Category Archives: Ayn Rand

New York Times

How the Dark Web's Dread Pirate Roberts Went Down New York Times He was fond of the same Ayn Rand quotes as other founders: The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me. He had his own version of a consigliere, in the form of Variety Jones. (Ulbricht's ex-girlfriend gets a lot of space ...

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How the Dark Web's Dread Pirate Roberts Went Down - New York Times

Once again we have a letter from someone who is convinced that government regulations are what caused the Great Recession.

To make things right we have to give people more freedom in the marketplace. Mr. Stubblefield cites John A. Allisons book as a source for the real truth. Mr. Allison is a member of the Cato Institute a libertarian think tank and a big fan of Ayn Rand.

So, it is no surprise that Mr. Allison would lay the blame for the economic crisis of 2008 and its aftermath on the government.

I, too, have read several books about this economic calamity and all of them have given substantial evidence that the deregulation of the financial sector is the primary cause of that horrific mess. And the basis for the push to deregulate is the world view that is espoused by Mr. Allison, Mr. Stubblefield and far too many others.

The essence of their world view is that people, be they consumers or producers, are protected from bad deals by their own self-interest. So, people should have the freedom to buy what they want and companies should have the freedom to sell what they want.

When the government intrudes into this natural relationship with regulations, it simply mucks things up.

When this world view was applied to the financial sector, industry lobbyists put constant pressure on Congress to allow the financial institutions to modernize. So, the regulations that had protected the financial sector from major catastrophes for 50 years, should be eliminated.

In 1982 the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act was enacted which allowed banks to offer a wide variety of mortgages, e.g., ones with adjustable rates, interest-only payments or even negative amortization. Also in the 1980s financial institutions developed derivatives. Credit Default Swap derivatives are bets that some company will or will not default on its loan.

In 1994, Congress passed the Secondary Mortgage Market Enhancement Act which allowed investment banks to securitize mortgage loans, i.e., package them into bond like products called MBSs (mortgage backed securities). They then sold them to hedge funds, pension funds, etc.

Finally, in 1999 Congress overturned the Glass-Stegall Act and approved the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which allowed investment banks, commercial banks and insurance companies to combine into a single firm.

Each of these acts enabled more freedom in the market by allowing consumers a wider choice of products and investment banks to create new markets for risk. There was nothing to fear because Alan Greenspan another devoted advocate of Ayn Rand proclaimed that the sophisticated players in these markets could police themselves. Of course we all know they didnt and what dismal consequences followed thereafter.

The folks who adhere to the simplistic world view outlined above never learn from history. They are so devoted to their theory, that no amount of evidence will ever convince them that it is incorrect. Unfortunately, too many of those with the power to steer us on a more correct course are also beguiled by these ideas.

Tom Tillery

Aiken

Original post:

Letter: Deregulation is not always best - Aiken Standard

Philosopher, Writer(19051982)

Author Ayn Rand wrote the best-selling books 'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas Shrugged,' and promoted the philosophy of Objectivism.

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quotes

To achieve, you need thought. ... You have to know what you are doing and thats real power.

What you feel tells you nothing about the facts; it merely tells you something about your estimate of the facts.

Ayn Rand

Born in Russia in 1905, Ayn Rand moved to the United States in 1926 and tried to establish herself in Hollywood. Her first novel, We the Living (1936), championed her rejection of collectivist values in favor of individual self interest, a belief that became more explicit with her subsequent novels The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). Following the immense success of the latter, Rand promoted her philosophy of Objectivism through courses, lectures and literature. She died in New York City on March 6, 1982.

Ayn Rand was born Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia. The oldest daughter of Jewish parents (and eventually an avowed atheist), she spent her early years in comfort thanks to her dad's success as a pharmacist, proving a brilliant student.

In 1917, her father's shop was suddenly seized by Bolshevik soldiers, forcing the family to resume life in poverty in the Crimea. The situation profoundly impacted young Alissa, who developed strong feelings toward government intrusion into individual livelihood. She returned to her city of birth to attend the University of Petrograd, graduating in 1924, and then enrolled at the State Institute for Cinema Arts to study screenwriting.

Granted a visa to visit relatives in Chicago, Alissa left for the United States in early 1926, never to look back. She took on her soon-to-be-famous pen name and, after a few months in Chicago, moved to Hollywood to become a screenwriter.

Following a chance encounter with Hollywood titan Cecil B. DeMille, Rand became an extra on the set of his 1927 film The King of Kings, where she met actor Frank O'Connor. They married in 1929, and she became an American citizen in 1931.

