefs. Think for yourself, form your own opinions - don't let them steal
your right to use your mind based on your own thoughts, not the garbage they shove down your throat to use to yet again spin the truth to their advantage; which ultimately is to rob you of your ability to think for yourself. They fear that most of all because then it will be clear that once again your being asked to not be who you are or what even think your own thoughts, just follow along. A true RAnd reader learns to see through these mental machinations. It's quite a rewarding experience to find your own thoughts and distance them from all that is 'spin.'
The editor notes in ATlas Shrugged: "You must be prepared, when you read this novel, to check every premise at the root of your convictions..." So true, so very true.
The only question left for a new Rand reader would be: "why is it that Atlas Shrugged was never
made into a movie?" I've always wondered about that.
Then you compared Obama to Galt and my head almost exploded. Obama is exactly the same as Bush was. He's spending money that doesn't exist to prop up the very looters who created the mess. The closest thing we had to Galt was Ron Paul who would have actually dismantled some of the controls, not add more.
I'm amazed the bad spelling was forgiven...In any event, I hope the underlying message wasn't obliterated altogether. Enjoy, the Atlas journey,it's quite an ride.
Even when it creates jobs, as in "stimulus" by creating public works, it can only do so efficiently temporarily, and it does so at the expense of the things that would have been created by the rightful owners of the money spent. Government cannot create, only re appropriate.
I guess I need to finish the book. I'm still trying to figure out why Hank Rearden saved Francisco D'Anconia.
In Atlas, the reward of money is symbolic for being rewarded for achieving the best in each of us, whatever that maybe.That is why when they are in their hide-away the waitress is the best she can be, the cook and the food is the very best no matter what the talent of the character, the point is they are the best at what they are. This, then contradicts this bizarre notion that those with 'money' are going to take their toys and run. Oh please let them because very few actually represent a true Galt or Roark character. Most of them are 'mooching' off the talent of those who are 'unseen.' In that light, it is thenevident that all people, no matter what their bank account looks like have the capacity to rise to the greatest potential within their own lives. Often it is exactly those very people who don't have a chance at reaching their potential because the James Taggert's of the world need to keep them down. And this is what Atlas Shrugged is about and what it means - that if the heart and soul of people with the 'real talent and creativity' give up and simply withdraw because all their efforts to be productive are robbed by those who are 'seemingly' in power at their expense. Because it is actually these people holding up the very empty inflated pretense of those who only appear to be ' powerful.' Just look at what has been happening, what do the investment bankers actually produce? It seems their very existence relies on the genuine efforts of those who will never be rewarded for what they (we) have all had to pay to make them look good. That they invision themselves to be Galt-like characters is hillarious. They are exactly they opposite, they are the James Taggert's whose existence depends on those with 'real' ability.
Even Steinbeck's 'Grapes' addresses the greatness in what appears to be the guy who is down and out. Now look at those who are in so-called 'power' and all their efforts to keep 'them' down. Why, because those same people could not stay in theirunearned positions without controlling those with real ability. Obviously, the 'moochers' who are actually those with 'false'power and influence (not the poor as characterized by the very same 'moochers') can't exist without suppressing the realGalt's of the world. And yes, I do see Grapes as being in the same universe with Atlas, because it is the same thing whenseen as Rand intended and not as those would like to distort to make themselves appear to be something they are not: indispensable. It is those with imagination, genius, talent, creativity and brains. I had to be the only literature major that did a paper comparing Atlas to Grapes, but it is right on the mark for those who aren't afraid to face these truths.
