How Atlas will Shrug

Traywick's Corner Blog ^ | Apr, 1, 2009 | Rich Bryant

[The Duke]

I think perhaps Atlas is shrugging all around us.

[lentulusgracchus]

The gradual aging of the workforce feeds into your thesis.

Older workers eligible for Medicare will have one less incentive to show up at shop or office.

Likewise, their need for a slower pace will lead them away from corner-office Napoleons into self-employment via Subchapter S service corporations. I can see at least some of your scenario working out this way.

[240B]

The goal is to make Atlas shrug.

They are creating, rewarding, and lauding the grifter class while violently punishing the producer class. They want the wall street guy working as a janitor while on assistance.

As we know, this cannot be sustained in the long term but they don’t care. Their goals are shortsighted and immediate. By the time society crashes, individuals will be controlled and powerless. America as it once was is over. The talented independent producers have been defeated by the loser grifter class who want to be dependent on government. It is over. We have lost.

Once everyone is “dependent” the political class has absolute control and 1984/brave new world can begin.

[Caipirabob]

The goal is to make Atlas shrug.

All those "shruggers" with spare time and guns is a dangerous mix. They're going to go for the guns, big time. Soon...

Don't worry, I got it... ; )

[backhoe]

[BobbyT]

“that impulse is mitigated by the affects such a disruption would have on those innocents who are dependent on the creator’s work”

This is the “sanction of the victim” that when finally overcome lets the Creators fully shrug. Remember Rearden’s deadbeat mooching family?

As far as the partial shrugging goes, that is most certainly what’s going on. Before Galt went on “strike”, he took up a job as a manual laborer.

When you’re moving entire industries, you’re creating countless billions in wealth and only receiving a small percentage of it back. When you’re digging a ditch, you’re consuming almost all that you produce.

Designing a new engine adds to the wealth of all mankind, beyond its direct consumers. There is no trickle up benefit to mopping a floor.

Industry giants of growth firms will settle for accepting management jobs in mature firms, entrepreneurs will become run of the mill salesmen, privately employed professionals will continue to work for friends and neighbors but not hire, expand, or take on new clients, and the next generation of rising star executives will become middle management card punchers.

Atlas probably won’t shrug in the form of a fast, hard crash, but a slow lasting slump. And then we’ll be France, Japan, Sweden...eeking out a mediocre living with our decisions made for us.

Spread the poverty!

[Arthur McGowan]

It will happen many ways.

Ronald Reagan explained to Michael many, many years ago how the discriminatory income tax (which reached 91% at the time) hurt the “non-rich.” After a certain point each year, Reagan was working for 9 cents out of every dollar. Therefore, each year he declined one or two movie offers. The hundreds of people who could have been employed making those movies were therefore deprived of that much employment.

The discriminatory income tax is one of the most obvious ways that envious people (Democrats) are punished in THIS life, as well as in the next.

[familyop]

...and “at-home upholsterer” can pay taxes but won’t likely bring in big revenues or pay big taxes. He probably even does other odd jobs. He isn’t doing the work at home for the purpose of evading big taxes. He’s doing it that way in order to avoid big crooked competition (false zoning, false environmentalism and other ploys used by bigger competition to shut small business starts down).

My point is, look who’s really able to take Galt-esque action. He can also wear old, un-stylish clothes, cook for himself, produce food from a garden and repair his own machines. In other words, he can afford to live without vain, snobbish pretenses. And he’s not “shrugging.” He has escaped from the plantation of those who have chattered so much about “shrugging.”

[familyop]

"They are creating, rewarding, and lauding the grifter class while violently punishing the producer class. They want the wall street guy working as a janitor while on assistance."

...poor, powerless "Wall street guy." He's the new bipartisan party boss. He's a libertine. He's not only politically correct, but he sponsors the propaganda that establishes political correctness. He is the government behind the figureheads, and he has been moving us toward communism. Obama only works for him.

U.S. Bailouts So Far Total $2.98 Trillion, Official Says
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2219546/posts

[BelegStrongbow]

Good points you make. For myself, ‘shrugging’ consists in all of these kinds of expedients. Part of it was obligatory: I am too old to be really employable in the city but was able to find a relatively low-paying job out in the country which really amounted to the same thing as whatever I could have drummed up otherwise. The difference was a shorter commute and very lowbrow environment. I also have no provided health care and few benefits. You make do when you have to.

All of this amounts now to ‘getting off the grid’. It need not be total, but every bit that we manage improves the overall condition and prospects. But the difference is that in getting off the grid, I am specifically trying to avoid going Galt. I believe that is an expression of despair and I believe that is a very self-destructive sin.

[DollyCali]

GOOD THREAD BTTT

I like your statement(s) on your profile page. Well stated & honorable.

[familyop]

"Once everyone is “dependent” the political class has absolute control and 1984/brave new world can begin."

