Atlas Shrugged - The Next "Story of Us"?

When Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” was published in 1957, it was considered a work of science fiction. The theme of “Atlas Shrugged”, as Rand described it, is "the role of man's mind in existence." The book explores a number of themes that Rand would subsequently develop into the philosophy of Objectivism. She was sharply criticized for her ideas and her philosophy of “Objectivism” was denigrated as selfish and regressive in the light of the needs of the general public.

Despite these charges, “Atlas Shrugged” achieved enduring popularity and has maintained consistent sales in the following decades. In the wake of the late 2000s recession, sales of Atlas Shrugged have sharply increased, according to The Economist magazine and The New York Times. The Economist reported that the fifty-two-year-old novel ranked #33 among Amazon's top-selling books on January 13, 2009.

What is the new-found interest in this book? “Atlas Shrugged”, originally called “The Strike” by its working title, portrays an America much like we see today. Overbearing government regulations, distributive policies and a generally accepted point of view held by public officials that radical progressive action must be taken for the good of all and anyone opposed to those policies are disgraced and openly chastised.

In the book, one by one, leaders of industry were disappearing, leaving their businesses deserted and their workers displaced. The book does take an odd turn when those business owners begin to reappear as Objectivist pirates seeking to topple the existing system to establish a new government that promotes the virtues self-reliance for the good of their progeny.

No one really believes that pirates will begin raiding the United States in retaliation for government intervention and oppressive taxation but Atlas is apparently beginning to shrug. New York and California have been seeing a trend of wealthy citizens fleeing the latest round of taxes that have been unfairly levied on them. The computer age no longer necessitates that these people congregate in major centers of commerce since the internet itself, has become the lifeline. The point is, there is no longer any status associated with a Park Avenue address, particularly if that address comes with a personal income tax rate of nearly 60%, now that Healthcare Reform has actually passed. Is it really that bad? Well, the latest figures show that out of eight and a half million people in New York City, a little over forty-three thousand pay more than forty percent of the City's tax revenues. That is obscene by anyone's standards.

The tax exodus not a new trend; in 2006, the rate at which college graduates were escaping New York had risen 127% and the same problems plague California as job prospects evaporate and taxes climb skyward. The real problem for these two bastions of liberal politics and “social responsibility” is that the vacuum created by those that are leaving is being filled by people that do not possess the same earning power so state and city tax revenues have been steadily falling as well. Heaven forbid these states would re-evaluate their commitment to redistributive policy. No, they would prefer to find new revenue sources to fill the void.

The next tax adding to the burden is the so-called “millionaires tax” to fund part of the healthcare reform bill. The truth is the millionaires tax kicks in at income levels well below a million dollars and when combined with the existing tax burden experienced by New York residents, the top marginal rate will effectively be 57%. Since the exodus has begun, New York Governor David Patterson has been insistent that New York must adopt a tax system that is at least competitive with neighboring states and in fact, should consider tax incentives that encourage businesses to relocate to New York, not flee in fear. These ideas have not met with much favor among the more liberal members of the elected elite in New York and in fact, have cost Patterson his position as Governor of New York as the power brokers in NY politics pushed him out of the race.

Anyone looking at the unemployment figures knows that the stimulus plan hasn’t produced the economic results the government had hoped for. The first mistake was the stimulus money was doled out to recipients that understand job creation as poorly as the Federal government does; the Cities and States. It was spent in the worst possible ways with New York again, leading the pack. When comparing the number of jobs that were claimed to have been created directly through stimulus expenditures against the amount of money that was spent, the national average was seventy-three thousand dollars per job with New York reportedly spending nine million per job. As with any short term infusion of capital, the results are bound to be short term as well so we can imagine that those extraordinarily expensive jobs will disappear when the money does.

So why has the stimulus plan failed to deliver? Once again, Atlas is shrugging. Business owners are cringing as they look at the antics and bribes used in Washington to pass healthcare that are now being dusted off to pass the climate bill. Back door meetings and massive spending bills with threats of more taxes, penalties and mandates do not encourage small business to expand, let alone re-hire those that were laid off in last year’s economic downturn. Additionally, if the mandate for private business participation under the current healthcare proposal is fifty employees, how many companies with forty-nine employees will resist expansion and stay right where they are? How many companies with fifty-two employees will downsize to escape the mandates and worse yet, how many will decide that the benefits of operating a business in America just don’t make sense anymore?

