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[Leslie <cayadopi AT yahoo.com>]

You fail to make a very important distinction between the two different types 
of "wealthy" that Rand points out in Atlas Shrugged.  
 
There are those wealthy who get wealthy by honest production, creating 
products that people need/want, employing people to do so, and hard work by 
all (the Hank Reardon and Dagney Taggert and Ellis Wyatt types - the 
capitalists),,,,, 
 
,,,,,and the other kind of wealthy - those who get wealthy thru deception and 
dishonesty and pull (Orren Boyle, James Taggert, and Eugene Lawson) to get 
wealthy without production and screw everyone they can, while they talk about 
social needs.  (Actually Eugene Lawson is the equivalent of Hank Paulson, 
btw.)
 
 
Those who participated in the credit bubble (which set the stage for the real 
estate bubble) - are of the later type (deceptive, dishonest and now 
recipients of "pull" thru Paulson, not the former type.
 
The credit bubble isn't the only instance in our history that clearly shows 
the distinction between these two different types of "wealthy" (wealthy 
producers versus wealthy parasites) - but it is the one that is probably the 
best example.
 
Mr. Moore's parallels do exist, but until you make the distinction that there 
are different kinds of wealthy (producers versus leeches), you won't be able 
to grasp it.
 
 
Under Rand's philosophy, wealthy isn't about acquiring dollars.  It is about 
honest production.  Production at every level.
 
On one end of the spectrum homesteaders are wealthy - they produce.   They 
produce that which can sustain their own lives, and that of their livestock.  
 
On the other end of the spectrum there are businesses that still produce 
honesty.... although I would venture that with government regulations, that 
there are fewer and fewer who are able to do so 100% honestly.

Let me use one current example to show the dishonest side.
 
Individual home buyers who thought that their homes could rise in value 
5%-10% per year - were not producers of anything.  They were hoping to become 
wealthy without production, They were DISHONEST with themselves.  Not only 
about the reality that property values can not rise 5%-10% per year, year 
after year, but that they could live in homes purchased at prices above their 
ability to pay under the terms of the loans they took out.  (Every kid that 
tries to trade baseball cards as a kid quickly learns that the "fad" dies out 
quickly - that there is no get rich quick scheme only pyramid schemes - why 
don't adults make the same connection?)  
 
Individual homebuyers who were dishonest with themselves about their ability 
to pay are on the path to bankruptcy.  There will be no bail-outs for them 
because as a group they do not have any influence on the Pull Peddlers.
 
 
The mortgage lenders who fed the delusions of the individual home buyers 
practiced DECEPTION to siphon off wealth from investors in their banks 
(shareholders, CDs depositors, bondholders, and investors who purchased the 
CDOs etc).... All mortgage lender leeches quickly recognizing the opportunity 
to to acquire incredible amounts of wealth without production - just thru 
deception by feeding delusions.  Of course the mortgage practices they used 
also led to the path to bankruptcy.
 
But what do they do to avoid bankruptcy?  Those same mortgage lenders are now 
fighting each other to be at the front of the line to befriend Hank Paulson, 
the biggest PULL PEDDLER of them all, to get trillionis of dollars of 
hand-outs and free bail-outs from the Pull Peddler Paulson courtesy of the 
unsuspecting taxpayers.  This includes rewarding private companies that are 
bankrupt, not just the bankrupt lenders.  
 
You don't see non-bankrupt/producer philosophy types standing in the Pull 
Peddler's line....
 
 
There actually are a lot more parallels that the author of that article wrote 
about.
 
 
The insufficient oversight wasn't on the producers ----- the insufficient 
oversight is on the non-producers, the leeches, those who want to acquire 
wealth via the "Pull Peddlers".  
 
The best thing that could happen, IMO, is to let them all go bankrupt, and 
make the individuals who were responsible in businesses have to forfeit their 
personal wealth also.  That is the only way to flush the dishonest from 
society.  Get the dishonest out of the way, so the honest can survive.
 