And this is why I say Obama is in fact the Galt, Roark, Reardon symbolic figure relative to what is happening in our worldtoday. Our President wants for the 'hero' in each person, the Galt potential in each person to have a real chance to come tofuition not only for their own personal lives, but for the difference in can make in our society. Just think, imagine and entirecountry of people truly able to share their talents. What would it mean. First, people loving the work they do and feeling excited and fulfilled. This would in turn produce 'something' worthwhile and at the same time bring self-satisfaction. (This is what Rand means by selfishness, not hoarding, but rising yourself to your greatest potential. It would result in less unhappiness which would result in better health which would result in less medical costs. That's what Rand means by 'selfishness.' Not the form that the 'moochers' actually indulge in which translates to: 'I don't care who I screw over as long as I get what is best for me.' That interpretation describes the exact types of people (extreme conservatives) who are distorting the themes ofAtlas for self-serving purposes. They are exactly the James Taggert's in the novel. And in fact, if people really had the chances they deserve for a better life it would translate to less 'poor.' If all had the chance for a better education, if there is afterschool programs for those who don't have parents at home because they are working several jobs. Maybe, just maybe they wouldn't end up in jails that costs far more than school. And I'll never understand the fact that their pro-life views don't seem to extend to after birth. They don't seem to have any problem with limitless arms being sold to maniacs on the basis that a 2nd amendment intended for a militia 200 years ago that has nothing to do with the world we live in today. It's just an excuse forarms dealers to stay in business at the expense of the life. If they were really pro-life in every sense they would want to do all the could to protect life both before and after birth. Again, the 'moochers' could care less about the consequences as long as they get theirs. They are the Peter Keatings and the James Taggerts. The true 'small men wearing long pants in a very empty suit.' For the last 8 years the 'moochers' have been in charge essentially of insuring those with real potential have less ofa chance to emerge. Again, that would undermine the possibility of these incapable people who literally have to steal to obtain power they haven't earned. If the 'tax-break' ideology was effective then why hasn't it worked for the past 8 years and why isn't that even noted? 8 years is a long time for something to work if there were truly any subtance as a driving force. But there isn't, it's just the same types of false power that appeared to be in charge in the 30's and yet staying afloat on the backsof the rest of the country. Did you know that the Bank of America actually participated in encouraging the suppression of wagesfor the fruit pickers that were falsely encouraged to come to California for the very purpose of having an abundance of workers so that they could keep them as virtual slaves? Did BOA ever answer for that? I doubt it. Could you see a Galtian characterdoing that? of course not. It's the 'conservative moochers' with their fake power and syphoned-off skills of those who are truly have competent; which are they very same people 'they' claim to be bailing out. In fact, it is the fake parasites of power who feed of the strength of others like vampires that supports their very existence. And that is why they have to put up smoke screams, displacing blame in the hopes that they can't be seen for just how very empty they are.
I doubt our President sees himself as a Galt like character, but he is, if for no other reason than his vision and willingness totry to get it right. Are the 'moochers' screaming out in protest, you bet. Because without the vast illusion they have createdof their false empowerment at the expense of those who have genuine substance, they are simply nothing. So think like Howard Roark in the Fountainhead: imagine standing on a cliff, looking out at the beauty of our country and all of it's potential,think of those who want to undermine the greatness of it's people; there can be only one response for those who are truevisionaries - laugh and then dive in and go for the best within yourself -just laugh. That is the only response these 'conservative moochers' deserve.
As For Reardon. For years I wondered the same thing. How could he not be jealous? How could he not want to keepFrancisco down? Isn't that what would happen if it were a soap opera like "Young and the Restless. 'Now look at it in light of seeing how Rand intended these characters. Because if he had he would be just like the James Taggerts and 'moocher' who don't want greatness to see the light. RAnds idea of promoting the 'self' isn't at the expense of others the way the present day conservative moochers function. Reardon's greatness if not dependent on suppressing the greatness of others. He is paying tribute to all that D'Anconia has to offer and values the importance of that. Reardon's stature only means something if he rises to it in a world where everyone is trying to rise up. Your question is at the very heart of the point of RAnd's philosophy: It isn't necessary to suppress the potential of someone else to rise to greatness yourself. In fact, each person's individual accomplishments mean so much more in a world of others who are doing the same. And that is the genius of Ayn Rand. The fact that the 'conservative moochers' have to distort the intent of Atlas only exemplifies their empty rhetoric. For G-d sakes just look at the ridiculous characters they listen to, makes Taggert look intelligent. I mean, do you really think some of them can even read anything other than the Atlas cliff notes? Even then, they would have to have an interpreter. Just to think of some of those bloated hot-air characters reading rand is so funny. I think Rand would have loved the thought of it just for the pure amusement. Again, there is only one appropriate response, one that Gogol used in his story 'The Nose' (very good read, much shorter version of the same theme) Just laugh, see them without a nose on their face and just how totally obsurd, albeit dangerous, they sadly are. If nothing else, I hope this gives you the avenue to open up your own interpretation of Atlas and what it means to you. Above all else, I believe Rand would want her readers to develop their own opinion-this one just happens to be mine.
