Atlas Shrugs

Dollar Tanks As US Jobless Claims Jump, GDP Shows Slowdown

Hope! Change! Devastation! We are looking at an economic rout -- all meticulously researched and described here. So do this. We need an army of Post-It-Noters -- make it a game with your kids.

Dollar Resumes Slide As US Jobless Claims Jump, GDP Shows Slowdown by Stephen L. Bernard, Dow Jones Newswires 

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)-- The dollar didn't need any more bad news, but got it Thursday. The U.S. currency was pushed down further after economic indicators pointed to a dismal employment picture and slowing economic growth.

First-time claims for unemployment benefits jumped by 25,000 to 429,000, indicating employers might have recently slowed their hiring recently. Economists were expecting claims to fall to 395,000.

At the same time, gross domestic product rose at a modest 1.8% pace in the first quarter, matching economists' forecasts. However, the pace of expansion is much weaker than it was at the end of 2010, when the economy was growing at 3.1% pace.

More of this article here.

UPDATE: And this eyeopener: (ftom Daily Markets)

The map above from API shows gasoline taxes by state (combined local, state and federal), which range from a low of 26.4 cents per gallon in Alaska to a high of of 66.1 cents per gallon in California, averaging 48.1 cents per gallon across all states.  How does that compare to oil company industry profits per gallon?

According to this post on Exxon Mobil’s Perspective Blog , “For every gallon of gasoline, diesel or finished products we manufactured and sold in the United States in the last three months of 2010, we earned a little more than 2 cents per gallon. That’s not a typo. Two cents.”  

The chart below shows the difference graphically:

Exxon also reports that in 2010 it “made less than 8 cents for every dollar of revenue from all of our businesses around the world.”

 

A Great Idea

I have been getting this in my inbox for the past couple of days, and I think it is sheer genius. Of course, the wet nursing O-media isn't talking about it, but everyone is feeling sticker shock everywhere we go.

Grab your post-it notes before you shop ............ do it. UPDATE: And send Atlas your pics! Shoot it and click to send to PamelaGeller@gmail.com.

From YourDaddy, citizen action at its finest, via Doug Ross

The Sticky Note Campaign is making deliveries in Georgia Supermarkets now.  Super-Charged with Conservative ideals REAL Americans all over the country and even an awakened Democrat or two are now participating in this grass roots initiative.  Its not a partisan issue either, no one  can afford these rising prices at the gas pump or the grocery store.

I just realized that I need to order more FREE PRE-PRINTED Sticky notes from the Koch Brothers -- gotta go now.





Be sure take pictures of your STICKY NOTES, upload them to your Facebook, TAG all your friends in the pics and then also be sure to share them with the event page.

 UPDATE: WAL-MART: Our shoppers are 'running out of money'...

"Atlas is Shrugging"

A bulls-eye from Robert Tracinski of The Intellectual Activist, a paid-only newsletter. Tracinski may not cotton to my running the whole thing, but it is that good. The whole country should read it.

Atlas Is Shrugging

We're Living Through a Live-Action Version of Ayn Rand's Novel 

by Robert Tracinski

The producers of the new movie version of Atlas Shrugged struggled over how directly they should attempt to tie the story to current events. It turns out they needn't have worried, because events have a way of catching up with the story all on their own.

I was amused to read a blogger's report about going to see Atlas Shrugged at the nearest theater where it was showing: a vast mall built with millions of dollars in government subsidies—which now stands virtually empty. How fitting for a story that shows how government management of the economy is dragging America down into economic collapse. He concludes that the mall is like "a life-sized, 3-D diorama promotional display for Atlas Shrugged."

He understates his case. The whole country is a life-sized, 3-D promotional diorama for Atlas Shrugged. We are all living through a live-action version of the novel.

In Atlas Shrugged, businesses begin moving to Colorado, a state that is denounced as regressive because it has "hardly any government," in order to escape strangling government regulations in their home states. In response, the federal government issues a decree forbidding companies from relocating. Sound fantastical? Last week, in the real world, the Obama administration's National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint demanding that Boeing locate its assembly line for the 787 Dreamliner in Puget Sound instead of Charleston, South Carolina—on the grounds that Boeing should not be allowed to escape the death grip of the unions by moving to a "right to work" state.

In Atlas Shrugged, a brilliant young oilman invents a revolutionary process to extract oil from shale, but even though the country is desperate for energy, he is shut down by government regulations. Science fiction? In the real world, a process called hydraulic fracturing—hydrofracking or just "fracking" for short—is making it possible to extract astonishing quantities of natural gas from shale formations across the country. This promises to revolutionize domestic energy production. But even though the country is desperate for energy, the media and the government are readying a campaign to impose a moratorium on fracking and smother it in its infancy.

In Atlas Shrugged, productive firms are bled dry to provide bailouts for failing companies which produce "unreliable goods at unpredictable times." In the real world, General Motors and Chrysler were bailed out with $80 billion dollars of our tax money so that they could bring us nine of the eleven "Worst Cars on the Road."

In Atlas Shrugged, men of talent and initiative are disappearing and withdrawing from the economy because they refuse to accept punishment for their hard work and ambition. In the real world, legendary ad man and entrepreneur Jerry Della Femina just announced that he has sold his famous restaurant and is withdrawing from all of his other ventures because "I'm just not ready to have my wealth redistributed. I'm not ready to pay more tax money than the next guy because I provide jobs and because I work a 60-hour week and I earn more than $250,000 a year." And to show that art imitates life imitating art, he explains: "So why am I dropping out? Read a brilliant book by Ayn Rand called Atlas Shrugged, and you'll know."

In Atlas Shrugged, the advocates of uncontrolled government keep spending money faster than they can expropriate it from a shrinking number of producers. A chapter later in the novel is titled, "Account Overdrawn." In the real world, S&P has just downgraded the long-term outlook for US government debt, a precursor to downgrading the nation's credit rating. Enough said.

Atlas Shrugged was published more than 50 years ago, and Ayn Rand certainly didn't write it with today's events in mind. But she drew from real-world observations that suggested universal principles. She lived through the Bolshevik takeover in Russia and escaped to America in the Roaring 20s, a period of extraordinary industrial growth and achievement. She then watched in horror as America plunged into the Red Decade and the Great Depression, a permanent "temporary crisis" that was always used as an excuse for the government to grab more power. So when it came to understanding what made America great and what was destroying it, she had plenty of real-life material to draw from.

That's why Atlas Shrugged has been a perennial best-seller that resonates in any era. I remember how I became a convert to Ayn Rand's literature and philosophy. When I first picked up Atlas Shrugged, I read the first 200 pages and put it down, because I thought that her view of the world just wasn't realistic. Then over a period of months, I kept seeing people do or say something that made me think: "That's just like something from Atlas Shrugged." It made me realize that the novel might be realistic after all.

What was this dark, dystopian time that I lived through that made me think Atlas Shrugged was reflected in the real world? It was 1987, during the final years of the Reagan administration—years that seem like a comparative utopia from today's perspective. So I can only imagine what it is like for young people living through today's events.

Around that time, not far from where I grew up, there was a giant warehouse that was half-built and then abandoned by a struggling manufacturing firm. As you drove down I-74 in rural Illinois you could see the unfinished framework of the building, its white-painted girders gleaming like the bleached bones of a dead animal in the desert. At some point, someone had come along and spray-painted on one of those girders a tagline from Atlas Shrugged: "Who is John Galt?"

It was yet another life-sized, 3-D promotional diorama for Atlas Shrugged.

Government Cash Handouts Now Top Tax Revenues

Well, there you have it. And Geithner wants to increase the debt ceiling by close to another two trillion. Politics, shmolitics ......it is unsustainable. Period. Atlas reader van opined:

They throw these numbers around like it was pocket change. He and Bernanke are simply criminal in their managing of the economy and should be charged as such. They are the main contributors to America's decline and ECONOMIC destruction. They should be in prison. Geithner's arrogance is almost that of Obama's. They are both beyond incompetent and criminally out of their league.

As you know, I believe that this is at least as big, or, bigger threat than terrorism. It's the Federal Reserve that is destroying America. The high gas prices are a result of this Fed policy, not Libya, as the enemedia likes to say. The entire Fed policy is a giant Ponzi scheme. They have printed close to a $Trillion in new money, Quantitative Easing, or QE2, as they refer to it and the latest news is that they may continue, causing increased inflation. They are intentionally lying when they say that there is no inflation because the Consumer Price Index (CPI) does NOT measure gas and food, the 2 biggest increases in a typical person's budget!

