Derek McGowan

I wonder if he could go Galt again. I would think that the construction costs would have completely drained his Federal Reserve notes (though the novel doesn't exactly say) and underwater he is indeed quite rich as he owns most of the structure and leases it out to everyone who lives there and all businesses that operate there but it is all done in the local currency-Ryan dollars. MSK definitely stopped the momentum of the question. It reminds me of chess analysis. After a game the two players, and sometimes and side line viewers, will sit and go over the moves to see if there were better moves to have been made. Sometimes you get caught up checking and rechecking all possible variations to one particular position in the game, usually the turning point or the position that won the game. The winner shows that they had rock solid play, that no matter what the opponent did, they were held steady in the web, and then someone on the outside widens the perspective by looking at the move that came before that position! Suddenly the game is completely even, or even winning for the opponent. Thats why I tried to introduce the second dilemma of the book, one that couldn't be jumped out of in the same manner If he owns the infrastructure, then my underlying idea is still valid, no? He could stop leasing to the people who are turning out to be not such a good fit for the community. It's an economic embargo of sorts. the problem is the people who are already in the city. He doesn't have to lease to them and they can indeed be homeless but they still can't leave the city so they can still propagate unwanted ideas. Now if you are asking whether or not he could leave the city, just saying "to hell with you guys" he could, because he has one of the few personal submarines but then he would be turning his back on a dream and I think a dream of that scale would be hard to walk away from

I personally don't like school (in fact when I see children walking to school, the first thing I think is not "awe they are so cute" but "man, I feel sorry for them, they have 10+ more years to go) BUT in college I was introduced to painting and fell in love. If I hadn't been forced to do it as an requirement, I never would have found it school- a love/ hate relationship

When he explicitly says that it is one race that lead all others to civilization (lies and twisting of facts), then it seems clear that he will then say that only one race is fit to rule (the superiority of one race=racism)... but he hasn't posted his explanation yet so I could be wrong...

I wonder if he could go Galt again. I would think that the construction costs would have completely drained his Federal Reserve notes (though the novel doesn't exactly say) and underwater he is indeed quite rich as he owns most of the structure and leases it out to everyone who lives there and all businesses that operate there but it is all done in the local currency-Ryan dollars. MSK definitely stopped the momentum of the question. It reminds me of chess analysis. After a game the two players, and sometimes and side line viewers, will sit and go over the moves to see if there were better moves to have been made. Sometimes you get caught up checking and rechecking all possible variations to one particular position in the game, usually the turning point or the position that won the game. The winner shows that they had rock solid play, that no matter what the opponent did, they were held steady in the web, and then someone on the outside widens the perspective by looking at the move that came before that position! Suddenly the game is completely even, or even winning for the opponent. Thats why I tried to introduce the second dilemma of the book, one that couldn't be jumped out of in the same manner

Being uninstructed, I looked up Efren That was amazing!

gold is labor backed. when you save gold, or want gold, its because when you trade it to someone else, they will do something for you. That is labor. Or they give you something that they or someone else made- labor. All currencies are symbols and transfers of labor. When the group is no longer willing to perform work in trade for a currency (which when gained is simply traded down the line for someone else's labor) it no longer is a currency, its a collectible. Gold does indeed have a separate life as a collectible but if and when it is ever traded, it is traded for the labor that comes with it. Currencies are like physics (energy) You can change energy from potential to kinetic but the form it currently takes is not what defines it. What defines it is what comes out in the end- work. Your statements about savings and profit margins and all that is really just another expression of labor. Labor stored, labor used. Labor multipliers (like pulleys) It is all about what someone else will physically or mentally do for you (or did do)

there is 10,000 acres of firewood outside your door? You been stacking up for the end times? Just kidding but seriously, your tag says you live in LA. I've never been but its deeply forested?

the Fed is a debt/credit system? That's it or is that just one part of economies in general therefore they have a hand in it as well? ps thats a real question

Dean, You used a comment of mine where I told Brant that he could start his own currency. You then said that if someone attempted to create their own currency that they would be prosecuted by the government. I then gave multiple local currencies that exist now. You quote above tries to downplay those local currencies by somehow tying currencies to banking. What definition of currency that you are using that says it is only a currency if a bank issues it? Or what definition says that it has to be gold backed? Actually even gold backed would essentially boil down to labor-backed so its strange that you would have a problem with the time dollars Appears you are trying to move the goal post which is kind of intellectually dishonest especially when the position of the goal line was first established by what I said.

I thought about this for a while. Is the person a prisoner if they agree to stay forever, even if it was a bad decision? If I sign a 99 year lease (essentially more than my life span) with some building, I'm I a prisoner in a business sense? I now have no rights, as a business person?

