Ayn Rand sat up in her grave today...

[amicus]

Rand died of heart failure on March 6, 1982 at her 34th Street home in New York City, and was interred in the Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York.

A six-foot floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign was placed near her casket.

Today, March 5th, 2009, nearly thirty years after her death and over fifty years since the publication of her epic novel, "Atlas Shrugged", a television announcer, not old enough to be born in 1958, said the following:

"In her novel, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's hero, John Galt, called a general 'strike of the mind', opposing the collective form of government that penalized the wealthy." The announcer went on to say that people are not willing to 'go the extra mile', to earn more, create more, start new businesses when they know the government will just tax them more.

This in answer to another down day on Wall Street and concerns in the business community over the tax and spend programs of the new administration.

Rand was hated by both the Right and the Left, as she was a militant atheist and in strong opposition to the drift toward socialism that she saw during her life.

There are many who think the time has come to remove their expertise and wealth from the market place and let the collectivists fight over the remains of a once vital economy.

I tend to agree. If one can minimize one's exposure to increased taxes on all productive people, with-hold as much of the confiscated wealth, taxes, as you can and become an activist in confronting the political direction espoused by this new administration, it would be for the benefit of all.

It is not quite time yet to refuse to pay taxes of any kind, but...

Amicus...

 

[Huckleman2000]

*Pokes head in*
Sorry, I thought this was the Gamer's crush thread.
*Leaves*

 

[kendo1]

Who is John Galt?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

As if the collapse of the stock market and subsequent loss of wealth by a huge number of people will be somehow less than an increase in taxes. It's better to be savaged by bankers than by the government? How?

And just where is all this "expertise" that goes along with wealth? It certainly didn't see through Madoof.

 

[Pure]

ayn rand's most noted follower

was alan greenspan, formerly head of the federal reserve board.

in recent interviews, he's acknowledged he was wrong, that the crisis caught him unaware. that the 'hand's off' approach of rand did not work. the bankers did NOT follow their "rational" self interest, but their short term greed.

greenspan called for a greater role of government! --a randian enters the real world, not the phoney minimal government fantasy of Rand.

here is the NEW greenspan:
----

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7is5F_Do6N0&refer=home

Greenspan Concedes to `Flaw' in His Market Ideology (Update4)

By Steve Matthews and Scott Lanman

Oct. 23 [2008] (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said a ``once-in-a-century credit tsunami'' has engulfed financial markets and conceded his free-market ideology shunning regulation was flawed.
``Yes, I found a flaw,'' Greenspan said in response to grilling from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. ``I was shocked because I'd been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.'' Greenspan added he was ``partially'' wrong for opposing the regulation of derivatives.


=================


http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/in...to-crisis-not-enough&catid=51:world&Itemid=67


Greenspan: US government’s response to crisis not enough


WEDNESDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2009 19:48

WASHINGTON—Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the US may be doing too little to repair its financial system and promote an economic recovery even as President Barack Obama signed into law a $787-billion economic stimulus package of tax cuts and increased spending.


Responding to questions after the speech, Greenspan blamed insufficient regulatory oversight in part for failing to recognize the degree of risk that was accumulating in the banking system.

“The regulatory structures, especially internationally, were way behind the curve,” he said.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

"In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2001, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 33.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 51%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 84%, leaving only 16% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth, the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 39.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2004)."

From "Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power", by Professor G. William Domhoff, Dept. of Sociology, U of Cal, Santa Cruz http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Forgotten in all of this is the fact that America churns the mix of wealthy.

Take Stevie King as an example. In 1973 he was like many of us, working 9-5 and selling stories to magazines to buy Pampers and cornflakes for the kids. He lived in a trailer and wrote CARRIE sitting on the toilet. This is how most of America does it. Or we win the lottery.

Plenty of the rich are now jumping from bridges because their fortunes are gone.

The top 5% control the wealth, but the membership changes.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Forgotten in all of this is the fact that America churns the mix of wealthy.

Take Stevie King as an example. In 1973 he was like many of us, working 9-5 and selling stories to magazines to buy Pampers and cornflakes for the kids. He lived in a trailer and wrote CARRIE sitting on the toilet. This is how most of America does it. Or we win the lottery.