The average person can't even contemplate a TRILLION dollars, or, a trillion anyting. Here's an example:

A million seconds pass in 12 days.
A billion seconds pass in 31 years.
A trillion seconds pass in 31,688 years!

Here's a personal example: 2 weeks ago, oranges at Walmart Superstore were $.30 each. Last week they were $.48. A few days ago they were $.58. That's a 93% price rise in less than 2 weeks.

This Keynesean economic plan by this Administration is responsible for this assault on America. It is NOT an accident! If these two were R's, they would have been forced out of office. This war has many fronts and this is a threat equivalent to Islam.

We are close to default and at great risk of losing our status of the USD as the world's reserve currency. Life will change instantly IF that happens. Americans better wake up and quickly.

Obama is waging war against America.

Government Cash Handouts Now Top Tax Revenues FOX Business

U.S. households are now getting more in cash handouts from the government than they are paying in taxes for the first time since the Great Depression.

Households received $2.3 trillion in some kind of government support in 2010. That includes expanded unemployment benefits, as well as payments for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and stimulus spending, among other things.

But that’s more than the $2.2 trillion households paid in taxes, an amount that has slumped largely due to the recession, according to an analysis by the Fiscal Times.

And the handouts from the government have been growing. Government cash handouts account for a whopping 79% of household growth since 2007, even as household tax payments--for things like the income and payroll tax, among other taxes--have fallen by $312 billion.

That is a tough feeding trough to take away from voters.

One of the recurring themes FOX Business has been covering is “how the world has been turned upside down – well, the business world at least,” notes FOX Director of Business News, Ray Hennessey. “In a free market, profit is generated by hard work and enterprise," Hennessey notes, adding: “Because of the labor of the worker, companies generally have the ability to prosper and make more money, both for their employees and their owners," which in turn creates tax revenues.

Seems like common sense, right? That’s because it is. But not in our country today. Somehow the DNA of our country is changing. Wealth creation is coming from DC, not from America’s entrepreneurs.

In short, Americans have the government, not private enterprise, to thank for their wealth growth.

Obviously, there are big implications to this. 

For instance, Hennessey asks, if indeed more households have the government to thank for their wealth, does that mean those households are more inclined to re-elect politicians who are pushing for more government handouts? 

Does the workforce erode because it is easier to collect a check than answer to an alarm clock each morning?

Is our competitiveness as a nation hurt because profit is generated not by American capitalism but by European-style socialism? Can we, as taxpayers, afford to carry the burden of government-sponsored wealth creation?

All this comes at a time when a growing number of Wall Street houses, including JPMorgan Chase (JPM: 44.56, -0.09, -0.20%) and Barclays Capital (BCS: 19.38, +0.25, +1.31%), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) are cutting their U.S. GDP growth forecasts by as much as a percentage point or more.

It also comes as President Barack Obama is already in re-election mode, as he bets his massive spending will woo independents. It also comes as Standard & Poor’s has joined the International Monetary Fund and Pimco, which runs the world’s biggest bond fund, in downgrading their outlook on US debt.

Please read the rest and weep for your country, for your future and for free men.

UPDATE: U.S. credit rating downgrade: the Armageddon scenario Washington Post

A credit rating downgrade for the United States would spell even more financial trouble for the U.S. government, hampering its ability to borrow money as investors demand higher yields to make up for the increased risk. That would cause its national debt to balloon further and increase the need to hike taxes or make even more painful cuts in spending.

But the real Armageddon scenario would occur when the impact of a sovereign downgrade hit the rest of the U.S. economy.

Percent Working Lowest Since in 30 Years

Yesterday Obama went in for the kill; today USA Today reports: "Percent working lowest since '83: Aging population, recession in play," by Dennis Cauchon. It says: "Only 45.4% of Americans had jobs in 2010, the lowest rate since 1983 and down from a peak of 49.3% in 2000. Last year, just 66.8% of men had jobs, the lowest on record." State-by-state map (Hat tip Mike Allen) Not since the disastrous effects of Jimmy Carter's economic policies.......

The share of the population that is working fell to its lowest level last year since women started entering the workforce in large numbers three decades ago, a USA TODAY analysis finds. By Dave Martinez, Daily News-Sun via AP

Only 45.4% of Americans had jobs in 2010, the lowest rate since 1983 and down from a peak of 49.3% in 2000. Last year, just 66.8% of men had jobs, the lowest on record.

The bad economy, an aging population and a plateau in women working are contributing to changes that pose serious challenges for financing the nation's social programs.

Related: More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined

Obama Goes in for the Kill

It's no secret that America is on the decline. Perhaps the election of a statist in 2008 was merely a reflection of the decline. Perhaps it was a successful propaganda campaign by the enemedia. The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.

He is a disaster of unimaginable proportion.

The degree of statism in a country’s political system, is the degree to which it breaks up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another. When individual rights are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is entitled to what; there is no way to determine the justice of anyone’s claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore, reverts to the tribal concept of: one’s wishes are limited only by the power of one’s gang.

  “The Roots of War,”
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,

Statism—in fact and in principle—is nothing more than gang rule. A dictatorship is a gang devoted to looting the effort of the productive citizens of its own country. When a statist ruler exhausts his own country’s economy, he attacks his neighbors. It is his only means of postponing internal collapse and prolonging his rule. A country that violates the rights of its own citizens, will not respect the rights of its neighbors. Those who do not recognize individual rights, will not recognize the rights of nations: a nation is only a number of individuals.

Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production.

Today Obama went in for the kill. He went after the producers, the country's only hope.

Ayn Rand said, "The political expression of altruism is collectivism or statism, which holds that man’s life and work belong to the state—to society, to the group, the gang, the race, the nation—and that the state may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good."

Krauthammer’s take on Obama’s budget address: ‘I thought it was a disgrace'

“I thought it was a disgrace,” he said. “I rarely heard a speech by a president so shallow, so hyper-partisan and so intellectually dishonest, outside the last couple of weeks of a presidential election where you are allowed to call your opponent anything short of a traitor. But, we’re a year-and-a-half away from Election Day and it was supposed to be a speech about policy. He didn’t even get to his own alternative until more than halfway through the speech. And when he did, he threw out numbers suspended in mid-air with nothing under them with all kinds of goals and guidelines and triggers that mean nothing. The speech was really about and entirely an attack on the [Rep. Paul] Ryan plan.”

Krauthammer offered up an example and showed in one scenario, the tax rates in Ryan’s plan were higher than what Obama’s own deficit commission had recommended.

“I’m going to give you one example of how dishonest it was – he went on and on how the Republicans want to steal from your grandma to lower taxes on the rich,” Krauthammer continued. “And he talked about the Bush tax cuts and how much he is going to stand on the bridge and oppose any extension which is what he knows how to do. He has done it over and over for the last six years. The Ryan plan is not about the Bush tax cuts. It transcends them. It’s what the deficit — what Obama’s own commission recommended, strip out loopholes and lower rates for everyone. It’s not about whether it’s the Bush rates or Clinton rates. It’s a whole new approach by which the Simpson-Bowles Commission recommended itself. In fact, Bowles had recommended in one of its scenarios of a high rate of 23 percent. Ryan is at 25 percent. Obama did this knowing that this is a way to play to his base. It was a speech that was quite remarkable in how demagogic it was and I say that with all due respect.”

Read the rest.

That's Obama, slavemaster.

The Wealthiest in America Aren’t “Fortunate” – The Poor Are

by Duane Lester

While I was reading President Obama’s budget speech today, I noticed a recurring meme, one that he and others on the left have used time and again.

It was his use of the word “fortunate.”

Here’s where he used it today:

As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally born a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. This is not because we begrudge those who’ve done well – we rightly celebrate their success. Rather, it is a basic reflection of our belief that those who have benefitted most from our way of life can afford to give a bit more back.

(Source)

I say that at a time when the tax burden on the wealthy is at its lowest level in half a century, the most fortunate among us can afford to pay a little more. I don’t need another tax cut. Warren Buffett doesn’t need another tax cut. Not if we have to pay for it by making seniors pay more for Medicare. Or by cutting kids from Head Start. Or by taking away college scholarships that I wouldn’t be here without. That some of you wouldn’t be here without. And I believe that most wealthy Americans would agree with me. They want to give back to the country that’s done so much for them. Washington just hasn’t asked them to.

(Source.)