See B-notes, see Bitcoin, see Sand dollars, see time dollars, see disney dollars, see berkshares, see Bay Area Bucks, see....

I appreciate your comprehensive responses but this is where my question is really based. My question is really asking what do you really think will happen if the Fed were abolished. My elaborations after are my assumptions that nothing different would happen. You really believe that the banks of today (not of the past or a future ideal) are just itching to get back into backing their accounts with gold? These are the same banks who constantly push for further and further fractional systems. That doesn't mean that I don't think there would be some banks who did follow that gold path, after all my bank, BB&T, didn't follow everyone else into the sub prime mortgage debacle, BUT if the big banks decided they werent going with gold backed but they would collaborate to simply create their own greenback (just without the word federal on it) I'm going to have to assume that the vast majority of people would still remain with paper currency even if for sheer convenience.

jesus

a new thought Early in the book (Atlas Shrugged) Dagny, and thus the author, takes issue with the train conductor who will not cross an intersection where the crossing light was out of order, he feared what might happen if another train was coming. Dagny takes control of the situation and orders the train through. All is well Later in the book, the conductor goes against protocol by following the orders of a looter/parasite/politician and takes a train into a tunnel where the collapse occurs and hundreds die. All is not well What does this mean? You are damned if you do, damned if you don't? Actually I haven't re-read those passages so my recollection of them is possibly all wrong...... I know Selene will show up with the transcripts

A speech to say that we are all John Galts (okay, maybe not everyone )

I always loved this video. I come back to it every couple of months

absolutely

still you are thinking to much in terms of financial motivations, everyone's actions are not caused by that and that certainly wouldn't be true of the environmentally conscious. Dont forget that being environmentally conscious leads one to push back against development and profits

and yet there are qyuite a number of private companies that actually handle the waste and a number of companies that give the waste to those companies to recycle. Again I know that in cardboard recycling (which is done by private companies like Allied waste) the businesses that participate are paid by the pound of cardboard placed in the specially marked bins. What about second hand clothing stores, they are recycling and they aren't all (are any of them) taking government subsidies (maybe on tax write-offs) Pallets. A friend of mine work pretty high up in operations for Giant food stores. He said the entire trucking budget for the company wide fleet was paid for annually by recycling the pallets the food comes on. What financial negatives is Subaru getting out of their zero waste factories (must be killing them)

MSK, I appreciate your answer to the specific problem I presented even though, to answer it, you went a step back, unlike JTS's answer who decided to rely on general theory. But what to do about the problem once you are already in it? that's the real issue, which I suppose Mikee answered well with simply - kill the bitch! I suppose Ryans second dilemma would be more in-your-face, one that couldn't just be avoided by quoting theory. He, Ryan, brought in another guy named Fontaine. Fountaine employed some scientists to create something called plasmids (if you watch the trailer you will see an example of one where the bees come out of the guy's arm) These plasmids give people the power to shoot electricity, freeze things, run faster, stick to walls, teleport, hurl balls of fire, etc but it also makes them kinda nuts. They start fighting each other since they are drunk with power and on hair triggers. The issue is whether Ryan should regulate these genetic serums before everyone kills each other, or allow the situation to play itself out

ya know, I really like Penn and Teller (say them live years ago) and the few episodes of Bullshit that I have seen have been excellent and the interviews I've seen with Penn on various media has been informative, but this particular episode didn't prove anything and I'm upset because I thought they would bring some new insight. I would have to re watch it to really do myself justice in criticizing it but a few issues 1.people do make money off recycling more than just aluminum cans, there are private businesses that recycle computer parts for one. 2. there are private businesses that recycle, this is not just some government thing. 3. are there any places that have a mandate to recycle? not just providing you with a can but ones who will fine you if your regular trash stream has newspaper in it? 4. businesses ARE paid by the recycling companies to recycle cardboard, I know that as a fact. 5. that exercise of having those folks pick through bags of trash dropped at their feet blew up in the show's face. Not only were the folks okay with the multiple cans, but why would they have to dig through a bag of trash to sort it anyway? If they are using that system they would be sorting as they went along! 6. The continuous mentions of how the recycling programs run by government costs 8 billion in involuntary tax money has NO argumentative effect on the environmentally conscious who dont care how much it costs. That is just bad technique. 7. Penn mentions that there are 3 times as much forest as in the 1920s-- thats because of environmental movements!! Again, bad technique. 8. to talk about the cost of having the trucks pick up and process your recycling and saying that that means it actually costs more than making something new has two issues but the bigger issue it that saving money is not the goal of those who have a recycling mentality! I dont recycle myself but they really could have done a better job. Sounded more like preaching to a choir than trying to see the other sides viewpoint and convince them of their possible error.

