Click the image below to read the back cover of the latest Limbaugh Letter, from Rush Limbaugh.
Limbaugh Letter: Atlas Is Shrugging
Category: Culture
'Most E-mailed' at The Week: Ayn Rand
New at The Week: Ayn Rand: Capitalismâ??s enduring crusader. This article is also at the top of the site’s “most e-mailed” list.
Thanks to Don Hauptman for the tip.
"Go Galt" with the Fenwicks
From Atlasphere member Steven Schub, lead singer of the world’s only Objectivist Ska band, the Fenwicks:
Music for your “Tax Day Tea Party”: Our (musical) open love letter to John Galt, and a song which may help start a revolution!
“Under The Thorns” by The Fenwicks.
Available now, free for your downloading pleasure!
On MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/thefenwicks
On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Fenwicks/51093034005
On iTunes:
http://www.itunes.com/thefenwicks
UNDER THE THORNS
Words by Steven Schub Music by Jimmie Corrieri
Performed by The Fenwicks
Under the thorns and chains lies a firm resolve
Beneath the files and laws a mind that won’t dissolve
Below the big regime a face without the fear
Underneath the meek and weak a face without the shame
Don’t ask him for forgiveness Don’t ask him for spare change
He’s carried all your burdens This man who knows no pain
Above the firm resolve a perverted scheme
Over the decided mind a parasitic dream
In the name of mercy and humanity
In the name of duty, so-called morality
Don’t ask him for submission Don’t pray for his good grace
He’s witnessed all your purges This man who needs no faith
And though they feed on guilt It seems their food’s run out
He will not buy their myth He will not bear their cross
Man may rise But men will fall
Bureaucrats and Priests expropriate your dreams
He shirks the density of the collective mind
Slinging the sacred filth of the collectively blind
They sink below the stench of self-sacrifice
Seizing salvation in their suicide
Don’t ask him for repentance Don’t speak of moral debts
He’ll owe his life to no one This man who got away
What is "Going Galt"?
From The Atlas Society:
“Tea parties.” “Going Galt.” You’ve probably seen a growing number of references to these in the media, online, and on signs at rallies reacting to new government spending and controls.
The Boston Tea Party was a rebellion against excessive government. Today’s “tea parties” say “no” to spending without limit and the government takeover of our lives….
If you’ve read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, you appreciate the parallels between today’s disintegrating world and the events depicted in that prophetic novel. Atlas Shrugged is the story of how productive people went on strike, withdrawing their services in protest against a society that damned them for being productive and expropriated the fruits of their labor….
What is “Going Galt?”
- “Going Galt” doesn’t simply mean getting angry. That would be “Going Postal.” It means having righteous indignation at the injustice of a political system that bails out individuals and institutions for irresponsible behavior and at the expense of those like you who prosper through hard work and personal responsibly.
- “Going Galt” means asking in the face of new taxes and government controls, “Why work at all?” “For whom am I working?” “Am I a slave?”
- “Going Galt” means recognizing that you’re being punished not for your vices but for your virtues.
- “Going Galt” means recognizing that you have a moral right to your own life, the pursuit of your own happiness, and thus to the rewards you’ve earned with your labor.
- “Going Galt” means recognizing that you deserve praise and honor for your achievements rather than damnation as “exploiters.”
- “Going Galt” means recognizing that you do not need to justify your life or wealth to your neighbors, “society,” or politicians, or bureaucrats. They’re yours, period!
- “Going Galt” means recognizing that the needs of others do not give them a claim to your time, effort, and achievements.
- “Going Galt” means shrugging off unearned guilt, refusing to support your own destroyers, refusing to give them what Ayn Rand termed “the sanction of the victim.” It means taking the moral high ground by explicitly rejecting as evil the premise of “self-sacrifice” that they sell to you as a virtue- in fact “self-sacrifice” is an invitation to suicide.
Unpublished passages from Ayn Rand's Playboy interview
Don Hauptman’s article “The ‘Lost’ Parts of Ayn Rand’s Playboy Interview” makes for interesting reading, and includes some unpublished passages from the original interview.
The banker who said no: Andy Beal
Judging by his recent profile in Forbes, banker Andy Beal sounds like he would be right at home in the world of Atlas Shrugged:
Standing outside the glass-domed headquarters of his Plano, Texas, bank in March, D. Andrew Beal presses a cellphone to his ear. He’s discussing a deal to buy mortgage securities. In just a few minutes, the deal’s done: His Beal Bank will buy $15 million of face value for $5 million. A few hours earlier he reviewed details on a $500 million loan his bank is making to a company heading into bankruptcy — the biggest he’s ever done. A few floors above, workers are bent over computer screens preparing bids for chunks of $600 million in assets dumped by two imploded financial firms. In the last 15 months, Beal has purchased $800 million of loans from failed banks, probably more than anyone else.