Whenever President Obama discusses the wealthy, he refers to them in a manner that assumes they simply fell into piles of money and didn’t have to work for it. They are just “fortunate, ” or “benefitted most from our way of life.” He even refers to Warren Buffet as a fortunate American who wants to “back to the country that’s done so much for them.”

Warren Buffett isn’t fortunate. Warren Buffett has hustled for every dime since he was a kid:

Even as a child, Buffett displayed an interest in making and saving money. He went door to door selling chewing gum, Coca-Cola, or weekly magazines. For a while, he worked in his grandfather’s grocery store. While still in high school, he carried out several successful money-making ideas: delivering newspapers, selling golfballs and stamps, and detailing cars, among them. Filing his first income tax return in 1944, Buffett took a $35 deduction for the use of his bicycle and watch on his paper route.^[16] In 1945, in his sophomore year of high school, Buffett and a friend spent $25 to purchase a used pinball machine, which they placed in the local barber shop. Within months, they owned several machines in different barber shops.

Buffett’s interest in the stock market and investing also dated to his childhood, to the days he spent in the customers’ lounge of a regional stock brokerage near the office of his father’s own brokerage company. On a trip to New York City at the age of ten, he made a point to visit the New York Stock Exchange. At the age of 11, he bought three shares of Cities Service Preferred for himself, and three for his sister.^[17][18]While in high school he invested in a business owned by his father and bought a farm worked by a tenant farmer. By the time he finished college, Buffett had accumulated more than $90,000 in savings measured in 2009 dollars.

Say what you want about the guy, but he earned his money. It wasn’t fortune that built the Oracle of Omaha. It was focus, drive and sweat.

But this doesn’t fit the message, which is the rich are nothing but a bunch of care-free, trust fund children like Paris Hilton. They deserve to be fleeced because they inherited the money they have while you, the poor American, have to actually work to pay for that flat screen television you just put in your living room.

Well what about the actors or athletes, Duane? They have natural ability. That makes them fortunate.

Not so much. They also had to hone their talents to be one of the best. Hours in the gym or on the court. Night after night standing in the back of a scene in an off Broadway play. This is called work. It’s called earning your way.

It’s not a matter of being fortunate. It’s about making your own luck. It favors the bold because they don’t wait for someone to give them something they didn’t earn.

The rich aren’t fortunate. The poor are.

Read the rest.

OT but related: 550 million spent in Libya to to date -- and France/Europe gets their oil.

Look to the 19th Century

Because as we spend ourselves into oblivion and servitude, it's important to know that we failed when we betrayed capitalism. Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

Today Paul Ryan took a step in the right direction.

The nineteenth century was the ultimate product and expression of the intellectual trend of the Renaissance and the Age of Reason, which means: of a predominantly Aristotelian philosophy. And, for the first time in history, it created a new economic system, the necessary corollary of political freedom, a system of free trade on a free market: capitalism.

No, it was not a full, perfect, unregulated, totally laissez-faire capitalism—as it should have been. Various degrees of government interference and control still remained, even in America—and this is what led to the eventual destruction of capitalism. But the extent to which certain countries were free was the exact extent of their economic progress. America, the freest, achieved the most.

Never mind the low wages and the harsh living conditions of the early years of capitalism. They were all that the national economies of the time could afford. Capitalism did not create poverty—it inherited it. Compared to the centuries of precapitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the poor had ever had to survive. As proof—the enormous growth of the European population during the nineteenth century, a growth of over 300 per cent, as compared to the previous growth of something like 3 per cent per century.

  “Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 66

Nineteenth Century

If you want to prove to yourself the power of ideas and, particularly, of morality—the intellectual history of the nineteenth century would be a good example to study. The greatest, unprecedented, undreamed of events and achievements were taking place before men’s eyes—but men did not see them and did not understand their meaning, as they do not understand it to this day. I am speaking of the industrial revolution, of the United States and of capitalism. For the first time in history, men gained control over physical nature and threw off the control of men over men—that is: men discovered science and political freedom. The creative energy, the abundance, the wealth, the rising standard of living for every level of the population were such that the nineteenth century looks like a fiction-Utopia, like a blinding burst of sunlight, in the drab progression of most of human history. If life on earth is one’s standard of value, then the nineteenth century moved mankind forward more than all the other centuries combined.

Did anyone appreciate it? Does anyone appreciate it now? Has anyone identified the causes of that historical miracle?

They did not and have not. What blinded them? The morality of altruism.

Let me explain this. There are, fundamentally, only two causes of the progress of the nineteenth century—the same two causes which you will find at the root of any happy, benevolent, progressive era in human history. One cause is psychological, the other existential—or: one pertains to man’s consciousness, the other to the physical conditions of his existence. The first is reason, the second is freedom. And when I say “freedom,” I do not mean poetic sloppiness, such as “freedom from want” or “freedom from fear” or “freedom from the necessity of earning a living.” I mean “freedom from compulsion—freedom from rule by physical force.” Which means: political freedom.

  “Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 65

Mike Allen's Playbook:

TODAY, PAUL RYAN'S BUDGET CHANGES POLITICS AS WE KNOW IT:

--One side of the Republican brain says: This is adult politics - serious ideas, constituting the most serious federal rollback of our lifetime. But the dominant Republican brain says: Are you nuts? The American people want more government than they can pay for, and we're walking into a political buzz saw. We could lose the House majority if this message is mishandled: There's a good reason tea-party candidates didn't talk specifics.

--One side of the Democratic brain says: We don't like Ryan's ideas, but at least he's engaging on unavoidable issues, and ones that independents care about and will reward us for confronting. But the dominant Democratic brain says: Bring it on! The Republicans are handing us a political windfall, and we're sure to get back the seniors we lost in 2008.

FIRST LOOK - "The Path to Prosperity: America's two futures, visualized": A 3-minute House Budget Committee video brings the "debt crisis" to life with a shirt-sleeved Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in his committee's hearing room:

"The United States is heading toward a debt crisis. The only solutions will be truly painful for us all. That doesn't have to be our future. The way we respond to THIS challenge will ultimately define our generation. ... I asked the Congressional Budget Office to model the economy going forward. ... The computer program CRASHES in 2037, because it can't conceive of any way in which the U.S. economy can continue, because of this massive burden of debt. ... Here's what would happen under OUR proposed budget - what we're calling 'The Path to Prosperity.' ... How will we do it? We will CUT SPENDING. ... Washington HAS NOT been telling you the truth." YouTube above.

--The video aims to communicate in an innovative, visually-appealing way - offering a sober assessment of fiscal and economic challenges, and ringing alarm bells with clarity; but also offering an optimistic, Jack-Kempesque growth message - Ryan as happy warrior, framing a daunting challenge as an historic opportunity.

--DAVID BROOKS, "Moment of Truth": "The Ryan budget will not be enacted this year, but it will immediately reframe the domestic policy debate. ... It will become the 2012 Republican platform, no matter who is the nominee. ... It also creates the pivotal moment of truth for President Obama. Will he come up with his own counterproposal, or will he simply demagogue the issue by railing against 'savage' Republican cuts and ignoring the long-term fiscal realities?" (more here)

-- Jake Sherman and Richard E. Cohen: "Ryan will roll out a blueprint Tuesday that could slash up to $6 trillion in the next 10 years from spending, reforms and cuts entitlements, and overhauls sections of the tax code. Never mind that Ryan's ambitious vision has no chance of passing the Democratic Senate - the 2012 budget is likely to provide Republicans with a measure of unity they've been lacking as they try to wrap up work on the stalled 2011 spending plan." More here.

--Ryan and his Budget Committee colleagues hold a presser at 10:30 a.m. at the Capitol. Ryan speaks at AEI at noon. More here.

--Ryan op-ed in WSJ: "This budget would focus on growth by reforming the nation's outdated tax code, consolidating brackets, lowering tax rates, and assuming top individual and corporate rates of 25%." Free link  here.

Moochers and Looters Vs. Producers in Denver

If a small group of men were always regarded as guilty, in any clash with any other group, regardless of the issues or circumstances involved, would you call it persecution? If this group were always made to pay for the sins, errors, or failures of any other group, would you call that persecution? If this group had to live under a silent reign of terror, under special laws, from which all other people were immune, laws which the accused could not grasp or define in advance and which the accuser could interpret in any way he pleased—would you call that persecution? If this group were penalized, not for its faults, but for its virtues, not for its incompetence, but for its ability, not for its failures, but for its achievements, and the greater the achievement, the greater the penalty—would you call that persecution?