Costs of running what recycling trucks? You must live somewhere where recycling is mandated and handled by the city?town? I don't so I guess I can't relate. As far as your last statement, I too have wondered about landscapes being future mining sites. Sounds real sci-fi--aliens come to earth and discover we have troves of resources, in the landfills : ) Especially if we could figure out a way to use old plastic as fuel, that would be awesome.

Currently I'm reading a novel based on the BioShock game series, which itself has a backdrop of objectivism. If you don't know about BioShock from the media or from the several threads that have been in the entertainment threads here on OL, here is the trailer Okay so why aren't I posting this in the entertainment section or in the literature section or someplace else where people care? Because there is a interesting dilemma that occurs in the book and I wanted to know what your response would be, forget the fact that it is a video game. In fact this story takes place before the game anyway. So Andrew Ryan goes Galt, creates an underwater city in which there would be no regulations and no rules regarding capitalism and freedoms. Well there is one rule-- you can't leave. Once you arrive you must forever say goodbye to the surface world because the underwater city is secret (same as the gulch) and is government or socialists, or anyone else found out about it, other than the vetted individuals that Ryan brings in, than they probably would be invaded. The city is so free from regulations that one of my favorite lines from the trailer is Ryan saying that scientists there would be free of "petty morality" The dilemma comes when one of the people he brought in, a psychiatrist named Dr. Lamb, notices a opening and begins to convince those who haven't been as successful in this lassiez-faire paradise that the true path to happiness is through collectivism. Of course, this is the polar opposite of what Ryan is trying to create so he tries to hold public debates with her to keep the city residents on his side. He is unable to keep 100% of the population so now he starts to see unions and the like begin, orphanages, etc. He feels that he has no choice but to hold Dr. Lamb as a political prisoner! What would you do? You don't want to be a dictator, you want things to stay free but in order to maintain your vision of freedom do you begin taking away freedoms? If its as simple as, don't take away freedoms, what happens to your city which begins to collapse under the weight of the needy? Do you simple allow it? Remember you built this city with your own hard earned dollars, an underwater marvel, and now you can see it going to hell in a handbasket. ps. moralist will say that he should have never built the city and that building the city itself was a collectivist action. Ok, I agree, now that we have that out of the way, what do you do now that you have built the place?

whats wrong with recycling? as long as it isn't mandated it does prevent waste and metal scrapers not only make a living from it but hey also carry away stuff you may want to get rid of for free, such as the old stove I replaced at one of my rentals a week ago--just put the old one on the porch with a sign on it and away it goes! And whats wrong with renewable energy if it isnt mandated-- i mean we will need it at some point and its best to get some advancement on the technology before its crunch time (though crunch time may not be in my life)

Then legislation should be enacted to eliminate it. A... What was the significance of your quote? It seems to be in support of NASA as it only has positive things to say about the agency (which I would be in the same boat- except for the fact that we are still stuck on the Saturn V)But if you want it eliminated well that's your opinion, maybe it shouldn't be funded with involuntary taxes but if we had no involuntary taxes, I would certainly volunteer money toward such a program government run or not. They have a great track record, brought many things to use in the market and their budget is only 1/2 of one cent of every tax dollar. Also as far as I know they don't run up deficits... Derek: My fault on the quote. It was for folks who did not know how NASA came into being. I was pretty sure that it was a legislatively established agency. Therefore, the way to eliminate the agency was to defund it first and then enact legislation to eliminate it. One of the reasons that I would insist on sunset clauses on every piece of legislation. Five (5) years seems a good place to rest on a time frame. If, necessary, ten (10) would work. As to your points about NASA and "voluntary taxation," NASA has come up with tremendous technological advances, one being the interior architectural mechanisms that have helped paraplegics move with relative ease in their homes. War has also come up with tremendous technological advances. I will do some probing to find out about how their funding functions. Voluntary taxation, almost seems to be an oxymoron. I have no problem with you voluntarily contributing to an Agency. Seems like you could invest in a private company that would accomplish more than NASA, more efficiently and more market oriented. A... I don't know if a private company could do the job more efficiently (please don't put NASA in the same boat as the Post Office) Also, hmmm it appears to be a Dr. Stadler sort of situation, I'm actually for theoretical and pure science, the applied side is fantastic as well but I'm not certain how much a market based NASA would add to the pure science category. But of course Tyson (in the video) doesn't think that pure science is the reason we should fund NASA, he says that pure science should tag along and the real reason is for the inspiration that space travel gives the general population which in turn leads many to dream and join the STEM fields which leads to advances in market products, etc Which is the same reasoning behind this effort http://www.buildtheenterprise.org/ ps. yes, voluntary contributions, not taxes : )