Posted on 06/22/2011 10:18:02 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The U.S. economy is crumbling. Businesses are collapsing in record numbers. Jobs have disappeared. Tax revenues are down dramatically. Coincidence?
Everything happening today under Obama resembles the storyline of Ayn Rand’s famous book, Atlas Shrugged, one of the most popular books of all time, selling over 7 million copies. Now, under President Obama, Atlas Shrugged has come to life. Rand prophesized a country dominated by socialists, Marxists and statists, where looters, free loaders and poverty promoters live off the productive class. To rationalize the fleecing of innovative business owners and job creators, the looter class demonized the wealthy, just as Obama and his socialist cabal are doing in real life today.
The central plot of Atlas Shrugged is that in response to being demonized, over-taxed, over-regulated, and punished for success, America’s business owners were disappearing — dropping off the grid, and refusing to work 16-hour days to support those unwilling to put in the same blood, sweat and tears. They were going on strike. Because of that the original proposed title of “Atlas Shrugged” was “The Strike.”
They were going on strike to teach that civilization cannot survive when people are slaves to government. That without a productive class of innovative business owners willing to risk their own money and work 16-hour days, weekends and holidays, there are no jobs and no taxes to pay for government. If you punish the wealthy, the risk-takers, the innovators, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. In Obama’s America, fiction is becoming fact.
The lesson of Atlas Shrugged is that without the $100,000+ earners paying into Social Security, there are no pensions for the poor and lower middle class. Without the wealthy owners of million-dollar mansions paying $25,000 and $50,000 annual property tax bills, there is no funding for public schools. Without the wealthy paying into Medicare, there is no “free” healthcare for the elderly. Without capitalists motivated by profit, there are no discoveries to eradicate polio or create miraculous cancer and AIDS drugs. Without capitalists motivated by profit, there are no jobs, period! That is what happens when the producers of society go on strike to protect themselves from the looters.
Ayn Rand was warning the looters that there are consequences to their overzealous actions. She was warning that if the productive classes felt used, demonized, ripped off, and taken for granted, they would go on strike — stop working, retire early, go underground, or move to places where achievement is celebrated and they feel appreciated.
The latest U.S. Census proves Ayn Rand right. Under Obama the wealthy are striking, voting with their feet. They are moving to low-tax red states in droves, escaping from high-tax blue states where they are being demonized and punished by the millions.
The Census proves that Obama’s tax and spend philosophy is a dismal failure, an economic disaster killing jobs. It is no coincidence that 1.9 million FEWER Americans are working than before Obama’s stimulus. It is no coincidence that jobs are not returning to the private sector. It is no coincidence that tax revenues have dropped dramatically and cannot support Obama’s bloated Big Brother government. The innovators, risk-takers, and wealthy he demonized and punished are on strike.
The high tech revolution has killed the progressive-liberal tax-and-spend dream. Because of the Internet, email, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Satellite TV, I-phones, I-pads, and cell phones, business owners are no longer prisoners of Big Brother. Take a look at states where the latest Census shows Americans moved during the past decade: Nevada, Texas, Arizona, Florida, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alaska, Virginia — all low- or no-tax red states, states that lead the USA in economic freedom.
Now look at states they escaped from: New York, New Jersey, California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan. Taxpayers, business owners, jobs creators, retirees with assets are fleeing the high tax, big spending, Big Brother states — the states being run like Obama is running the nation.
Progressives be afraid, be very afraid. If Obama is re-elected, these valuable producers will pick up and leave America altogether. There is a big world out there begging them to come. Places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Monte Carlo, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Bahamas, and Cayman Islands are low-tax havens that appreciate business owners and their sacrifices. They welcome wealthy ex-patriots. They celebrate individual achievement. They reward instead of punish business owners and financial risk-takers. They are wonderful places to live and are aggressively pursuing Americans.
I am just one small businessman, a third-party Libertarian political leader. Yet I personally have heard from thousands of fans, friends and supporters who have left America, are thinking of leaving America, are visiting other countries right now to decide where to go, or making preparations to leave in case Obama is re-elected. Just as Ayn Rand predicted, business owners are going on strike. Permanently.
The high tech revolution has freed them to run their businesses from anywhere in the world. The same high tech tools and toys that toppled a powerful and invincible 30-year dictator in Egypt and now threaten to topple powerful leaders throughout the Arab world, also offer mobility and freedom to U.S. taxpayers. Obama better learn the lesson of Mubarek before millions more business people decide they do not need to put up with looters, free loaders, and politicians who despise them.
Atlas is shrugging. Ayn Rand is saying “I told you so.”
Yes, I know. I was repeating it not asking for a definition.
Taxman Bravo Zulu!
I knew you could put some wings under this discussion!
