Posted on 03/06/2011 7:15:48 AM PST by mnehring
He's going to try fleshing it out in real life. For the uninitiated, Directive 10-289 is ratified roughly halfway through Atlas Shrugged as an emergency measure. It locks the economy in place.
As they learned the hard way in the subsequent pages, economy, like an education, is motion, not a status, position or level. To lock it in place is to kill it.
Point One: All workers, wage earners, and employees of any kind whatsoever shall henceforth be attached to their jobs and shall not leave nor be dismissed nor change employment...
Point Two: All industrial, commercial, manufacturing, and business establishments of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth remain in operation, and the owners of such establishments shall not quit, nor leave, nor retire, nor close, sell or transfer their business...
Point Three: All patents and copyrights, pertaining to any devices, inventions, formulas, processes, and works of any nature whatsoever, shall be turned over to the nation as a patriotic emergency gift...
Point Four: No new devices, inventions, products, or goods of any nature whatsoever, not now on the market, shall be produced, invented, manufactured or sold after the date of this directive...
Point Five: Every establishment, concern, corporation or person engaged in production of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth produce the same amount of goods per year as is, they or he produced during the Basic Year, no more or no less...
Point Six: Every person of any age, sex, class or income, shall henceforth spend the same amount of money on the purchase of goods per year as he or she spent during the Basic Year, no more and no less...
Point Seven: All wages, prices, salaries, dividends, profits, interest rates and forms of income of any nature whatsoever, shall be frozen at their present figures, as of the date of this directive. (But taxes will be allowed to increase as needed for the public good)
Point Eight: All cases arising from and rules not specifically provided for in this directive, shall be settled and determined by the Unification Board, whose decisions shall be final.
It wouldn't...couldn't...happen in real life? Could it? We would never do such a silly thing. Or surely, if we did, those responsible would be carved in the concrete of history ignominously. Their names would never enjoy high honor ever again...there's no way we would do such a thing as, for example, stamp their profiles into our ten-cent pieces and leave them there.
Whoops, though, yes we did such a thing. Yes it did happen. And his face is right there on the dime in your pocket.
Obama's New Deal No Better Than Old One
By Michael Barone
With victory in sight, Barack Obama's supporters are predicting that he will give us a new New Deal. To see what that might mean, let's look back on the original New Deal.
The purpose of New Deal legislation was not, as commonly thought, to restore economic growth but rather to freeze the economy in place at a time when it seemed locked in a downward spiral. Its central program, the National Recovery Administration (NRA), created 700 industry councils for firms and unions to set minimum prices and wages. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), the ancestor of our farm bills, limited production to hold up prices. Unionization, encouraged by NRA and the 1935 Wagner Act, was meant to keep workers in jobs that the unemployed would have taken at lower pay.
These policies did break the downward spiral. But, as Amity Shlaes points out in "The Forgotten Man," they failed to restore growth.
:
The postwar Republican Congress elected in 1946 dismantled some New Deal anti-growth policies. Labor unions' powers to strike were sharply restricted. Tax rates were lowered, and wage and price controls were dismantled. Many hold-the-economy-in-place policies were retained until the deregulation of the 1970s and 1980s. But the New Deal was transformed sufficiently to permit buoyant economic growth for two decades after the war.
Obama seems determined to follow policies better suited to freezing the economy in place than to promoting economic growth. Higher taxes on high earners, for one. He told Charlie Gibson he would raise capital gains taxes even if that reduced revenue: less wealth to spread around, but at least the rich wouldn't have it -- reminiscent of the Puritan sumptuary laws that prohibited the wearing of silk.
We're just starting to catch on to that...that the New Deal, like the fictional 10-289, harmed much more than it helped. A vote for Obama on Tuesday says, essentially, "Prove It."
It's just like renting this movie. How it ends is guaranteed, even if you've not yet personally acquainted with it. The question is whether you're up to sitting through the frustration, suffering, boredom and misery that will deluge you before the inevitability unfolds. The dialog surrounding the build-up is nothing more than a suffocating formality, no matter how much skilled line-delivery and hopey-changey goodness you want to mix in.
