I haven't read "Atlas Shrugged," but I agree the premise

It’s boring.

You're looking at the picture wrong. They havent produced any wealth. Theyve found a way to hoard a large amount of the societies resources for themselves.

Don't read it, super boring. Snowflake rich people run away from home rather than let any fraction of their wealth go to helping others.

PS There are lots of problems with the philosophy of the book. One is most rich people are not innovators and inventors. (In fact the converse is also true, most life-changing innovators and inventors don't get rich (relatively).) Most really rich people happen to hold a lot of capital which makes them a lot of passive income while they don't do diddly squat. Two is the idea that taxes discourage big-time innovation is mostly fiction. 50% off of 10 billion dollars is still 5 billion dollars, nobody's going to say "well it's not worth it for only 5 billion". Three is that the premise is propogandized by big companies and already-rich people to protect wealth they already have, when in fact we should be aggressively taxing those people while providing cuts and incentives to small companies and businessfolk on the way up.

liberbrarian wrote:

Don't read it, super boring. Snowflake rich people run away from home rather than let any fraction of their wealth go to helping others.

You obviously didn't. For how long did Hank Rearden basically fund his layabout brother and ungrateful wife, and what *actually* caused him to walk away?

liberbrarian wrote:

PS There are lots of problems with the philosophy of the book. One is most rich people are not innovators and inventors. (In fact the converse is also true, most life-changing innovators and inventors don't get rich (relatively).) Most really rich people happen to hold a lot of capital which makes them a lot of passive income while they don't do diddly squat. Two is the idea that taxes discourage big-time innovation is mostly fiction. 50% off of 10 billion dollars is still 5 billion dollars, nobody's going to say "well it's not worth it for only 5 billion". Three is that the premise is propogandized by big companies and already-rich people to protect wealth they already have, when in fact we should be aggressively taxing those people while providing cuts and incentives to small companies and businessfolk on the way up.

How rich is John Galt? Include citations.

Yoffwe wrote:

You're looking at the picture wrong. They havent produced any wealth. Theyve found a way to hoard a large amount of the societies resources for themselves.

How did they found a way to "hoard" all that wealth? They did it by benefiting their costumers. I.e. they create a product or service people want and people through voluntary exchanges get that product or service. Also, rich people don't just sit on their money. They invest it.

I dont think theres many amazon customers in Somalia or legal copies of MS windows.

Guess what an educated, protected and healthy (exclude US out of the last one) workforce in a country with roads, electricty and other vital infrastructure provides a great market for selling tat at a profit. Some of these millionaires you idolise are happy to make their millions off the back folks living in such a country but not happy to pay back into it.

You should have already read this.

Yoffwe wrote:

I dont think theres many amazon customers in Somalia or legal copies of MS windows.

Guess what an educated, protected and healthy (exclude US out of the last one) workforce in a country with roads, electricty and other vital infrastructure provides a great market for selling tat at a profit. Some of these millionaires you idolise are happy to make their millions off the back folks living in such a country but not happy to pay back into it.

First, I don't idolize rich people. I believe in the non-aggression principle and voluntaryism. And,just understand economics unlike you do. Second the reason for why the third world is underdeveloped is due to several factors. One of them being government regulations. Just listen to this interview of Jake Robertson. A foreigner has to pay the government 10 grand in order to work one year in Kenya. I wonder if that will retard economic growth in the third world. That is just one example of many government hurdles and road blocks that retard economic growth.Also, you don't make society rich by robbing Peter to pay Paul. As the saying goes the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. Also go look at the economic freedom index. Turns out those poor third world countries also have less economic freedom compared to richer countries. I wonder what would happen if government got out of the way? Hint, their economies and standard of living would improve dramatically.

Who mentioned socialism? Just paying an honest amount of tax would be a start.

You may 'understand' economics in a balance sheet sort of way, but you clearly cant see the big picture.

liberbrarian wrote:

PS There are lots of problems with the philosophy of the book. One is most rich people are not innovators and inventors. (In fact the converse is also true, most life-changing innovators and inventors don't get rich (relatively).) Most really rich people happen to hold a lot of capital which makes them a lot of passive income while they don't do diddly squat. Two is the idea that taxes discourage big-time innovation is mostly fiction. 50% off of 10 billion dollars is still 5 billion dollars, nobody's going to say "well it's not worth it for only 5 billion". Three is that the premise is propogandized by big companies and already-rich people to protect wealth they already have, when in fact we should be aggressively taxing those people while providing cuts and incentives to small companies and businessfolk on the way up.

Wow, you did not understand this book at all.

I've always found it humorous how threatened some people are by Ayn Rand. Nice troll thread, jamin. You'll always trigger ~50% of the population by saying you like Rand.

yoffwe wrote:

Just paying an honest amount of tax would be a start.

LOLOLOL

jamin wrote:

I haven't read "Atlas Shrugged," but I agree the premise.

It's such a time saver to have have firm opinions without having to do any work.

I’ve read it.

It gives silly and naive portrayals of laissez faire capitalism and socialism. True laissez faire capitalism suffers the same significant drawback as socialism — the corruptibility of human nature.

Little to no character development. Most of the heroes are born perfect and remain that way. The leeches are born that way and stay that way.

As a piece of fiction the novel is quite poor. Ayn Rand just doesn’t know how to write good fiction.

Trying to argue with the anti-Rand camp is exhausting and fruitless. People just see nothing wrong with biting the hand that feeds them, I guess.

RunningDerp wrote:

I’ve read it.

It gives silly and naive portrayals of laissez faire capitalism and socialism. True laissez faire capitalism suffers the same significant drawback as socialism — the corruptibility of human nature.

Little to no character development. Most of the heroes are born perfect and remain that way. The leeches are born that way and stay that way.

As a piece of fiction the novel is quite poor. Ayn Rand just doesn’t know how to write good fiction.

The quality of fiction is certainly debatable. What I find interesting is how the process of decay into a socialistic society is portrayed. Keep in mind that Rand lived through the Bolshevik revolution and watched this decay happen first hand. There are striking parallels to what the left is doing today, which is obviously the reason so many are triggered by her writing.

The unfortunate thing is that, rather than engage in debates over the core ideas, those who don't like Rand try to shut down debate with comments like "Rand can't write," or "It's a fantasy novel," or "Rand died a hypocrite." Ad hominem attacks are cheap and easy, after all.

yoffwe wrote:

Who mentioned socialism? Just paying an honest amount of tax would be a start.

You may 'understand' economics in a balance sheet sort of way, but you clearly cant see the big picture.

Define "an honest amount of tax".