Andy Beal, a 56-year-old, poker-playing college dropout, is a one-man toxic-asset eater — without a shred of government assistance. Beal plays his cards patiently. For three long years, from 2004 to 2007, he virtually stopped making or buying loans. While the credit markets were roaring and lenders were raking in billions, Beal shrank his bank’s assets because he thought the loans were going to blow up. He cut his staff in half and killed time playing backgammon or racing cars. He took long lunches with friends, carping to them about “stupid loans.” His odd behavior puzzled regulators, credit agencies and even his own board. They wondered why he was seemingly shutting the bank down, resisting the huge profits the nation’s big banks were making. One director asked him: “Are we a dinosaur?”
Now, while many of those banks struggle to dig out from under a mountain of bad debt, Beal is acquiring assets. He is buying bonds backed by commercial planes, IOUs to power plants in the South, a mortgage on an office building in Ohio, debt backed by a Houston refinery and home loans from Alaska to Florida. In the last 15 months Beal has put $5 billion to work, tripling Beal Bank’s assets to $7 billion, while such banks as Citigroup and Morgan Stanley shrink and gobble up billions in taxpayer bailouts.
Beal has barely got a dime from the feds. A self-described “libertarian kind of guy,” Beal believes the government helped create the credit crisis. Now he finds it “crazy” that bankers who acted irresponsibly are getting money and he’s not. But he wants to exploit their recklessness to amass his own fortune. “This is the opportunity of my lifetime,” says Beal. “We are going to be a $30 billion bank without any help from the government.” (A slight overstatement: He is quick to say he relies on federal deposit insurance.) Not much next to the trillion-dollar balance sheets of the nation’s troubled banks, but the lesson here might be revealed in the fact that this billionaire is not playing with other people’s money–he owns 100% of the bank and is acting accordingly.
See the full article in Forbes for much more, including the story of how Beal won $11 million in a single day of playing poker.
One of the brightest linings to all the financial chaos today is seeing Atlases like Andy Beal at the top of their game.
(Hat-tip to Integreillumine.)
Rush Limbaugh pays homage to the "brilliant writer and novelist" Ayn Rand
Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh gave a lengthy monologue today titled “The Smallest Minority on Earth,” in which he talked about the importance of individual rights.
Along the way, he paid due homage to the “brilliant writer and novelist, Ayn Rand.” Here is a key excerpt:
As I said, we have a gigantic new audience to this program, the tune-in factor is just through the roof. For those of you who are new to the program, I want you to please understand that the criticism of the Obama administration here and the disagreement with practically every element of his agenda is based on one thing.
We do not want to lose the liberty and freedom that we were born with in this country and that has made this the greatest country on earth, that has given us the greatest, most prosperous lifestyle any of population of human beings in the history of the planet. It has been liberty; it’s been freedom; it has been the ambition and desire to use that freedom in the concept of self-interest.
I want to spend more time on this in a future program. But this notion of sacrifice that the president talked about yesterday is just over the top. Liberals always talk about sacrifice, Obama, every time he opens his mouth, mentions the need for people to sacrifice. We all must suffer. We all have to jointly suffer in order for all of us to somehow be the same, and self-interest, selfishness is condemned. And self-interest not selfishness. Self-interest is what built this country.
Somebody starting a business did it in his self-interest. He didn’t start a business so that there would be jobs and health care in the community. He started a business because he loved the business that he was in. He loved the business that he wanted to build. He had a product or a service that he thought would improve the lives of people. He wanted to sell it to them; he wanted to make it available to them. Everybody wins when everybody’s acting in self-interest. Selfishness is a different thing.
Self-interest is excellence; self-interest is what’s desired; self-interest is what makes people want raises; self-interest is what makes people want their families to be secure; self-interest is what makes parents want their kids to be properly educated; self-interest is what propels the United States military to victory. Not sacrifice. Not the concept of sacrifice.
Sacrifice is giving something to somebody you don’t know to make yourself feel altruistic. You’re not sacrificing. It doesn’t make you great. But giving something to your family because you provided it for them, that is good. But if you run around just giving people who do nothing for you, who are just worthless, don’t have anything to do with you, you’re cheating them out of their own self-interest.
When you vote for politicians who take from your back pocket to give to others, you think it’s compassionate, you think it’s caring? It’s not. It’s depriving the recipient of his own quest for self-interest.
The brilliant writer and novelist, Ayn Rand, has written about this. Let me give you a couple quotes from Ayn Rand on this. “It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.” That is President Obama.