I began reading Atlas Shrugged in 1976.
I’m almost done.
I’ve read it 5 times, each time it seems to mirror today’s events more closely than the last. It is definitely my favorite book.
What ended the depression of 1932 wasn't FDR and that has been known for years. What ended that depression was a massive influx of “free money” from Europe that started around 1938.
Europe was facing another massive war and its leaders knew they couldn't out produce Germany which was on a war footing. So, they came to America with their national gold reserves and invested in America's future production.
The declassified secret histories of World War II show multiple transfers of gold reserves to the US to serve as both collateral and investment capital.
In a micro sense - how would your personal finances change if you could suddenly double or triple your pre tax income without working more than the standard 40-hour week?
Take that level of change and apply it to the nation for a four year period, 1938 - 1941. After 1942 we were on a war footing ourselves which lasted another 4 years. After that we were the only intact industrial base in the world.
My ideas as to where we could find another surge of “free money” to pull us out of this depression is the subject for another posting.
Reminds me of WIN—Whip Inflation Now.
That may be a fun thread. Ping me if you start it. IMHO, it isn't really 'free money' we need but (other than a major change in taxes and regulation) a new engine added to the mix; just like how the internet created a mini-boom in the 90s, it was an entirely new sector.
ROFL! Is this true or were you joking? I know some people take several months to read a book because they read in spurts.
Wage and Price controls via Nixon.
They did this back in old England, you know. Or tried to. Vagrancy laws designed to stop any mobility and keep the workforce in place.
I began reading Atlas Shrugged in 1976. I’m almost done.
It’s true. I think I’m on page 500 something..I can never seem to finish it..after I retire maybe...
bump
Anyone out there asking whose hiding the truth about this Regime?
Life is imitating some genuinely terrifying art.
Here is an interesting snip from a 2010 FrontPageMag interview with Robert Buchar, political refugee from the former Czechoslovakia:
FP: With Obama in power, do you think we are inevitably heading toward socialism in the USA? What are the chances, in your view, in terms of how things are going, that socialism may finally rule the world? If yes, who can legitimately claim credit for it?
Buchar: You know, as serious as it is, from my perspective, it’s almost funny. I feel like I'm experiencing an amazing déjàvu. It started with the Clinton administration and now it’s picking up the speed. Many things I see happening I remember from my previous life in communist Czechoslovakia. In politics, academia, media… it looks to me like the current government is following the old textbook written in Moscow in the last century when the Soviets were taking over the Eastern Europe. But, of course, people here don’t know anything about it. Politicians and the media perfected the process of indoctrination. Deception got very sophisticated. Masses without any knowledge of history in today “now-culture” can be manipulated on a daily basis. A recent Rasmussen poll asked a simple question, “Which is a better system—capitalism or socialism?” Only 53% of American adults said capitalism. Even the same question was asked young adults under 30, 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided.
Obviously, the scale is tipping off. Decades of intensive Soviet deception are finally paying off. We have a young generation now without any idealism and values. In this conformist society, people just follow the orders. It’s all about manipulation...
...People in America believe that the idea of global socialism is dead. But it is not. If you look at its development in Europe and Latin America, you see that there is now more socialism than ever before. Because of public opinion, or rather, the media, political parties, political movements, parliaments, and institutions are all becoming more and more socialist. And now in the United States we are really picking up speed in that direction. ...
As a sceptic, I would say, yes we are heading toward socialism in America and there is no power to turn the ship around. But at the bottom of my heart I believe there is something special about the American people that common sense will prevail at the end and America will survive. But who knows. ...
...and to support the wool industry a law was passed that everyone had to wear a wool hat.
Obamacare is actually worse. Obamacare regulation is an ongoing dynamic process. The original 2700 page bill pales in comparison to the rules that have been added since then, solely at the discretion of the Executive Branch. The original bill effectively grants license to the HHS Secretary to do whatever in the hell she wants to do. Not too far down the road, she will issue a mandate that all insurers cover abortion. At least with Directive 10-289, all that was put in writing in advance. With Obamacare, the rules change from day to day.
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