My world is crushed. So Roosevelt was a total and complete dumb-ass? The only thing he did right was to go to war against Japan after Pearl Harbor? And he was elected four times (would have been more if he hadn’t croaked)? By the “greatest generation”?! Holy @#$#!!!! Some of them are still out there, voting and driving cars and everything!
I have a great deal of respect for small businessmen and entrepreneurs. I have a relative who is a small businessman, and I know he has thrown his heart and soul into his business.
Thanks for the ping Lucy, I appreciate all your hard work.
You are the best.
Thanks VERY much for the ping to this thread, LucyT...and the post TSR!
I haven’t read any post yet but, yeah, EVERY FReedom-loving individual should be “going Galt” on these POS degenerate scumbag SOCIALISTS in the government and the mindless enablers that put up with these TOTALITARIAN-wannabee punk/pricks.
Surely you jest.
Here are three good critical histories of the New Deal years, published within the last decade:
FDR's Folly, by Jim Powell
New Deal or Raw Deal?, by Burton Folsom
The Common Man, by Amity Schlaes
Reading these will enable you to thrash your Roosevelt-loving 'Rat friends and relatives when you debate with them. It will also enable you to see how Obama almost surely studied this history to emulate it in his own way.
And one other thing: the “working classes” ARE the middle and upper classes.
I make over $200K/year running my own business. I’ve been at it for over 14 years, started with nothing, made enormous personal and financial sacrifices, and I continue to work 60+ hours per week, every week. Show me any union thug that does the same things.
But how can they make money without a healthy demand for their products, which generally comes from broad based prosperity? Businesses don't operate in a vacuum. You can't make money off of paupers.
TigersEye posted - “”It’s easy to go home when the clock strikes “quitting time,” wash your hands and forget all about work until the next day or the weekend is over. Employers rarely have that luxury.””
Agreed. Interestingly enough, that goes for a lot of salaried workers and management types as well. No overtime for them. Just 24/7 if they really care about their jobs.
And the ones who don’t? Well, they don’t seem to last very long; especially nowadays...
May God give us strength.
Tatt
Thank you for the ping. A good one indeed.
Tatt
Good for you. You were blessed with the talent to back up your hard work. There are others who work hard but they don’t have the ability you do. They will never rise to your financial level because they simply don’t have your talent. They are also worthy of respect.
Unfortunately there are a lot rich folks and corporations “going (James) Taggart,” too.
You’re right that Rand didn’t contemplate China, a creation of the wealthy in the US; the basic principles of Rand still stand as the US slides into oblivion.
Rand also failed this test: He who controls the military, rules. Rand declined to address this.
It still is my favorite book.
“But how can they make money without a healthy demand for their products, which generally comes from broad based prosperity?”
I don’t see the middle class, much less the poor, buying high end things like mansions, yachts, aircraft, luxury cars, etc.
I don’t see the middle class, much less the poor, buying office and industrial buildings, industrial supplies, office products, commercial vehicles, office furniture, etc.
Retail sales to the lower and middle class are only a fraction of the GDP.
To claim the middle class provide the wealth in any economy is pure ignorance. They do provide the labor, and they do provide a significant portion of the economy, but to demonize the wealthy as nothing but consumers of labor and hoarders of wealth is just ignorant of the facts.
A healthy economy takes everyone producing. Unfortunately, the poorer try to demonize the rich and use the force of government to take from them. So, the rich protect their wealth, which hurts those poorer as there is now less wealth for them to partake.
I don’t give to charity because 55% of my money throughout the year goes to federal, State, and local governments in taxes. How is that helping the poor? If I had some of that 55% in my pocket I’d have more to give. Instead, bureaucrats in government have my money and squander it, and those wanting my money do nothing to earn it.
“I read BenKenobi’s post to say “if you’re doing the dirty work, maybe it’s because your employees aren’t the “do the dirty work” type, and was saying that he was willing to do the “dirty work” if given a chance”.
I was impressed by his post and was hoping to see a job offer in the reply :-) “
That’s exactly what I was saying.
It think it was the general tone of “the filthy rich got that way off the backs of the working class” and “without the heroes of the working class, we would be screwed” in the post that qualifies it as Socialism 101.
I respect all hard work.
What I do not respect is someone forcing me at the point of a gun to pay for those who have less, all the while telling me that it’s morally just for me to be forced to take care of them and I feel should feel enlightened for paying my “fair share”.
Likewise, there are many who do not rise out of their economic status because they are told they cannot, or they are told the government will take care of them, or they’re told the rich man is keeping them down, or they are not motivated to do so. With all the marxism and Marxist Lite mandates in place to punish success and incentivize parasitic sloth, you can still get out of nearly any economic situation if you work hard.
Those who cry “Hate the rich!” are the ones who are most responsible for keeping the poor, poor. Class warfare only weakens the entire country.
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