Plenty of the rich are now jumping from bridges because their fortunes are gone.

The top 5% control the wealth, but the membership changes.

The odds of someone becoming a Stephen King or Britny Spears in America are about the same as the odds of winning the lottery. It's a sucker bet they sell to you to keep you in your place.

I don't see Bush or Cheney headed for any bridges.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

DOC

Most people dont hold on to their wealth.

My ex-sister-in-law won a MILLION Dollars, and it was gone within 5 years.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

DOC

Most people dont hold on to their wealth.

My ex-sister-in-law won a MILLION Dollars, and it was gone within 5 years.

Easy come, easy go.

 

[Huckleman2000]

In related news...
Congressman - we're living in Atlas Shrugged

Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.), who gives his departing interns copies of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” told me today that the response to President Obama’s economic policies reminded him of what happened in the 52-year-old novel.

“People are starting to feel like we’re living through the scenario that happened in ‘Atlas Shrugged,’” said Campbell. “The achievers, the people who create all the things that benefit the rest of us, are going on strike. I’m seeing, at a small level, a kind of protest from the people who create jobs, the people who create wealth, who are pulling back from their ambitions because they see how they’ll be punished for them.”

In Rand’s novel, creative people (the “Atlases” of the title) are hounded and punished for their labor by an oppressive, socialistic state. In response, they retreat from society to a hidden enclave where they watch civilization’s slow collapse.

How far, I asked Campbell, are we from the final chapters of the novel? “We’re still a ways away,” he said. “That will happen when people expect that there ought to be a recovery going on, and it isn’t going on.”

 

[amicus]

I see a couple, 'heavyweights', from the 'usual suspects' chimed in to counter the OP and the ideas behind it.

There was a piece in the news some years back from a coal miner working a mine somewhere in either GB, Ireland or Scotland, can't recall just where, whose example describes well the situation Greenspan found himself in.

The were 'Union' workers, of course, who had mutually decided that to extend the period of time their jobs were secure by limiting the output of the mine shaft they were working in.

They reduced their daily output of coal to fifty percent of what was possible, in other words, expended only half the labor as before.

This young fella, who had little education and I seriously doubt had read Ayn Rand or any other philosopher/economist, was a 'new hire' and set off to earn his wages.

He upset the apple-cart of the Union gang and produced twice what they did, or course, they attempted to educate him, then threatened him and eventually fired him for being uncooperative with other workers.

I was hired to work, he said, and I tried to do my job. I felt guilty at slowing down and goofing off and getting paid for doing nothing.

In my first book, I quote myself, "an honest man cannot live and work among the dishonest..."

Greenspan should never have participated in the shoddy affairs of government, although I would opine his motive was good.

To labor alongside the corrupted is to become corrupt, to lower oneself to the relativistic, ever changing ethic of the left, is not done without cost.

The ethics and principles of the free market do not change, they remain constant but indeed, those who practice it are subject to a lack of understanding and failure.

Even the licentious left knows and practices the ethic well, a few withheld taxes because they did not want to support the war effort way back in the Vietnam era.

That is the gist of what I posted, withhold your support of the actions of this government, because they are indeed teetering on the verge of tyranny and oppression.

The broadcast item I repeated indicates that it is beginning, that those producers in society will no longer contribute the product of their minds to the muck of an increasingly collectivist government.

And that is as it should be.

Amicus...

 

[amicus]

Thank you for the copy & paste, Huck, that may have been the snippet style reference I heard...

Another sub-plot in 'Atlas' was the Nationalization of copper mines in an un-named central or south american nation:

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0638667720090306

CARACAS, March 6 (Reuters) -

"...Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez seized a eucalyptus tree farm owned by Ireland's Smurfit Kappa, vowing to clear the trees and use the land for crops as he seeks to tighten state control over food output.

Since winning a referendum vote three weeks ago that allows him to run again for reelection in 2012, Chavez has made agriculture and food his priority, renewing a drive to both nationalize assets and boost production via land reform.


