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5 US Bills Straight Out Of Atlas Shrugged
Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog,
“John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains—and he withdrew his fire—until the day when men withdraw their vultures.”
Sick of the overbearing regulation, taxation, and entitlement mentality in society—in the book Atlas Shrugged, John Galt went to one entrepreneur after another to convince them that they just didn’t need to put up with it anymore.
They didn’t need to keep propping up a system that was trying to destroy them. Where’s the point in continuing to feed a parasitic system?
So one by one, these innovators and producers simply closed up shop, deciding to just “shrug” and abandon what they were providing thanklessly to the looters.
Today many companies are doing the same. They may not be abandoning their businesses altogether, but they are moving them out of the hands of the parasites by moving their tax bases abroad.
In Ayn Rand’s book, the Economic Planning Bureau dealt with this by legislating that no businesses could leave: “[a]ll the manufacturing establishments of the country, of any size and nature, were forbidden to move from their present locations, except when granted a special permission to do so.”
In real life today, we have a string of policies being proposed to similarly discourage companies from leaving, or failing that, to try to claw as much money as possible from them first.
First, take the H.R. 5278: No Federal Contracts for Corporate Deserters Act, which bars federal contracts for American companies that have gone overseas for tax purposes.
Then take the H.R. 5549: Pay What You Owe Before You Go Act, which seeks the seizure of unrepatriated corporate revenue.
Even the language used by these bill’s supporters is eerily similar to the novel, as politicians call for corporations to pay their “fair share” and bemoan that Americans have to “pick up the tax burden inverted companies shrug off.”
At the time, Rand might have thought that she was writing about an extreme, fictional society. But it seems that the Land of the Free is eager to exceed even her worst expectations.
When she wrote about the “Economic Emergency Law”, which forbade any discrimination “for any reason whatever against any person in any matter involving his livelihood”, she was likely thinking about criteria such as race, gender, and age.
She might have even considered they would try to prevent employers from making judgments based on a person’s ability, though I’m sure she would not have even imagined what politicians have actually come up with in the US.
Try the S. 1972/ H.R. 3972: Fair Employment Opportunity Act that proposed to prohibit discrimination according to a person’s history of unemployment.
Or even worse, the S. 1837: Equal Employment for All Act that would have prohibited employers from even looking at prospective employee’s credit ratings.
The literary similarities don’t just stop with corporations either. Compare the fictional Project Soybean, designed to “recondition” people’s dietary habits to the actual H.R. 4904: Vegetables Are Really Important Eating Tools for You (VARIETY).
Tell me, which one sounds more ludicrous to you?
With each new piece of legislation being proposed in the Land of the Free, Atlas Shrugged seems to be ever more prophetic.
While even the most terrifying elements of the book are coming true, so are the reactions.
People and companies are leaving, refusing the put up with the looting of their efforts any longer.
Despite politicians’ desperate attempts to stop it, Atlas is already shrugging.
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Atlas is already shrugging.
Atlas is on disability from all the heavy lifting.
I don't want the government to pay for stuff. I want the bankers to pay for everything.
"Rand's Collective became my first social circle outside the university and the economics profession. I engaged in the all-night debates and wrote spirited commentary for her newsletter with the fervor of a young acolyte drawn to a whole new set of ideas"
~ Alan Greenspan
http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/bio/turbulence.html
I engaged in the all-night debates....
Oh to be a fly on the wall during those debates.
Fly 1. Wanna fly into that light bulb over there?
Flly 2. Yep.
Well, with all these enticements we should be seeing corporations fighting to get here from around the globe.
A Simon Black article that didn't make me face palm for reading it.
Finally Simon, I somehow knew you had it in you.
I haven't seen any posts on ZH with you moniker on them, jimmy...
DaddyO
That would be the opposite of their business model.
nothing will happen at all ! we'll all talk tough and end up getting screwed in the "end" .
hey, look over there... is that ebola i see
Ebola serves the function of that sonic resonator machine that blows up and destroys the heartland.
Your kind of thinking is the root of the problem. Why don't you pay for your own damn stuff and leave everybody else the f#4k alone.
Atlas has learned that disability pays better than shrugging and requires almost no effort. If you can't beat em, join em.
Most Americans are humorless Puritans, conformist progressives, politically correct fascists. I wish them poverty and Ebola.
Listen 49.
