I'm still only about 75% through. This is a very entertaining book even if you are not reading it for the political and economic significance.
What it has made me realize is that we are losing our manufacturing base. Somewhere along the way, we decided we didn't need manufacturing. We would become a nation of science and technology. There is very little manufacturing, mostly just two loser automobile companies that took our money and still went bankrupt, still taking our money. How long will Ford hold out? Have to respect them for trying to hold their own. The factories that are left will be driven out by the ever rising union costs, utility costs (thanks to the cap& tax if it passes) and competition from abroad.
Science and technology? We are already losing in the field of technology, being outsourced as it is. And our schools are no longer capable of producing the scientific minds required to maintain a science base.
Where does that leave us?
Half of our population are struggling producers, taking pride in their work and realizing that money is only the measurement of that pride and effort, not an entity of it's own to be despised and judged as the root of all evil.
The other half are entitlement whores with their hand out, demanding that the producers "give back" when none of them have done anything but hinder the producers.
Maybe it will take a Galt's Gulch approach to wake up our nation. How many of the producers of this nation do you think are able to retire right now and live out their lives in comfort with what they have already accumulated? Just spend enough to keep them going, instead of investing their wealth in job generating endeavors. Why should they? Those efforts are not appreciated. The looters feel those jobs are their right! That all they should have to do is show up to get paid, or worse, claim they are unable to find "suitable" work. We should all be willing to get out and dig ditches if that is what will restart the motor of our country.
Science & Technology are fine, but without manufacturing, they are only ideas. We do need ideas but we need them from all aspects of a successful economic model. Funny thing is, manufacturing successes have always come up with the ideas needed, long before Science & Technology were thought of as separate disciplines.
That's what we have to realize, they all operate together, one drives the other. It's like a three legged stool. We are now striving to balance on two legs of a stool, with one of those getting shorter every day.
We MUST make it easier for the great minds and producers to do what they do best. Create. Create jobs, new products, new technology, new sciences. Create opportunities for workers proud of their skills to better themselves and their family's life by means of that which they EARN not what someone is forced to give them.
We have to give everyone the same opportunity. To succeed or fail on their own, without interferrence or hindrance from the government.
Can you imagine if business had no taxes to pay? The drop in price of our products, the jobs that would be created, the competition with overseas companies. Heck those overseas companies would be knocking down our door to get in!!!! The brain power that would be generated HERE!
Business does not pay tax anyway, why do we continue to fool ourselves? They only pass those taxes on to consumers. All these levels of taxation are one of the main driving forces of inflation.
Enable business, stop enabling entitlement.
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6 comments:
Do you have an opinion of this paragraph from Galt's speech?
"The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man’s power to conceive—a definition that invalidates man’s consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence . . . Man’s mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of God . . . Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure of God, whose standards are beyond man’s power of comprehension and must be accepted on faith . . . The purpose of man’s life . . . is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question."
Favela, the "abject zombie" phrase would indicate a person who also ignores where the bible encourages questions. Galt is referring I imagine to those who USE the bible to further their entitlement agenda.
Thanks for the question! I am not a religious person, so I would question a lot.
My question is prompted by your opening statement:
This is a very entertaining book even if you are not reading it for the political and economic significance.
When I was reading Atlas Shrugged, it was for the philosophical and psychological significance. The political and economic aspects are easily understood by many of her readers but not so much the premises that underlie them. Her rejection of mysticism and altruism is a pill that most people find hard to swallow. Do you?
No I don't have a problem with that. As I mentioned, I don't have religious views and feel they have been the excuse for much of humanity's greatest cruelties.
I do support everyone's right to believe as they wish.
For altruism, no I am much more in support of personal responsibility. I realize there are those who absolutely cannot do for themselves, but it is a condition that is shamefully abused.
If a Stephen Hawking can work everyday in his condition, there should be very few that could not do SOMETHING to as least pay back some of the support they received from the collective pocket.
Thanks for your response. Best wishes.
Thanks for the interesting conversation!
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