[TreeFarmer]

Does the current and evolving situation in Washington resemble the situation Ayn Rand portrayed in Atlas Shrugged?

I thought I'd throw this out for discussion.

TF

[green_achers]

Not even reality could be as absurd as the chain of events imagined in Atlas Shrugged.

[SFDukie]

In Alas Shrugged, industrialists and innovators were throttled by a statist government.

In today's US, the rich have a larger, not a smaller share of the nation's wealth compared with the situation 40 years ago.
Government spending is well within recent historical limits as a percentage of GDP.
So I'd day no, nothing like the novel.

[Arsenal]

Did you guys even read the book??

Of course the rich get richer. But the wrong rich. Looters, moochers, politicians. Goldman Sach?? Clinton? Bush? Universal Healthcare, Social Security??? Forced merging of banks.... Sounds like the Railroad Unification Plan to me.

The true rich (producers, people of the mind) are getting throttled by taxes and laws. The small business that will be required to hire someone because of the tax break not because of the level of skill a person has. Sounds like the Unification Board to me.

When the leaders trot some Czar out on the platform to speak.... Sounds like the Director of Distribution..

There are so many similarities it is not even laughable anymore. A People's State is closer than you think.

If you disagree I am sure the Director of Morale Conditioning would like to have a word with you.

+1 TreeFarmer

[Geodesic]

Greenspan was a Rand disciple. His deregulation orgy (begun with Ronnie Raygun), let the foxes run the chicken coop strategy really turned out well didn't it?

[rangerone314]

De-regulation has bad outcomes because people with power (economic or political) act as badly as they can get away with, barring a restraining force.

[SFDukie]

Throttled by taxes?

Taxes, as a percentage of gdp are lower than post ww2 averages. Top brackets of personal income tax-lower. Percentage of revenues from corporate taxes-lower. Capital gains taxes-lower.


Federal marginal income tax rates:






Social security? What changes have taken place in SSI of late?

What economically developed countries have LOWER tax rates than the US?

[ian807]

Democratic capitalism terminated in economic dictatorship when the most successful capitalists discovered that the most profitable activity they could engage in was the purchase of government.

That phase has been quite successful.

Since this has been done, the stage is set for these same actors (banks) to hoard cash (by not lending) in order to purchase all competition (small and medium size businesses) at a low price (i.e. when bankruptcy of small to medium size businesses becomes almost universal).

In short, the poor wanting a handout and the super-rich are both equal threats to capitalist democracies.

[Arsenal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SFDukie', 'T')hrottled by taxes?

Taxes, as a percentage of gdp are lower than post ww2 averages. Top brackets of personal income tax-lower. Percentage of revenues from corporate taxes-lower. Capital gains taxes-lower.

[PrestonSturges]

Well first of all, it's a generally shitty book, secondly, Rand was a nasty amoral crackpot, third, Rand hated libertarians. It's like Star Trek books - by the time you're 20, it's time to put that stuff away.

Bush was the one with the nakedly corrupt looters supported by anti-intellectual anti-science home schooled ideologically driven nuts with the collective IQ of a turnip.

The GOP under Bush was the perfect picture of the Randian villians who forced their view of reality to fit their goals rather than vice versa. The GOP invaded Iraq for mythical WMD, let Bin laden escape, watched New Orleans drown, cut taxes during a war, let the banking system collapse.

It was under the GOP that we clearly saw the US heading for a Randian grid-down collapse due to massive corruption, indifference, and ignorance.

Rands new popularity is with people who don't actually read many books but claim that there are books that intellectually justify whatever is convenient for them at the moment. The Bible is always popular with people that can't name the gospels or commandments, the constitution is popular with with people that can't actually name the three branches of government, Paine is popular with people that don't know he was a militant atheist, Rand is popular with people that don't know anything about living in a dictatorship like Rand did.

</rant>

Seriously though, does anyone think we are closer to going grid down because Obama beat McCain?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '
')
Seriously though, does anyone think we are closer to going ... down because Obama beat McCain?

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'A')fter a year the main difference directly attributable to Obama's victory is that the US is more then one trillion dollars deeper in debt to pay for Obama's giant porkulus bill and 2009 supplemental budget, both of which were stuffed with earmarks and pork, and neither of which did a thing to stop the loss of four million jobs on Obama's watch ------ Obama's cap and tax, health care reform etc. will further accelerate deficit spending far above what it might have been in the coming years of the Obama administration.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'G')ee whiz, I seem to remember a lot of genuine fear that they ATMs were going to dry up and that the credit crunch was going to start putting a crimp in food deliveries for an Ayn Rand style crash under Bush. And Obama had to dump money into the economy to keep it from seizing up completely, while all the GOP could do was talk about "succession" because their knickers were in a twist over losing the election. Fast forward a year, and the GOP is still throwing rocks and bragging about how they would have done nothing to avert a complete collapse.
I need to pick up a copy of "Republican Gomorrah" [url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/republican-gomorrah_b_290293.html]Huffington Post

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '
')
Seriously though, does anyone think we are closer to going ... down because Obama beat McCain?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')
Sorry, but no. That plot has nothing to do with any estimate made in 2004. Its silly for you to even suggest that, since the giant deficit in 2009 caused by Obama's failed trillion dollar porkulus spending would have been inconceivable in 2004. The plot shows the new budget projections that the Obama White House calculated and released earlier this year projecting the effects of Obama's program for 10 years into the future. The CBO scored the Obama program a bit more harshly, projecting even larger deficits then the Obama administration would admit to.

Cheers!

[IslandCrow]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TreeFarmer', 'D')oes the current and evolving situation in Washington resemble the situation Ayn Rand portrayed in Atlas Shrugged?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Arsenal', '
')The true rich (producers, people of the mind) are getting throttled by taxes and laws. The small business that will be required to hire someone because of the tax break not because of the level of skill a person has.

[ian807]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'L')ike I said, create crisis, sucker punch anyone that tries to help, do victory dance. It's the GOP way.

[ian807]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'O')bama's giant porkulus bill .