Is State violence and/or coercion acceptable?

 H/T Samizdata

Why has my daily bread risen by 25%

As is to be expected when living in France, I have a wide choice of both artisanal bakers and various supermarkets all roughly equidistant when choosing from where to buy my local loaf.

My favourite baker lies in the outskirts of one of the two largest towns in our area, but to get there requires a drive through the main street of the highest village in our department, which has a church and café/bar but no baker. Some time ago this much repaired main street became subject to the digging of new drains, installation of modernistic street lights and as it has now turned out a somewhat bizarre traffic calming restriction.

Over many moons the village became practically unpassable as a result, and my bread was bought elsewhere, where with varying types and sizes of loaves and their suppliers I became somewhat oblivious to the surging prices.

Yesterday, the road works were finally accomplished and I returned to my baker of choice. The exact increase in price for my preferred loaf, was from 90 euro centimes to €1.15 for the self-same loaf. Economists will find this information worthless as I have no firm timescale that I can affirm, during which this increase of 27.78 % occurred. In the third world, however,  the effects are already obvious.

I can, however, with absolute certainty ascribe the blame, as it has been repeatedly pointed out over many years on this blog. The fault lies with our political classes, who governing on a planet with finite resources delusionally pretend that they can create infinite amounts of money that may then provide for all. As S & P warned the USA yesterday, that is an impossibility. Quantatitive Easing, the so-called market activities of the ECB, etc., are ruining the western world with the sole intent, it seems, of keeping those who have brought us to this point of bankruptcy in power.

Read Atlas Shrugged to get one view of where that will take us.

The Firm giving private viewings of Atlas Shrugged.

One firm in the USA is offering private showings of Atlas Shrugged (the film Hollywood did not want you to see) in three large cities in the USA this weekend, namely Richmond, Atlanta and Pittsburgh at the firms own expense.

Read a full report from this link. Thanks to Johnathan Pearce of samizdata for alerting me to this fact!

Atlas Shrugged WOWS Moviegoers!

Critics predictably slammed the film but 85% of those who saw it approved, read this report, from here.

Atlas Shrugged (MOVIE) despite very limited distribution, 3rd highest ticket sales

---

Movie ticket sales company FANDANGO is reporting that the movie ATLAS SHRUGGED has the 3rd highest number of tickets pre-sold of any movie in history. This is pretty amazing given several factors.

• ATLAS SHRUGGED is only showing in about 10% of the major movie theaters nationwide.
• A small independent producer made the movie.
• ATLAS SHRUGGED has no big name stars, in fact it has no stars but rather used TV actors and actresses.
• The movie was made on a tiny (by Hollywood standards) budget of only $20 Million.
• Professional movie critics hate the movie, but individuals who have seen it overwhelmingly like the movie.

WALL STREET JOURNAL article => http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/...hrugged-a-hit/

Quote:

Rotten Tomatoes lists more than 5,000 user ratings with a total of 86% saying they “like it,” while the critics’ average is a disastrous 7%. . . . According to Kaslow, the second and third parts of the film are in the active planning stages, with the second part scheduled to go into production this June for release on April 15, 2012, and the third to follow the same timeline the following year. “The green light decision is ultimately John’s,” says Kaslow. “If we learn there is no commercial interest in the film, I doubt there will be a second or third one. But at this point, we’re the third most ticketed film on Fandango, so I don’t have any reason to believe that we won’t be successful.”

__________________

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion:
the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases,
while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage
of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."
- Ayn Rand

The Wall Street Journal  media section called Speakeasy, carries a report, linked here, declaring the movie a hit which has so far attracted 426 comments. The authorities attempt to bury the film and its message might yet fail, now we must hope it can be seen across the non-democratic EU!

WSJ on Atlas Shrugged Premier - Threads treasures N° 62!

An article in the Wall Street Journal, by Donald L. Luskin, linked here, on yesterday's premier of part one of the movie 'Atlas Shrugged' up to this point has gathered 420 comments, many of which are well informed and worthy of further consideration, unlike the entirely predictable chastisement the film has received across most of the liberal media.

