Replies to post #416752 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[StephanieVanbryce]

That's all very fine - it was a wonderful book, however, it has nothing to do with today . .. The great companies and artists in the book, Atlas Shrugged, never had to go to the government on bended knee and ask for bailouts to survive another day from their government .

The fictional John Galt would spit on these "companies" run by gamblers at the least, and crooks at the most . .............incompetence was just not tolerated in her fiction world.

Another thing - We do not have a fascist government .

[Alex G]

fuk John Galt


Ayn Rand, the hero of Alan Greenspan

BILL MOYERS: Watching Alan Greenspan testify before
Congress this week, I tried, I tried very hard not to keep thinking of
Ayn Rand. I failed.

The philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand was Alan Greenspan’s ideological
guru, his intellectual mentor. She was also one of the most amazing
fantasists of the last century, the author of two of the most
influential books of my generation THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED,
both timeless best-sellers.

Rand was a hedonist, an exponent of radical self-interest, who so
believed in unfettered, unbridled capitalism that she advocated the
abolition of all state regulations except those dealing with crime. In
the gospel according to Rand, the business community was constantly
beleaguered by evil forces practicing, are you ready for this?
Altruism! Yes, the unselfish regard for the welfare of others was a
menace to greed, and Rand would have none of it.

Alan Greenspan met her as a much younger man in New York and, like so
many blossoming capitalists, was smitten. He has since downplayed her
influence on him, but as Chairman of the Fed for nearly 19 years he
seemed quite Rand-like as he watched Wall Street run wild. Yesterday,
like an old warrior still in a fog after his armies have been routed
from the field of battle, he expressed shock at how his ideology has
failed him. He didn’t see it coming, he told the House Oversight
Committee. The extent of the meltdown is, “Much broader than anything
that I could have imagined,” a “Once-in-a-century credit tsunami.” The
wondrous glories of a free market with no need of pesky oversight had
somehow gone wrong. Now you tell us.

ALAN GREENSPAN:
I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations,
specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable
of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms…

CHAIRMAN WAXMAN:
In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working.

ALAN GREENSPAN:
Absolutely, precisely. You know, that’s precisely the reason I was
shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very
considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.

BILL MOYERS: With his ideological blinders stripped away by
reality, Alan Greenspan might well do penance by curling up this
weekend not with THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED but with James K.
Galbraith’s new book THE PREDATOR STATE: HOW CONSERVATIVES ABANDONED
THE FREE MARKET AND WHY LIBERALS SHOULD TOO. In it, the author asks:
“Why not build a new economic policy based on what is really
happening?” A fundamental question that surely has Ayn Rand and Milton
Friedman spinning in their graves.

Source:
Bill Moyers Journal
PBS, October 24, 2008
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10242008/watch2.html

[fuagf]

EZ, was thinking of you earlier when i read that the official unemployment rate in
Detroit was 22%. In one of the links in my budget post, i think it was. That's tough.

That said, i read yours and then Steph's reply and just thought YEP, exactly. It mirrored my thoughts. Of course,
when i read your "fascist" i almost cried. The position is just too untrue in a nasty, manipulative way, to be funny.

Obama is not radical, not as authoritarian as many, maybe even not as nationalist as
many; i'd see that as a good thing. He is a pragmatic man as you know, so it follows
that he is not as sick an ideologist as others we have seen too clearly, for too long.

Is there one of the Obama administration who has advocated for a single party state?
NO? Are there any of his administration who aim in their mind to create a single-party
state? I'd guess NO. If you think YES then PLEASE name them with links in evidence.

Free speech, free thought, goodie, ok, but why dwell in some macabre fantasy land? Consider chucking the fascist in
you a bone. Pacify the apologist, it's immoral fascist epithet feels stroke inducing, apoplectic. The use of it is irrational.

Obama is one heck of a lot better in this situation than any of the Republican candidates would have been, i believe.

Yep, I thought, times have changed, the head honcho financial boys have proved the case for competent and fair regulation,
just as it was seen to be necessary by Packer's attitude to the rules. Rules there in part in the interests of fairness.

It also crossed my mind that Murdoch is in media not cars.

Oh, i'm not even 100% certain if the auto guy walked because Obama told
him to. Not even certain if Obama told him to. Probably haven't read enough.

Here are a couple of little ones is a little i've just picked up .. oops, see reply .. nuff said here ..

Hey, one more time, the name of the hotel again, please? Lol, one day it'll stick.

[arizona1]

I loved that book but even Ayn Rand would throw up at the modern day repub party.

[fuagf]

Rubert Murdoch the Tax Dodger .. Laying Rupert Bare
TJN International , July 31, 2007



Rupert Murdoch's apparent success in taking over the Wall Street
Journal is potentially negative for tax justice. rupertmurdoch.jpg

This is based on an Economist story from 1999 - updated information
on News Corp's tax affairs, or other comments, would be welcome.

It looks as if Rupert Murdoch will win his battle for control of the Wall Street Journal. This bodes ill for a tax justice agenda, for his flagship company News Corp. is a poster child for tax dodging. The Economist once prodded into its tax affairs, and what it found was not pretty.

In keeping with his anti-statist philosophy, Mr Murdoch hands very little of his profits to governments. In the four years to June 30th last year, News Corporation and its subsidiaries paid only A$325m ($238m) in corporate taxes worldwide. In the same period, its consolidated pre-tax profits were A$5.4 billion. So News Corporation has paid an effective tax rate of only around 6%. By comparison, Disney, one of the world's other media empires, paid 31%. Basic corporate-tax rates in Australia, America and Britain, the three main countries in which News Corporation operates, are 36%, 35% and 30% respectively.

Finding out the specifics of News Corporation's tax affairs is difficult because of the company's complex structure. In its latest accounts, the group lists roughly 800 subsidiaries, including some 60 incorporated in such tax havens as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Netherlands Antilles and the British Virgin Islands.

This structure, dictated by Mr Murdoch's elaborate tax planning, has some bizarre consequences. The most profitable of News Corporation's British operations in the 1990s was not the Sunday Times, or its successful satellite television business, BSkyB. It was News Publishers, a company incorporated in Bermuda. News Publishers has, in the seven years to June 30th 1996, made around £1.6 billion in net profits. This is a remarkable feat for a company that seems not to have any employees, nor any obvious source of income from outside Mr Murdoch's companies.

British taxpayers have been forced to pick up a particularly large slice of Murdoch's tax bill: since June 1987,
The Economist reported, the group made £1.4 billion in profits yet paid no net British corporation tax at all.

Even the Economist, which seems to have a soft spot for the corrupt world of tax havens, choked on this,
and asked why so many other companies avoid such byzantine offshore gymnastics to dodge their tax bills.

Perhaps their tax lawyers are not as bright. Perhaps their boards are stuffed with conventional people who would be embarrassed to shelter profits in tax havens. Or, more likely, they may conclude that there are costs to Mr Murdoch's way of doing things. In particular, the complexity of News Corporation's structure baffles analysts and puts off institutional investors.

Money men suspect that the company's profits may be based not just on the returns from Mr Murdoch's businesses, but also on financial wizardry vulnerable to changes in tax law. This may be one reason why its share price has underperformed the American stock market over the past five years. A low share price makes investment more expensive for Mr Murdoch than it would be were he an empire-builder with a more transparent business structure.

This article is, admittedly, a bit long in the tooth. It was published in March 1999. TJN does not have the resources to investigate 800 or more subsidiaries to update this story. Perhaps Rupert Murdoch has had an epiphany since then, and has decided to stop his anti-social behaviour. We are not convinced that this has happened.

Full article:

http://www.taxjustice-usa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=73