Atlas Shrugged: The Movie Is Worth Seeing Despite Its Obvious Failures

15 April 2011

OK. Just caught the premiere of Atlas Shrugged: Part I this evening. I read the book in high school (at which time it was still fairly new - it was published in 1957). The movie is only on 200 screens.

In my view, Ayn Rand, the controversial and celebrated author, was not a great novelist. She used the form of the novel to express ideas about her personal philosophy ("objectivism") that had been formed by her personal survival of Russian collectivism and a genocide twice the scale of Hitler's. This woman definitely has something to say. As to the film, I was most struck by the conflicting and deeply compromised premises at its core.

Rather than seeing the film set in historical context, we find that it opens in the year 2016. Gas is $36 a gallon, everybody is unemployed, and evil politicians scheme to loot the last few of the country's wealthy and successful people.

Sound like Russia? You've got it. And we are also taken back to the original story of railroading, iron, steel and coal – and ballroom cocktail receptions. That is quite a disconnect, and at least for me, I couldn't set the railroad story in our present decade.

There are other problems. I was bugged by the characters' inability to construct grammatical sentences (“we/us,” “is/are,” basic stuff). The dialogue itself was probably taken from the book, but honestly, that is not an inspired source. Rand's characters can speak for 50 pages without taking a breath. So a lot of the pieces of the story didn't work together.

I also have the impression that the screenwriters (John Aglialoro and Brian Patrick O'Toole) don't know much about modern business. For example, and most tellingly, they stayed with Rand's notion that individuals would be outlawed from owning more than one company.

Hey, individuals don't own any major companies anymore – and don't want to! Everything has been floated on the market to exploit shareholders! Why do it yourself, when you can suck the shareholders dry?

This problem is in fact one of the contemporary manifestations of exactly the problem that Ms. Rand was trying to illustrate from the middle of another century.

That is, the evils of our age are different than those of the mid-20th century. So if we're going to set this story in 2016, then let's see the collective thinkers mired in political correctness and tortured compromises, trying to rescue the economy by destroying the currency. Hey! That is actually happening – and it would make the same point in a contemporary setting, as I think the screenwriters intended.

So, at least for me, this WAS still worth watching. I guess the producers didn't have much money or time. I understand. This is not a big budget film, and that's OK. Give them a break.

I think what everyone involved in this shoestring effort was trying to get across is that individual initiative is the only thing that can save us (as opposed, say, to organizing various factions into groups and going at each others' throats – as seems to occur on Fox News nightly!).

So yes, this film is trying to be about courageous people believing in something and doing it, not unlike trying to produce this film with no money! Good for them. It's probably still the right answer.... I commend them for trying!
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Fuel: By Josh Tickell

11 April 2011

I just watched the film "Fuel," on DVD, by my fellow New College of Florida alum, Josh Tickell.

This is basically the story of Josh's life's work. He has had an interesting life, and tells his story well. He happens to be a gifted environmental activist, plus a talented film maker.....

Josh majored in sustainable living at New College of Florida (yes, you can do that - that is, you are allowed to invent your own major, and this is what Josh did).

Basically, this film is about biodiesel. Biodiesel is not good. Biodiesel is revolutionary.

Biodiesel is NOT corn-based ethanol. It is not food-to-fuel. It returns the energy input 3:1 or better. It is safe and even edible. It pollutes less than so-called fossil-based diesel fuel. There are many ways to produce it, and more and better ways of doing it are being found all the time.

As an aside, the US can produce all the biodiesel it needs, and never has to import oil from anyplace again, if it chooses this path.

As Josh says, "War is not required."

Willie Nelson, Neil Young and Richard Branson are among biodiesel's better-known advocates.

Oh, and this film isn't only about biodiesel. It is also about how to live, how to conserve energy, the history of our present fossil fuel-based energy system, other ways to produce energy besides fossil fuels, the life story of Rudolph Diesel, a lot of Josh's own life story, interviews with scientists and business people, finance, educational graphics, statistical analysis, etc., etc. I hope you're getting the idea. My impression is that there are investible ideas here too, and why not?

Anyway, (1) you have to watch this to learn more, (2) you need to figure out how to get biodiesel and related sustainable technologies into your home, your life and your communities, and (3) you need to tell other people about this.

Again, this has nothing to do with corn-based ethanol, which is not a particularly good idea at all, at least, not much better than fossil fuels. This is entirely different. You can make this stuff from trees that grow to maturity in 3 years, from algae (thank Jimmy Carter for getting this started), from sewage sludge, etc., etc.

Again, the US does not need to import oil. Neither does any other country that wants to do this. This is good, very good.