You say it and you get all the glorious "GREENS". I say it and I get the fucking reds.
Where is the justice for this?!
Listen, Listen, Listen........GFY Bangalwhore!
LISTEN CANUCK!
Hockey season has started and the Leafs still SUCK.
-your fellow Canadian governmental sports team non fan.
You are very misguided. Leafs are the most entertaining team in the entire NHL... they are that bad.
While he/she/it are just a fool you on the other hand are both an ass and a bore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzU9FgNTYrU
Well it's a great day to whoop somebody's ass.
Reds are what you want from this crowd.
"Where is the justice for this?!"
you need to learn that life is not fair, get over it and make the best of what you can.
I'm comfortable in my 'relative' poverty.
I quit working full-time 6 years ago. I don't spend my compensation on the fashionable i-gadgets,petro-fueled recreational devices, electronics, threads, etc....thrift is my middle fucking name. I give the tyrants 3-4 months of taxable labor and I spend the rest of the year living; growing my own food, travelling and shredding the shit out of white-water. Fuck the elitists and fuck the FSA coat-tailers they enable with other people's wealth. The shit you own end up owning you....and .gov is there to protect that servitude people are so willing to surrender to.
Americans get the government (ie life) they deserve........bask in your serfdom, bitchez.
Went Gault three years ago myself, even making my own beer, saurkraut from my garden... iphone=spyphone
5 years for me
Uh how do you shred water Beavis?
Here's one way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDzr4BmjkWk
most likely he's kayaking white water rapids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ugCmM5Yzc
John Galt went MGTOW...http://mgtow1.blogspot.ca/ here's a good example they are all over the Manosphere.or this...http://www.returnofkings.com/category/manosphere
John Galt went MGTOW...http://mgtow1.blogspot.ca/ here's a good example they are all over the Manosphere.or this...http://www.returnofkings.com/category/manosphere
No fear, gentle Americans. All can be forgiven, assuming the right political campaign donation.
Why does a person's credit score mean anything for hiring purposes?
It is an indication of a persons willingness to submit
I have clients that are suspicious of me because I do not have a LinkedIn profile. Hey, buddy, I am trying to sell you my crap...not the other way around...capiche!
No more social media for me. I stopped Facebook a few years ago. I don't use Google, or watch television, or use LinkedIn. I just don't see the appeal in broadcasting the inane, daily aspects of my life. Nor, do I want to see what every schmuck is eating for dinner, or pictures of their dogs, or stupid duck-face poses. I don't care for random people to contact me at work. I get enough of that anyways. Our culture is a train-wreck.
These little weasels in the B2B space have nothing better to do.
Dear. Philo, I could not find your proifle on CumGuzzlers.com...therefore, we will not be accepting a tender from your firm.
Sincerely,
Dickead Spoiledshit III, M.B.A.
ISO 2000!!!!!!!!
Join social media and always update when you do a BM , everyone loves to hear about the #2
Dont' forget the pictures. Everyone loves a good corn nut.
Then I'm very rebellious.
When I was in college everybody had a bag of weed that they kept hidden under Columbia House collection notices.
Fuck Amy Grant and her Christmas collection.
'columbia house collection notices'.. lol
Let me guess, you would have hired Turbotax Timmy Geithner on the spot!
It's hard to justify giving a job handling money (as an accountant or treasurer) to someone who can't handle their own finances - or bother to pay their income taxes.
I certainly would have hired Timmy on the spot, I hate cleaning my bathroom.
since we are not using sound money and paying for things with silver but instead using credit, credit checks show if people pay for what the buy. It is an idicator of integrity. Integrity is a charachertistic that employers look for. You can discern a bunch of department store credit card gone to collections from some unfortunate medical bills that went to collections by running credit. Pleople blow off debt and ignore it. This goes hand in hand with criminal background check. Minimum wage jobs dont matter as much but with professional level hiring, these things matter when adding new team members.
You must be a baby boomer
Naw, BBers care more if the applicant can do the job. We were raised before all that non-ancillary crap surfaced. I've hired guys straight out of prison in the past. I just wanted them to do the job not surrender anymore of their soul.
Naw, my parents are boomers. We must have a lot of divorcees with blown out credit floating around here on the board today.
Its really simple, if you dont want to play the credit game then save money up to pay for something before you buy.
Funny that anyone should feel they have the right to hide their shitty credit. Bad debts used to be dealt with a lot diffrently back in the day.