I have selected this, from James Kelly, to become this blog's Treasure from the Threads - number sixty-two:

• James Kelly wrote:

• Journal Community

  • close window

  Send a Message

  Type your personal message.

  Journal Community

  • close window

  Your message has been sent.

  • Close window
  Message

• Journal Community

  • close window

  Make a Connection

  Type your personal message.

  Journal Community

  • close window

  Your message has been sent.

  • Close window
  Connect

As one who owes Ayn Rand a dept of gratitude for challenging his mind in his early twenties with her thought-provoking books, I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Luskin's assessment that Ms. Rand was neither left nor right in the traditional sense. Thirty-five years have transpired since I read her works--years that included a twenty-year career in railroad problem-solving/management, direct involvement in Neuroscience, twice serving as a surrogate 'stem cells' spokesperson for the GW Bush White House, and (currently) writing a novel. More sharply than the passions of youth, life has taught me to appreciate Ms. Rands superlative skills in crafting characters and plots that plumb the depths of human nature. However, regarding her endorsement of unbridled capitalism and high-minded captains of industry, I suggest a caveat that scientists have confirmed with functional MRIs: Human have an amazing and disturbing ability to interpret reality to match what they want to believe regardless of facts, reason, or consequences. Sadly, this truth applies as much to our political and social leaders irrespective of worldview persuasion as to the man on the street or executives in corporate board rooms, even John Galt. Can't wait to see the movie!
10 Recommendations

Good Luck to the film Atlas Shrugged Part 1!

I have selected this quote from Ayn Rand's book to mark the launch date of the movie in the USA:

The controlling stock of Taggert Transcontinental was left to James Taggert. He was thirty-four when he became President of the railroad. Dagny had expected the Board of Directors to elect him, but she had never been able to understand why they did it so eagerly. They talked about tradition, the president had always been the eldest son of the Taggert family; they elected James Taggert in the same manner as they refused to walk under a ladder, to propitiate the same kind of fear. They talked about his gift of "making railroads popular," his "good press," his "Washington ability." He seemed unusually skillful at obtaining favours from the Legislature.

Dagny knew nothing about the field of "Washington ability" or what such an ability implied. But it seemed to be necessary, so she dismissed it with thought that there were many kinds of work which were offensive, yet necessary, such as cleaning sewers;somebody had to do it,and Jim seemed to like it.

May the film get green lights all along the way and the book reach ever more readers!

Atlas Shrugged - Another excerpt!

Part 1 of the movie opens in the USA tomorrow, but all can read the book any time in English. My pick for the eve of the film's long awaited premier is below:

   "Did you wonder what is wrong with the world?  You are now seeing the climax of the creed of the uncaused and unearned.  All your gangs of mystics, of spirit or muscle, are fighting one another for power to rule you, snarling that love is the solution for all the problems of your spirit and that a whip is all the solution for all the problems of your body -  you who have agreed to have no mind.  Granting man less dignity than they grant to cattle, ignoring what an animal trainer could tell them - that no animal can be trained by fear, that a tortured elephant will trample its torturer, but will not work for him or carry his burdens - they expect man to continue to produce electronic tubes, supersonic aeroplanes, atom smashing engines and interstellar telescopes, with his ration of meat for reward and a lash on his back for incentive.

"Make no mistake about the character of mystics. To undercut your consciousness, has always been their only purpose throughout the ages, - and power , the power to rule you by force, has always been their only lust.

"From the rites of the jungle witch-doctors, which distorted reality into grotesque absurdities, stunted the minds of their victims and kept them in terror of the supernatural for stagnant stretches of centuries - to the supernatural doctrines of the Middle Ages, which kept men huddled on on the mud floors of their hovels, in fear that the devil might steal the soup they had worked eighteen hours to earn - to the seedy little smiling professor who assures yoy that your brain has no capacity to think, that you have no means of perception and must blindly obey the omnipotent will of that supernatural force: Society all of it is the same performance for the same and only purpose: to reduce you to the kind of pulp that has surrendered the validity of its consciouness.