If your answer is “yes”—then ask yourself what sort of monstrous injustice you are condoning, supporting, or perpetrating. That group is the American businessmen . . .

Every ugly, brutal aspect of injustice toward racial or religious minorities is being practiced toward businessmen.. . . Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation’s troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.

Ayn Rand, “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 44

Looking at the Left covered the new front in the left's war on America, Denver. Make no mistake, they have declared war on America. You will work for these collectivists, feed them, clothe them, enrich these pigs and thugs, or they will ................ watch.

Racism and Incivility Aimed at Tea Party in Denver Denver, February 22, 2010 by El Marco

White House political arm, Organizing for America, teamed up with Service Employees International Union (SEIU), for their latest astroturfing effort in Denver. Teamsters and other workers were bussed in to the State Capitol in an increasing effort by the White House to interfere in relations between states and public sector unions.

Union protestors seemed to have taken to heart President Obama’s admonition to “get in people’s faces”. Thankfully, they did not act on Rep. Michael Capuano’s (D-Mass.) words to union members today, when he told them “Every once and a while you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary.”  If not for the presence of state troopers who controlled the howling union goons, this protest could have had a violent outcome.

Nonetheless, Obama’s supporters put on a disgraceful display of incivility and paranoia-fueled administration propaganda, which is exactly what Obama and Organizing for America have been encouraging.

These people are holding astroturf signs, that is signs that are produced by organizers and handed out to individuals rounded up by Organizing for America (OFA) in conjunction with the unions. Note that OFA used to be called Obama for America, and is his campaign organization. Obama for America was renamed  Organizing for America after the election and has been deployed on the streets of Denver before to intimidate and bully the citizens here.

These astroturf signs display the paranoid style of politics that is promoted by OFA and the unions. Since when is asking teachers to contribute a small percentage towards their own benefits an attack on them, or an attack on anyone’s grandchildren? Note the sign that says Corporations are not People. Corporations are made of workers, adminstrators and shareholders, many of whom are teachers whose pension funds invest in America’s greatest businesses. These people believe that labor unions are the only associations that should be allowed to make political contributions.

Here, organizers have placed astroturf signs by the Capitol steps.

Generally, a mark of an astroturf event is the fact that very few of the participants have made the effort to bring their own signs. They show up, are told where to stand, given a sign, and told what to think.

This banner is being held in front of the main doors of the Capitol Building. The message here is plain and clear, and JFK would be appalled to see his great patriotic speech perverted in this way.

The term “war on workers” is pure Marxist-Leninist rhetoric.

This school teacher’s sign is so badly punctuated, no wonder our students are so far behind. Sorry, ma’am, but possesive personal pronouns do not take an apostrophe. It should be Whose freedom are you fighting for. Just about half of Colorado students in grades 3 through 10 are below proficient for their grade levels in writing test scores. And it’s worse than that for math. Two thirds of 8th graders in Wisconsin public schools can not read proficiently, according to the U.S. Dept. of Education, despite the fact that Wisconsin spends more per pupil in its public schools than any other state in the Midwest.

The sign in the foreground, above, calls for a rollback of the Reagan tax cuts. Top rate when Reagan was elected was 90%. These union workers understand that their paycheck depends on getting money out of the productive sector of society. The more people are taxed, they believe, the more benefits and pay increases they can expect in the future. Unfortunately, what states like Wisconsin have discovered is that bloated bureaucracies and entitlements become unsustainable when you run out of other people’s money to spend.

I noticed a black man standing at the very back, behind the center of this crowd. He was waving a Gadsden flag. I decided to go over and investigate.

That man with the Gadsden flag turned out to be Leland Robinson, 51, a Denver native. I was reminded of another black man who was waving a Gadsden flag at an SEIU event in St. Louis in 2009. Kenneth Gladney was viciously attacked and hospitalized by SEIU thugs for his thought crimes.

As I spoke with Mr. Robinson, a school teacher interrupted as he had decided to teach Leland a few union thug lessons.

The man said he was a school teacher and felt that he deserved sympathy because after 14 years of work, he made only”Forty-something thousand” a year. With the entire benefit package, we all know that this figure soars. And that’s for working 180 days a year. He claimed that without the union, he’d be making $8 an hour.

At this point, an agressive woman with a purple SEIU shirt assailed Robinson with a flurry of insults.

“That’s your problem. You’re an entrepreneur, so you don’t work. You don’t know what work is until you get into an educational area. … You’re uneducated, unethical, immoral, and you don’t know what life is. That’s your problem. Why don’t you go behind that fence where you belong? Why don’t you go back with your own kind?” She said this indicating towards the bottom of the Capitol Steps, where a couple of hundred tea partiers were gathered listening to speeches.

Next, this lady in red rudely got in Robinson’s face.

Go see the rest.

All the evils, abuses, and iniquities, popularly ascribed to businessmen and to capitalism, were not caused by an unregulated economy or by a free market, but by government intervention into the economy. The giants of American industry—such as James Jerome Hill or Commodore Vanderbilt or Andrew Carnegie or J. P. Morgan—were self-made men who earned their fortunes by personal ability, by free trade on a free market. But there existed another kind of businessmen, the products of a mixed economy, the men with political pull, who made fortunes by means of special privileges granted to them by the government, such men as the Big Four of the Central Pacific Railroad. It was the political power behind their activities—the power of forced, unearned, economically unjustified privileges—that caused dislocations in the country’s economy, hardships, depressions, and mounting public protests. But it was the free market and the free businessmen that took the blame.

Ayn Rand “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business,”
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 4

O-America in Decline: Slips to #9 in Economic Freedom

Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The evidence is incontrovertible. The contrast between West and East Berlin is the latest demonstration, like a laboratory experiment for all to see. Yet those who are loudest in proclaiming their desire to eliminate poverty are loudest in denouncing capitalism. Man’s well-being is not their goal. Ayn Rand, Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal

[..]

Let those who are actually concerned with peace observe that capitalism gave mankind the longest period of peace in history—a period during which there were no wars involving the entire civilized world—from the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

It must be remembered that the political systems of the nineteenth century were not pure capitalism, but mixed economies. The element of freedom, however, was dominant; it was as close to a century of capitalism as mankind has come. But the element of statism kept growing throughout the nineteenth century, and by the time it blasted the world in 1914, the governments involved were dominated by statist policies.

[...]

The nineteenth century was the ultimate product and expression of the intellectual trend of the Renaissance and the Age of Reason, which means: of a predominantly Aristotelian philosophy. And, for the first time in history, it created a new economic system, the necessary corollary of political freedom, a system of free trade on a free market: capitalism.

No, it was not a full, perfect, unregulated, totally laissez-faire capitalism—as it should have been. Various degrees of government interference and control still remained, even in America—and this is what led to the eventual destruction of capitalism. But the extent to which certain countries were free was the exact extent of their economic progress. America, the freest, achieved the most.

Never mind the low wages and the harsh living conditions of the early years of capitalism. They were all that the national economies of the time could afford. Capitalism did not create poverty—it inherited it. Compared to the centuries of precapitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the poor had ever had to survive. As proof—the enormous growth of the European population during the nineteenth century, a growth of over 300 per cent, as compared to the previous growth of something like 3 per cent per century. Ayn Rand

America has slipped one spot since last year. This is historic news, but don't expect the enemedia to mention it. America, once the freest nation in the world, is accelerating its slippage towards statism and failure under a President who would rather anyone succeed except .....us.

The once, great capitalist state ("a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church") is faltering.

America’s Economy: The Ninth-Freest NRO hat tip Van
The numbers are in: Our lost economic liberty is being noticed.

We’re No. 9!

 

America has slipped one spot since last year — from earth’s eighth-freest economy in 2010, according to the 2011 Index of Economic Freedom. This 17th annual report, jointly published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, sifts through the wreckage caused by government’s turbocharged acceleration during the Bush-Obama years. America’s slump in the rankings (we’re down from No. 5 in 2008) confirms the urgent need for Washington to revitalize free markets and restrain government intervention.

Among the 179 countries examined in the Index, Hong Kong is ranked first, followed by Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Ireland, and Denmark. These nations all outscored the U.S. across ten categories, including taxes, free trade, regulation, monetary policy, and corruption.

America barely made the top ten. Bahrain was tenth, with 77.7 points, one decimal point behind America’s 77.8 score. Chile reached No. 11 with 77.4, just 0.4 points behind the United States.