"Its really simple, if you dont want to play the credit game then save money up to pay for something before you buy."
Amen to that.
My mother used to say, "The difference between real fun and fake fun is real fun is paid for in advance."
The problem with using credit scores is that the companies who tabulate credit scores do it for profit and have zero vested interest in either (a) ensuring accurate data or (b) splaining to anyone how the fuck they come up with the scores in the first place. Corruption is what corruption does.
.
I left an interview once when it go to that point. I told them "I am here selling you my skill. I should be more concerned with your credit score."
great companies are formed b yindividuals with more than just good skills. They are formed by people with all around qualities such as morality, integrity, fiducary responsibility. Financial responsibility starts at home. If you cant take care of your own finances then how can you be trusted to take care of someones elses finances and maintain a budget? Thus the credit check.
Ayn rand was a drug addict and a slut who used her sex to make connections that allowed her to publish her lousy books.
She depended on social security payments at the end of her life, having squandered her earnings.
All those proposed bills sound good to me. And if I were in congress I would write far more radical bills, bills that would involve public executions of CEOs, journalists and politicians. And economists.
Do us all a favor and find a one way flight to anywhere in Ebola stricken west Africa and stay there.
don't talk dirty to me if you are just a tease!
S. 3202/ H.R. 6955: Politician, Lobbyist and Corporate Executive Full Woodchipper Lustration Act
You sound like a good little Stalinist. Execute those that disagree with The Party!
they shall hang by the neck until dead!
Start with you?
Die in a fire.
You go first to show us all a good example; we'll be right behind you.
Look at the profile. On the Government payroll. Stalinist is tame.
Change your handle to Mata Hillary and be off with ya.
you did see where I want to create legislation to hang certain politicians, right?
I could go with hanging all of them.
Then the bureaucrats and other underlings.
LOL, MH Biography - former lawyer, govt worker, old
Mata hairy
Yes, because giving more and more control over every aspect of our lives always works so well for the population of that country.
from the photos available, it's difficult to believe that ayn rand could have used sex to have gotten anything.
The Bills might have been sound..., 34 Years ago before we were convinced by a B grade actor that we didn't want to be a real nation. Now those Bills are like throwing weak insults at a bunch of looters years after they left with most of your belongings and privatized your common wealth for the international elite.
As for Ayn Rand, she was indeed the prototype crack whore with amphetamine induced delusions of grandeur and a speed freak length replay of the Nazi Superman meme to tickle your id. She truly fucked every American and as we can see here most of you are trying to stay fucked. Sovereign Simon Black, one of her newly minted pimps, is ever so happy to help your quest for sociopathic enlightenment.
@ Mataharry, (+@exo mike are you on crack?):
I'm not a booster of Ayn Rand on a personal level - her marriage and relationship with the Brandens pushed the limits of the word nutty in my opinion.
But... few individuals of her importance and impact have normal personal lives. I have a deep appreciation for her novels and see her as an important step in the progression of humanity. She was none of the things you suggest. Few writers throughout history have touched the lives of so many people in such a meaningful way. The comments on her writing style that come from college grads with a BS in liberal arts (actually a degree in BS) always make me chuckle a little. A brief discussion of AR actually makes an excellent intellectual trash detector when dealing with academic types.
You, on the other hand, are a small piece of lint. and a liar, and I would guess you fancy yourself as the provocateur. No?
You're welcome to your own opinion of course, but do some research, get your facts straight.
Read the book a few years ago... thought I was reading today's headlines. Frightfully relevant today.
I re read that and 1984 within the last few months. It's hard to believe people just made that shit up so many decades ago and how things turned out. I'm sure there is plenty of 'brave new world' type stuff going on, but it's been since high school since I read that. May have to get it again, reading the other two has been quite entertaining when comparing it to today's headlines and legislation.
It's not really that amazing,.. just put the human condition on a long enough time line.. always has the same result
@Greenskeeper: They didn't just make that shit up, they drew from history. Ayn Rand came from Russia, where she had witnessed these things first hand. It is sad how we were once taught to despise socialism and communism (if one is old enough to have that experience), and now it seems we Americans are being taught to embrace it.
Try 'Death of Money' if you want to see what's coming next.
Let's start with ending the Fed.
How about the "Employment opportunities for General Electric tax lawyers act"? O wait, that passed already.
