What’s economic shrugging you ask? It’s akin to Going Galt. What’s that you say? Who is John Galt? Well, if you’ve read Atlas Shrugged you already know.
If you haven’t, here goes.
John Galt is the hero in Ayn Rand’s classic novel Atlas Shrugged. Although the book was written over 50 years ago, reading it today (with few changes) one would think they were reading about the excessives of today’s Progressives in Congress (healthcare, financial “reform”, TARP, the stimulus) and our Poseur President, Obama.
The economy is stalled … businesses large and small are not hiring or spending except for the essentials. Some in the Obama Administration have commented that business is purposely not spending or hiring in order to make Obama look bad.
I would suggest that Obama doesn’t need anyone’s help to look bad. He and his team do that all by themselves. Team Obama is incompetent, petty, narrow minded, and focused on a single mission … trying to turn American into a socialist Utopia.
In truth, business isn’t hiring or spending because of uncertainty, because higher taxes are kicking in next year, because Obamacare, because of a new round of burdensome regulations, and because Obama is openly hostile to business!
Team Obama is anti-business and so is this Congress which keeps on passing legislation that is despised by 65% or more of the populace. Our Republic only works when legislators pass legislation that works in concert with consent of the governed. Tea Parties across the country grew out frustration that the voices of middle and moderate America were being discounted and disparaged by those whose job it is to govern even evenhandedly and to uphold the Constitution.
Team Obama has called those who disagree with his agenda, cowards, racists, poorly educated, afraid and fearful, while asking us to please spend our money on things not needed while many lack a jobs or place to live!
The fact is, those most responsible for growing the economy are being taxed and demonized for their success. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd (relentless wealth redistributionists) and slew of others have pushed forth an economic reform bill (talk about an oxymoron) that completely ignores Fannie and Freddie Mac’s impact and assault on the economy. Their asinine loan programs brought us millions of foreclosures. Worse still, we have five new governmental agencies being brought on board to manage all the new rules, regulations, and paperwork because small business doesn’t have enough of those!
What we have are businesses and creative people who are finding ways to cut back on their output because Obama’s administration is focused on its own political agenda. Obama’s “new economic order” punishes effort and rewards envy. Take from those who have and give to those who don’t whether these free lunches are warranted or not. Whether intentional or not, the country and those that produce are reflexively “Going Galt” … and why shouldn’t they?
All of which brings us back to John Galt …
[...] in Rand’s novel the United States is governed by bureaucrats, “looters” and “moochers,” who penalize and demonize creative people. The country is in decline because creative people are disappearing — they have followed the innovative John Galt to a mountain enclave, “Galt’s Gulch,” where they watch society crumble. Creativity has gone on strike (the working title of the novel was “The Strike”), and the engine of capitalism cannot run without it.
This is from the Wall Street Journal:
In the book, every new act of government futility and stupidity carries with it a benevolent-sounding title. These include the “Anti-Greed Act” to redistribute income (sounds like Charlie Rangel’s promises soak-the-rich tax bill) and the “Equalization of Opportunity Act” to prevent people from starting more than one business (to give other people a chance). My personal favorite, the “Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act,” aims to restrict cut-throat competition between firms and thus slow the wave of business bankruptcies. Why didn’t Hank Paulson think of that?
These acts and edicts sound farcical, yes, but no more so than the actual events in Washington, circa 2008. We already have been served up the $700 billion “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act” and the “Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act.” Now that Barack Obama is in town, he will soon sign into law with great urgency the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.” This latest Hail Mary pass will increase the federal budget (which has already expanded by $1.5 trillion in eight years under George Bush) by an additional $1 trillion — in roughly his first 100 days in office.
I don’t know about you, but if this isn’t the time to economically shrug, when is?
Additional sources visit Why Shrug
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