If you haven't read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, READ IT NOW!!!!

Everything was deeply neglected during the Bush Administration: food safety in agribusiness and processed food industries, how drugs were approved and monitoring of the FDA, mortgage fraud both on the street and by banks, banking and financial products -- the SEC only investigated prominent liberals like Martha Stewart, consumer product safety totally failed to keep up with flawed Chinese imports, EPA functions and fuel efficiency so our cars could be competitive. And yeah, he let the airline business get totally out of control and way overcapacity with the small carriers, which is one reason why airlines were going bankrupt, our airspace got too overcrowded and air traffic control systems were in crisis before the recession grounded a lot of flyers.

No matter what sector of the economy you were operating in, there was some severe deterioration or worsening of quality due to lack of regulation and oversight. The failure to regulate exploitive, criminal or dangerous business behavior distorts the marketplace. If, without keeping any records, you can just dump untested, questionable food products into your pot pies when you know they come from some fly by night import export operation from China, of course you can undercut the guys who use real whole food products from proven distributors. You can't have healthy functioning markets when corruption and abuse are allowed to take root and grow.

And the whole time the Republican Congress was passing bills that were giveaways to industry, under leadership by industry lobbyists, distorting the marketplace even more. The Bankruptcy Act of 2005 was a big giveaway to mortgage bankers and credit card companies, who were anticipating the bubble bursting and got weird provisions passed that benefitted them and limited consumer protection and made Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings by consumers almost impossible. [link to www.cch.com]

The Bush Administration laid American on her back and spread her legs for corporate and financial raping. We know about the financial and banking sector problems, but only the MSM version of it, which is whitewashed. We don't hear so much about the other stuff, like how our food supply has become toxic, airlines and air traffic control were coming apart, fish and wildlife were dying in federally managed waterways and forests, and so on. GWB's Administration ran the country as negligently as the war in Iraq, in other words.

The notion of free markets in the U.S. is such a joke after the last 8 years, that we are in a nightmare scenario of a corrupt capitalist failure and a collapse of our economic system is possible.

Last Edited by Andromeda on 05/20/2009 06:44 PM

Sorry Riker, I didn't mean to unload a rant onto your thread... yes, this is a great book, but I just hope people who read it aren't going to look at America's economy and troubles and say "that's capitalism" because it's been broken through mismanagement!

But it is a great book. Ayn Rand is also a great philosopher and her books convey the objectivist philosophy of capitalism. [link to en.wikipedia.org]

It's an important classic by now, and one everyone should read!

That is the best reply in GLP history

Rubbish

Paranoid pseudointellectual garbage.

just watched the movie tonight amazing and scary

It would be nice if these Ayn Rand freaks would take the advice of their evil guru and "go Galt," i.e., PISS OFF!!!!

It would be nice if these Ayn Rand freaks would take the advice of their evil guru and "go Galt," i.e., PISS OFF!!!!

Exactly. But most don't get it and clamor for more government. Never realizing that the problem is government.

A lot of us have. And when the rest of us go, who will pay the taxes to support you then?

Try We the Living too. I think it was her first book. I don't think much of Ayn Rand from a personal stand point but her books were brilliant. What can you say about a book that was published in 1956 and still sells every year since then.

Rand was Illuminati...She was related to the same people who founded the Rand Institute

Yep Atlas shrugged, a love story for neo-cons. set in a fantasy world where the market regulates itself.

It is in my top 3. I am not sure about favorite though, I would have to think about it for a while. It is kinda long, actually 3 books in one, but is a great book.

ron paul named son after ayn rand.

It's my understanding that this allegation isn't true. He named his son Randall and it became Rand.