H.R. 5278 sounds good to me, Simon.
also - there's a reason Ayn Rand is not considered an important philosopher, within philosophy...and why she is most revered by people who have't read any other philosophical writing:
She was an amateur who perpetually reinvented shittier wheels.
she also plainly never understood Bohr or Einstein or much at all about the science she pretended her worldview was.
Anyone making her thinking some litmus test for a "no true libertarian" circle jerk is a fathead.
There. I fucking said it.
Yes!! Never fight the causes, always fight the symptoms!
dear 28 junkers - anyone care to argue with me as to Rand's status as a philosopher? You'd have no argument.
What about as a literary figure?
How many of you are early 20s economics majors who never read another book that could even arguably be considered ethics, or epistemology or ontology, or the like.
Rand sucks, and you can say this loud and proud and still be a libertarian - or at least a classical liberal or paleoconservative.
Anarchos - yeah, the philosophy of ideologues who just don't know what Pragmatism is...
Come on - fight club and all. Let's argue the point.... corporations that reap huge profits, move jobs and cash offshore... why on earth is it "wrong" to not reaward them with taxpayer funded contracts, you fucking dopes?
1] I don't give a rats ass about her qualifications as a philosopher, she nailed liberalisms caring bullshit to the wall.
2] Corporations that actually earn profits should not have to give huge sums to an evil government in order to sate some liberals imaginary fairness phallus. [Don't give me thieving banksters like Goldman Sachs as an example of Company's earning profits]
3] Liberals like yourself are too dense to understand that Corporations exist to make a profit, if Country A's government wants 50% of the profit, and Country B wants 20%, they are going to move to Country B.....EVERY FUCKING TIME. When they inevitably move to Country B you get nothing from now on. Now why do you support the destruction of the Country. Jackass.
Well I +'d you for tendering a response, but anyone obtuse enough to think someone who doesn't respect Rand and/or thinks government/taxpayer financed contracts {did you understand that aspect?} shouldn't go to corporations who hide money to avoid paying taxes {or which send jobs overseas} is a "liberal".... doesn't deserve any kind of thoughtful rejoinder.
Grow up, and stop excluding the middle.
It makes you look like a bit of a cunt.
Sorry Phal.... you lose
No argument there. Ayn Rand would have been the last to suggest that these corporations should be rewarded with taxpayer-funded contracts -- or that any corporations should be, or that taxpayer-funded contracts should exist in the first place, or even that there should be such a thing as taxpayers.
I remember reading some of her later non-fiction, in which she considered various ways of funding the few legitimate government services -- defense, police, and courts -- morally, rather than through what amounts to armed robbery.
As for "Anarchos", that must be a misreading, or a straw man. Rand was in no way an anarchist. She was in favour of a radically smaller government than pretty much any country has today, but certainly not in favour of having no gov't at all.
Good for you. Ayn Rand was a leech. She was a black pot deafening the globe about the darkness all around. Good riddance to bad writing.
Perhaps Rand could see the future OR simply had a thorough understanding of government over-reach, parasites, and entitlement mentality.
She and her bourgeois family were run out of Russia by the Trotsky agents of the CFR. She had a thorough understanding of high functioning human parasites. She saw the same happening here, eg. Mr. Thompson = Truman. AS was a warning.
She understood the Soviet system from which she escaped, and saw it being implemented in the West.
LOL, escaped. She was a Soviet agent. Her books weren't a warning, they were a training manual for the destruction of America.
Five downvotes but not a single reply. Try to grow a backbone and defend your belief system, idiotic as it is.
What Rand advocated was feudalism, which is the most economically destructive societal organisation of all time.
She might have been a statist loon, but she got a lot right.
She preached objectivity, but was an anti-Arab Judeocentric hatemonger and dissembler just like any dime store nationalist would be.
For example.
There's also that fuckery with Nat Brandon and his gf and her absurd views on art.
You and LTER need to get a room.
nah, that dude sucks - even when he's right.
I think that's bb's point!
i never knew of rand's views on art, but became aware of those of one of her offshoot sects; the neo-tech/zon-power people. among other things, they believed rachmaninov/chopin 'good' and mendelssohn 'bad'. funny that one of rachmaninov's best piano pieces is the 'Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream' by mendelssohn.