Rand landed a job as a clerk at RKO Pictures, eventually rising to head of the wardrobe department, and continued developing her craft as a writer. In 1932, she sold her screenplay Red Pawn, a Soviet romantic thriller, to Universal Studios. She soon completed a courtroom drama called Penthouse Legend, which featured the gimmick of audience members serving as the jury. In late 1934, Rand and her husband moved to New York City for its production, now renamed Night of January 16th.

Around this time, Rand also completed her first novel, We the Living. Published in 1936 after several rejections, We the Living championed the moral authority of the individual through its heroine's battles with a Soviet totalitarian state. Rand followed with the novella Anthem (1938), about a future collectivist dystopia in which "I" has been stamped out of the language.

In 1937, Rand began researching a new novel by working for New York architect Ely Jacques Kahn. The result, after years of writing and more rejections, was The Fountainhead. Underscoring Rands individualistic underpinnings, the books hero, architect Howard Roark, refuses to adhere to conventions, going so far as to blowing up one of his own creations. While not an immediate success, The Fountainhead eventually achieved strong sales, and at the end of the decade became a feature film, with Gary Cooper in the role of Roark.

Rand's ideas became even more explicit with the 1957 publication of Atlas Shrugged. A massive work of more than 1,000 pages, Atlas Shrugged portrays a future in which leading industrialists drop out of a collectivist society that exploits their talents, culminating with a notoriously lengthy speech by protagonist John Galt. The novel drew some harsh reviews, but became an immediate best seller.

Around 1950, Rand met with a college student named Nathan Blumenthal, who changed his name to Nathaniel Braden and became the author's designated heir. Along with his wife, Barbara, Braden formed a group that met at Rand's apartment to engage in intellectual discussions. The group, which included future Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, called itself the Collective, or the Class of '43 (the publication year of The Fountainhead).

Rand soon honed her philosophy of what she termed "Objectivism": a belief in a concrete reality, from which individuals can discern existing truths, and the ultimate moral value of the pursuit of self interest. The development of this system essentially ended her career as a novelist: In 1958, the Nathaniel Branden Institute formed to spread her message through lectures, courses and literature, and in 1962, the author and her top disciple launched The Objectivist Newsletter. Her books during this period, including For the New Intellectual (1961) and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966), were primarily comprised of previously published essays and other works.

Following a public split with Braden, the author published The Romantic Manifesto (1969), a series of essays on the cultural importance of art, and repackaged her newsletter as The Ayn Rand Letter. She continued traveling to give lectures, though she was slowed by an operation for lung cancer. In 1979, she published a collection of articles in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, which included an essay from protg Leonard Peikoff.

Rand was working on a television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged when she died of heart failure at her home in New York City on March 6, 1982.

Although she weathered criticism for her perceived literary shortcomings and philosophical arguments, Rand undeniably left her mark on the Western culture she embraced. In 1985, Peikoff founded the Ayn Rand Institute to continue her teachings. The following year, Braden's ex-wife, Barbara, published a tell-all memoir, The Passion of Ayn Rand, which later was made into a movie starring Helen Mirren.

Interest in Rand's works resurfaced alongside the rise of the Tea Party movement during President Barack Obama's administration, with leading political proponents like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz proclaiming their admiration for the author. In 2010, the Ayn Rand Institute announced that more than 500,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged had been sold the previous year.

We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

Ayn Rand Biography.com

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The Biography.com website

June 9, 2017

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November 30, 2016

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Ayn Rand - Philosopher, Writer - Biography.com

Many Americans hold a cartoonists view of the corporate titan.

They see him as a sort of Wild West cowboy or an Ayn Rand oversoul cursing the heavy hand of government as a fellow who pounds his drum for laissez faire.

Yet after Trump withdrew from the Paris climate accord and its bible of government regulations, who sobbed loudest?

The corporate titans.

From a New York Times editorial, bearing date of 1 June 2017:

In January, 630 businesses and investors with names like DuPont, Hewlett-Packard and Pacific Gas and Electric signed an open letter to then-President-elect Trump and Congress, calling on them to continue supporting low-carbon policies, investment in a low-carbon economy and American participation in the Paris agreement.

In fact, a nearly united corporate front took out full-page advertisements in the Times, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, all declaring for Paris.

And so the fierce corporate man of myth goes herding into the regulatory pens willingly and happily.

This because Corporate America has discovered its soul or at least its conscience.

Thats the impression theyd like to leave, anyway.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, announced his piety by revealing he would no longer counsel Trump:

Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.