Even worse, with a score below 80, the U.S. is spending its second year as a “mostly free” economy. As it departed the family of “free” nations in 2010, it led the “mostly free” category. Even within this less-than-illustrious group, America now lags behind Ireland and Denmark.

How did our once-unassailable country wind up so winded?

“The national government’s role in the economy has expanded sharply in the past two years, and the federal budget deficit is extremely large, with gross public debt approaching 100 percent of GDP,” explain the Index’s authors, Terry Miller and Kim R. Holmes. “Interventionist responses to the economic slowdown have eroded economic freedom and long-term competitiveness. Drastic legislative changes in health care and financial regulations have retarded job creation and injected substantial uncertainty into business investment planning.”

Read the rest of Deroy Murdock's excellent analysis here.

UPDATE: OT but related (sorta):
Chinese Pianist Played Anti-American Communist Propaganda Song at White House State Dinner…

The Money

Read Hayek (in spite of its averred altruism). As for Keynes, I thought we defeated slavery in the war between the States. Like all evil, it resurrects and morphs and plagues humanity.

For the best attack on Keynes, may I suggest Henry Hazlitt's Failure of the New Economics: Analysis of the Keynesian Fallacies. Of course, you can just pass go and read Ayn Rand: Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal.

Elevating the low state of the culture to an exchange of ideas is a a very good thing.

Back in January, Econstories.tv released a now famous video of a rap battle between FA Hayek and John Maynard Keynes.  The video, "Fear the Boom and Bust" set the Austrian vs. Keynesian theories on the economy to a brilliant rap battle, and was a great video to boot.  Econstories.tv is following that release up with another sometime in the near future and a live sneak peak was on display at The Economist Buttonwood Gathering.  Both videos are below, for those of you that may not have seen the first one. 

In Fear the Boom and Bust, John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek, two of the great economists of the 20th century, come back to life to attend an economics conference on the economic crisis. Before the conference begins, and at the insistence of Lord Keynes, they go out for a night on the town and sing about why there's a "boom and bust" cycle in modern economies and good reason to fear it.

Get the full lyrics, story and free download of the song in high quality MP3 and AAC files at:
http://www.econstories.tv

Plus, to see and hear more from the stars of Fear the Boom and Bust, Billy Scafuri and Adam Lustick, visit their site: http://www.billyandadam.com

Econstories.tv is following that release up with another sometime in the near future and a live sneak peak was on display at The Economist Buttonwood Gathering. Both videos are below, for those of you that may not have seen the first one

A Weiner's War on Capitalism: Criminalizing Business

Back on Monday, I reported on Anthony Weiner's shocking abuse of power here. Anthony Weiner said that he will hold a hearing on what he calls “TV Gold Dealers -- a Weinerian form of a bill of attainder against Goldline International and Glenn Beck."

That this can even happen in this country is evidence of how the left is completely and utterly shredding the Constitution.

Atlas reader Alan Davidson wrote in:

Yesterday they had the hearing to investigate GoldLine's marketing practices and to forward H.R. 6149

You can watch a video of the hearing at the Committee of Energy and Commerce website.

I watched the entire hearing.

I watched in utter astonishment at what unfolded.

Memo to readers who are liberals/democrats: this is what the Tea Party Movement is about and why you might at least heed what I am about to say.

H.R. 6149 is titled: "The Precious Coins and Bullion Disclosure Act"


Call me nuts, but I have spent days calling coin dealers, the ICTA and the ANA. I, of course, also called the largest coin dealers here where I live, in Washington State.

None expressed anything other than outrage and disgust at the prospect of this bill.

To the nuts and bolts: This bill will require any coin dealer that sells any gold or "precious metal" coin or bullion (other than exempt "rare and collectibles") to disclose the following:

* The "melt value" of the gold as it pertains to the spot gold market that day

* The "reasonable resale value" of the coin or bullion (for example, if the buyer were to turn around five minutes later and sell it back to the dealer who just sold him the coin).

Knowing this, watch the video on the link I provided.

It is a travesty.

Anthony Weiner scolded and attempted to shame Mr. Carter of GoldLine. Others defended him.

Here is what a coin dealer say, here in Seattle would have to do if they were selling say, an American Eagle 1 ounce gold coin: disclose the retail price, the selling price, the "melt value" (based on the Spot Gold Price that day) and a "reasonable resale" value of the coin that day.

Here's the rub: doing so verbally ain't gonna' cut it.

So, little ol' coin dealer has to haul his butt over to Alpha Graphics and get some spanking new forms. Why? Because you are going to want this in writing for the inevitable frivolous lawsuit. What will the form have to include? Well, all of the specifics aforementioned, a place for signatures and a place to write in the description of the coin or bullion. Then you will have to train your sales employees, place "federal compliance" posters and suffer the loss in sales due to this "revealing" of market forces to potential customers.

So regulation is good here right? Mr. Weiner is "protecting the consumer from this endemic fraud being perpetrated on the public", right?

Again, play the video.

Mr. Weiner did not produce a list of 100+ coin dealers who sell unscrupulously to prove this industry is fraught with endemic fraud and poor selling practices.

Again, play the video.

Mr. Weiner contends that GOLDLINE marks up their products way to high. During his testimony, Mr. Carter proved that his company discloses everything including the % of loss that might occur if coins were sold less than five years after being purchased. In fact, his company's disclosures ALREADY comply with the bill Weiner wants to pass!

This bill will not cause GoldLine to lower its prices

Their business model is on based on commissioned sales people, massive advertising budgets, a very nice headquarters in Santa Monica, CA and some nicely paid top executives.

I most likely would not buy from them. I think gold is a nice buffer to protect a portfolio and we have great local dealers here in Seattle.

Again, watch the video, AND visit Mr. Weiner's website. Navigate his site, especially his "on the issues" & "in the news" links. Look carefully at one entry "in the news" called "Weiner takes on shady gold dealers"

See the epidemic? The list of tens or hundreds of coin dealers?

NOPE. Pretty much just GOLDLINE.

Again, watch the video. GoldLine, GoldLine, GoldLine.

So, a Congressman who represents the 9th District of New York thinks a gold dealer in California sells their products with way too much mark up.

In California. Where they have consumer protection and regulatory agencies up the wazzo and an ATTORNEY GENERAL. Who can investigate and fine such "shady dealers" in CALIFORNIA.

But that isn't enough for Mr. Weiner. Why? Because other folks work with GoldLine.

Glenn Beck, Talk Radio and Conservative groups.

Is GoldLine guilty of unscrupulous activities? Lois Greisman, Associate Director, Marketing Practices Division of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission who testified FOR the bill was asked "how many consumer complaints were issued with the FTC last year against GoldLine" Answer: "I do not have the precise number, it is not a large number" (i.e : it could be zero as that is "not a large number, get it?) and "the percentage of complaints in this area (sales of gold coins and bullion, etc.), is less than 1%" NOTE: one would think Ms. Greisman would come to a CONGRESSIONAL HEARING with "precise numbers" of complaints within her own regulatory agency if she was called to testify under oath to forward a bill that would affect thousands of small business owners and their customers......just sayin'.

There are no criminal complaints against them from the AG's office in California.

They have an A+ rating from the BBB.

A Mr. Julius Bazan testified he bought $140,000 in gold from GoldLine in December 2009. He watched the gold market for a couple of months and didn't see gold prices going through the roof, so he called the evil bastards at GoldLine and asked what he could sell the gold back to them for. They said $85,000. Gold was $1.093 when he bought it. It is $1,290 today. He could have held on to it. He could have adhered to the highly suggested advice in the agreement he SIGNED with GoldLine before his purchase and AGREED to, that he should expect a return if he holds the gold for five plus years. He could have shopped around for another buyer. He could have sold them on Ebay. Or, he could have bought 177 of the coins from the US Mint that I list below. Then, sold them the next day and lost $30,000, but then who could he have complained to? Or he could have been a 1st lien bondholder of GM stock

Gee, after reading Mr. Bazan's testimony, let me grab a Kleenex. One of those "Puffs", cause they have that built in lotion. I'm sobbing uncontrollably.

Is it possible there are some aggressive commission based salespeople at GoldLine?

Could be.

If so, is this bill to get GoldLine specifically to comply with new regulation? Nope. They already would comply today if the bill passed.

So, thousands of small coin dealers suffer. For what?

Because a New York Congressman doesn't like a gold coin dealer in California, Talk Radio hosts and Glenn Beck.

This is the crux of why you see the explosion of the Tea Party. This hearing was not even being broadcast on C-Span. I called them and they said it wasn't on their radar. To be fair to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, they provide streaming video, PDF files of testimony and archive videos very transparently.