"NeoTech/Zon". Wow, that's a blast from the past, from the early days of Usenet. Proper loons, absolutely. I can only imagine how thrilled Rand would have been at their use of her name and that of Objectivism.
Yes, it still amazes me to see people triggered over who the author was, discounting the value of her main characters' focus on self reliance. Indeed these days it seems if one is relying on anyone or anything other than themselves, its a crapshoot.
Agreed! Debate the merits of her arguments not the person. Same applies to [fill in founder father's name here].
Together with recent happenings in Argentina - Ayn Rand is truly prophetic.
peripatetic, rather
- and don't forget Venezuala!!!
Atlas holds up the cosmos, I should know because he's my brother. When he shrugs, jack shit happens to humans. When he ejaculates, now that's a different story.
OK great, now we are following a bad paperback...
We are so Ebola'ed
Who the fuck follows Dreams from My Father?
Those are not the only choices wanker.
http://www.starvingthemonkeys.com/ Starve monkeys go Galt.
Jew bitch.
Shouldn't the conniving Jews of power and manipulation be separated from everyday Jews?
Less we go down the road of the Germans and empower even bigger and more evil government as an excuse to rid ourselves of them.
The problem is big criminal and Unconstitutional government, and fraudulent-reserve banking.
End those, and society and civility can be Restored.
Further empowering a bigger government with an even more evil and violent mandate so as to target the Jews will only destroy us. That is the lesson of Nazi Germany.
An American, not US subject.
Yes, kchrisc. And seems like banks are performing functions of government and Lobbyists are performing functions of government. And money in government is performing functions of government.
So we need to Define
- Government
- Good Government
- Simple Principals of Government
- Who has the Right to Create Money & Credit
- What are the Rights of Individuals and Corporations
- What is a Bad Corporation or IRS Entity
When we examine the Flows of Money, can we see all the flows or do we need standard rules to aid in Transparency?
AND when we look at LOOTING of Federal Tax Funds and LOOTING of US Corporations and Brand Names... what is the Effect on the people that created this country... Do we lose Freedom & Liberty & Equality to Robber Barons?
Personally if we turn back the Clock to the Great Depression we set up protections that were missing from the US Constitution.
I think there is a lot to looking at Anti-Trust Acts, Standardizing Finance, Banking, Financial Ratings, Auditing, getting money out of politics (and gift giving), the US Constitution, Individual Rights, Realizing that humans will always have greed and commit fraud & Racketeering Violations...
- Controlling Information is part of Capitalism
- Have our leaders controlled so much information & power & wealth that we have degraded the USA & the American Dream?
- Maybe we need to Re-Learn how to teach each other how to do things with our hands so more of us remember what Value is and how valuable our fellow Humans can be
Stupid bastards thought they could enslave True Entrepeneurs and True Capitalists.
There. Perfect.
EntrepReneurs dumbass.
Alan Greenspan once said that the best thing about a blow job from Ayn Rand was five minutes of peace and quiet.
Mooch Obama said the exact same thing 'bout Hussein.
GWBush's horse said the same thing about George.
speaking of GW and Horses fuckin classic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM2yPz6ax74
and vise versa
@ mijev Best Post Yet. Being a professional, I'll steal it..., ;-)
Most people are not shrugging. I hope more do but I don't think the critical mass will be reached to save the republic. All I hope for is the Constitution will still be around and after the collapse people will still want the Constitution as a guide to build a new society.
There is no saving it. Anyone who might try is already branded a terrorist and will be quietly led away to an undisclosed location for indefinite detention. We have to be safe you know. The facts in the matter will be released to us in an orderly "need to know" basis. So shut up and eat your peas.
There are no Galts left in the 70% consumption society. They're not hiding. They're permanently extinct. Give an average American a set of tools and he won't know which way to hold'em. Blowing shit up is the only thing we remember how to do properly.
Comparing US to Atlas Shrugged is self-flattery.
"There are no Galts left in the 70% consumption society."
Actually the U.S. Population includes 3-4% of the Galt type: I.E. Malignant Narcissists ranging up to >Sociopaths >Psychopaths..., and that's a lot of Galt.
Objection, you're assuming facts NOT in evidence.
Most people are just doing the best they can, grinding it out, unaware what is really happening. They're not dumb, just honest hard working people that believe the facade and the propaganda.
People who have the luxury of going Galt are going Galt.
They're not dumb, just honest hard working people that believe the facade and the propaganda.