Alex Gorsky of Johnson & Johnson moans: We have established science-based goals to decrease our carbon footprint and we remain committed to achieving them.

Ah, but here, Wal-Mart president and CEO Doug McMillon gives the game away:

Addressing climate change is a win-win: good for society and good for Wal-Mart.

Key element: Good for Wal-Mart.

One eye fixes on society, that is the other on the bottom line.

Which eye do you think Mr. McMillon favors or the other gentlemen?

Cast to one side your opinion of climate change and consider this question:

Why is Corporate America so hot to be regulated?

Real America deserves a square answer.

Regulation saddles business with extra costs and saws into profits, after all.

And a study by National Economic Research Associates suggests that complying with Paris emissions targets could cost 2.7 million jobs by 2025.

Another study says Paris would have slashed U.S. GDP over $2.5 trillion by 2035.

According to our lights, the answer is this:

Corporate America embraced the Paris accord because it would have gained from it.

Regulation annoys the Johnson & Johnsons, Whirlpools and DuPonts.

But its an impossible burden for the striving upstart or the fellow on the middle rungs. They cant afford it. So they cant compete.

Regulation therefore builds protective moats around corporations. It pulls up the drawbridge on competitors. It repels invaders.

In nuce: corporations consider costly regulation a trade-off well worth the annoyance.

Economists have a term for it: rent seeking.

To cement our case, we summon the small businesses of America to the witness stand

The New York Times:

The move has opened up a fissure between smaller companies and some of the biggest names in business

While multinational corporations such as Disney, Goldman Sachs and IBM have opposed the presidents decision to walk away from the international climate agreement, many small companies around the country were cheering him on, embracing the choice as a tough-minded business move that made good on Mr. Trumps commitment to put Americas commercial interests first.

This just heightens the divide between big business and small business, testifies Jeffrey Korzenik, investment strategist for Fifth Third Bank. They really have different worldviews.

And so the prosecution rests

Here at The Daily Reckoning, we have no heat against corporations as such.

And no one has ever accused us of hostility to capitalism or to the shade of Adam Smith.

But we hold a violent prejudice against swindle against fraud in all his forms in brief, against crony capitalism itself.

We say stand business on its own two legs and let it rise or fall on its merit let the winners take their cut and let the devil take the hindmost.

Or to return to our castle metaphor, drain the moat pull down the drawbridge and let societys true innovators through the gates.

It might not necessarily be the American way but its the honest way

Regards,

Brian Maher Managing Editor, The Daily Reckoning

Originally posted here:

Trump Defies Corporate America - Daily Reckoning

In its zeal to trot out the most mendacious humans alive to defend the president and his policies, the Trump administration has recently turned to Mick Mulvaney. A haircut in search of a decent suit, Mulvaney serves as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Before that, he was known mostly to political junkies as a backbench Tea Party congressman from South Carolina.

Now that he works for Donald Trump, Mulvaney is quickly becoming the latest in a long line of exhibits for how completely the Republican Party has turned itself over to charlatans who spent their youth sleeping through math class.

About 10 days ago, Mulvaney stood in front of the White House press corps and the nation to defend the presidents draconian budget with a $2 trillion counting error at its heart. Last week having apparently not embarrassed himself enough, he resurfaced with an interview at the Washington Examiner to take potshots at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for reaching conclusions he does not like about his work.

It is important to note that Mulvaney did not challenge the budget officeon the merits of its work, such as its score of the American Health Care Act recently passed by the House of Representatives. What he did instead is cast doubt on the motives of the people who work for and run the office, hinting without providing a lick of evidence that they are a bunch of partisans out to sandbag a Republican administration.

Mulvaney explicitly took issue with the budget offices assertion that the AHCAs $900 billion in cuts to Medicaid will result in fewer people having health coverage throughMedicaid. Those of us familiar with the concept of cause and effect might think this obvious. But not Mulvaney. Since kicking off the rolls Medicaid users, who tend to be poorand old andhave disabilities, makes the GOP look like Ebenezer Scrooges meaner cousin, he deflected by suggesting it is no longer feasible to think of the Congressional Budget Office as a nonpartisan organization.

He went on to feed conservative paranoia by suggesting that the person in charge of scoring the AHCA had also scored Hillary Clintons health care plan in the early 1990s and the Affordable Care Act early in the Obama administration, with the clear implication that the AHCAs bad score was the result of liberal sabotage. (For what its worth, the budget offices score of the ACA was fairly accurate, while its unfavorable scoreof the so-called Hillarycare proposal helped sink that plan in Congress.)