Enjoy the journey, it sticks with you for life - like re-reading East of Eden, there is always something new in it because your own life changes and that makes it possible to see things in these novels you didn't see before...
Isn't it amazing how a novel can be a life-changing event?
The fundamental arrogance of the idea is just overwhelming.
Atlas Mugged - Exciting Cliff Notes To New Edition of Ayn Rand's Classic Novel
by stage2 [Unsubscribe] [Edit Diary]
Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 10:23:10 AM PDT
The story of Atlas Mugged takes place in the United States in early 2009. After 30 years of general right ward drift, culminating in the extreme deregulation, tax cutting, and war profiteering of the Shrub Administration, the nations economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating...
The story of Atlas Mugged takes place in the United States in early 2009. After 30 years of general right ward drift, culminating in the extreme deregulation, tax cutting, and war profiteering of the Shrub Administration, the nations economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating...
From Cliff Notes:
Dagny Taggart works to maintain Taggart No-Bid Contracting's food-chain fraternity of cronies. Her efforts are hampered by the fact that many of the country's most talented bankers and CEOs are fleeing either culpability, or law enforcement.
Her crisis worsens when the Iraqi government decides to scrap plans to award no-bid advisory and technical support contracts. Plans for Taggart's San Sebastian Airlines are aborted. The airline had been devised to service Francisco d'Anconia's McMansion Megaopolis in Buckeye Arizona, but the McMansions turn out to be worthless, as foreclosures on bad loans force property values ever downward. Francisco and Dagney make dramatic, idealistic love, their ideals being idealized in a wet consummation of ideal ideal-ness.
Dagny must save Taggart No-Bid Contracting immediately and plans to use Rearden Derivatives, a new financial instrument created by top investment banker Hank Rearden. Francisco appears at an outrageously excessive 12 night bash at the Wynn Las Vegas for Rearden’s wedding anniversary. Rearden’s wife Lillian, his mother, his brother, and Rearden himself are nonproductive freeloaders who believe they have the government between a rock and a hard place, where it is obliged to support them, as they are too big to fail.
Francisco meets Rearden for the first time and warns him that the freeloaders have a weapon that they are using against his freeloading. Rearden questions why Francisco has come to the party, but Francisco says that he merely wished to become acquainted with Rearden, and that the 18 bottles of Heidsieck weren't bad either.
Dr. Robert Stadler, a brilliant theoretical scientist who heads The State Science Institute, is unable to issue a denunciation of Rearden Derivatives, as the Institute is pre-occupied with a years-in the-making animatronic diorama depicting Adam and Eve riding dinosaurs through all 10,000 years of Earth history.
Dagny and Rearden make hot steamy productive love. Not the vile kind of common love commoners make, but the Objectivist kind, where mutual orgasms become the execution of mutual reverence for their superior minds of gold.
Together they discover a motor in an abandoned factory that runs on "sun power". They hire a scientist to rebuild the motor. Unfortunately, the scientist is formerly of The State Science Institute, and currently with the General Motors Company.
Soon, more capitalist titans disappear: Robert Rubin of Citibank vanishes with $17-million-per-year winnings intact. BofA's Ken Lewis engineers a dubious acquisition of disgraced Countrywide, then follows Lehman into nothingness. Merrill's John Thain finds an idiot to buy Merrill, then disappears.
Dagney believes there is a "destroyer", who is causing the pure and free men of pure and free Utopian ideology to disappear.
Economic dictator and Reserve Chairman Wesley Mouch is called to testify before Congress. (Mouch, in an odd back-story that seems to pierce the fourth wall separating character and author, had developed a serious interest in the author of this stories philosophical ideas in 1952. He attended regular meetings at the authors apartment, which included the opportunity to read draft sections of this very novel.) Mouch concedes the meltdown revealed a flaw in a lifetime of economic thinking and left him in a "state of shocked disbelief." He acknowledges under questioning that he had made a "mistake" in believing that banks, operating in their own self-interest, would do what was necessary to protect their shareholders and institutions. Mouch calls it "a flaw in the model [of ideal idealism]... that defines how the world works."