That sounds dumb to me.
on the other hand, we could scrap the constitution and go further back to an articles of the confederation type of deal.
When you consider human nature, and the obvious benefits to some from the abuse of social/political power, it was not that hard to predict all of the above. It will ever be thus.
Fishhawk
Morality is situational.
It has changed and continues to change relative to survival.
Didn't know so many ZHer's spent their time on their knees sucking off Greenspan.
Why downs ?
Greenspan thinks of himself as a "producer", aka Galt, if, as he claims, Atlas shrugged is one of most influential books in his life.
As for the finaciers/investors on this site there is a bit of truth about the post above - as long as ride is good and your portfolios "grow" most of you could not care less HOW it was done.
Waiting to see ONE engineer, doctor or any other high professional to retire at 35, loaded with dow, and wrtite/blog for the rest of his life about "irregularities" in their respective fields.
may not be exactly what you speak of, but market-ticker.org is the blog of an IT entreprenuer (sp) who went Gault.
Iz Zookie a Galt ?
For many ZH-ers, I guess, he is. They would looove his loot. If Banzai throws some finny picture of them here and there that's OK too.
Speaking of tech, what is it about computer programs that we use in our daily lives?
I do not know about others, but I am sick and tired of lerning again and again a yearly "new" version of program that I am using which is nothing but tweaking and rearanging means of command inputs and, worse, is becoming stupider and stupider since they are running out of options for the "improvemnts"? Another type of too big to fail megacorp once they secure that monopolistic treshold. Is that how Galts operate ? They all start meek and smiley, like contestants of "Talent shows" before reching a stardom. Every major american Co. started small and grew on mighty american market - once finacialy bloated they turn back and give one big fart to all 380 mil or so of us....which Atlas lovers think it is perfectly fine since they "deserve it".
A prosperous country is not populated by bloated cattle lining up to arrive at their designated jobs, to do their designated duties in the designated time while bitching and moaning about how their lives suck. Entrepreneur spirit is an absolute necessity for prosperity but we have been sold the idea that all that is important is a job. A predefined position with a large sense of security with a minimal sense of responsibility. The perfect formula for the production of sheeple. And now we have one upped it by devining this idea that a higher education is needed, regardless of cost, inducing millions to borrow silly amounts of money assuring a lifetime of debt.
The rules have been changed to make it almost impossible for someone to start their own business. Ask any business owner (while you're in their store), to show you the various permits and license notices on their employee(s) bulletin board(s).
Quote right -- but -1 for "sheeple", which makes you sound like an arrogant moron.
Ayn Rand's 'objectivism' is no different than any other philosophy/socio-economic model: all of them would work if humans were fucking perfect. Don't get me wrong, I think there are some valuable insights in Atlas Shrugged. However, Atlas Shrugged is no more prophetic than the movies 'Idiocracy' and 'Brazil'. And they were a lot more funny and you didn't have to read Rand's fucked up rape-fetish scenarios.
"Welcome to Costco - I love you"
I gave you an up vote but please note: Ayn Rand never produced anything that could be called philosophy. Unfortunately, the amphetamine induced delusions of grandeur and sex fantasies she made into novels are now taken by functionally illiterate technocrats as socio-economic models.
Apparently the folks that gave me downvotes either have never seen Idiocracy or Brazil - or if they have, don't have much of a sense of humor. Oh and I was being 'liberal' when I called what she wrote a 'philosophy/socio-economic model'
Once again - she had some very perceptive insights with regard to personal responsibility, morality, and the willingness of a majority to think that somehow we can keep paying for things for which we have no money and are from the labor & productivity of others. And some of the scenarios she described are coming to fruition. But they have been described elsewhere ... it's not like she gave us anything new. However, she did give us an interesting and somewhat romantic view of a collapse of society and its subsequent rebuilding by those who 'get it'. Is it thought provoking? Sure!
But as an over-arching philosophy or model of how to run a society/economy, Atlas Shrugged is somewhat naive and lacking in that it only provides a solution based on the pure morality of a select few. My argument still stands - if EVERYONE was perfectly moral like John Galt and those in Galt's Gulch, then just about any socio economic model would work. Unfortunately, there are always those who game the system in play (whether rich, poor, or in the middle).
So our discussion from it should really be IMO: knowing that some humans will game whatever socio-economic system they find themselves in, which of those systems are the least susceptible or are affected the least by said gaming.