The clear message is this: The anti-Trumpian swamp or the deep state, or whatever Trumps most fervent supporters are calling Washington these days, is lying to make the AHCA and the administration look bad.

In dismissing facts and figures as out of hand, Mulvaney is staying true to his roots as a member of the Tea Party and the House Freedom Caucus, having aligned himself with both when he entered Congress after the 2010 election. He was one of the congressmen who, in 2013, dismissed the warnings of virtually every economist and financial wonk about the dangers of not raising the debt ceiling as arrant nonsense and fearmongering. This led to a government shutdown and the nations near default on its debt, a potentially catastrophic blow to the worlds economy.

The intransigence of Mulvaney and his fellow Tea Partiers for a while led to theirbeingforced to the sidelines by the Republican leadership in the House. Instead, former Speaker John Boehner and later his replacement Paul Ryan started making deals with Democrats on the debt ceiling. That was fine in terms of at least keeping the government open and functioning andnot ending up incatastrophe for the millions of people who depend on it for their livelihoods and health care.

But now, with Tea Party true believers like Mulvaney holding high positions in the administration, the groups nonsense that could be intermittently checked during the Obama era has invaded the executive branch. And it has a president who is extremely malleable, who is inclined by his nature toward cruelty and who, like Mulvaney, is happy to blow up the public trust in political institutions in order to serve his own partisan ends, no matter how divorced from reality they may be.

Add to that the GOPs control of Congress that has allowed both the House and Senate caucuses to unleash their inner Ayn Rand, and you have a very dangerous moment in American history, as last weeks pullout from the Paris climate accordby the president shows. The Tea Party itself might have seemed beaten for a couple of years. But its intransigence and know-nothingism is now driving the car and could steer the entire country off a cliff.

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Mick Mulvaney's snake oil: A blend of bad science, bad math and really bad politics - Salon

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Despite Republicans trying to address unsustainable debt and deficits through the Trump budget, the Democratic Party and its echo-chamber allies are in high dudgeon over its proposed cuts. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called it literally a killer. Its message by bumper sticker.

The Democratic Party and its supporters will speak to their fears and Republican morality deficits. Visions of starvation, disease and death become their narrative. The Republican message substitutes math for morality. Logic and not emotion is considered the best path to travel. However, time has proven that message strategy wanting.

Boiled down to its basics, we are facing a math problem. But the solution must be found inside a political framework. Not enough politicians will support a take your bitter-tasting medicine unless the public fears the alternative. And that medicine is a combination of spending cuts to expensive entitlement programs or higher tax rates. Taxing the middle class is unpopular. (You cant get enough relief out of the top 1 percent even if you took all their income. And channeling Ayn Rand, what would you take in Year Two?)

If taxes are not the answer, you have got to cut spending. If that is the option for Republican offense, then the promotion of an austerity budget must be preceded with horror stories of the short-term personal consequences from servicing a growing $20 trillion debt. There are stories of horrible eventual outcomes that will come with insensitive and massive adjustments to lifestyles. Seen many? Any?

The Republican Party is not very good at drama. How often have you seen lame references to every man, woman and child owning and owing some enormous portion of the national debt? Does anyone fear that ledger entry? Alternatively, we could send everyone an invoice and then threaten to turn the deadbeats over to the Internal Revenue Service. That would be transformative.

In the real world, Republicans need to have a better option that pre-empts the morality issue. Defensive messages about our grandchildren having to pay the bill are not going to work. Immediate detailed cuts in services are more threatening, especially to the millions who dont have grandchildren.

The Sandernistas in the Democratic Party have developed a better game plan. Exhibit A is the 2012 political attack ad suggesting Paul Ryan was pushing an old woman off a cliff. That was offense. And offense requires telling a set-up story. Can the Republicans begin to show people what must happen to their tax rates or government benefits if we dont change course?

There was a time in my life that Medicare didnt exist. The modern food stamp (now called SNAP) program was started in the 1960s. Cutting back is not science fiction. It is Greece, Puerto Rico and now Illinois. In the short history of our country we have never been here before. Today we are funding the enormous and unprecedented medical and retirement needs of the baby boomer crowd who are turning 65 at the rate of 10,000 people a day. And that generation will keep expanding at that retirement rate for another 11 years. Can we tell that story? How many people do you think have heard it?

