“Steel for a company in Nebraska is diverted to Illinois because the Nebraska company is doing well, while the Illinois company is a failing concern in a failing town. The town is too important to fail, and thus so is the company. In the end, both companies fail. Where do we see this today?”
The auto industry, for one. The banking industry for another.
“People were at first willing to just seize a little of the wealth of the rich. Now they want it all. Cuffy Meigs wants to go all the way and seize Canada and Mexico. Do dying nations become predatory when the money runs out?”
It seems to be happening here; cap and trade, anyone?
“The diners in the restaurant reacted to Francisco’s destruction of d’Anconia Copper by trying to deny its reality. Dr. Simon Pritchett might have added, “Can you be sure that Francisco d’Anconia ever existed?” Where does this denial of reality have a parallel in today’s society?”
The only example I can think of today is the “shrinking” polar bear population and the “melting” icecaps. The mainstream media aren’t interested in reporting the truth, and an awful lot of people in this country don’t seem to want the truth anyway.
“In dire straits, California decides to levy predatory and confiscatory taxation on the state’s oil wealth. Are we approaching this in California and elsewhere?”
I’m one of the many that voted down Props 1A-1E. We might not quite be there yet, but we’re close, and the CA legislature isn’t limiting itself to the oil industry.
“Emma Chalmers believes in soybeans, and the wisdom of Asians in eating them, in preference to wheat. No doubt it will lead to a more sustainable lifestyle. As a government bureaucrat, she is imposing soybeans on America and destroying the Minnesota wheat crop as a result. In the end the soybeans are inedible. How are believers in pseudo-science with power leading us down this path today?”
Two words: global warming. It’s somewhat ironic that AS uses soybeans as an example of “sustainable” agriculture; in fact the cultivation of soybeans requires a lot of chemicals and pesticides. Not to mention at least a couple environmental groups have complained about how parts of the Amazon rainforest have been destroyed in order to grow soybeans.
“The Aristocracy of Pull considers shutting down America’s industries to become an agricultural society like India. On our time line, America’s industries were shipped to India and the Third World decades ago because of American wages pricing American goods out of the world market, something Rand never envisioned. Is it at all rational to de-industrialize a country? What could possibly justify such a decision?”
I wouldn’t consider such an action rational, and the only justification I could see is to ease the creation of a nation of serfs. (Wow, that sentence looks awkward!)
“Minnesota degenerates into civil war. California threatens to secede. As things get worse, will the bonds of Union sunder due to a central government that cannot perform the tasks it has promised the people?”
It’s still too early to tell, but if enough states remember that the Federal government works for them the Union could collapse.
Concerning the diners reaction to Francisco, I was looking for more. An event takes place, and the government attempts to spin the event by altering the reality of the event. "Everything was coincidental, and it is unpatriotic to believe otherwise, so please ignore your lying eyes." While global warming fits the pattern, so do other, more egregious things. For example, what really happened at Waco?
The Aristocracy of Pull considers de-industrialization in the book while we have already de-industrialized. While price pressure was part of it, are there those who would view America as a possible piece of future wilderness by concentrating people in the cities? Certainly the UN's Agenda 21 fits into this picture, but why would America's elite buy into such a plan?
Concerning the sundering of the bonds of Union, there is the fact that the central government hands out a vast amount of checks to people, and many live or die by those checks. That complicates the sundering because it creates a ready-made client class in support of the central government. To gain the support of those on the dole, states wold have to mimic the role of the central government. This is the complicating factor I was hinting at.