Put yourself in Ayn Rand's shoes.
She flees Red Russia - and lands in Hollywood.
Imagine your mindset if the same happened to you
(Disclaimer: I never read any of her books or saw the movies))
Ayn Rand in Hollywood: How good, or bad, are her movies?She flees Red Russia - and lands in Hollywood.
She fled the Soviet Union and landed in the propaganda center of the West.
Add it up… Start with your salary and subtract the costs to find if you should work or collect EBT.
With a job, you must pay $600.00 a month for medical insurance.
On welfare, medical is free.
With a job, you have to commute to work everyday. $246.00 a month. (IRS guideline @ .56 cent a mile/20 mile daily commute round trip.)
On welfare, no commute.
With a job, you need upgraded clothes w/dry-cleaning. $80.00 a month.
On welfare, nude most of the time with the neighbor chicks, Crystal and Diamond.
With a job, you need a stable and quiet place to sleep off-hours. $1,200 a month.
On welfare, you get a flat about the strip joint ‘vendored’ for free, to sleep it off.
With a job, you need to earn $3,000 to take home the $2,000 just to maintain.
On welfare, you get tax credits (in the form of cash) for just being.
The thing about welfare is not those receiving it, but those that steal from you to underwrite it. Whose thefts destroy commerce and the value of labor, and breed more poverty and misery as an excuse to steal more from you.
And so the shit filled whirlpool swirls in its trip down the government toilet.
An American, not US subject.
"Welfare generates poverty, and then subsidizes it."
Wealth redistribution always has lots of popular support. It starts small and eventually herds the survivors into government protection, government as the middleman protecting those at the top from those at the bottom as well as the other way around. Increasingly as we watch the lower income people demanding more wealth redistribution downward, we also see the rich coddling and snuggling up to those in power for protection. Republicans used to be the party of the rich business owners. How many of those rich business owners are republicans now? The few that are are labeled as evil per the Koch brothers. No, if you are rich and want to stay that way, a government coalition is the only way to go.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits the public treasury."
- Alexander Fraser Tytler
Some veggies go well with the pop-corn, thank you.
Laws. Lol...cute.
Free people...and I mean truly free, not the new Western definition...care not of the Matrix's laws.
Did you do something to unplug from the matrix today? Even if just a little bit?
I'm a free man, not because of a 200-year-old piece of paper or the judgements of humans in black robes; I'm a free man because I say I am.
Create your own sovereignty or die at the hands of the banker cabal. It's a pretty simple choice.
I'd love to do it but problem for me is that if I cash out my retirement fund I pay over 50% on the whole thing. That gives one pause for reflection.
Here's yer choice: 1. Do nothing, and live with the risk of losing 100% of yer Munny, or 2. Cash out now and pay the 10% early withdrawal penalty and the approximately 28% addition to yer income taxes.
I did the math, I closed my Schwab IRA in 2011 and took a $35,000 hit. The balance is now completely under my control and most was invested in Au/Ag (i.e., "Wealth Insurance") -- too bad I misplaced the treasure map of where I buried everything! ;>)
Some of the frogs in heating water hop out.
Not mentioned by Rand or Galt, but just, if not more, powerful, and even easier:
The people should just "shrug"--
The most powerful weapon the American people have is Rejection.
The system of fraud and theft that has been built up upon the backs of the American people is dependent upon our backs. Withdraw our backs, and the whole scheme collapses. This is our greatest weapon.
Quit Paying--Put it into food, and precious metals, etc.They stole what ever "debt money" they loaned you in the first place (fractional reserve banking) and soon you won't be able to pay them anyways.
Quit Obeying--If they are in violation of the Constitution then they are not legitimate anyways.
Quit Playing--Quit being a tool for them to use.
The Four Rs
Rejection: Quit paying, quit obeying , quit playing
Revolution: It is inevitable, so prepare, as they are.
Retribution: The guilty must answer for their crimes against the American people and the Constitution.
Restoration: Restore the American people, country and Constitutional republic.
I am an American of the American country. I am not a subject of the DC US nation.
+100
...and, the other side of the Rejection coin is: put them out of existence so that there isn't even anything to reject, HR25 for example kills the IRS...dead. Don't bother with tax protesting or refusal to file; just go out and rally support for the FairTax legislation and put them out of existence. EzzeePezzee.