Rearden, believing Mouch is a traitor, refuses to participate in the proceedings, telling officials they can coerce him by force but he won't help them to convict him.
The government passes new socialist legislation that requires easily circumvented limits on pay for bankers receiving government bailout money. Francisco visits Rearden and asks him why he remains in business under such repressive conditions. When a fire breaks out, and they work together like manlike men in a hotly charged display of Aryan homo-erotic manliness, Francisco understands Rearden's love for his money.
Dagny quits over the new legislation and retreats to an aerial wolf hunting lodge in Alaska. She receives a letter from the scientist she had hired to help rebuild the motor, and fears he will be the next target of the destroyer. In an attempt to stop him from disappearing, she follows him in an aerial wolf hunting airplane and crashes in the mountains. When she wakes up, she finds herself in a remote valley where all the fleeing industrialists have fled. They are on the lam, calling it a strike of their kind.
There, she meets John's Fault, who turns out to be both the destroyer and the moral of the story. She falls in love with him, and they make intense melodramatic love, reaching a glorification of the highest ideal of ideal-ness ever idealized.
As a new head of state prepares to give a speech on the economic situation, John's Fault takes over CNBC and delivers a 28 hour rant of an address to the country, laying out the terms of the strike he has organized. They will return to their looting and scams, but only after the populace has swallowed a story about how the recession that began December 2007, the softening of housing prices that began in the summer of 2006, The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, and Mouch's dropping of interest rates to 1% in 2003 for more than a year pumping trillions of low interest credit into the economy, is the fault of the new head of state.
What I'm trying to say here, again, is thanks.
On Atlas Shrugged as a Guide to Our Times
By Ellis Weiner
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellis-weiner/on-a...
For this deeply adolescent piece of social science fiction one must read over 1,000 pages of tiny type, most of which are covered with blocks of print into which the reader's consciousness slams as though into a brick wall. Characters lecture each other in a stilted, faux-heroic tone about such matters as "the human spirit" and "intelligence" and "ownership" and "the meaning of money" and "rationality." It's every bit as good as it sounds, a thousand pages of this:
"Don't ask me to tell you now what trail I've followed, trying to trace that motor and to find its inventor. That's not of any importance, even my life and work are not of any importance to me right now, nothing is of any importance; except I must find him."
Don't you love that semi-colon? Me, too. The heroes are all handsome or beautiful except for Ragnar Danneskjold, a pirate--really--who is handsome and "beautiful." The villains are all detestable weaklings. Everyone else--i.e., the population of the United States of America--is a loathsome, freeloading nobody. Everyone looks at everyone else "with contempt." Paradoxically, although characters repeatedly "chuckle" and address each other in terms described by variants of "mock" (with mockery, mockingly, in a mocking tone, etc.), no one has a sense of humor. The whole vast saga is a mind-numbing forced march through a swamp of comic book profundity, an interminable one-night three-way between Friedrich Nietzsche, L. Ron Hubbard, and Judith Kranz.
In short, Atlas Shrugged is one of the worst books ever written--and, in the words of Gore Vidal, "nearly perfect in its immorality." Still, Moore proudly notes that "...as recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that readers rated 'Atlas' as the second-most influential book in their lives, behind only the Bible."
But of course. People naïve, ignorant, demented, or desperate enough to be primarily influenced by the Bible would be influenced by A.S. The books have much in common: vast stretches of unbearable tedium, one-dimensional characters with no resemblance to actual human beings, hectoring speeches full of indignation and moralizing, and discreetly implied sex. Both are works of fiction. The Bible took hundreds of years to compile, and Atlas Shrugged takes hundreds of years to read.
And, just as true believers find confirmation of Scriptural predictions in cherry-picked semi-coincidences in real life, so does Moore--former Cato Institute man, presumably a Libertarian, and what people smarter and funnier than I call a "Randroid"--discover that events of today (the bailouts, the economic stimulus packages, etc.) are proving Rand prescient. "...(O)ur current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that 'Atlas Shrugged' parodied in 1957."