The stock market hasn’t rallied yet either. Not only have the threats of increased capital gains taxes dissuaded participation, with the Federal Reserve running the printing presses on overtime, not even Treasury Bills look safe anymore. We also have a new ominous specter; the threat of direct government interference in business. 60% of General Motors is now owned by the Federal government, which should make any advocate of capitalism nervous. There have been executive salary caps placed on banks that received Tarp money and while the legality of that was still under debate, the government announced its plan to cap the executive salaries of all financial institutions since they fall under the regulatory jurisdiction of the Federal government. Following that logic, who is safe? After all, don’t all corporations fall under the regulatory jurisdiction of the Federal government at one level or another?

So what happens if Atlas truly does shrug? What would happen if owning a business became a liability as the Federal government placed more of the burden of America’s social programs on their shoulders in the form of new mandates? What happens if the wealthy decide that leaving New York or California doesn’t offer enough protection against confiscatory taxes? Will they leave the country? The “top one percent” that the Obama regime keeps targeting certainly has the means to do just that. In fact, many have the resources to pull out of the game entirely and live quite comfortably for the rest of their lives on what they have already accumulated. What would happen to the great plans of progressive politics if the top one percent stopped earning a taxable income and just started living? What would happen if the “top one percent” suddenly became people with incomes of one-hundred thousand dollars, eighty-thousand dollars or maybe fifty-thousand dollars when the real wealth in America decides they are not playing anymore?

Some argue that Europe has had massive social programs and progressive taxes for years and business still thrives there. Really? Greece is now on fire because the bills have finally come due and the rest of Europe is now teetering on the brink of fiscal disaster since all of their economies are tied together. The only real advantages Europe has is that European trade agreements favor those at home as does their patent process. Also true is that much of the European infrastructure is fairly new when compared to America’s. Don’t forget that much of Europe was destroyed and rebuilt after World War II. We don’t have that luxury and our older industrial centers find it continually harder to compete with our modernized competitors. Most of Europe has never embarked on the self destructive path of paying its people to stay home that began with Johnson’s “Great Society”.

We have created a new class of subsidized dependents. These are people that have been subjugated by an unfair social services system that demands that you either collect all from the government or get nothing. Fear of losing housing, healthcare and a meager cash allowance keeps them neatly enrolled in the system and insures that they will continue to vote for the people that promise the money will keep coming. After all, when you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul’s support. As unemployment increases and the wealthy “shrug”, who will keep these programs in place? We cannot print much more money or the world financial institutions will lock American currency out of the global economy. What will we do if Atlas does shrug?

Paul

Why Don't We Teach Civics Anymore?

Today we are embarking on an entirely new path. Not that discussing current issues aren’t important, but what good is discussing politics when the nation is facing a crisis of far more serious consequence. When I went to school a million years ago, we not only learned about American History but we also took the required civics classes that taught us about our Constitution and how our government is supposed to work. Today, civics is no longer taught in grade schools and American History, in fact, all of history, seems to be under a constant state of revision with the passing of each successive year. As George Orwell said “He who controls the present controls the past and he who controls the past controls the future.” That lesson was not lost on the new generation of progressives.

Colleges focus on political science studies which for the most part, spend their days dissecting and interpreting the Constitution through the lens of societal change, or worse, social justice. Even though the Federalist papers tell us the exact intent of the founding fathers, weaving them into the studies would deny the social architects that teach these courses the ability to convince the students that the Constitution is dynamic and should be interpreted to meet modern political conditions. Let’s not forget that a good number of today’s college professors were the same people that “turned on, tuned in and dropped out” back in the 60’s; never having left their beliefs that America could in fact, become a social utopia if only the right people were in charge.

Considering today’s political climate I felt it was beneficial to revisit the documents that founded this country and the principals of the men who drafted them and that is why we did our series on the original Bill of Rights. Only through a complete understanding of the times in which they were written and the true intentions of the founders of this nation can we begin to steer the ship of state safely back to her intended course.

Why go so far back in time? After all, this is the twenty-first century. Because it was the genius of men like Thomas Jefferson, John Addams and Benjamin Franklin to name just a few, that created a completely new promise of a fair and just government. A nation, self-governed by its own citizens and not by a monarch or an emperor; a nation where free men wrote the laws that guaranteed the liberties of all and for the first time, imposed those laws on their own leaders so that no man would be exempt.