Earlier this week, Chavez nationalized a rice mill owned by giant U.S. food company Cargill Inc and has sent troops to other rice mills in a drive to control supplies of the grain...."

~~~\

Thus...the comparison between the fictional events in 'Atlas', become even more attuned to the times....this is like watching an accident happen...one just can't avert ones eyes...

amicus...

 

[Guest]

"There is no God but Free Enterprise and Ayn Rand is its Prophet."

Thank you for the copy & paste, Huck, that may have been the snippet style reference I heard...

Another sub-plot in 'Atlas' was the Nationalization of copper mines in an un-named central or south american nation:

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0638667720090306

CARACAS, March 6 (Reuters) -

~~~\

Thus...the comparison between the fictional events in 'Atlas', become even more attuned to the times....this is like watching an accident happen...one just can't avert ones eyes...

amicus...

Ami, for someone who decries religion to the extent that you do, you're beginning to sound suspiciously like a zealot fervently looking for parallels between real-world events and the Book of Revelations.

ONE Congressman (obviously a fellow zealot, given that he hands out copies of Atlas Shrugged to interns) says that things are following the course that Rand laid out in her poorly-written novel/manifesto, and The End is Near!

A business was nationalized in South America! That's NEVER happened before! It must be a SIGN! Repent! (And start a small business lest ye wallow in the outer darkness!)

Horse hockey.

You've exhibited selective tunnel vision before but never, in my experience of you, to this extent.

The past years have proven beyond doubt to any reasonable person that capitalism without significant government oversight becomes abusive. Human greed, cupidity, and the desire for short-term profit without heed for longer-term consequences (qualities that are suspiciously lacking in Rand's shallowly drawn characters) are a recipe for disaster.

Yes, Congress screwed up by encouraging sub-prime lending. It wasn't Congress, though, that packaged those risky mortgages into securities that were too complex for anyone to understand, let alone properly rate for risk. That was done by people hoping to make a quick, large buck. They were bought by firms also looking to "maximize value for the shareholders" without considering what would happen when the housing "bubble" burst... and ALL bubbles burst. And let's not forget the "credit default swaps," another lovely invention of the financial community, that brought down AIG, among others.

Without the securitization of those mortgages, we would have had a large market correction as the bubble burst and then started anew. Without that securitization, refinancing mortgages (or disposing of properties) would be comparatively simple. Home values would recover slowly.

Yes, government makes mistakes. So does business. Perhaps you recall, from the days before significant environmental regulation, the Cuyahoga River catching fire because of all the industrial waste heedlessly spilled into it? Bad for business, you know. I wonder why the business owners didn't think of it?

NO ONE knows exactly what's going to happen in this crisis, least of all your paper prophetess, who should have the decency to remain horizontal.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

GNOME

I know whats gonna happen down the road. I see it coming as plainly as I see your post on my computer monitor.

Unemployment around here averages 10%, but is almost 15% when you add the people with no more unemployment benefits, people fired, geezers looking for money to fill the hole in their damaged retirement accounts, and folks economy-sized to part-time work. The WAL-MART HR people tell me that theyve never seen so many old people wanting jobs.

Jobs offered at a local job fair included: AVON reps, repo men, bill collectors, and phone solicitors. According to the paper, job seekers were depressed with whats available. Even the army recruiter stayed home. The bill collector lady told the paper she has 77 positions to fill.

Someone tried to siphon gas out of my car the other night.

By summer the shit will hit the fan.

 

[Guest]

GNOME

I know whats gonna happen down the road. I see it coming as plainly as I see your post on my computer monitor.

Unemployment around here averages 10%, but is almost 15% when you add the people with no more unemployment benefits, people fired, geezers looking for money to fill the hole in their damaged retirement accounts, and folks economy-sized to part-time work. The WAL-MART HR people tell me that theyve never seen so many old people wanting jobs.

Jobs offered at a local job fair included: AVON reps, repo men, bill collectors, and phone solicitors. According to the paper, job seekers were depressed with whats available. Even the army recruiter stayed home. The bill collector lady told the paper she has 77 positions to fill.

Someone tried to siphon gas out of my car the other night.

By summer the shit will hit the fan.

Nope, you're guessing, like everyone else. Welcome to the ranks of the unwashed, wild-eyed, scruffy prognosticators, James.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

GNOME

I'm not guessing at all.