Sorry,didn't read"Atlas Shrugged",didn't see the movie version lasst year either!!
Did go see"Rio"though!!Very sweet and funny,did big box office last spring!!
At my local drive in-The Galaxy in Ennis-it was a sell out crowd,barely got in to see it!!
Did over$40 Million at the box office while"Atlas Shrugged"did a whopping$1.3 Million@the box office!!
Why??Because(A)People want to be entertained at the movies not lectured to!!
(B)Political Movies don't do well at the box office!!
"IOUSA";"W";"Expelled";"An American Carol"and"Capitalism:A Love Story"all tanked except for their loyal followers!!
(C)Truth be known,Randites idea of fun is buying Reynolds
Wrap to make themselves a new foil hat!!

"If it wasn't for smallpox and other diseases you'd be speaking Comanche today."-Nocona Burgess:Great Great Grandson of Quanah Parker.

She predicted the next dark age. And here it is... 3 news netwerks and nothing to listen to but slop.

not really selling it here...

it is a good book.

May I say something as an old man now who read this book when he was 28? "Atlas Shrugged", published around 1957, always appeals to young men and women who suddenly discover as they enter middle age that their direction and dreams about life, work and America are not going to pan out as they anticipated.
The book is full of characters who only care about money and their personalities are presented as heroic by Rand but actually are part of our problem, not the solution.
. Why do I say this? Because the very "Love of Money" that Rand expresses is in reality what is wrong in America.
Since the publication of this unique book, America has had its fill of social parasites true! But it also has had its fill of unbridled materialism as Ellsworth M. Toohey would have said in his column in "The Banner".
These people are not heroes who are saving America, they are not full rounded, mature men and women, but rather very self centered people who know and feel superior and look down on people they perceive as dumb and dumber. They only are concerned about making money, they are not the Tesla's , Westinghouse's, Edison's or Bell's of the past. Her characters create for themselves and see everyone else as leeches. They certainly have no CHARITY in their hearts, they are never men or women of faith or spend lives dedicated to the benevolence of their fellow men. They only seek to utilize they elements of this world to transform it to perpetuate profitability and "keep busy" in their vocations to the point of sillyness. Remember what Budd Fox said to Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street" essentially, at what point is it enough? When do you stop driving yourself to pile money on top of money? Remember, for every Gekko there is a Wildman. Each sees themselves as members of an ever climbing circle of competitiveness to earn and pile up money, but to what end?
Greater is the Dale Carnagies of this world, who, having accumulated more wealth than could possibly be spent in many lifetimes, was confronted by an experience wherein he claimed that an angel visited him and asked what he was going to do with all that he had earned? He cleverly established permanent funding for the Arts and Sciences that continue to this day. In the end, he had put back everything and left a continuing legacy. Something Ayn Rand would have cursed and turned over in her grave.

Dagny is a slut.

John Galt is supposed to be Philippe de Rothschild.

$ is their god which they will follow all the way home.

"PHILLIP ROTHSCHILD ORDERED ONE OF HIS MISTRESSES TO WRITE AN 1100-PAGE BOOK that would describe to all witches how they would take control of the World through the Illuminati: It's called Atlas Shrugged. (By Ayn Rand) One of the things in it is happening on the front pages of the newspapers across the United States right now. In fact she spent a third of the book describing how they would raise the oil prices and then later destroy the oil fields and then they would also completely shut down the coal.

IT ALSO DESCRIBED HOW THEY WOULD BLOW UP GRAIN MILLS, how they would derail trains. Their sole purpose is to bankrupt their own companies and destroy their own companies until they destroyed the currency of the whole World, and still be so financially strong they would withstand it!" - [link to www.jesus-is-savior.com]

Witch capitolesm r u talkin bout.....kronee or freeee market...........won wurd peepul...terriffffs....protect wurkors and phund gubmint....not tackses

agreed, read this; it's happening now. Lots of meaning in it, positive and negative. You'll get out of it what you reflect on it ;) yes, it IS about the illuminati (good and bad) and it's stirring...game's on...

who's John Galt?
who's Nobody?

That's one side of it, and yes; it's great literature, very well written!