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August 23rd, 2009 admin

Sticker Atlas
What Does “Atlas is Now Shrugging” Mean?

I saw a bumper sticker on a car recently that said “Atlas is Now Shrugging – what does this mnean?
This book was written in 1957 – right wing propagada? Not logical.

The book focused around a railroad company and a steel company, both very successful, who were a symbol of American productivity and the economy as a whole.

The premise of the book was very pro free-market, that if these people were successful in developing high-quality steel that could be used cheaply and more effectively in industry – particularly transportation but eventually every industry, then society would benefit. These were the symbolic “Atlas” character, upon whose shoulders the weight of the economy of the country rested.

These companies, these people, WERE highly successful. They paid competitive wages to skilled and motivated workers, who were happy to work hard if all that was required of them was achievement and productivity. People had a chance for advancement under their own merit – there was no one saying that one person deserved more than another for any reason other than hard work and attitude. There was a belief, similar to the belief among our founders and among the early immigrants to this country, that “we don’t need a handout. We just need a chance. I can do this on my own, and I don’t want anything from anyone other than a chance to prove myself”. Unemployment was low, productivity was high.

The problem was that in the book the low-achieving companies, those who WERE consumed with greed, began to cry “UNFAIR” at the success of the real producers. They got government agencies on their side to support their claims, and to begin restricting access to the raw materials necessary for this steel – they wanted to “redistribute the wealth” and limit the success of the producers in order to even out the playing field. Taxes grew, freedoms became limited. Materials and wealth were controlled by the government and distributed based on some kind of central plan, rather than being based on natural market forces.

The big companies, unable to produce under the weight of the increased regulations, began closing plants, laying off workers. These workers, unable to find jobs because the non-producers did not know how to achieve the same success as their bigger counterparts, began to collect unemployment and welfare, which in turn caused the government, the central planners, to find newer ways of taxing the wealthier companies.

These industrialists upon whose backs the entire engine of the economy ran, one by one, decided that it just wasn’t worth it. They were being punished for their success -being crippled when all they wanted to do was grow, employ more people, reward hard work, reward good ideas. They, symbolizing Atlas, shrugged off the weight of the world and just said, “Screw it. It ain’t worth it.”

We see this all the time on a small scale. Over the last 20 years, the cost of doing business in NYC became prohibitive based on taxes, entitlements, over-regulation, and the simple cost of doing business. Major corporations, desperate only to be treated fairly based on the number of people they employed, the products and services they produced, the taxes they paid, were demonized and taxed by the city government until they just decided to leave.

Today, we have mandatory health care, we have financial regulations, we have Union regulations, we have Cap and Trade, we have high taxes, we have unemployment compensation extensions, we have high-priced gasoline that is taxed to the point where it is almost out of reach – and NONE of this rewards the success of the people who are actually PRODUCING anything in this country. ALL of this is designed to re-distribute wealth to the non-producers, and acquire that money from the ones who are creating the actual wealth.

Companies in this country are sitting on 1.8 trillion dollars of unspent capital. They could singlehandedly solve our unemployment problem with a single stroke – but they won’t. They don’t understand the rules anymore. What regulations will this government bring down on them next year, the year after? They don’t know, so they are not committing to expansion or hiring.

What you are watching is Atlas shrugging. The companies who create the products, who innovate methods and materials, who have a method to actually create and produce wealth, are being demonized by this government and blamed by the very society that needs their production for their sustenance. They are saying, “Screw it. I can’t pay carbon taxes. I can’t pay more unemployment. I can’t feed high pensions. I can’t offer health insurance and sick time to people who take advantage of me. Enough is enough. They are closing down, or moving their operations overseas. The United States is no longer the land of opportunity in that way.

Thats Mina’s ID and Thats a Jack Atlas Sticker!!!!