 
 
Seriously, would you rather have had your savings in Midas Mulligan's bank - 
a banker who would not have participated in the deceptive loan practices so 
prevalend in the past 10 years ---- or have your savings in Lehman for 
instance?  Oh wait, Lehman went bankrupt because they didn't have the right 
"in" with the master Pull Peddler (called pay back for something that 
happened in the LTCM crisis).... OK, maybe you would rather have your money 
in Goldman,,,, because they most definitely had an "in" with the master Pull 
Peddler - so no chance of going bankrupt --- because Paulson will make sure 
that the taxpayers reward their bankrupt philosophy... in furtherance of 
acquiring wealth thru deception as opposed to honest production.
 
 
 
 
 
 


--- On Sat, 1/10/09, Wendy <crazygardens AT verizon.net> wrote:

From: Wendy <crazygardens AT verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Atlas Shrugged - Fiction to fact in 52 years
To: bobford79 AT yahoo.com, homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Saturday, January 10, 2009, 10:19 PM

Mr. Moore draws parallels to Atlas Shrugged that do not exist.  Atlas 
Shrugged is about economic collapse due to the imposition of socialistic 
policies (an attempt to even out everyone and their status in society). 
What is happening today, is a result of Reganomics -- give the wealthy the 
freedom to do what they do best (i.e. make money) and wealth and prosperity 
will "trickle down" on everyone else.  This crisis is NOT the result
of too 
many regulations, but the result of insufficient oversight and regulation of 
the flow and use of money at the very top of our economic structure. 
Remember "Get the government off the backs of big business"?The real
wealth 
of our economy was sucked up and pocketed by those at the top.  Nothing 
"trickled down" and no one at the bottom experienced any prosperity. 
Small 
businesses were bought out by the giants.  Common folk were tricked into 
turning over their money to brokers and "investors" who gave them
worthless 
pieces of paper and artificially inflated properties.  Small businesses are 
gone and the common folk are bankrupted.  After Common Joe was financially 
raped, they took those notes which were backed by Bankrupt Joe and 
repackaged them as another sellable commodity (money markets, hedge funds, 
etc) (think making a silk purse out of a sows ear) and marketed them to 
those who were only marginally wealthy or wanted to pretend that they were. 
Completely opposite scenario.

Wendy


> >From this am WSJ .  I am a fan of Rand, as are many others.  But, I am

> >one (rarely mentioned, but 'is' mentioned in this editorial);
that has a 
> >problem with a seemingly lack of compassion in her ideology.  Anyway, 
> >this is an interesting commentary of how today's events seem to
mirror 
> >much of the fictional plot lines in Atlas Shrugged....bobf 
> >http://cartoonbox.slate.com/stevekelley/
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> OPINION: DE GUSTIBUS JANUARY 9, 2009
>
> 'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years Article
>
>
> By STEPHEN MOORE
>
> Some years ago when I worked at the libertarian Cato Institute, we used to

> label any new hire who had not yet read "Atlas Shrugged" a
"virgin." Being 
> conversant in Ayn Rand's classic novel about the economic carnage
caused 
> by big government run amok was practically a job requirement. If only 
> "Atlas" were required reading for every member of Congress and
political 
> appointee in the Obama administration. I'm confident that we'd get
out of 
> the current financial mess a lot faster.
>
>
>
> Many of us who know Rand's work have noticed that with each passing
week, 
> and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of 
> Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of 
> economic lunacy that "Atlas Shrugged" parodied in 1957, when
this 
> 1,000-page novel was first published and became an instant hit.
>
> Rand, who had come to America from Soviet Russia with striking insights 
> into totalitarianism and the destructiveness of socialism, was already a 
> celebrity. The left, naturally, hated her. But 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.
>
> For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians 
> invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves 
> created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. 
> These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the 
> politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats 
> itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the 
> collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of 
> fairness, equality and do-goodism.
>
> In the book, these relentless wealth redistributionists and their programs