Are they? Let's see.
In the novel, stick-figure industrialists and businessmen find their noble, courageous, avowedly "selfish" efforts stymied and undone by stick-figure cowards, weaklings, and corrupt bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. Piece by piece, in Rand's depiction of governmental overreach, capitalism is dismantled. Moore lists several of the more egregious examples from the book: "the 'Anti-Greed Act' to redistribute income (sounds like Charlie Rangel's promises soak-the-rich tax bill) and the 'Equalization of Opportunity Act' to prevent people from starting more than one business (to give other people a chance). My personal favorite, the 'Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act,' aims to restrict cut-throat competition between firms and thus slow the wave of business bankruptcies."
Moore then goes on, "These acts and edicts sound farcical, yes, but no more so than the actual events in Washington, circa 2008. We already have been served up the $700 billion 'Emergency Economic Stabilization Act' and the 'Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act.' Now that Barack Obama is in town, he will soon sign into law with great urgency the 'American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.' This latest Hail Mary pass will increase the federal budget (which has already expanded by $1.5 trillion in eight years under George Bush) by an additional $1 trillion -- in roughly his first 100 days in office."
To draw an equivalence between these two sets of laws is to be, at best, stupid, and at worst, mendacious. The "Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Act" has no counterpart or equivalent in what the rest of us know to be real life. It's the creation of a petulant teenager throwing a tantrum about "society." Other edicts are just as contrived and equally silly: No worker, anywhere, is allowed to be fired. No owner is allowed to quit or retire. All patents and copyrights become property of the state. No new products are allowed to be produced. No one is allowed to spend any more or less money on anything than they did in the previous year.
What, here, is being "parodied"? Not American society, either today or in 1957; not the ways in which government and legislation interacts with capitalism; and not even any reasonable depiction of the left. In fact, what's being parodied (if that's the word) is the Soviet Union, from which Rand (nee Alice Rosenbaum) emigrated when she was 21. Yes, in her magnum opus, her "moral defense of capitalism," Ayn Rand dresses the U.S. in Soviet drag, and then watches in triumph as her soap opera heroes beat it up.
The putative reasons presented for these society-crippling regulations--"fairness," "to give others a chance," "because the group is more important than the individual"--are ascribed to the cartoon villains with the implication that they are commonly found out in the world. "This is what the looters and the moochers believe," Rand says. "They hate individual genius and entrepreneurial initiative. They hate rationality. They want to drag all of society down into the depths of mediocrity in which they dwell. These are the laws and regulations they would pass if only they could."
It's an outrage! Or it would be, if it were remotely true. But it isn't. No leftist calls for a ban on new products or campaigns for a law forbidding executives to quit. No liberal calls for a legal limitation on what you can spend in a year. Even in the age of the Internet, when some believe that "information wants to be free" and debate the abolition of copyrights, no one demands that copyrights be ceded to the state. (Quite the opposite, in fact.)
She made it all up. The bad guys are straw men, serving a straw government, empowered by a straw civilization. The whole thing is a mug's game, a poker hand dealt from a stacked deck, a self-subverting and ultimately ludicrous grand opera of bad faith.
Still, the mystery of Atlas Shrugged isn't, why is it so bad? Many books are this bad and some are even worse. No, the mystery is, why does anyone who made it out of eighth grade take it seriously?
Yet, obviously, people do. Individuals capable of dressing themselves apparently love this, one of the most turgid, contrived, pompous, and comically over-written books ever published in English. Why?
Because they believe. For Randroids, "glibertarians," "conservatives" (whatever that means at this point) and Republicans in general, politics has become a matter of faith.
Never mind that studies show that the economy prospers more under Democratic than Republican administrations. Never mind that the first six years of the Bush administration provided the right with every resource it needed and asked for, from "a war footing" to majorities in Congress to a supine, spineless media, and the results were unalloyed catastrophe (for us, yes, but for them, too). Never mind that the Republican "big tent" is in tatters due to calamities they themselves created, as sideshow barker Limbaugh now tries to con the rubes into coughing up an extra buck to watch Ann the Six-Foot Blonde say rude things about Michelle Obama, while Ring Master Bush sulks in his trailer and thinks the problem was his "rhetoric."
