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  • From: "Wendy" <crazygardens AT verizon.net>
  • To: <cayadopi AT yahoo.com>, <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Atlas Shrugged - Fiction to fact in 52 years
  • Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:13:16 -0500

You are absolutely right. It has been about 15 years since I've read Atlas Shrugged and I forgot about that. That is one very, very good parallel that Mr Moore did not hit on.

Wendy
----- Original Message ----- From: "Leslie" <cayadopi AT yahoo.com>
To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2009 9:38 AM
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Atlas Shrugged - Fiction to fact in 52 years


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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