"But it cannot be done to you without your consent; If you permit it to be done you deserve it."

Who is John Galt? Buy the book of Atlas Shrugged, see the film! Go Galt, like I did in 1989! Don't give THEM the use of your mind!

The EU is heading towards the nightmare society envisioned by Ayn Rand in 'Atlas Shrugged'

Many thanks to Muffled Vociferations Blog for alerting me to Vaclav Klaus's recent speech in South America, linked here, from which comes this quote:

The second reason for the European economic problem is the quality, productiveness and efficiency of its economic and social system. A seemingly friendly and non-demanding, excessively paternalistic and, as a consequence, not sufficiently productive economic and social system, called “die soziale Markwirtschaft” (or social-democratism), dominates in Europe. This system with its generous social benefits weakened motivation, shortened working hours and life employment, prolonged years of studying, diminished the supply of labour (both at macrolevel and structurally), created bottlenecks and shortages.

Europeans prefer leisure to performance, security to risk-taking, paternalism to free markets, collectivism (group entitlements) to individualism. They have always been more risk-averse than Americans but the difference continues to grow. Also freedom seems to have a very low priority there. It seems that Europeans are not interested in capitalism and free markets and that they do not understand that their today’s behavior undermines the very institutions that made their past success possible. They are eager to very intensively defend their non-economic freedoms, or better to say the easiness, looseness, laxity and permissiveness of modern, or perhaps post-modern European society, but when it comes to their economic freedoms, they are quite indifferent.

The inefficiency and unsustainability of this system was later “reinforced” by the gradual acceptance of green ideology, of environmentalism. This process started in the 1970s, but reached its peak, and its economic devastating effects now, in the era of global warming (or climate change) alarmism.

Another good discussion of the problems in Portugal and Spain comes from Michael Jennings on Samizdata, linked here, with a very pertinent closing sentence. Or as Ayn Rand said in her book:

The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.

More on money from Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged.

"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion, when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot."

 Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged.

The movie of the book, voted second most important after The Bible by Americans, first published in 1957, finally opens with Part I in US movie theatres this Friday! See it!

Wesley Mouch urges boycott of Atlas Shrugged Movie Part One

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other.
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

New Atlas Shrugged Movie Clip Released!

Did Ayn Rand foresee our future in Atlas Shrugged?

Any casual read of Ayn Rand's masterpiece "Atlas Shrugged" must leave the reader with an uncanny sense that she had foressen our present age back in the nineteen-fifties when the almost 1200 paged novel was first written.

A closer study of all the striking similarities between the book and the world created by our present crooked political leaders and their armies of moochers and looters, who depend on the maintenance of this corrupt rule, might turn such suspicions into racing certainties.

I spent my own working life in the international oil industry and therefore have an absolutely clear idea on what petroleum geologists thought of the prospects for shale oil as a future energy source, back in those days. I therefore consider this passage from the book as clear enough evidence for me of Ayn Rand's ability to discern the likely course of events. This passage appears on page 720 of the Penguin Modern Classics edition of Atlas Shrugged,  ISBN 978-0-141-18893-5, and was as follows:

"It was oil that ran in a glittering curve from the mouth of a pipe into a tank at the foot of the wall, as the only confession of the secret struggle inside the stone, as the unobtrusive purpose of all the intricate machinery - but the machinery did not resemble the installations of an oil derrick, and she knew that she was looking at the secret of the Buena Esperanza Pass, she knew that this was oil drawn out of shale by some method men had considered impossible."

A modern description of oil shale is here.

The movie of the beginning of the novel is released in two weeks time. It clearly must not be missed, especially given the attempts to block its distribution and its limited production budget, both no doubt caused by the fears of the fabulously wealthy, in terms of digital money, who have created our present nightmarish world.