Can we talk about Social Security and food stamps being frozen for 5-10 years at their current payout? Can we speak in terms of cutting a penny of every dollar in nondiscretionary spending? Yes, but only if we spend serious time and money creating a voter base of common knowledge that these cuts are the lesser of potential evils. And that messaging must overwhelm the free-lunch crowd that continues to violate the moral in Aesops ant and grasshopper fable.

Can Republicans connect the dots for people? Better yet, can we reveal the dots that many people dont know exist before we connect them? It can be accomplished if we rely on stories more than statistics.

The left is successfully selling fears of a climate breakdown with visions of flooded coastal cities. Once they metastasize fear in the voting public, its a short step to trigger anger at those who created or abide the situation.

Can we show with stories what will happen if we dont stop our credit card mentality? There are plenty of ways to describe a future-compromised life that arrives long before Antarctica melts. Our problem is that disappearing ice sheets and stranded polar bears are too easily imagined. Debt is just a number. And the mental gymnastics required to comprehend $20 trillion is beyond most mortal beings. Result: You pay attention to what you understand.

Richard Berman is the president of Berman and Company, a public relations firm in Washington, D.C.

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Republicans must control debt message - Washington Times

Apparently, the liberals at the New York Magazine do not hold the Koch brothers (Charles and David Koch, libertarian philanthropists) in high regard like most of the Left. In a recent article blasting President Donald Trump for exiting the Paris climate accords, the magazine said the following:

But the GOPs biggest Big Energy investors were against it: The Koch brothersbacked Americans for Prosperity lobbied hard against the deal.

Having our nations economic and environmental policies dictated by the narrow interests of extractive industries is terrible. But having them dictated by far-right cranks, who happen to be billionaires, is probably worse. The corporate sectors reliance on international markets and allergy to geopolitical chaos make it a less dangerous shadow ruler than a collective of Americas luckiest Ayn Rand enthusiasts.

Ironic, considering the Left does not criticize their own rich backers in George Soros and Tom Steyer.

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Unhinged Liberal Media? New York Magazine Calls Koch Brothers 'Far Right Cranks' - Accuracy In Media (blog)

Just as melting icebergs are symptoms of climate change, shitty customer service is a harbinger of the upcoming reality of "the 1 percent."

Illustration courtesy of Dawid Krawczyk.

Lets start with the United Airlines video. The footage which shows a Chinese doctor screaming in agony while being dragged off a United Airlines plane has caused a national outrage. The end of the American dream of customer service was caught on camera, revealing a major violation of the main social rule of capitalism: the customer is always right.

Of course, this rule is based on the 1945-1970 era, when a moderately unregulated market seemed to benefit and build the middle class. This 30 year period within the entire 300 years of (modern) capitalism proved to be according to Tony Judt and Thomas Piketty an exception to the rule, a consequence of the Old Worlds big meltdown (along with its capital) during World Wars I and II. Europe stopped competing, well, pretty much anything, which has made the American century possible.

Just as melting icebergs are symptoms of climate change, shitty customer service is a harbinger of the upcoming reality of the 1 percent. In the first year of the post-2008 recovery, 93 percent of all income gains went to the top 1 percent. And almost half of the worlds wealth is owned by the same mere 1 percent of the population. If the Trump Administrations deeply regressive tax proposal is passed, this trend will inevitably continue.

No matter where it originates land, dying industries, inheritance, or technology the modern financial market is where capital really starts to reproduce itself. Capital having the ability to reproduce itself then marginalizes the need for required labor; labor becomes cheap.

Theyve made/ inherited money which means, to an American mind, that theyve done something right.

Exacerbating these issues is the invention of hands-free and speedy-moving capital which provides plenty of time for its owners to get involved in politics: the Koch brothers on one side, and Wall Street Democrats on the other. Theyve made/ inherited money which means, to an American mind, that theyve done something right. Now they want to help the rest of us. Trump will transform our small businesses into empires, and Ivanka will help working women to scrub McDonalds floor even harder.

The separation between politics and religion even if never fully executed in practice is probably the one claim to American exceptionalism. However, what the Founding Fathers couldnt have predicted in the dusk of the 18th century was the need for a separation between politics and business. Washingtonian K Street is paved with good intentions, and lobbying this twisted idea that you can apply capitalism to politics makes sure that the status quo remains intact. The presence of money in American politics is so tiringly ubiquitous that we feel its pointless to complain about it. The sky is blue, the roses are red, and we spent $6.8 billion for the 2016 presidential election, right? Even those who believe that change is possible are busy gathering money to drive money out of politics.

Every perception of every status quo in history is a psychological trick.

