rusure:

I read Rand, and pay attention to what she says, not because it's a religion. Or because it's an idealistic society, or because I think the strong are destined to rule the weak. I read her because she does seem have a grasp on the human condition. I read her in the same way I read The Prince by Machavelli...with one thought going through my head: "that sucks, but I think it's the truth." Today on the wsj.com opinion page, in the article "We're Governed By Callous Children," by Peggy Noonan: ""I talked with an executive this week with what we still call "the insurance companies" and will no doubt soon be calling Big Insura. (Take it away, Democratic National Committee.) He was thoughtful, reflective about the big picture. He talked about all the new proposed regulations on the industry. Rep. Barney Frank had just said on some cable show that the Democrats of the White House and Congress "are trying on every front to increase the role of government in the regulatory area." The executive said of Washington: "They don't understand that people can just stop, get out. I have friends and colleagues who've said to me 'I'm done.'" He spoke of his own increasing tax burden and said, "They don't understand that if they start to tax me so that I'm paying 60%, 55%, I'll stop." He felt government doesn't understand that business in America is run by people, by human beings. Mr. Frank must believe America is populated by high-achieving robots who will obey whatever command he and his friends issue. But of course they're human, and they can become disheartened. They can pack it in, go elsewhere, quit what used to be called the rat race and might as well be called that again since the government seems to think they're all rats. (That would be you, Chamber of Commerce.)"" If that isn't the first rumblings that Atlas may yet Shrug, I don't know what is. You may feel the man may be a coward. You may think he may be driven only by greed. And maybe he is a selfish, greedy man, who only thinks of himself. But again, that's why I read Rand. Because you find that man in her books.

Yeah, Peggy Noonan. A real woman of the people. Here she is getting the straight poop directly from an insurance asshole.

Get a clue. During most of the second half of the 20th Century, when the US catipulted to superpower status, producing 25% or more of the world's wealth, marginal tax rates ranged from the low 70% to as high as 98%. Fucking duh. And look how the rich fled the nation. In droves.

What utter bullshit. What really happens, especially when the rich (i.e. the top 1-2%) capture the political process and thereby change all the rules so that they begin to accumulate most of the national wealth, is that they end up getting involved in absured ponzi schemes like the recent one involving mortgages. They will not use the money to generate jobs, because that kind of activity doesn't garner them the temporary but mind blowing profit returns they get from investing in complex securities and derivatives of the same. Those assholes blew 14 trillion fucking dollars of their money and the money of poor saps who thought the market was actually free and intelligent rather than just a scam set up by the wealthy to transfer even more wealth from working people to their own pockets. So if that's the type of person that's going to leave if they have to start paying taxes commensurate with their incomes (and thus the benefits they extract from our state, which, incidentally, is very expensive to run), let them go. We'll manage to get by just fine. Even if Noonan herself were to take off.

Trust me.