I think this Matt Welch piece provides the definitive example of what glibertariansim really means:
“I got mine, screw everyone else.”
by John Cole| 43 Comments
This post is in: Going Galt
I think this Matt Welch piece provides the definitive example of what glibertariansim really means:
“I got mine, screw everyone else.”
by John Cole| 41 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, Going Galt
Krugman doesn’t realize it, but he just defined Galt’s Gulch:
Talk to conservatives about the financial crisis and you enter an alternative, bizarro universe in which government bureaucrats, not greedy bankers, caused the meltdown. It’s a universe in which government-sponsored lending agencies triggered the crisis, even though private lenders actually made the vast majority of subprime loans. It’s a universe in which regulators coerced bankers into making loans to unqualified borrowers, even though only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was subject to the regulations in question.
Oh, and conservatives simply ignore the catastrophe in commercial real estate: in their universe the only bad loans were those made to poor people and members of minority groups, because bad loans to developers of shopping malls and office towers don’t fit the narrative.
It is a magical place where global warming solves itself, the only thing health care reform needs is more deregulation, if the government would just get out of the way, Wall Street would self correct, and you get to eat Freedom Fries with every meal and never gain weight.
by DougJ| 91 Comments
This post is in: Going Galt, Good News For Conservatives
You probably all already saw this on Washington Monthly, but since we pride ourselves here on making fun of Randers, we would be remiss if we didn’t pass this along:
Lloyd Grove: Tell me a little bit about what the show is going to be.
John Stossel: It will be one subject. The first subject will be maybe Atlas Shrugged or global warming — Atlas Shrugged because I think 50 years ago, Ayn Rand predicted today. It sort of sums up what I’m going to be reporting about.
Lloyd Grove: Ayn Rand predicted what?
John Stossel: Big government, nice-sounding legislation like “The Preservation of Livelihood Law,” which mandated that Hank Rearden’s production must not be bigger than any other steel mill, to make it a level playing field. It’s silly.
Lloyd Grove: Is that a new law passed by this Congress?
John Stossel: No, but it’s what Wesley Mouch, the evil bureaucrat in the book, passed. And what Tim Geithner and what Barney Frank might like to pass.
Not that I like Ayn Rand’s work, but even it deserves better than this.
by DougJ| 40 Comments
This post is in: Assholes, Going Galt, Good News For Conservatives
This sounds like a bad Law & Order episode waiting to happen:
I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter” it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.
[….]No, talk of Goldman and guns plays right into the way Wall- Streeters like to think of themselves. Even those who were bailed out believe they are tough, macho Clint Eastwoods of the financial frontier, protecting the fistful of dollars in one hand with the Glock in the other. The last thing they want is to be so reasonably paid that the peasants have no interest in lynching them.
(via)
by DougJ| 99 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity, Going Galt, Good News For Conservatives
I’m not sure that I think this is 100% true, but I really, really like the idea:
Maybe we need a new name for these people: Palinheads. To be sure, the drugs are different…But maybe Palin really is the Grateful Dead of the 21st century — not just someone to whom certain people want to devote a few hours of their time every so often, but a way of life, a central organizing principle of their existence.
Update. I don’t like the weight-and-food mockery either. I just like the idea of the Palin-followers as Dead Heads. I’ll clip the quote to take out the offending parts.
by John Cole| 80 Comments
This post is in: Clown Shoes, Going Galt
You know what would be awesome? If they were actually required to turn a profit to spew their nonsense, rather than begging for money to top off the money from the Koch foundation.
And I just love how they are using the market collapse as a Reason to keep them in wingnut welfare. Let the financial market crash, and then deregulate even more! Invisible hand!
by DougJ| 55 Comments
This post is in: Going Galt, Good News For Conservatives
I’m struck by how much Lou Dobbs’ quitting to go “beyond my role” sounds like Sarah Palin‘s “choice is to take a stand and effect change” by quitting. And lest we forget, there are many who believe that the best way to fight Obamafascism is to go Galt.
This all makes me miss the days when people quit to spend more time with their families.