47 replies to this topic

[diogenes227]

ATLAS DVD RECALLED

Remember Atlas Shrugged, the blink-and-you-miss-it adaptation of Ayn Rand’s unwieldy novel of ultimate evil? The film has hit DVD (which means you can attempt to watch it in your own home, where you have easy access to booze and razors), but the producers are recalling the remaining copies on store shelves (probably all of them) because of an error on the packaging.

The error is in this sentence. See if you can figure out what it is:

“AYN RAND’s timeless novel of courage and self-sacrifice comes to life…”

Yes, the word ‘self-sacrifice.’ Seriously. Here’s the explanation from the official site:

“It’s embarrassing for sure and of course, regardless of how or why it happened, we’re all feeling responsible right now.” says Scott DeSapio, Atlas Productions’ COO and Communications Director “You can imagine how mortified we all were when we saw the DVD but, it was simply too late – the product was already on shelves all over the Country. It was certainly no surprise when the incredulous emails ensued. The irony is inescapable.”

DeSapio continued “Ultimately, the responsibility falls on us, Atlas Productions. We are putting policies in place now to ensure we avoid these types of unforced errors in the future.”

Harmon Kaslow, CEO of Atlas Productions and Producer of the film stated “As we all well know, the ideas brought to life in Atlas Shrugged are entirely antithetical to the idea of ‘self-sacrifice’ as a virtue. Atlas is quite literally a story about the dangers of self-sacrifice. The error was an unfortunate one and fans of Ayn Rand and Atlas have every right to be upset… and we have every intention of making it right.”

The new covers will read:

“AYN RAND’s timeless novel of rational self-interest comes to life…”

The company has a web page where you can register to get a new version of the cover. Oy.

Great gams on the current cover however.

[Rogerdodger]

Rational self-interest benefits the world. (Thank you Steve Jobs and Bill Gates)
Whereas so called self-sacrifice is often performed as a selfish act of self glorification and is often detremental.
That understanding makes the co-dependents of the world very uncomfortable, as does Atlas Shrugged.

"Codependency is unhealthy love and a tendency to behave in overly passive or excessively caretaking ways that negatively impact one's relationships and quality of life. It also often involves placing a lower priority on one's own needs, while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of others. Codependency can occur in any type of relationship, including in families, at work, in friendships, and also in romantic, peer or community relationships. Codependency may also be characterized by denial, low self-esteem, excessive compliance, or control patterns. Narcissists are considered to be natural magnets for the codependent."

Edited by Rogerdodger, 12 November 2011 - 04:12 PM.

[salsabob]

Rand, and her husband, did not make enough money in their careers to support themselves in their elder years; they had to turn to both Social Security and Medicare. She provided the excuse that she had been forced by the government to pay into these programs and therefore it was not hypocritical to lap at the government trough. However, if one looks at it 'objectively,' it is clear that she did not pay into the programs as much as she got out of them. And what little she did pay in would have more than likely been squandered away with the rest of her wealth by a lifestyle aimed at giving the appearance of success that, in fact, she could not afford. She represents perhaps the epitome of what the programs were set up to achieve - providing for those in their elder years that perhaps did not make the best decisions or were unlucky or were self-deluded about how the real world actually works. The programs provide for such people in a way that is least burdensome and intrusive to the rest of us. You can point these realities out to folks, but I have found it makes little difference in their thinking - they still ill believe in magic ponies --- whether "objectively" or not.

[Rogerdodger]

I don't know about Rand, but after being raped for years by the Ponzi Scheme of Social Security, many folks find it's all they have left.

If you consider it just or moral to take from one person under the threat, and give that money to another, so be it.
And maybe you can take a little yourself as a "finder's fee."
Today it seems that a majority demand such an involuntary "re-distribution" without regard for the morality of it.
In doing so they turn a self-sufficient nation into a nation of dependents.
Actions have moral consequences.
Bankers can take risk without worry.
Nations and individuals can live beyond their means, knowing there will be a "safety net" to catch them...until there isn't.

Too bad we Serfs can't legally enroll in the Galveston, Texas retirement plan.
It was so successful the U.S. Congress passed a reform bill in 1983 that closed the door for local governments to opt out of Social Security.
The politicians hated seeing all that money they they couldn't get at to "re-distribute" for votes.


http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba514

• Workers making $17,000 a year are expected to receive about 50 percent more per month on our alternative plan than on Social Security - $1,036 instead of $683. [See the Figure.]
• Workers making $26,000 a year will make almost double Social Security's return - $1,500 instead of $853.
• Workers making $51,000 a year will get $3,103 instead of $1,368.
• Workers making $75,000 or more will nearly triple Social Security - $4,540 instead of $1,645.
• Galveston County's survivorship benefits pay four times a worker's annual salary - a minimum of $75,000 to a maximum $215,000 - versus Social Security, which forces widows to wait until age 60 to qualify for benefits, or provides 75 percent of a worker's salary for school-age children.