Every perception of every status quo in history is a psychological trick. Human beings are adaptable which has good and bad consequences. The good is we are able to get accustomed to new circumstances quickly and thus have a tremendous survival rate even Auschwitz. The bad, however, is that we seem to be able to get accustomed to anything even Auschwitz.

Europe has rejected some ideas for a good reason. In addition to the revolutionary ideas that overflowed their boundaries, the ports of the New World took in some pretty damaged cargo: the immortal Vienna School of Economics; Ayn Rand; and thank you, Max Webber the ethics of Protestantism. Honestly, the only positive outcome of the Reformation was the fact that the Holy Inquisition chilled the fuck out. Medieval battles between the poverty of Christ and the money of the Pharisees ended with sweet divorce. Some protestants stayed, dealt with early capitalism, the birth of communism and the two world wars which exhausted Europe enough to direct it (even if briefly) towards social democracy. Radicals packed their bags and left for America.

No matter what you are trying to achieve, in the U.S. success always means at least partially financial success. After all, according to Protestantisms ethics, your wealth is Gods reward and a sign that you are doing things right. Success is proof of virtue. Even with the increasing attention being placed on problems of economic inequality, American economic gurus are imperturbable in their deep conviction that the only thing that motivates people to strive for productivity and innovation is personal greed. One of the most overused epithets in the U.S. is hard work, something that seems to apply equally well to a toddler building sand towers (Good job!), Ivanka Trump building Trump towers, and a Mexican dishwasher finishing a double shift. We are obsessed with the idea of the self-made man. We are trained to admire the figure of a hedge fund manager paranoid and blind to anything else but their own personal vendetta against the world. Taking five bucks from him is considered unfair treatment of him, and he also includes the government, market rivals, ex-wives, and coworkers. It feels unfair to him so it must be unfair objectively.

Each person advocating for what she/he wants the most doesnt make for a conscious democracy.

And here we touch the very core of our problems: American politics is driven by personal stories. An American politician will always tell you that he understands you, his voter, because his Uncle Willy was poor too, his dog died when he was four, and his grandma was an immigrant. Of course, he understands. Regular citizens make the same mistake: they choose the policies according to what benefits them personally and immediately. But personal choices are not actual political choices; each person advocating for what she/he wants the most (a Porsche, the neighbors wife, tax cuts) doesnt make for a conscious democracy. Its precisely because of this blurred line between whats private and whats public that we observe rich people feeling entitled to run the country. Thats why Trump is our president. He has money, therefore hes a good businessman, therefore hes done something right.

Making money. It takes a very long time and most of us never get there to realize that theres nothing to understand here. Money is an abstract concept. It has no value other than a social one. And Wall Street is the cherry on the top of this abstractness, a true Kandinsky piece: you stare at this complexity and assume you lack certain powers for understanding it. But really, theres nothing to understand; its just symbols and interpretation an aesthetic pleasure. Or, rather when we translate it to Wall Street a bunch of dudes who know each other and make bets, who have means to make bets, and who do a lot of them at the same time.

Protestantism, the belief that God rewards you with money, has a contemporary secular analogue called libertarianism and renders people less sensitive to drastic social contracts. Of course, not every business manager is a narcissistic sociopath doing coke. The phenomenon of the sharks of Wall Street is supported by an army of Eichmanns. They do their job taking pride in their work performed, remaining within the letter of the law and responsibly delivering to their shareholders. The evil consequences of their everyday actions are completely removed from their everyday experience. They are good family men, good neighbors, they donate to political campaigns. They represent the banality of evil consultants whose wisdom contains nothing more than personal-political connections and ridiculous management fads, and CEOs who smoothly land with their golden parachutes after running the company into the ground. What kind of hard work is that? What kind of expertise is that?

Both Trump and Caligula were beloved by the masses because they had no respect for the government and humiliated political elites.

The paradox of Donald Trump is a gift from an ironic heaven. A bucket of ice cold water on our heads. Finally, its in our face and we have a very strong motivation to disagree with the status quo. Things are so bad that we have a hard time believing them. We have Caligula in the White House. Yes, for a second I thought that I was being original here. To my delight, a historian, Tom Holland, and The Guardian, have already explored these parallels for us. Both Trump and Caligula were beloved by the masses because they had no respect for the government and humiliated political elites. Our executive branch conducts domestic and foreign politics according to who is nice to him. For the first time, we face the nakedness of politics, in which it has no shame or patience to hide its own impulsiveness and egotism.

