re: Hugh Freeze Quote Ayn Rand????

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If you honestly can read a book like Atlas Shrugged and not see the parallels to the modern world and how private industry reacts to business I feel sorry for you. Fortunately the folks in Texas get it, that's why NY and California businesses and millionaires keep moving here. At some point people get tired of working their arse off and taking risks just so the government can tax it all away, thus Atlas Shrugged.

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Just to point out, this is precisely the sort of high school-ish reasoning that most people lament when they criticize Rand's novels.

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So, so paranoid.

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So, so uninformed.

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10 Planks of the Communist Manifest:

1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rents of land to public purposes. Statists on both sides are working on it.


2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. Check

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. Statists on both sides are working on it.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. Statists on both sides accomplished in part and are still working on it.
6. Centralization of the means of communications and transportation in the hands of the State. "Global Warming" is working on it.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. working on it.

8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. working on it.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of population over the country. check


10. Free education for all children in public schools. check
Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.

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Communist Manifesto

What did I say that was wrong? The only thing they have left to do is take away our ability to rebel and overthrow our government. frickING WORKING ON IT.

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If you honestly can read a book like Atlas Shrugged and not see the parallels to the modern world and how private industry reacts to business I feel sorry for you. Fortunately the folks in Texas get it, that's why NY and California businesses and millionaires keep moving here. At some point people get tired of working their arse off and taking risks just so the government can tax it all away, thus Atlas Shrugged.


Just to point out, this is precisely the sort of high school-ish reasoning that most people lament when they criticize Rand's novels.

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Well, I could write a couple thousand words that further described why the book and her philosophy are not only sound but have shown to play out as true but I already get enough of a hard time about writing essays here. Besides this is a football board and not politics.

If you have read Atlas Shrugged and truly think Rand was an idiot then more power to you. Rand was all about the right of the individual to have freedom and operate in their self interest. I do agree that Shrugged is not a great novel in that it is meant to explain her philosophy more than to really tell a story, in a lot of ways I compare it to some of Orwell's work but he was a better pure writer even if he wasn't as strong of a philosopher though obviously Orwell was a socialist. I think everyone should read 1984 and Animal Farm as well. By the same token if you read Thomas Sowell you should also read Noam Chomsky.

Mainly though, there is no weaker argument against a philosophy than to simply denigrate those who have read it or agree with it by calling them names.

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our economy is suffering from the same things now that atlas shrugged points out. If you can't see that crony capitalism has taken over and is running new ideas into the ground you're blind.

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I don't disagree with this. CronyCap and CorpWelfare are serious problems.

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our economy is suffering from the same things now that atlas shrugged points out. If you can't see that crony capitalism has taken over and is running new ideas into the ground you're blind.

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1. Rand was neither the first nor the last person to point out that businesses shouldn't collude w/ each other to the detriment of the consumer. This is a very run of the mill idea that economists of all stripes support.

2. Identification of a problem isn't the same as proposing a solution. And Rand's "solution" - that we should basically eliminate all gov't influence in the economy lest our superiors retire to some remote capitalist Shangri-La and leave us to fight over the scraps - is utterly ridiculous. It's fiction, I know, but so many take it as fact.

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2. Identification of a problem isn't the same as proposing a solution. And Rand's "solution" - that we should basically eliminate all gov't influence in the economy lest our superiors retire to some remote capitalist Shangri-La and leave us to fight over the scraps - is utterly ridiculous. It's fiction, I know, but so many take it as fact.

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Think of it this way, what if instead of them all disappearing to shangri-la of capitalism they start hording their money (which they are already doing to some extent) and stop putting it all back into circulation. It causes real problems because it restricts new entrants into business from getting funds.

L M A O.

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Think of it this way, what if instead of them all disappearing to shangri-la of capitalism they start hording their money (which they are already doing to some extent) and stop putting it all back into circulation. It causes real problems because it restricts new entrants into business from getting funds.

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I'm not so sure that a coterie of individuals would be able to affect the economy of the US by withholding $$$ from circulation. Perhaps you meant that the corporations they run might?

Well if so, that's why we have fiscal and monetary policy. The Fed can slash the federal funds rate to promote spending, for instance. Also, these massive corporations aren't run by individuals, and even if they are they're typically accountable to shareholders and boards.