Faith not only requires you to ignore what happens in the world, it praises you for it. The more unsubstantiated, untenable, or preposterous the belief, the more virtuous the believer. So Stephen Moore's solution to global recession is to wave around one of the most unreadable books ever written as though it were holy writ. For him, and for the right, politics is now religion.
And, as with any mythology, believers want to emulate their heroes. Cable traffic on the wing-nut sites after the last election featured many writers and commenters musing about "going John Galt," withdrawing their genius and talents from the rest of us and leaving us to our own moocherly devices. To which all one can reply is, Please do. Knock yourselves out. And take this hideous book with you.
Do you know what copyright infringement means? Did it occur to you to get permission and post such with your almost complete copy 'n paste of the author's article? Or are you just treating the author as you would the taxpayer?
No thoughts, other than veiled threats and specious accusations? You do realize you are making a fine caricature of the type of Randroid Mr. Weiner lampoons, right?
What you do with your money, Mr. Taxpayer, is your business. But it seems you would treat yourself (or those you favor) with the utmost respect using my tax dollars too, regardless of my wishes.
There is indeed a fine caricature here, but one straight out of Atlas Shrugged.
You are mistaking my use, "fair use," as plagiarism, without actually coming right out and accusing me in direct terms.
And this is exactly the caricature to which I refer. You seem to think the cosmos consists of two types of stuff: yours, and not mine. My use of the quote is a fair use. You can't admit that, or your whole Randian edifice will crumble, like a sand castle when the tide comes in.
Like I said, pal: go run and tell Mr. Weiner about your sanctimonious concerns for his intellectual property rights. I bet he'll laugh.
Is this all you got? See-sawing got boring back in grade school.
"...examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use:
. quotation of short passages...
. summary of an address or article, with brief quotations...
. reproduction ... of a small part of a work..."
It goes on to say: "The safest course is always to get permission from the copyright owner before using copyrighted material". The link above provides the full text, lest I be accused of distortion through omission. Oh, and I am abiding by their policy (see the legal notices page for more on that).
Whether or not Mr. Weiner cares, ex post facto, about your knowing violation is irrelevant. That you call my concern sanctimonious is yet more revealing of your nature. You appear cavalier with the use of others' properties. You seem to think that you have some sort of inherent right to their use. You bristle when you are called on it. I believe you would treat others' taxes in a like manner.
The attitude you display is central to the objection so many have to paying yet more tax. Within the framework of Atlas Shrugged, your behavior here epitomizes that of the looter.
.
I applaud your use of a mythology, to give shape to the cosmos in which you act; the problem however, is your mythology does not conform to reality.
If you're so damn concerned about Mr. Weiner's rights, why don't you ask him if this is a fair use of his work?
I suspect you don't care about Mr. Weiner. I suspect you latched onto what you perceived as an opportunity to apply Rand's terms, whether they fit or not is of no concern.
Is your middle name "Procrustes," by any chance?
You distort: a) Mr. Weiner's intent (to provide fodder for precisely this debate); b) my fair use of that work; and c) god know's what else, solely to keep this buzz going.
What was the intent of Mr. Weiner's review of AS? Solely to make money of every iteration of sufficient volume?
Thanks for the debate, but this is a tiresome see-saw. I'm getting off now. Don't let the earth hit you in the ass on the way down.
cry me a fucking river
You better take it serious too; just try teasing some business gal about her addiction to romance novels. Hell hath no fury like a Serious Woman teased about her chick lit. Ayn Rand is Danielle Steele for republican and libertarians.
Gee, the chief villains of ATLAS SHRUGGED are two such individuals, James Taggart & Orrin Boyle. What book did Tuccille read?
Give credit to where it's due- she wasn't a "neo-con" or conservative Christian or a right wing Republican; and she sure as hades wasn't a liberal, left wing socialist.
While she rejected the Libertarian label- that is exactly what she was. Not an "R" and not a "D"; she was an "L", the superior of the three.
