" Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. Posted on 11/09/2012 2:41:54 AM PST by Reaganite Republican
" Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. *** PING ***
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Actually Ayn Rand was not all that prescient, the novel “Atlas Shrugged” was written against the backdrop of Great Depression I. There are so many similarties between the period 1931-1937, and the period 2007 and what will be the situation in 2013, that the eerie feeling of deja vu cannot be shaken off. George W. Bush as Herbert Hoover, and Bronco Bama as FDR, each working with Democrat majorities in the legislative branch, took what was a mere economic downturn that would have self-corrected without government intervention, and turned it into an orgy of eating the seed corn while sowing salt into the soil.
We have been in “Great Depression II” for some time now, and only the fudged numbers and the application of a phony “safety net” has disguised the true extent of the number. In 1933, FDR struck down gold ownership as a hedge against inflationary forces, first by prohibiting individual ownership of gold except under very restricted circumstances, then by devaluating the dollar by setting the price of gold at $32 per ounce, from its previous level of $20 per ounce. While these numbers seem to be quaintly low and proportionately not nearly as great as the recent run-up in gold prices, this did signify a highly inflationary move when the whole world was in a state of contraction, effectively causing an artificial increase in prices, which APPEARS to be the return of prosperity.
Today, with neither gold nor silver as a standard, the printing presses are in the business of converting perfectly good and valuable paper into “green stamps” of dubious and declining value. For a while, this has propped up prices and provided the illusion of prosperity, but it is all a shell, and assets purchased today on credit, with very low interest rates, are paid off with these individually much less valuable dollars tomorrow. But because the rate of inflation is MORE than the interest paid on these credit transactions, this amounts to a NEGATIVE return for the lender.
Lending as an enterprise shrinks back to near nothing, because it no longer pays back as much as simply buying commodities and holding them until the price rises to reflect the excess number of dollars in circulation.
This disincentive to make money available for lending, has a triple whammy effect. First, businesses no longer have a reliable source of new funds for expansion, The price of EVERYTHING goes up, while the real purchasing power of the weekly paycheck declines, both because the value of the compensation is being lost, and also because the actual size in numerical terms, is less and less, through shortened hours, and by no adjustments (or very little) made to the base pay, even as the adjustments are cancelled out by increases in such things as purchase of health insurance.
And now, there is the spectre of rising taxes, in some instances, sharply higher, as the “old” tax rates from the Clinton kick in.
It perfectly describes Hussein and his party of evil.
Ping
Not to be confused with even remotely liking our president, but Ayn Rand despised traditional marriage, disliked children, and was an atheist.
She understood, down to the root that ideas are what determine a country’s future and which ones lead to prosperity and which ones lead to barbed wire and machine guns. I wish people could get past her atheism and take a serious look at her ideas. I guess it’s time to buy stock in barbed wire companies.
True...but how will you explain that to those who viscerally oppose gay marriage?
I see the gay marriage issue differently as an Objectivist. I have no Bible based objection to it. What the gay marriage advocates are demanding is a moral sanction and that is not their right to demand. I don’t think the government should ban it but they should also not force people to accept it or perform the ceremony. Ayn Rand found homosexuality disgusting but she was dead set against laws against it. If two gay men want to get married and can find someone to do it then it is not my right to stop them and their marriage is not a reflection on mine or anyone else’s. Every man or woman has a right to pursue happiness as long as they are not harming others. And if others choose not to give their moral sanction then that is their right as well. In a free society people don’t have to deal with each other if they don’t want to.
There are some at Free Republic who confuse freedom, conservatism and their own theocratic view of how society should be organized and function.
Our founders were far more prescient than Rand. They understood that limited government would require a disciplined population willing to morally constrain their own behavior and excesses. In the absence of such, people start pressing government for more laws and increasingly intrusive regulations. When people abandon personal morality, they allow government to become the arbiter of public morality, hence smoking a cigarette is now one of the most unholy acts a person can commit, but wrenching an unborn child from the womb in pieces is not merely a protected right, but virtually a blessed sacrament. Why? Because government says so!
Also, unlike Rand, who despised the traditional views of "altruism" and, "self-sacrifice", our founders understood that people would sometimes have to commit to, and sometimes sacrifice for things greater than themselves, hence their willingness to pledge their lives, fortunes and sacred honor for their countrymen and for future generations.
The expression of your reasoned mind is as brilliant as a bell pealing high and clear through a hushed and frozen winter’s morning.
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