But I would not know about this bill or this hearing if not for a coin dealer who expressed his concern to me in conversation.

This is Big Government.

If there were truly terrible sales practices being perpetrated by GoldLine and even a handful of other gold coin dealers, there are consumer protection and law enforcement agencies to address such.

This bill, if passed, will do NOTHING to GoldLine. It will wreck havoc on small dealers.

This is Big Government.

Yesterday, I went to the US Mint website. The US Government sells gold coins too. Right now, if you want to buy an American Gold Eagle from them, guess what they do? They state the demand is too high and pawn you off to a DEALER.

Oh, but they do have some coins. You can buy some of these 1/2 oz gold coins.

I called local dealers and asked, if pressed for cash and I had to sell this coin soon after I bought it, what they would give me? The prices ranged from $625 to $645. Price from the US Mint: $791

The US Mint explained they have mark up too. Weird, huh?

Here's what I would like to ask Mr. Weiner: If I, two years ago, bought 10K worth of coins at retail price from GoldLine and also 10K in stock from GM, Chrysler, Fannie Mae & Freddy Mac, what would my holdings be worth today?

Well, the gold would be worth something. In fact, it was $1,290 today....a record.

The stocks?

WORTHLESS.

All are currently in receivership and owned mostly by the same Federal Government who is currently fleecing, you, the taxpayer, to pay for a hearing so Mr. Weiner can yell at Mr. Carter from GoldLine and say how terrible they are while he forwards a bill that coin dealers fear will cost them much time and money and even jobs.

This is the crux of the movement of the Tea Party. We want limited government. We want to stop the encroachment of regulation upon rule upon law upon tax upon fee upon fine upon the citizenry who pays them to levy such.

Hold a tax payer funded hearing? For what?

A huge new federal regulation that supersedes any state law, laying waste to state sovereignty and will negatively affect small coin dealers nationwide.....for what?

Because a Congressman in New York's 9th district doesn't like the practices of a coin dealer in California.

First.....they came for GoldLine.

UPDATE:

After watching the taped hearing again today, I caught this while Mr. Weiner was yelling at Mr. Carter from GoldLine:

"Let me give you an example from TODAY. Anyone in this room; anyone watching at home, can look this up. This isn't me, this isn't Mr. Carter saying this. "one of GoldLine's popular products is the 1/4 ounce Proof American Eagle". They sell it for $685, Mr. Chairman. You can get it from the Mint for $403 available to the public in a bulk purchase of more than 100 coins. Another competitor, Apmex, sells it for $425. You can get it on Ebay for $445. Because it is true, Mr. Carter, that there is not a lot of scarcity of these products"

This is an outrageous example of Mr. Weiner lying through his teeth. Waving his arms, raising his voice in a dramatic way to show how so-called scummy this Glenn Beck sponsored company is.

First of all, a "Proof" coin is more valuable than an uncirculated coin. And a 2010 Proof might be worth more than say a 1995 Proof, which might have had a larger number produced. So prices are based on availability and scarcity.

Let's look at these statements from Mr. "outraged':

* "Because it is true, Mr. Carter, that there is not a lot of scarcity of these products"

* "Another competitor, Apmex, sells it for $425"

* "You can get it on Ebay for $445"

Here are the facts:

There are a total of NINE 1/4 ounce Proof American Eagles for sale at Apmex. The one for $435 is being sold "capsule only" and is a "random date" . "Capsule only" means there is no "COA" which means NO CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY.

Yeah, you can "get it" on Ebay for $445. ONE is available at that price. Only EIGHT 1/4 ounce Proof American Eagles are for sale on Ebay.

EIGHT...................ON EBAY

Prices? Fixed prices range from $1,049, all the way down to the ONE hero selling one for the "let's win one for the Weiner", "Let's show GoldLine how it done" , basement low, "there's only one being sold on all of freakin' Ebay" price of $445.

The only other item being sold on Ebay where only EIGHT are available are used "Breakin' movies on VHS format.

So, Mr. Weiner, add up all the sources you mentioned to PROVE NON-SCARCITY of 1/4 ounce Proof American Eagles and you get:

17

Yep, not scarce at all!

But wait there's MORE!

Call the US Mint.

Tell them you took Ol' Mr Weiner's advice and "watching at home" found out you, the public, can "get it from the Mint for $403 available to the public in a bulk purchase of more than 100 coins"

Hello?

Hello?

What?

What do mean that isn't true?

But Mr. Weiner said I could buy them in bulk!

Huh?

What?

What do you mean that bulk PURCHASE PROCEDURES are:

"Gold bullion coins are sold in bulk quantities to BUSINESS FIRMS, approved by the United States Mint, that have met the qualifying criteria set forth in Section V below. Approved firms can purchase in the following quantities:

- A minimum of 1,000 ounces of gold coins, composed of any combination of one-ounce and fractional pieces, in 500-ounce units (the standard packaged quantity). Purchases above the minimum must be in 500-ounce increments"

Hello?

Mr. Weiner LIED to the public at a hearing in order to smear a lawfully operating company for purely partisan politics and this was paid for by you, the taxpayer!

Pamela Geller, Big Hollywood: Michael Marxist, A Love Story

Very pleased. My first piece hits Big Hollywood today ........... and it's the featured article. Woo hoo.

 

If you missed Moore's no-show on my radio segment last week (after his people dogged me for it), listen here, it's a hoot. Here's an excerpt of my piece at Big Hollywood:

In Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore describes America has having been founded on genocide and having gotten rich on the backs of slaves. This is egregiously false. Ayn Rand explained the truth: “Capitalism cannot work with slave labor. It was the agrarian, feudal South that maintained slavery. It was the industrial, capitalistic North that wiped it out—as capitalism wiped out slavery and serfdom in the whole civilized world of the nineteenth century.” 

Moore kicks off his movie equating America to ancient Rome, running stock footage of Rome from bad B-movies, and draws all the wrong conclusions. Rome grew its greatest in its period of freedom as a republic, and collapsed after it morphed into an empire with the uncontrolled growth of government controls, including welfare state measures – bread and circuses. 

The growth of taxation and government control destroyed the Roman economy and caused the collapse of Rome – yet more taxes and government control are the very things that this fat bastard is advocating. He mocks America’s predominance in the auto industry by saying that we eliminated our competition, Germany and Japan, when in fact we saved the world from Germany and Japan not in order to destroy their auto industry but to protect the world from the tyranny and darkness they represented. Moore mentions that we destroyed Japan and Germany and claims that that’s why our auto industry became number one, but he neglects to explain why we destroyed Japan and Germany. And he says nothing about how we rebuilt Japan and Germany. In fact, we made it safe for Germany and Japan to dominate the auto industry. 

He holds Jimmy Carter up as the ideal president and holds Ronald Reagan responsible for our economic woes. Yes, the Jimmy Carter era of runaway inflation, 21% interest rates (up from the decades-long standard of low single-digit rates) is Moore’s idea of heaven. Worse still, he runs footage of Carter admonishing the American people for being too materialistic. I kid you not. 

It’s obvious that Michael Moore believes he is talking to idiots who have absolutely no concept of history or of reality. His entire movie is so fundamentally flawed that I actually thought that perhaps it was one big satirical piece, an outrageous parody. 

Moore devotes a large portion of the film to a group of protesters that won’t leave a factory that was closed. He has the audacity to bark about people power, and about how people power is all that really counts, while simultaneously millions (literally) are taking to the streets in the form of tea parties and town hall meetings in protest against big government, but about that he says nothing at all. He praises a member of Congress for encouraging open rebellion on the floor of the House against the Bush bailout. Would he encourage the same under Obama?

Read the whole thing ...................it's a Geller trifecta today at Breitbart:

Census Stalkers by Pamela Geller, Big Government

America’s Day of Wreckoning — the Socialist Putsch Comes to Washington Posted by Pamela Geller, Big Journalism

Michael Marxist: A Love Story by Pamela Geller, Big Hollywood

Capitalism: Michael Moore Interview with Pamela Geller 2pm Today

This should be good. Listen live at 2pm here: Michael Moore Interview with Pamela Geller.

Listen to Atlas Shrugs on Blog Talk Radio

UPDATE: The fat bastard didn't show -- and it was his people who contacted me for the interview. But if you want a crash course on capitalism, listen to the half hour anyway. I had a good time.