I mean seriously, you wackos are going to tune-out because you may face an increase in marginal tax rates?
"ZOMG, I'm going to have to pay 39.6% on income I used to pay 35% on!!! SIC SEMPER TYRANUS!!!"
You really are going to go this apeshit over this tiny percentage change on income earned AFTER you already pocketed $350,000???? "QQ, I had an AGI of $500,000 last year, and now the tax I pay on that last $150k is increasing from 52k to 59k!!! Darn those Obama poeple to heck!!"
Yep, it absolutely sucks being lucky enough to live in a country that, more than any other place in this world, affords you the chance to make $500k a year, and likely earn some amount close to that in the subsequent years, if not more. You are paying for income security you nitwits, that's what your taxes provide. If that's something you do not appreciate, then by all means, try to make your fortune in some third world rathole, and then keep hold of it.
Jeebus, get over yourselves.
The "rest of America", the working and middle class, are rarely mentioned because they are unimportant to the novel. If you think they are, you miss the point. The Galts are Atlas, they hold the world. Without their ideas and intellect all the workers in the world matter - there is nothing to work on if these men do not achieve and create. That is their contribution to the world - they make it run.
When workers are mentioned it is normally to reference them siding with the industrialists; Eddie Willers is one character that comes to mind, also the Honor guard that stands watch over the first run on the Galt Line, and all the conductors who volunteer to be driving the train that day against the advice of the Union leaders. They act that way because, as rational men, they know their fortunes are tied to those of the industrials.
To all you Rand haters: Whats not to get? Do you just hate to have your ideas and their logical conclusions laid out so plainly and inarguably? Does knowing you aren't that great (most aren't) make you feel small and insignificant? Or are you just mad that the left has no literary equivalent that can encapsulate their [lack of] ideas? Either way, Rand rocks. <3
You’d rather sit in here and discuss. Well, that’s sure gotten us far.
It's just a book. Like the bible, it is there for personal interpretation, nothing more.
I would hope no one actually lives their lives on the belief of the writing’s of others.
That will put us in a sad state indeed.
For all the effort put into ANY comment on this subject (my own included), we could have probably cured cancer.
Seriously folks, you have nothing better to do, than to get into "informed" discussions on literature???
TWITTER!?! Facebook, News article chats, etc.....Wasted breath, Wasted time.
If you want to waste your life discussing unimportant issues (such as Ayn Rand, and her writtings), at least discuss what YOU "bring to the table" to help solve the real issues (economy, homeland security, homelessness, etc...).
When it comes time, the very best thing we can do as a country, is REVOLT. The "Moochers" will run for cover like the cowards they are, and we can assume a way of life, the way "WE (the people...)" see fit.
Our greatest crime is that "WE" have allowed this to happen. "WE" have allowed the Govt. to tell us what to do, because that is what "WE" believe the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the Constitution. I assure you it was NOT.
"WE (the poor...)" outnumber the Rich. Don't let them take away your rights, your money, your pursuit of happiness. Be a leader! NOT a “lamb”.
"WE" have allowed this to happen... "WE" allow our sports players to be paid millions of dollars, because "WE" buy tickets to the game. Then those same players, are out committing crimes (Kobe - rape), using drugs (Rodriguez - steriods), buying expensive cars and houses, that we ourselves ("the poor" and middle class) can't even imagine affording.
I mean comm'on PPL!!!! When have you had enough!
"WE" continue to pay our leaders exorbitant amounts of money, to lead us like cattle, only to have those same leaders, break the very laws they put in place, and demand that "WE" follow.
WHA!?!?!?!
“WE” allow developers to build homes that cost them 80,000 to build, yet sell them for 300,000.
HUH!?!?!
Instead of "craving" the latest techno gadget, car, DVD, CD, sporting event, music event, or whatever "luxury" it happens to be, think of putting that money back into YOU.
Don't give it to a company, a person, a .........(whatever), that already has plenty of money.
If your just going to give it away, at least give it to someone that really needs it. (Now that's saying something about you as a person, that I can respect).
Does anyone here think, after reading this, that I give 2 sh!t's whether the car companies or banks get "bailed out"???