At his side, we have Doctor Faustus (yes, I found a good literary metaphor to illustrate Paul Ryans problem as well). This good Catholic boy gone bad after being screwed in the head by Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman decided to make a deal with the devil. He cannot decide whom he despises more a weakling asking him whats going to happen to his/her health care, or the toddler-autocrat in the White House. Wall Street which started out by throwing one hell of a party on expectations of massive deregulation and tax cuts is trying to remain hopeful, but wakes up at 3am every night with a nightmare, only to binge read Trumps latest tweets. They are dealing with a new element too: Trump, who is in this game mainly for himself.

In the meantime, United Airlines stocks are going down. The crisis of customer service in the U.S. is making the world flatter, which is resulting in the global economic war moving into U.S. territory. We are slowly beginning to realize that we all are idiots from Cleveland who took easy house mortgages believing in the American dream and hoping for the best. Sooner or later, we all will be carried out, screaming.

Original post:

Caligula in the White House, Eichmann on Wall Street - PoliticalCritique.org

The Fountainhead, part 1, chapter 8

One day at work, Howard Roark is unexpectedly called into the boss office:

Mr. Keating has been telling me very nice things about you, Francon tried pleasantly and stopped. It was wasted courtesy; Roark just sat looking at him, waiting.

Listen whats your name?

Roark.

Listen, Roark. We have a client who is a little odd, but hes an important man, a very important man, and we have to satisfy him. Hes given us a commission for an eight-million-dollar office building, but the trouble is that he has very definite ideas on what he wants it to look like. He wants it Francon shrugged apologetically, disclaiming all blame for the preposterous suggestionhe wants it to look like this. He handed Roark a photograph. It was a photograph of the Dana Building.

Roark is thunderstruck with the opportunity thats dropped into his lap. But before he can say anything, Francon adds that he doesnt actually want Roark to design a replica of the Dana Building. Instead, he says, The point is to make it simple and in the general mood of this, but also artistic. You know, the more severe kind of Greek Plain pediments and simple moldings, or something like that.

Given that Roark has said theres such a thing as good Classic, this would be the perfect place for him to prove it, but no. Hes back to believing that even one pediment is a pediment too far:

Mr. Francon, please listen to me. Roarks words were like the steps of a man walking a tightwire, slow, strained, groping for the only right spot, quivering over an abyss, but precise. I dont blame you for the things youre doing. Im working for you, Im taking your money, I have no right to express objections. But this time this time the client is asking for it Are you going to fight a client for the first time in your life and fight for what? To cheat him and to give him the same old trash, when you have so many others asking for it, and one, only one, who comes with a request like this?

Arent you forgetting yourself? asked Francon, coldly.

Ayn Rand tip: A great way to get your boss on your side is by calling him a cheater and all his work trash!

Whats ironic, although the text doesnt point it out, is that Roark and Francon have swapped positions. If its out of character for Francon to fight a client for the first time in [his] life, its equally hypocritical for Roark to suddenly decide that the clients wishes ought to count. After all, he was the one who scorned the idea of listening to or caring about what clients wanted. Now hes decided that the clients desires matter after all but only as long as they want him to build the thing he wants to build anyway.

As always, although Roark is the protagonist and were supposed to be on his side, the text shows that other people have good reason for reacting to him as they do. Peter Keating would have recognized that this is the perfect place for some sweet talk and salesmanship. Instead, Roark is so out of practice at issuing anything other than demands, his pleas sound more like insults:

Roark had never known how to entreat and he was not doing it well; his voice was hard, toneless, revealing the effort, so that the plea became an insult to the man who was making him plead. Keating would have given a great deal to see Roark in that moment. But Francon could not appreciate the triumph he was the first ever to achieve; he recognized only the insult.

Besides people skills, the other thing Roark lacks is a sense of strategy. Hes not clever. He cant conceive of any way of getting what he wants other than bluntly asking someone he knows is going to be hostile to the request. Its as if he sees an obstacle in his path, and rather than walk around it, he cant think of anything to do but hurl himself directly into it.

This would have been the perfect place for some malicious compliance: design a garishly elaborate classical building, but also prepare a secret, second sketch the way he really wants to do it. Then when the client rejects the first sketch, whip out the second one and get him to agree to it before Francon can object. It took me about thirty seconds to come up with this plan, and Im not even a Randian supergenius.

I cant do it, said Roark, very quietly.

What? Are you speaking to me? Are you actually saying: Sorry, I cant do it?

I havent said sorry, Mr. Francon.

Another great Ayn Rand business tip! When your boss is angry at you for insubordination, be sure to point out that youre not apologizing.