Agreeably, there were times in our history that were not quite so idealistic. The men that wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were aware that grave social issues such as slavery, had to be addressed for this nation to aspire to the goals they had set for themselves. They met fierce opposition from the Southern states who would kill the motion for independence if the document dared interfere with their sovereignty on such issues. Rather than lose the moment, they yielded to the Southern states so that the nation could be formed knowing that they could revisit the issue at a later date once the United States was actually united and the Bill of Rights already contained that language that would leave that door open for later discussion.

We must go back in time today, because those laws and principals are being tested by an administration that believes the Constitution is an inconvenience to the “work” they insist needs to be done and they have already taken steps to alter the understanding of that precious document until it resembles something that is convenient to their cause.

You know, I won’t apologize. I voted for McCain. Not because I thought he was some blazing example of what I wanted to see in a President, but honestly, I felt he was the lesser of two evils and none of the independent candidates were in a position to be considered serious contenders. When Obama won, I threw my hands up and said “Oh well, here comes another four years, or eight years of tax and spend policies, especially with the Democrats controlling both houses of Congress. At that moment, I had no idea what his election really meant.

This President has been engaged in the business of cultivating powers within the White House that have provided him the means to elude Congressional oversight. Of the dozens of “Special Advisors” (Czars) that he has appointed, to date very few have actually been vetted by Congress through the required Senate Confirmation Process. The Czars have been given powers to act without Congressional guidance and have even been accused of withholding information from Congress in what some critics have begun to call a “Shadow Government”.

There are wide and disturbing connections between the President, his advisors and people outside of the Federal Government that have a long history of affiliations with radical organizations and groups that can only be described as domestic terror cells. At least one of the President’s closest advisors is a self-avowed communist and many more are radical social engineers, some with ties to groups that in the past actively sought to cripple the government in favor of a Marxist regime.

One of those “affiliates” is Jeff Jones. Jeff Jones was one of the co-founders of the Weather Underground, a domestic terror group. Mr. Jones, having served his debt to society now sits as the NY Chairman of the Apollo Alliance. This is the group that has been credited for writing key portions of the stimulus bill that earmarked nearly eight-hundred billion dollars to revive the economy. $5.2 billion dollars of that money is scheduled to be distributed to non-profit community based organizations such as ACORN and The Apollo Alliance. Van Jones, the self proclaimed communist and former “green jobs” Czar is also a member of the board of the Apollo Alliance. That is quite a coincidence and one of those things that just makes you go Hmmmmm?

Jeff Immelt is the CEO of General Electric, a company that stands to make billions by providing smart grid technology that is a key infrastructure component of the climate bill. As it turns out, Mr. Immelt, who was recently appointed by President Obama to the board of the NY Federal Reserve, also wrote parts of both the healthcare and the climate bill.

Excuse me? Since when do we allow private citizens to take part in the writing of legislation, especially when they stand to profit from the provisions contained in that legislation? That used to be called a conflict of interest when I was growing up. When you look at the enormity of the bills and the trillions of dollars these will cost the American tax payer I have a far better name for it. It is nothing less than the wholesale looting of the United States Treasury.

Senator John Conyers (D-MI) was quoted talking about the people that are shouting "read the bill, read the bill" at the town hall meetings and said they make him laugh; then added "What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?" Well Senator, if Congress is not writing the bills, and Congress is not reading the bills then how can you claim to honor the oath you took to support and defend the Constitution when you blindly vote on the bills with little or no understanding of what is in them?

Fortunately, the Constitution is still intact at least for the time being, so the ship of state still has a rudder. However, the wrong hands are now holding the wheel. This is a rare opportunity that we have been given. If reasonable people shed the light of truth on this assault on our Republic, we can bring our nation together again. The factions that seek to dilute the Constitution and usurp power from the American people are a dangerous and focused group but they are still small in number. Our Constitution is still the supreme law of the land. Speak boldly and demand answers while we still have our authority as citizens of a nation that is of, by and for the people. Do it now, while the Congress is still required to answer to us and while the President is still required to answer to Congress.

The petty partisanship that has kept the political parties at each other’s throats needs to end if we are to face this crisis and endure. We must all realize that disagreements on policy are the discussions that take place in any democracy and those discussions are far different than the “change” these people are trying to slip in under the radar. This is an insidious and vile attack at the very core of our country and should be treated no differently than if it were a direct assault on our land by a belligerent nation. We must unify to possess the strength to defeat them. Our nation, like an oak tree, can withstand nearly any assault from the outside. It is when disease penetrates the bark and rot takes hold from within that the mighty oak falls.

Paul