I was just reading an article about wage deflation and the effect it is creating already.

If I'm full of shit time will prove me wrong.

 

[Guest]

GNOME

I'm not guessing at all.

I was just reading an article about wage deflation and the effect it is creating already.

If I'm full of shit time will prove me wrong.

I'm not saying you're full of shit, James, just that looking at current events and predicting future outcomes in a system as incredibly complex as the global economy is guesswork.

This is oversimplying, but if you combine two chemical substances whose properties are known, you can confidently predict the outcome based on prior, known experiences. Add a third substance that's never been combined with those two before and your confidence level should drop dramatically. And if a fourth, unknown substance should accidentally be added, you'll have no idea what's going to happen.

How does it affect your scenario if J.P, Morgan Chase (or a consortium of banking institutions) decides there's money to be made and suddenly starts lending freely? And that's just one example of an unknown tinkering with your formula.

 

[amicus]

Gnome....if you were not so intent on whatever ideology you are immersed in, you could see, as many do, the elements and ingredients that go into making up a complex economy under great stress/

When an economy depends on the investment funds of risk capitalists to create new business and jobs and you hear a new administration chiding them for making money, it is not rocket science to know the wrong formula is being applied to correct the situation.

The daily actions of millions of people as they work, buy, spend and invest, is perhaps the most complex chain of events that people outside the laboratory are involved in. When you replace the 'invisible hand' of the free market with untrained, unskilled theory driven politicians and beaurocrats and expect them to work miracles, you are surely whistling in the dark.

The free market and free people will tolerate a certain amount of control and regulation and a siphoning off of wealth to fund those wide eyed dreamers on the belt-way, but there is a limit, a breaking point, beyond which what is left of the market place cannot overcome.

Every rational, classical economist that addresses the problem does so in the same way. It is only the irrational collectivism dreamers that thinks a society can continue to punish the wealthy, the producers, forever and never suffer a backlash.

You may be blind to reality but don't assume that all share your myopia.

Amicus...

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

GNOME

Your comment presupposes that Chase and others will do SOMETHING, even if its nothing. Thats very true. They'll take some course of action, good, bad, or indifferent.

Captain Smith, the skipper of the TTITANIC, was a faultess mariner. One of the best his entire career, until he ran into the iceberg.

I watched a finance show today. Centrist Democrats are starting to get nervous about Obama. Its one thing to support unrestricted abortions and a free ride for everyone, and quite another when the Magic Negro is disembowelling your 401K.

Its like Clint Eastwood said in THE HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, 'You havent heard the funny part yet." The barkeep was laughing his ass off about Clint stealing shit from all the other business owners.

Centrist Democrats just got the message YOU HAVENT HEARD THE FUNNY PART YET.

 

[Guest]

Gnome....if you were not so intent on whatever ideology you are immersed in, you could see, as many do, the elements and ingredients that go into making up a complex economy under great stress/

When an economy depends on the investment funds of risk capitalists to create new business and jobs and you hear a new administration chiding them for making money, it is not rocket science to know the wrong formula is being applied to correct the situation.

The daily actions of millions of people as they work, buy, spend and invest, is perhaps the most complex chain of events that people outside the laboratory are involved in. When you replace the 'invisible hand' of the free market with untrained, unskilled theory driven politicians and beaurocrats and expect them to work miracles, you are surely whistling in the dark.

The free market and free people will tolerate a certain amount of control and regulation and a siphoning off of wealth to fund those wide eyed dreamers on the belt-way, but there is a limit, a breaking point, beyond which what is left of the market place cannot overcome.

Every rational, classical economist that addresses the problem does so in the same way. It is only the irrational collectivism dreamers that thinks a society can continue to punish the wealthy, the producers, forever and never suffer a backlash.

You may be blind to reality but don't assume that all share your myopia.

Amicus...

Did you even read my previous posts?

I reiterate... NO ONE knows what's going to happen. That includes you and the "rational, classical economists."

To pretend otherwise is simply hubris... or blindness.

 

[amicus]

The innate laws of the free market place are not as intransigent as the laws of physics although both require a rational mind to perceive the characteristics.