Atlas Shrugged - The Movie

There is an interesting plug for both Mark Steyn and Atlas Shrugged in one posting on Samizdata today, linked here. Two of my favourites in one post, good show Johnathan Pearce!

To plug the new film due out in mid-April in the USA, you can respond to the video on this link:

http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/IAmJohnGalt

Portugal and Belgium - two ex-nations boasting EU Presidents, both with democracy destroyed! Co-incidence?

Hardly can there have been a greater crisis than that being faced by the EU this evening.

Can two individuals, the Portuguese, EU Commission President and the Belgian, EU Council President, not more perfectly epitomise the institution that is effectively destroying the countries of their birth?

Can any doubt the personal motivations of these two men? Surely there can be little question but that it is money and power! Is it co-incidence that their appearance itself forces major doubts of their sincerity?

Why do other nations, with longer democratic histories and greater reasons for national pride, wish to follow in the footsteps of where these so-called "presidents" lead? Are Ireland and Greece the new role models?

Who is really pulling our strings and so determinedly destroying our individual choices and family well-being?

Who is John Galt?

A review of the Atlas Shrugged movie.

Read it here. Generally favourable.

Atlas Shrugged movie hitting distribution problems!

Part 1 is due for release 15th April but is experiencing distribution snags, read here.

A sanity sucking parasite has invaded the brains of MPs!

Read the RAF and Army redundancies issued by the MOD yesterday afternoon, one example here.

Recollect that this came a mere twenty-four hours since the Prime Minister stood in Parliament and promised horrible retribution on Libya's Colonel Gadaffi, complete with a no fly zone, to be enforced by model aircraft, one presumes!

Worse yet, read this collective madness, being discussed by MPs as these cuts were being announced. From Hansard, linked here:

The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell): With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the Government's bilateral and multilateral aid reviews, which are published today. The coalition Government's decision to increase the UK's aid budget to 0.7% of national income from 2013 reflects the values we hold as a nation.....

....to focus our bilateral resources in the following 27 countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, the occupied Palestinian territories, Pakistan, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.....

...The multilateral aid review took a hard look at the value for money offered by 43 international funds and organisations through which the UK spends aid......the review found that four agencies performed poorly or failed to demonstrate relevance to Britain's development objectives....

As a result of the reviews, over the next four years British aid will secure schooling for 11 million children, which is more than we educate throughout the UK, but at 2.5% of the cost; vaccinate more children against preventable diseases than there are people in England; provide access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation to more people than there are in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined; save the lives of 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth; stop 250,000 newborn babies dying needlessly; support 13 countries to hold freer and fairer elections; and help 10 million women to access modern family planning. I believe that those results, which will transform the lives of millions of people across the world, will make everyone in the House and this country proud.


As an Englishman, born and bred, seeing the desperate state of my country, and discerning the deeper misery that almost certainly lies ahead, the nation having been sold into the hands of foreigners and now effectively defenceless, none of this makes me proud, in fact it makes me sick to my stomach. Charity begins at home, with our daily bread stolen or sabotaged (see post below), real hunger for many of our citizens almost certainly now lies ahead, and yet the Coalition Government Ministers present us with this "looters and moochers charter" in  "our" Parliament.

The emptiness in my stomach and at the root of my being is certainly not pride Mr Mitchell, no wonder your boss sat dumb by your side as you delivered this poison.

Read how some of this aid is typically dispensed, by fat cat charity bosses, in Robert Fisk's article in The Independent, this morning, linked here. It contains as follows:

Officials turned up with anodyne words of fearful irrelevance. Josette Sheeran, who rejoices in the title of executive director of the World Food Programme, stared at this ocean of humanity and announced: "We are doing all we can – we are working through this situation. And it's never too late." But it was. Ms Sheeran arrived with 80 tonnes of food, most of it high-energy biscuits, which were thrown over the wall at the crowds once she had left.

Atlas Shrugged - The Movie

Visit this link to view the scene of Henry Rearden returning home for dinner.

8 minutes video to think upon this Sunday!

Who is John Galt?

H/T Muffled Vociferations.