In Galveston, if the worker dies before retirement, the survivors receive not only the full survivorship but get generous accidental death benefits, too. Galveston County's disability benefit also pays more: 60 percent of an individual's salary, better than Social Security's.

Two government studies of the Galveston Plan - by the Government Accountability Office and the Social Security Administration - claim that low-wage workers do better under Social Security. However, these studies assumed a low 4 percent return, which is the minimum rate of return on annuities guaranteed by the insurance companies. The actual returns have been substantially higher.

[Rogerdodger]

Rand, and her husband, did not make enough money in their careers to support themselves in their elder years; they had to turn to both Social Security and Medicare. She provided the excuse that she had been forced by the government to pay into these programs and therefore it was not hypocritical to lap at the government trough.

AMEN! I'm going to get on every government program that I can, along with everyone else.
It used to be that parents cared for their children then children cared for their aged parents.
Now the government cares for everybody, cradle to grave.

My question is:
"Does it create a "moral hazard" to imply to individuals (or banks, or Solyndra, or GM) that they don't have to worry about the future because someone else will carry THEIR BURDEN?

Edited by Rogerdodger, 13 November 2011 - 02:13 PM.

[Dex]

AMEN! I'm going to get on every government program that I can, along with everyone else.
It used to be that parents cared for their children then children cared for their aged parents.
Now the government cares for everybody, cradle to grave.

My question is:
"Does it create a "moral hazard" to imply to individuals (or banks, or Solyndra, or GM) that they don't have to worry about the future because someone else will carry THEIR BURDEN?

Amen!+1 I'm going to get when I can.

I feel like a fool when I have to pay for things that are now free for some people these days - cell phones, DSL, full price for food. I've never collected one day of unemployment insurance. I've always paid my bills, taxes and SS.

There is nothing to be gained by not taking SS. Give it away if you want but don't leave it on the table.

[Rogerdodger]

Pay full price for food...

There is a grocery store here in Tulsa in an area devastated by government projects and policy.
(It was the setting for "Spatula City" at 6207 S. Peoria in Weird Al's movie UHF.)

I went in there recently and was shocked by the high price of their groceries.
Personally I look for bargains and often shop at ALDI.
I was also shocked to see that the shoppers there had little concern for the price, since in reality I was paying for their food via government programs.

My EBT: I just swipe my EBT.

Edited by Rogerdodger, 13 November 2011 - 11:14 PM.

[Dex]

Pay full price for food...

There is a grocery store here in Tulsa in an area devastated by government projects and policy.
(It was the setting for "Spatula City" at 6207 S. Peoria in Weird Al's movie UHF.)

I went in there recently and was shocked by the high price of their groceries.
Personally I look for bargains and often shop at ALDI.
I was also shocked to see that the shoppers there had little concern for the price, since in reality I was paying for their food via government programs.

My EBT: I just swipe my EBT.

Good links. I shop at Walmart - maybe that is why I was able to retire early.

I was working in a supermarket in the 70s when food inflation was happening. One of my jobs was to change the prices of the products - spray with hair spray to remove the old price and stamp a new one on. Now they just change it in the computer and put a new shelf label on.

Johnny Carson made a joke that there was going to be a toilet paper shortage one night - the next day there was a run on toilet paper that cleared out all the stock.

[OEXCHAOS]

Rand, and her husband, did not make enough money in their careers to support themselves in their elder years; they had to turn to both Social Security and Medicare. She provided the excuse that she had been forced by the government to pay into these programs and therefore it was not hypocritical to lap at the government trough.

However, if one looks at it 'objectively,' it is clear that she did not pay into the programs as much as she got out of them. And what little she did pay in would have more than likely been squandered away with the rest of her wealth by a lifestyle aimed at giving the appearance of success that, in fact, she could not afford.

She represents perhaps the epitome of what the programs were set up to achieve - providing for those in their elder years that perhaps did not make the best decisions or were unlucky or were self-deluded about how the real world actually works. The programs provide for such people in a way that is least burdensome and intrusive to the rest of us.

You can point these realities out to folks, but I have found it makes little difference in their thinking - they still ill believe in magic ponies --- whether "objectively" or not.

Take as much as they offer you and thus hasten the inevitable failure. That is moral, good, and proper.

M

[salsabob]

I don't know about Rand, but after being raped for years by the Ponzi Scheme of Social Security, many folks find it's all they have left.