If you put a man in a cage and dictate each aspect of his life, 24/7, it should not surprise you that his reaction, once free, is predictable.

You don't want to be the Warden, nor do you want to be the Commissar, or in this case, the Democrats.

Amicus...

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Rand died of heart failure on March 6, 1982 at her 34th Street home in New York City, and was interred in the Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York.

Is there public access here?
I want to go piss on her grave. Seriously.

A six-foot floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign was placed near her casket.

Today, March 5th, 2009, nearly thirty years after her death and over fifty years since the publication of her epic novel, "Atlas Shrugged", a television announcer, not old enough to be born in 1958, said the following:

"In her novel, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's hero, John Galt, called a general 'strike of the mind', opposing the collective form of government that penalized the wealthy." The announcer went on to say that people are not willing to 'go the extra mile', to earn more, create more, start new businesses when they know the government will just tax them more.

I say we find an island in the ocean and have it run on Rand principles. Then deport all her supporters there and see how long they survive.


We'll make a reality show out of it and title it, "Be Glad You're Not Them."

There are many who think the time has come to remove their expertise and wealth from the market place and let the collectivists fight over the remains of a once vital economy.

I tend to agree. If one can minimize one's exposure to increased taxes on all productive people, with-hold as much of the confiscated wealth, taxes, as you can and become an activist in confronting the political direction espoused by this new administration, it would be for the benefit of all.

It is not quite time yet to refuse to pay taxes of any kind, but...

Amicus...

Actually, you can all just leave the United States and don't come back. Go live in one of those other countries and see how long you last.

Your kind has done enough damage to America... we not only can live without you, we can no longer live with you.

So when are ya leaving, dude? Seriously.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

I'm not saying you're full of shit, James, just that looking at current events and predicting future outcomes in a system as incredibly complex as the global economy is guesswork.

That's not entirely true. It hasn't been hard for me. It may be hard for JBJ though, since he is not capable of processing nearly as much information.

How does it affect your scenario if J.P, Morgan Chase (or a consortium of banking institutions) decides there's money to be made and suddenly starts lending freely? And that's just one example of an unknown tinkering with your formula.

If you base your initial predictions on a number of "if-then"'s, you lend a great deal of flexibility concerning those surprise situations as they unfold.

I will agree with JBJ on one thing - as I have said for a long time now, if things do not turn around, we will have a huge upswell of lawlessness. You can see the potential in the growing number of tent cities. People with families to feed and shelter and no means to do it because their unemployment insurance ran out, will find themselves with nothing to lose.

My family is well armed and we're building a very long wall to protect our home/compound. We have solar energy to power our home for the daytime and lots of friends around here with good basic skills that they can easily parlay into survival skills: farmers, electricians, diesel engine mechanics who are already tooling around with biodiesel and veggie oil, etc. But in the end that simply isn't going to suffice if the economy finishes its collapse: there are just too many hungry people who could turn bandito.

We CAN turn America around and avoid a "Fallout-3 without nukes" situation but time is running out. We're hurtling toward post apocalyptia at 650,000 lost jobs a month. We NEED a situation where someone big decides there's money to be made and lending to be done.

But what we really need to stop the slide is a job boom. Without that, all the business credit in the world is not going to save businesses from the new reality: profits will be down permanently, because people can no longer spend more than they earn.

 

[amicus]

One of the differences between many 'Objective' thinkers and the late Ayn Rand, was her support of, 'women's reproductive rights', including abortion. Some hold human life as the basic value and follow the Constitution in protecting such life from the moment of conception forward.

This came to light yet again in a graphic manner on the 'Huckabee show', on Fox today, as he displayed a picture of a healthy, charming, four year old girl, who began life as an implant from a five year old frozen embryo.

The new President will soon sign an executive order funding embryonic stem cell research, vetoing the order instituted by the former President.

Stem cell research is important and holds great promise in finding cures and preventative measures for many of the illnesses that plague mankind and is currently being carried on, in sufficient quantity with adult and umbilical cord stem cells to keep researchers busy for years.

The 'embryonic stem cell' controversy is merely a continuance of the battle between abortion advocates and those who value life.

The fight continues....stay tuned...

Amicus...