Will be calling from 212

 

---

From: Writeatlas@aol.com [mailto:Writeatlas@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 11:29 AM
To: David Falkenstein
Subject: Re: Michael Moore -- 1-on-1 phone interview

 

I am going to set up a radio show: please call promptly

1 (347) 996-3944

I need to know what area code you'll be calling from

Thanks Dave

 

In a message dated 3/16/2010 7:36:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, falkenstein  writes:

Ok. We'll call you. What number is best?

---

From: Writeatlas@aol.com
To: David Falkenstein
Sent: Tue Mar 16 00:38:33 2010
Subject: Re: Michael Moore -- 1-on-1 phone interview

Yes -- let's do it. Does he call in?

Do I call him?

 

---

 

In a message dated 3/15/2010 1:40:50 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, falkenstein@sunshinesachs.com writes:

Can you do 2-210 tomorrow?  What number is best for you?

 

---

From: Writeatlas@aol.com [mailto:Writeatlas@aol.com]
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2010 9:55 PM
To: David Falkenstein
Subject: Re: Michael Moore -- 1-on-1 phone interview

 

Hey David, I'm game ............ confirm and I'll get my hands on the movie

Thanks xoxo

 

In a message dated 3/12/2010 4:01:34 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, falkenstein@sunshinesachs.com writes:

Pamela :

 

I hope you’re well. I wanted to see if you’d be interested in speaking (by phone) with Michael Moore on Tuesday, March 16 to discuss the news of the day and his latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story. The DVD hit stores on Tuesday, March 9^th and features more than 80 minutes of featurettes, extended and deleted scenes, all written and directed by Michael Moore.

 

Michael is available on Tuesday, March 16, 1:00pm – 2:30pm ET.

 

I look forward to hearing from you on this.

 

Best,

Dave

 

David Falkenstein

In your movie, which is patently dishonest, you describe America has having been founded on genocide and having gotten rich on the backs of slaves.

Ayn Rand:
Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The evidence is incontrovertible. The contrast between West and East Berlin, North Korea and South Korea is the latest demonstration, like a laboratory experiment for all to see. Yet those who are loudest in proclaiming their desire to eliminate poverty are loudest in denouncing capitalism. Man’s well-being is not their goal.

Capitalism cannot work with slave labor. It was the agrarian, feudal South that maintained slavery. It was the industrial, capitalistic North that wiped it out—as capitalism wiped out slavery and serfdom in the whole civilized world of the nineteenth century.

What greater virtue can one ascribe to a social system than the fact that it leaves no possibility for any man to serve his own interests by enslaving other men? What nobler system could be desired by anyone whose goal is man’s well-being?

The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control.

The flood of misinformation, misrepresentation, distortion, and outright falsehood about capitalism is such that the young people of today have no idea (and virtually no way of discovering any idea) of its actual nature. While archeologists are rummaging through the ruins of millennia for scraps of pottery and bits of bones, from which to reconstruct some information about prehistorical existence—the events of less than a century ago are hidden under a mound more impenetrable than the geological debris of winds, floods, and earthquakes: a mound of silence.

From NRO: Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy by Peter Schweizer

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Michael Moore makes money off oil and war? Why would he bother lying about owning stock? Is Peter Schweizer the only person who bothered checking?

Peter Schweizer:Michael Moore is constantly trying to prove his and the Left's moral superiority, so he says things about himself that are patently not true. He's pathological about it. How else to explain that he's loudly proclaimed no less than three times that he doesn't invest in the stock market because it's morally wrong while quietly picking up shares in a whole host of companies. A portfolio that includes Halliburton, Boeing, and HMOs doesn't fit the bill so he lies about it. I think he assumed that no one would poke around and investigate. When it comes to the MSM he was correct in making that assumption. He never responded to my questions. I'm dying to know how he explains away this one.

Moore professes to hate capitalism ("the last evil empire" but practices it in spades. Moore condemns people for their racism and claims to support and practice affirmative action, but has a lousy record of hiring minorities. He outsources post-production film work to Canada so he can pay non-union wages. I could go on and on. I would ask his fans: is this really a sincere person?

In his books Michael Moore goes on and on about the fact that Americans are racist because they live in white neighborhoods. It's an example of latent segregationist attitudes in his mind. When I checked the demographics on Michael Moore's residence I burst out laughing. Michael Moore lives in a town of 2,500 in Michigan. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there is not a single black person in the entire town.

“Common Good”

The tribal notion of “the common good” has served as the moral justification of most social systems—and of all tyrannies—in history. The degree of a society’s enslavement or freedom corresponded to the degree to which that tribal slogan was invoked or ignored.

“The common good” (or “the public interest”) is an undefined and undefinable concept: there is no such entity as “the tribe” or “the public”; the tribe (or the public or society) is only a number of individual men. Nothing can be good for the tribe as such; “good” and “value” pertain only to a living organism—to an individual living organism—not to a disembodied aggregate of relationships.

“The common good” is a meaningless concept, unless taken literally, in which case its only possible meaning is: the sum of the good of all the individual men involved. But in that case, the concept is meaningless as a moral criterion: it leaves open the question of what is the good of individual men and how does one determine it?

It is not, however, in its literal meaning that that concept is generally used. It is accepted precisely for its elastic, undefinable, mystical character which serves, not as a moral guide, but as an escape from morality. Since the good is not applicable to the disembodied, it becomes a moral blank check for those who attempt to embody it.

When “the common good” of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals. It is tacitly assumed, in such cases, that “the common good” means “the good of the majority” as against the minority or the individual. Observe the significant fact that that assumption is tacit: even the most collectivized mentalities seem to sense the impossibility of justifying it morally. But “the good of the majority,” too, is only a pretense and a delusion: since, in fact, the violation of an individual’s rights means the abrogation of all rights, it delivers the helpless majority into the power of any gang that proclaims itself to be “the voice of society” and proceeds to rule by means of physical force, until deposed by another gang employing the same means.

If one begins by defining the good of individual men, one will accept as proper only a society in which that good is achieved and achievable. But if one begins by accepting “the common good” as an axiom and regarding individual good as its possible but not necessary consequence (not necessary in any particular case), one ends up with such a gruesome absurdity as Soviet Russia, a country professedly dedicated to “the common good,” where, with the exception of a minuscule clique of rulers, the entire population has existed in subhuman misery for over two generations.

 “What Is Capitalism?” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 20.

Only on the basis of individual rights can any good—private or public—be defined and achieved. Only when each man is free to exist for his own sake—neither sacrificing others to himself nor being sacrificed to others—only then is every man free to work for the greatest good he can achieve for himself by his own choice and by his own effort. And the sum total of such individual efforts is the only kind of general, social good possible.

 “Textbook of Americanism,” The Ayn Rand Column, 91.

Meet the New Despots, Same as the Old Despots

A must read. It's so Atlas.

Introduction: democratic despotism comes of age The New Criterion by Roger Kimball

An Introduction to “The New Statism and the Assault on Individual Liberty,” a symposium organized jointly by The New Criterion and London’s Social Affairs Unit.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
—C. S. Lewis, 1953

This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them for ourselves.
—Ronald Reagan, 1964

Although we have lately seen a sudden upsurge in statist sentiment in this country and in Europe, it is important to understand that statism and the blandishments of socialism are not novelties but peren- nial temptations. Were they novelties they would be less dangerous. The late Irving Kristol, who died last year at 89, was exquisitely sensitive to the role of intellectuals in the metabolism of this debate, and I’d like to start by quoting from a speech he gave to the American Enterprise Institute in 1973. “For two centuries,” Mr. Kristol noted,

the very important people who managed the affairs of this society could not believe in the importance of ideas—until one day they were shocked to discover that their children, having been captured and shaped by certain ideas, were either rebelling against their authority or seceding from their society. The truth is that ideas are all-important. The massive and seemingly solid institutions of any society—the economic institutions, the political institutions, the religious institutions—are always at the mercy of the ideas in the heads of the people who populate these institutions. The leverage of ideas is so immense that a slight change in the intellectual climate can and will—perhaps slowly but nevertheless inexorably—twist a familiar institution into an unrecognizable shape.

The ideas that are percolating down from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Capitol Hill, and Brussels these days are not new. That, indeed, is one of the depressing things about the new statism: it inspires a sense of what the philosopher Yogi Berra called “déjà-vu all over again.” We’ve been down this road before. We know where it leads. It is that forlorn byway that Friedrich von Hayek called the Road to Serfdom. Do we really have to travel down it again?