> are disparaged as "the looters and their laws." Every new act of

> government futility and stupidity carries with it a benevolent-sounding 
> title. These include 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. Why
didn't 
> Hank Paulson think of that?
>
> 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.
>
> The current economic strategy is right out of "Atlas Shrugged":
The more 
> incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will 
> bestow on you. That's the justification for the $2 trillion of
subsidies 
> doled out already to keep afloat distressed insurance companies, banks, 
> Wall Street investment houses, and auto companies -- while standing next 
> in line for their share of the booty are real-estate developers, the steel

> industry, chemical companies, airlines, ethanol producers, construction 
> firms and even catfish farmers. With each successive bailout to "calm
the 
> markets," another trillion of national wealth is subsequently lost.
Yet, 
> as "Atlas" grimly foretold, we now treat the incompetent who
wreck their 
> companies as victims, while those resourceful business owners who manage 
> to make a profit are portrayed as recipients of illegitimate
"windfalls."
>
> When Rand was writing in the 1950s, one of the pillars of American 
> industrial might was the railroads. In her novel the railroad owner, Dagny

> Taggart, an enterprising industrialist, has a FedEx-like vision for 
> expansion and first-rate service by rail. But she is continuously 
> badgered, cajoled, taxed, ruled and regulated -- always in the public 
> interest -- into bankruptcy. Sound far-fetched? On the day I sat down to 
> write this ode to "Atlas," a Wall Street Journal headline
blared: "Rail 
> Shippers Ask Congress to Regulate Freight Prices."
>
> In one chapter of the book, an entrepreneur invents a new miracle metal --
 
> stronger but lighter than steel. The government immediately appropriates 
> the invention in "the public good." The politicians demand that
the metal 
> inventor come to Washington and sign over ownership of his invention or 
> lose everything.
>
> The scene is eerily similar to an event late last year when six bank 
> presidents were summoned by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to Washington,

> and then shuttled into a conference room and told, in effect, that they 
> could not leave until they collectively signed a document handing over 
> percentages of their future profits to the government. The Treasury folks 
> insisted that this shakedown, too, was all in "the public
interest."
>
> Ultimately, "Atlas Shrugged" is a celebration of the
entrepreneur, the 
> risk taker and the cultivator of wealth through human intellect. Critics 
> dismissed the novel as simple-minded, and even some of Rand's
political 
> admirers complained that she lacked compassion. Yet one pertinent warning 
> resounds throughout the book: When profits and wealth and creativity are 
> denigrated in society, they start to disappear -- leaving everyone the 
> poorer.
>
> One memorable moment in "Atlas" occurs near the very end, when
the economy 
> has been rendered comatose by all the great economic minds in Washington. 
> Finally, and out of desperation, the politicians come to the heroic 
> businessman John Galt (who has resisted their assault on capitalism) and 
> beg him to help them get the economy back on track. The discussion sounds 
> much like what would happen today:
>
> Galt: "You want me to be Economic Dictator?"
>
> Mr. Thompson: "Yes!"
>
> "And you'll obey any order I give?"
>
> "Implicitly!"
>
> "Then start by abolishing all income taxes."
>
> "Oh no!" screamed Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet. "We
couldn't do that 
> . . . How would we pay government employees?"
>
> "Fire your government employees."
>
> "Oh, no!"
>
> Abolishing the income tax. Now that really would be a genuine economic 
> stimulus. But Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Washington want to do the 
> opposite: to raise the income tax "for purposes of fairness" as
Barack 
> Obama puts it.
>
> David Kelley, the president of the Atlas Society, which is dedicated to 
> promoting Rand's ideas, explains that "the older the book gets,
the more 
> timely its message." He tells me that there are plans to make
"Atlas 
> Shrugged" into a major motion picture -- it is the only classic novel
of 
> recent decades that was never made into a movie. "We don't need
to make a 
> movie out of the book," Mr. Kelley jokes. "We are living it
right now."
>
> Mr. Moore is senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal editorial

> page.
>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
>
>
>
>
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Public transportation may be in the mix.  I'm not sure how to prod
people onto it except with exorbitant gas prices. The austerity change
won't happen overnight, but I'm hoping we finally have someone in the
bully pulpit who will bring the subject up..