I hope the political class continues to spend even more. Without revenues to support that spending, they will soon control nothing. May the big defaults come swiftly.

It was not people like me who started this game of "chicken," but we will be finishing the game. It's time for the USA to get back to real men's work.

[Thomas Newton]

My second book titled, The Conservative Poet is finished, but John Galt paid me $10 million not to publish it.

[CharlotteVRWC]

Where did you get the bumper sticker?

[central_va]

Would another Civil War be considered a “shrug”?

[familyop]

"Good points you make. For myself, ‘shrugging’ consists in all of these kinds of expedients. Part of it was obligatory: I am too old to be really employable in the city but was able to find a relatively low-paying job out in the country which really amounted to the same thing as whatever I could have drummed up otherwise. The difference was a shorter commute and very lowbrow environment. I also have no provided health care and few benefits. You make do when you have to."

You said it better than I did, and I have followed the same path. I can build a house on income from digging ditches (work to begin again very soon, after this last ground freeze occurring right now). Most people would be shocked at what we can do on extremely less income than what they are receiving.

"All of this amounts now to ‘getting off the grid’. It need not be total, but every bit that we manage improves the overall condition and prospects. But the difference is that in getting off the grid, I am specifically trying to avoid going Galt. I believe that is an expression of despair and I believe that is a very self-destructive sin."

In my opinion, you're doing the right thing. ...hope you're getting out and getting physical exercise as much as possible. That's important for us aging folks, as others can use our help and examples.

I moved away from the City a few years ago and am literally going off of the grid (no power or phone lines for over a mile). We'll be in communication by other means (wireless, radio, cell, etc.). It's interesting, learning about and testing small power plant equipment (a little expensive--requires frugalities and patience) and alternative heating equipment (homemade and very low cost).

Agreed on "going Galt" being an "expression of despair." I hadn't thought of it that way. Being truly "objective," I'm deciding to reserve some "altruism" for those who are nearly apathetic and falling. We would do well to educate and help those who arrive around us from the dreamy world of the middle class, anyway, when they're ready to be neighborly.

While waiting in a local business office a few months ago, I met one of the newcomers and introduced myself. ...asked him what he had done for a living before coming here. He hesitated, seemed a little frightened, then he said that he had been a tax lawyer. I smiled and welcomed him. ...told him that others will be coming.

As they come here and settle in, they become more in-touch with more of what's really going on. Some of them are even getting together with us, little by little, on our firing ranges, ideas for greenhouse gardening and the like. We "Neanderthals" are truly "diverse" in behaviors, dress, and some of us, in language, but we're not so scary after all. ;-)

Ruralization is a good thing, IMO. Over 100 years ago, there were over 60,000 people on our mountain formation. Now there are probably less than a couple thousand, but people are starting to move here and build again (mostly the thinking, concerned kind).

As for what some have called, "first settler syndrome," I own a certain number of acres and don't tell others what to do with theirs. Let them build.

[Gorzaloon]

All of this amounts now to ‘getting off the grid’. It need not be total, but every bit that we manage improves the overall condition and prospects. But the difference is that in getting off the grid, I am specifically trying to avoid going Galt. I believe that is an expression of despair and I believe that is a very self-destructive sin.

I shrugged in 2006, and found the despair disappeared when I got out of the Fortune 500's and began running my own stupid little business.

No tie. No commute. No enriching management parasites. No permission needed to buy materials. No one else to blame, no excuses, no credit stolen, no "reviews", no meetings, no pointless airline flights.

Less money, less spare time, more hours worked, much more fulfillment and happiness.

I wish I had done it twenty years sooner. I had no idea how miserable I really was. Talking to others who did the same, "It was like an abusive marriage-You had no idea how bad it really was till it was over."

[familyop]

"Would another Civil War be considered a “shrug”?"

I would consider another civil war to be a good day of exercise and socializing on the bright green grass back home. Black powder is smelly and requires a bit more of a cleaning chore, but it's great fun. ;-)

[central_va]

The South (What’s left of it) will probably not go down the socialist’s rat hole peacefully. I’m just sayin’.

[familyop]

I understand the frustration and even the anger. It's happening all over. Anti-reason on guns: Kaine vetoes five bills despite evidence as well as public support http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2219562/posts But those politicians are only listening to a few people. They'll be surprised at how many of all kinds of the rest of us disagree with them.

The following are only suggestions. I'm not tryin' to be bossy.

Don't allow the high and mighty to pick your friends for you (turn off the television set). Don't buy anything that you don't need. Grow a garden. Acquire a hobby in making something necessary and useful, if you haven't already. Do some of that good cookin'. ;-) Tactics have changed (see '80s and '90s Czech and Poland). There are far more important things to do in revolutions than casting lead, brother central_va.