Perhaps the best anatomy of the sorts of statist initiatives we see popping up all around us these days was given nearly two centuries ago by Alexis de Tocqueville in his dissection of what he called “Democratic Despotism.” In a justly famous passage from Democracy in America, Tocqueville describes this “tutelary despotism” that “does not tyrannize” but rather infantilizes.

Democratic despotism, Tocqueville points out, is unlike despotisms of old. It pre- fers the carrot to the stick. The goal of the operation is the same—the achievement of conformity and the consolidation of power—but the means of choice is not terror but dependence. Accordingly, Tocqueville writes, democratic despotism is despotic at one remove. It does not, unless stymied, terrorize. Rather, it “hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.”

For decades, the United States has been drifting towards the shoals of that enslavement. With the ascension of our current President and his plans to inspan us all in his “spread-the-wealth-around” socialism, we are nearing the point of shipwreck. “The devilish genius of this form of tyranny,” as the commentator Michael Ledeen has pointed out, “is that it looks and even acts democratic. We still elect our representatives, and they still ask us for our support… . Freedom is smothered without touching the institutions of political democracy. We act out democratic skits while submitting to an oppressive central power that we ourselves have chosen.” The element of seduction that is so central to this sort of managerial despotism is one of the things that makes it so hard to resist. Its power, Tocquville noted,

is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

I mentioned Hayek a moment ago. In The Road to Serfdom (1943), Hayek reminds us that the upsurge of socialism in a society has an internal as well as an external aspect. Socialism is not only something that the state does to individuals. It is also something that individuals do to themselves when they decide that freedom is too expensive to fight for and that the consolations of dependency are worth the tax on individual liberty.

VIDEO: Disintegration The Left's Communist Coup on America

We are not a capitalist system any longer: we are a mixed economy, i.e. a mixture of capitalism and statism, of freedom and controls. A mixed economy is a country in the process of disintegration, a civil war of pressure-groups looting and devouring one another. Ayn Rand "The Obliteration of Capitalism," CUI, 1985 - The Ayn Rand Lexicon, page 300)

You cannot have both. It's just that simple. If America ain't dead yet, the patient is surely on life support. Think Obamacare. The problem is the doctor.

"A mixed economy has to reach the day when it faces a final crossroad: either the private sector regains its freedom and starts rebuilding, or it gives up and lets the absolute state take over the shambles ["A preview" ARL, I, 23, 4]

More Rand:

In a controlled (or mixed) economy, a legislator's job consists in sacrificing some men to others. No matter what choice he makes, no choice of this kind can be morally justified (and never has been).

You have seen, within the span of the last few years, that controls breed more controls, and that the proliferation of controls breeds the proliferation of pressure groups. Today, you see political manipulators setting up new conflicts, such as ethnic minorities against the majority, the young against the old, the old against the middle, women against men, even welfare-recipients against the self-supporting. Openly and cynically these groups clamor for "a bigger slice of the pie" (which you have to bake). [The Principal and the Principles, ARL. II, 21, 3].

FORMER US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE AND DNC CHAIRMAN STATES HE WANTS BOTH SOCIALISM AND CAPITALISM.......Tundra Tabloids

See how this has become a reality within the Obama administration, all the while the Democrats claim that both the DNC and Obama are not socialists at all. Obama sides with the making of world economic government. Socialism:

Posted by KGS at 11:58 AM 0 comments   Links to this post

Obama Closed and Stole Republican Car Dealerships?

Remember this poor beleaguered (robbed) businessman robbed of his business by the Obama criminal gang?

A tipster over at Director Blues made a startling assertion. A cursory review by that person showed that many of the Chrysler dealers on the closing list were heavy Republican donors.

To quickly review the situation, I took all dealer owners whose names appeared more than once in the list. And, of those who contributed to political campaigns, every single one had donated almost exclusively to GOP candidates. While this isn't an exhaustive review, it does have some ominous implications if it can be verified.

However, I also found additional research online at Scribd (author unknown), which also appears to point to a highly partisan decision-making process.

Consider the partial list of Chrysler dealership owners, listed below. You'll notice that all were opponents of Barack Obama, most through sponsorship of GOP candidates and organizations, but a handful through Barack's Democrat rivals (Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in 2008, for example).

• Vernon G. Buchanan: $147,450 to GOP candidates and organizations
• Wallace D. Alley and Family: $4,500 to GOP.
• Robert Archer: $4,600 to GOP and conservative causes.
• Homer S. Higginbotham and Family: $2950 to GOP.
• James Auffenberg and Family: $28,000 to GOP; $6,000 to one Democrat candidate.
• Michael Maroone and Family: $60,000 to GOP; $8,500 to two Democrat candidates.
• Jerome Fader: $6,500 to Democrats; $2,500 to Independent Joe Lieberman.
• Stephen Fay and Family: $13,500 to GOP.
• William Numrich: $20,000 to GOP.
• Robert Carver: $10,000 to Democrats including $1,950 to Hillary Clinton, nothing to Barack Obama.

Read it all.

OBAMA IS STEALING PRIVATE BUSINESSES: "Tyranny is now the USA's reality, with Totalitarianism as its form of government"

This story is not to be believed. I saw this poor man, who really knew his stuff, tell his story, and I did not believe my eyes. America.

Obama has seized both General Motors and Chrysler and essentially handed them to the UAW. He is closing down multiple Chrysler agencies. Jim Anderer owns — soon to be past-tense — a highly successful and high-performing Chrysler agency on Long Island. Anderer has been advised that his agency is going to be seized by the new ownership — as we already know this is Barack Hussein Obama. Other Chrysler agencies on Long Island are documented to not be fairing nearly as well. However, many of them — the "Obama-okayed" ones — are still planned to be in business.

Despite multiple letters, emails and phones calls, Anderer has been given no explanation as to why his dealership was targeted. On Neil Cavuto's show, Anderer said "They won't give us a solid explanation. They come up with all these reasons, but none of them seem to make sense" and "but I think there is a lot of favored dealers, there is some collusion." Anderer continued with: "This is insanity. The government is stealing my business. Well, I cannot accept that as a patriotic American. I was raised in this country to believe that if I work hard and I achieve what I was going after — and I did! I did it! I got it, and now all of a sudden because, you know, we have a president who pushes Chrysler into bankruptcy and puts all of the UAW workers out...? Didn't have to. Maybe some would have to go out but not all of them, okay. This doesn't happen in America. This is still America, I think. I mean, this isn't Stalinist Russia. This is not Nazi Germany where the troopers say you're out and their buddies are in. That's what I'm faced with." The problem here is that America has become a Stalinist Amerika.

The next story of a Chrysler dealership being stolen from its rightful owner is that of George C. Joseph — the sole owner of Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu in Melbourne, FL. Joseph writes: "On Thursday, May 14, 2009 I was notified that my Dodge franchise, that we purchased, will be taken away from my family on June 9, 2009 without compensation and given to another dealer at no cost to them. My new vehicle inventory consists of 125 vehicles with a financed balance of 3 million dollars. This inventory becomes impossible to sell with no factory incentives beyond June 9, 2009. Without the Dodge franchise we can no longer sell a new Dodge as "new," nor will we be able to do any warranty service work. Additionally, my Dodge parts inventory, (approximately $300,000.) is virtually worthless without the ability to perform warranty service. There is no offer from Chrysler to buy back the vehicles or parts inventory."

The above are only two stories of a likely growing number of businesses that are now being stolen out from under their rightful owners. The full weight and power of the US federal government is now being brought to bear against We-the-People. Along with stealing our money by taking over the banks, Obama is now also openly stealing the livelihoods from the American people. It is both against the law and demonstrates — proves — that the USA is now under a full and expanding dictatorship! With no one doing anything to stop Obama and his power-mad minions, it will get far worse.

People are now finally asking — that is screaming — "What has happened to America?" and George C. Joseph writes: "HOW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN THIS HAPPEN?" It happens when our lawmakers ignore the laws of the land when they are no longer convenient to their personal purposes and ambitions. It happens when people stop paying attention to the business of our country and our elected officials. It happened when people refused to listen to what Obama actually said, in favor of granting him rock-idol status. It happens when people do nothing to stop it. Tyranny can only prosper when We-the-People allow a dictator to rise up and take over.

The USA and its people are coming close to being totally owned and operated by Obama — who is now going against and bypassing his own leftist Congress. It is being reported that Obama will announce, today, that he will not only close Gitmo — which was voted down Wednesday (90-6) by both Senate Democrats and Republicans — but, WILL release some of the terrorists into the US population.