In all my life, roared Francon, in all my experience, Ive never seen anything like it! Are you here to tell me what youll do and what you wont do? Are you here to give me lessons and criticize my taste and pass judgment?

Im not criticizing anything, said Roark quietly. Im not passing judgment.

Uh, yeah, you are. You called Francons preferred style the same old trash a few paragraphs ago, remember?

Given Roarks insubordination, its no surprise that Francon tells him hes fired and yells at him to pick up his last paycheck and get out. Presumably, were meant to view this as another instance of the creative Randian hero being ground beneath the boot of a cruel and uncaring world but this is the proper response to an employee who flat-out refuses a reasonable order from his boss. What would Hank Rearden or Dagny Taggart have done with a factory worker who refused to follow directions?

Roark meets his friend Mike at a bar later that day to explain why he wont be coming out to job sites anymore:

When he heard the news, Mike sat still and looked like a bulldog baring its teeth. Then he swore savagely.

The bastards, he gulped between stronger names, the bastards

Keep still, Mike.

Well what now, Red?

Someone else of the same kind, until the same thing happens again.

This is uncharacteristically self-aware. It means that Roark knows his obstinate behavior is ruining his career, that its resulted in one act of self-sabotage after another. But he never even considers changing his ways. It brings to mind that old saw about the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Its not that this theme is totally infeasible. The hero planting his flag and demanding that the world adapt itself to him, rather than the other way around, is an archetype for a reason. There have been great stories with this idea as a backbone. The problem is that, for it to work, we have to sympathize with the heros motive for taking that brave stand.

Normally, when you have a story like this, its because the hero is upholding some high ethical principle which he wont compromise regardless of the cost. But you cant say that about The Fountainhead. Roark isnt a lawyer passing up a high-powered career to defend the downtrodden, or a policeman fighting to preserve the law from corruption, or a journalist bent on exposing the truth behind the machinations of the powerful. No, Roark is choosing to wage his revolt against the world on the basis of aesthetics.

Rand strains to find this justification by having Roark insist that most people are mindlessly copying the customs of the past. But even if that were true, we the readers might retort: So what? What difference does it make if your office building has fake columns on it? Does that make anyones life worse than it would have been otherwise? You might as well say that overthrowing the tyranny of auto dealerships so you can buy cars in any color you want, rather than them only being sold in basic black, is a noble quest whose achievement will save civilization.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons, released under CC BY-SA 4.0 license

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The Fountainhead: As Long As It's Black - Patheos (blog)

Why is the American Health Care Act (AHCA) bill passed by the House still being promoted on TV in spite of the fact that the Senate announced they would have to work on repealing and replacing this dysfunctional House bill? The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, could have had its wrinkles ironed out if it were not for the Grover Norquist pledge. Grover Norquist is a political advocate, and the founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, an organization that opposes all tax increases.

He has been successful in securing signed pledges from most of the Republican Congress to never raise taxes. This pledge all but ensures that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, CHIP, and other social programs will be subject to an agonizing death spiral.

It is abundantly clear that the approximately 45 million Americans living below, or just above, the poverty line could be subject to being cast away without a lifeline. Add to [this,] the fact that recently proposed tax reductions for the rich have never resulted in the past for meaningful pay raises for the working class. This trickle-down supply-side economics was called voodoo economics by George Bush Sr.

Ayn Rand, a late author, and a hero of many Congressional Republicans, considered altruistic acts such as safety nets for the poor an evil because she believed it enabled the less-fortunate among us not to learn to fend for themselves. Never mind that the majority of the poorest among us grew up under repressive government regimes here and abroad, denying them equal opportunities to climb the ladder to success.

Nevertheless, Rands philosophy in her novels and essays was to oppose all forms of welfare, unemployment insurance, and support for the poor and lower middle class, regulation of industry, and government provisions for roads or other infrastructure. Taxation should be purely voluntary. Source: AlterNet, April 20, 2011, titled The Truth about GOP Hero Ayn Rand.

Paul Ryan, the architect of the GOPs anti-tax-raise budget plan, cited Rand as his primary inspiration for entering public service. The House bill that was rejected by the Senate and the majority of Americans is very similar to Ayn Rands, Grover Norquists and Paul Ryans philosophy. It appears to be very much the economic equivalent of draining the safety net. The banana republic may not be far away.

The rich continue to get richer, and the poor, poorer.

Bill Clemens Smyrna

Continued here:

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Draining the safety net ensures poor get poorer - Delaware State News