And, If you care, you shouldn't. They got themselves into this mess, they should get themselves out of it, or better yet, just "go away".
More people care about American Idol than they do about the current state of affairs.
Really America, is that what “WE” are craving???? More MTV, more Ghost Whisperer, CSI, or any other number of just plain stupid shows on the “idiot box”.
I’d say that, since it's considered a major victory if more than 50% of the population gets out of their living rooms once every four years to vote for President. That nothing is going to change.
A mass movement in this country? Maybe to the refrigerator for another snack....Prove me wrong folks.
Oh... So now your gonna' start telling me about how, if we revolt, or allow our industry, or economy to "slide" in view of the rest of the world, that we are now "no better than them" (other 3rd world countries in civil strife), or that we will somehow be considered weak???
Well..... Only if "WE" allow it to happen.
Ain’t nothin’ FREE, especially Freedom. If your not willing to bleed for it, I have no sympathy or use for you. Now, go hang yourself, and save me the bullet to put you, out of “my” misery.
JollyJo in Vista California
The disturbing thing is that now it's not just big business but small businesses, small investors and other individuals - like reitrees who have accumulated wealth who are also moving their money to places where it will earn the maximum return. In their place we have new immigrants who may not be contributing nearly as much over the next decade in terms of taxes.
Apparently many people on this blog seem to see no problem with this so maybe they will be happy with the end results. As a long term business owner and investor, I'm looking at other countries as options.
Find a way to lose from my job
Collect unemployment, welfare, food stamps,
Apply for BMR housing in a luxury apartment community (my state required all new apartment complexes to have percentage their units as BMR)
Then I can fully heartily support all the “change”
Why work when there are wealth people that can pay my way with their tax dollars
Besides only reckless CEO are bad people, not reckless average Joes
Politicians are not like the rest of us.... they are keenly obsessed with "getting elected" as a measure of success, but although this would seem to suggest that they should care about representing the views of the electors -- the people -- it doesn't work out that way. With extremely rare exceptions, politicians preserve their interests by serving their party (whichever one it is) over the people, and by serving corporate interests and other special interests next to that, also over the people.... so where do we fit in?
They see us as votes and money, and many of us are suckers.... how many of you donated money to a politician or a party last year? The sad truth is that whatever you did donate was actually a tax imposed by the system through blackmail, one that you didn't have to pay at all, but volunteered.... I have to admit, I'm in that crowd, even though I only gave to Libertarian candidates (who all lost) and the amount I donated amounted to pocket change even in their meager coffers.... but I'd take it back if I could....
Look at it this way: imagine there are two bullies on your block, and both want to take your lunch money.... each says that if you "voluntarily" pay him, he'll protect you from the other one, and each one talks up how dangerous the other one is in order to convince you to buy protection... but the truth is, if you learn to defend yourself you don't have to give a penny to either of them.
That's what the Republicrats do -- each side uses the other as a threat to pry your dollars away in the form of campaign donations, and the first and biggest thing WE can do to eliminate donation-driven corruption from the system is to turn off that voluntary faucet of cash flowing out of our pockets.
In short: DO NOT GIVE ANY MONEY TO POLITICIANS!! not to a candidate, not to a campaign, not to a party, and if you can help it, not to a company that will pass it on to any of those (even a company that will hedge its bets by giving to both sides; in fact, especially such a company).... clean up our politics, do NOT pay the politician tax!!
praising CEOs for the job they've done
getting a job so i can get my lord and savior, money
finding a way to destroy welfare and unemployment
when i get enough money, watching the world burn down
watching people who thought they shouldn't destroy other people to get what the want die in the streets
"i will stop the egine of the world"
i will because obama and the rest of them don't deserve my working
i am howard rorak, dagny taggart and hank rearden
i am also midas mulligan, dan conway, ellis wyatt, hugh akston, and quentin daniels
i am also ragnar danneskjöld, richard halley, dick mcnamara, owen kellogg
i am also francisco domingo carlos andres sebastián d'anconia
the final person who i am is the one and only JOHN GALT
i am these people because i believe that bill gates should not spend his tax money on the lazy
money is the root of all good
and finally, you should never be sorry for being rich
http://ecireport.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/the-a...