If you consider it just or moral to take from one person under the threat, and give that money to another, so be it.
And maybe you can take a little yourself as a "finder's fee."
Today it seems that a majority demand such an involuntary "re-distribution" without regard for the morality of it.
In doing so they turn a self-sufficient nation into a nation of dependents.
Actions have moral consequences.
Bankers can take risk without worry.
Nations and individuals can live beyond their means, knowing there will be a "safety net" to catch them...until there isn't.

Too bad we Serfs can't legally enroll in the Galveston, Texas retirement plan.
It was so successful the U.S. Congress passed a reform bill in 1983 that closed the door for local governments to opt out of Social Security.
The politicians hated seeing all that money they they couldn't get at to "re-distribute" for votes.


http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba514

• Workers making $17,000 a year are expected to receive about 50 percent more per month on our alternative plan than on Social Security - $1,036 instead of $683. [See the Figure.]
• Workers making $26,000 a year will make almost double Social Security's return - $1,500 instead of $853.
• Workers making $51,000 a year will get $3,103 instead of $1,368.
• Workers making $75,000 or more will nearly triple Social Security - $4,540 instead of $1,645.
• Galveston County's survivorship benefits pay four times a worker's annual salary - a minimum of $75,000 to a maximum $215,000 - versus Social Security, which forces widows to wait until age 60 to qualify for benefits, or provides 75 percent of a worker's salary for school-age children.

In Galveston, if the worker dies before retirement, the survivors receive not only the full survivorship but get generous accidental death benefits, too. Galveston County's disability benefit also pays more: 60 percent of an individual's salary, better than Social Security's.

Two government studies of the Galveston Plan - by the Government Accountability Office and the Social Security Administration - claim that low-wage workers do better under Social Security. However, these studies assumed a low 4 percent return, which is the minimum rate of return on annuities guaranteed by the insurance companies. The actual returns have been substantially higher.

This is something H. Cain has been trying to get away with for awhile now. Here is a pretty good analysis of all the BS -

http://www.politifac...on-retirement-/

Essentially, the initial study comparing the programs was done in 1999 and showed that about 1/2 would do better under one plan and 1/2 would do better under the other. An update to the study was done in 2005 and showed, with the markets (on which the pension relies) doing less well from 1999 to 2005 than they did in the 90s when the first study was undertaken, that more than 1/2 of the people would have done better under SS. The comparison has not since been done since the markets melted down in 2008/09 and have yet to fully recover - one might suspect little interest in conducting such a comparison due to the likely results.

Putting aside the actual comparison of endpoints, a clear sign of financial ignorance is someone attempting to make a point by comparing essentially a pension program run by a non-federal entity to a federal govt social safety net program like Social Security (SS).

Casting aside all the baloney of Trust Funds, FICA taxes, Ponzi schemes, yadda, yadda, yadda, SS is a federal program run by a monetarily sovereign nation that alone has a monopoly on issuing dollars - that entity and any of its programs can never go insolvent and can never run out the money that they alone can issue. That certainty is why financial planners put SS at the foundation level in diagramming one's retirement plans - it is the most certain element.

Now this is where people's heads explode and they start stammering about projections of Trust Fund depletion and only enough workers' for enough FICA taxes to provide only 78% of projected benefits in the 2030s (which, by the way, is
125% of what today's retirees get in constant dollars, but that is another story). It simply is all BS.

FICA taxes can (and should) be completely eliminated and it would have no impact on the ability of the money issuer to pay all SS benefits as far into the future as you want to go. The federal govt doesn't save dollars - you give the feds cash when you pay your taxes, it goes into the shredder. Same thing happens at the electron level where most dollars are: when you pay your taxes, your bank sends electrons to the Fed where they go back into the ether from which they came when the govt spent them into the economy.

And the feds borrowing? For every dollar they borrow, they first injected that dollar into the economy. It runs around the economy several times (8-10x) making businesses and people wealthier, but ALWAYS winds up being lent back to the govt. The federal govt can NEVER not be able to borrow back the money it issues. That is not an opinion that is an accounting identity.

Comparing the federal govt financing to a county or state government, an individual, a household, a business, or to non-monetarily sovereign nations like Greece, Italy or even Germany (but not the ECB) is like comparing a campfire to the sun. Suggesting that the federal govt has to balance its budget like any non-monetarily sovereign entity is like suggesting the sun needs air to burn. Even if you don't know anything about nuclear fusion, you should be smart enough to figure out that something different goes on with the sun - same think with the financing of a monetarily sovereign entity like our federal govt. Have you every really stopped, but aside all the preconceptions and really really think about it?

The vast majority of people don't get it. And it is not a matter of intelligence; it is about being wedded to a mythology and relying on mass cognitive dissonance to defend it. It is the primary source of nearly all economic problems in the world today or at least their resolution. Grasping it leads to a much deeper understanding of the world today..... and it can be very very profitable.

It also makes what most people have to say in heated SS arguments, whether supporters or detractors, simply laughable.