“Where there is sacrifice, there’s somebody collecting the sacrificial offerings.” What does it mean? President Obama says, “We all need to sacrifice,” for this reason or that reason. What it means is we all need to pay more; we need to have less affluent lives; we need to dial down our prosperity, and we need to give the money to him, not a charity. He’s going to eliminate, for all intents and purposes, the tax deductibility, it’s going to be 28 cents for every dollar, charitable donations. He wants to be the distributor of the charitable donations. He wants to be the distributor of the goods because he wants the glory.
“So it only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s somebody collecting the sacrificial offerings.” Who is it that’s talking about sacrifice? President Obama. Who’s going to collect your sacrificial offerings? President Obama and his government. And “where there’s service, there’s somebody being served.” There’s no sacrifice in service. The president who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters. He intends to be the master. You’re the slave. You must sacrifice.
See the full transcript for much more. You can also listen to the audio clip in Windows Media Player or RealPlayer.
(Thanks to Robert Bidinotto for the heads-up about this.)
Daniel Hannan: The Rise of a Free Market Star
If you haven’t seen this video of Daniel Hannan yet, do not miss it:
I appears the public flogging he administered to Gordon Brown has turned him into a rising star among free market advocates. His comments spoke for many people’s concerns, have resonated widely, and important people are standing up and taking note.
Take a look at these clips from Hannan’s recent TV appearances on Fox News. Here’s Daniel Hannan being interviewed by Neil Cavuto:
And Part II of the same interview:
And here’s his appearance on Glenn Beck show:
A few notes:
- This gentleman is exceedingly well-spoken — strong, clear, and articulate, with a Galt-like certainty
- He is a natural leader, someone whose words can embolden those who hear them. I haven’t seen anything this galvanizing since the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
- Unlike many commentators, he does not appear to have an inflated sense of self-worth. He just is who he is. (Note how he took Cavuto’s question about being “the next Prime Minister.”) There’s no feeling that this person is acting.
- Many Americans, and free market advocates around the world, have been waiting for a strong voice like this to articulate their own views about the financial crisis
It’s easy to imagine Hannan becoming the voice of a new generation (Gen-X and Gen-Y’ers) of free market advocates. At 37 years old, he’s quite young to have such a commanding presence — which gives him plenty of time to make mistakes, grow, and find his footing as a leader.
Am I the only person who would just love to see him debate Barack Obama?
The hero of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is smiling
The allusions to Atlas Shrugged in the mainstream media are just getting better and better. From the new Bloomberg article “Obama Needs AIGâ??s Liddy, Not Other Way Around,” by Caroline Baum:
The hero of Ayn Randâ??s Atlas Shrugged is smiling because heâ??s seen it all before: the governmentâ??s intervention in the private sector; the constraints placed on business in the name of the people; the desperation on the part of government bureaucrats when they realize their leverage is limited; and — this part is still fiction — the decision on the part of business leaders to walk away from the enterprises they built.
Thatâ??s all I could think about when I read that American International Group Inc., recipient of $173 billion in taxpayer funds, was paying out $165 million in bonuses to employees of its financial-products group, the poster boy for risk and greed.
The Obama administration, Congress and the public are outraged taxpayer dollars are going to enrich the folks who got us into this mess. So am I.
Members of Congress want to blame Edward Liddy, the former chief executive officer of Allstate Corp., who was recruited by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in September to steer AIG away from the shoals.
Liddy is paid $1 a year for his efforts. â??My only stake is my reputation,â? Liddy said in a March 16 open letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
His only crime, as far as I can tell, is inheriting compensation contracts providing for retention bonuses for certain AIG derivative traders, some of whom have left the company, and listening to lawyers on his options.
See the full article for much more on the parallels between Atlas Shrugged and the current crisis.
(Thanks to Greg Feirman of Top Gun Financial Planning, author of the Atlasphere article “The Odyssey of Star Stock Trader Tim Sykes,” for the heads-up.)
Atlas Shrugged Tops Amazon's Bestseller List
From an Ayn Rand Institute press release:
Earlier this year Ayn Randâ??s prophetic novel Atlas Shrugged was selling at triple the rate it sold at in the beginning of 2008. Now the novel is soaring to even greater heights, and its trade paperback edition is currently in first place in the Classics category on Amazon.comâ??s best-seller list for sales in the United States. The 50th anniversary mass-market paperback edition of Atlas Shrugged ranks as #2 and the trade paperback Centennial edition ranks as #3. For several weeks Atlas Shrugged has been holding steady in the top 10 best-sellers in the broader United States Literature and Fiction category, and as of the writing of this release, different editions of the novel stand at #3, #5 and #6 in Amazonâ??s ranking.
As I’ve mentioned before, this could be the start of the most widespread and meaningful discussion of Ayn Randâ??s ideas in our lifetime.