Watch.
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Military-Industrial Malinvestment

21 March 2011

I wish I had time to say more on this topic, but for now, here is my quotation of the day, from my friend and adviser, Ed Bugos at the Dollar Vigilante website (I recommend that you join as a subscriber):

"If the world were on a gold standard, governments could not afford the wars they are involved in today, and there’d be no question of the West withdrawing from the Middle East, because we would not be able to afford it! If, instead of printing the money, the government said that it will increase taxes for everyone by $20,000 this year to fund their ongoing intervention in the Middle East in the name of democracy, there would be a lot less "Gotta Support The Troops" going around! Without the ability to print money, there’d be no military industrial complex."

- Ed Bugos, from The Dollar Vigilante Blog

In fact, I can say a little bit more on this subject, as I commented on Ed's post at the Dollar Vigilante site, as recapitulated below:

"OK. That was an interesting twist at the end. Where does the excess money printing end up? In the hands of terrorists, despots and dictators in the oil producing nations, and in the hands of the Military-Industrial Complex on our side of the pond! Now, you could write a book on military-industrial malinvestment!

"As to the crisis that produced Reagan and Thatcher, I suspect the next one will somehow be a blend of the 30s and the 70s, but I do not know which parts will figure into the final blend. Unfortunately, it will not be pretty, and it will be the direct result of money-printing!

"What I do know is that nobody will be calling, "The bottom is in! Buy real estate/stocks/whatever now!" The bottom will appear endless, and gold will be the ONLY bright light at that point...."

That's all for now, folks!

(Credit: The poster used above and the US dollar chart below came from this interesting article.)

(Disclaimer: The above comments are not directed at any particular military venture, some of which are needed in my view, but rather at the type of world that is created by printing money rather than paying our bills....)

Additional comment: Regarding the present intervention in Libya, the application of the above lesson runs something like this: (1) Money-printing (inflationary monetary policy) made oil expensive, enriching (and arming) such despotic leaders as Qaddafi. (2) We "solve" the problem with MORE money-printing, to pay for military interventions to protect the Libyan people from the ruthless leader whose ascendancy we funded in the first place! (3) The devastating consequences? We'll "solve" that with money-printing yet again! I hope you can see where this is going.... The cycle continues literally until the currency reaches the point of inflationary collapse. Then, hopefully at least for a while, we learn to live within our means again!
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Moneyprinting as Policy: Winners and Losers

22 June 2010

As regular readers know, I often reference articles that I consider well though-out, particularly those that address current macroeconomic topics, as I am an individual investor saving for near-term retirement in a world that in my view punishes savers and rewards the reckless (or at least used to, until recently).

Steve Saville is among the economic analysts that I consider "very smart." He has recently written a short article, entitled "Inflation Update," that very simply and concisely sums up the present money supply and inflation issue in terms of the economic sectors that are most and least likely to "benefit" from excess central bank money printing. This is a notoriously tough area to call, as the winners and losers are different in every inflationary cycle, causing almost all pundits to be wrong on this topic almost every time!

Basically, Mr. Saville is saying that in sectors where there is excess supply, there will be no net benefit of Federal "moneyprinting." In fact, these sectors will sustain further deterioration. In our present situation (I'm referring primarily to the US, Britain and much of Western Europe), there are too many homes and too many labourers, thus precluding the flow-through benefits of inflation in these particular, already-beleaguered, sectors. That is, salaries do not rise and home prices fall, despite massive infusions of newly-printed dollars in circulation.

So what rises in value when the Federal Reserve Bank prints new money out of thin air? As I have often noted here, the costs of necessities are presently most under pressure, as they are relatively scarce in a world facing dramatically increasing Asian, Middle Eastern and, in selected cases, third world demand (in the case of commodity-exporting third world countries).

Mr. Saville refers in particular to energy and hard assets as sectors that will see price rises as a consequence of concerted global government-sanctioned inflationary policy, though many other necessities are also scarce relative to the vastly increasing quantity of printed (and electronically-created) money now in circulation (think insurance, government services, infrastructure, food, fertilizer, health services, postsecondary education, peace, safety and security - I could go on....).

The blowback?

According to Mr. Saville, the sectors nominally targeted by moneyprinting national central banks actually sustain net losses through inflationary policy --- which has most recently been in effect since the beginning of the Greenspan era at the US Federal Reserve in 1987. In the present case, home prices continue to deteriorate, and the cost of living rises for the long-suffering and now under-employed middle class.

I think Mr. Saville has succeeded in connecting a lot of dots in a few paragraphs - as well as showing that Austrian "true money supply" (TMS2 below) is still rising at a double-digit clip.

Read all about it here!
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$1000 Gold: Our Ceiling, Asia's Floor

25 September 2009

Sometimes you just have to call it as it is.

The West is passing the flame of progress to Asia at this time in history. For reasons too numerous to detail in a short note, we in the West have become bound up in a tangle of bureaucratic baggage, internecine contest, small mindedness, second thought, political correctness, self neglect and financial manipulation.

Asia is simply moving ahead.

This is nowhere more evident than in the views of our respective cultures towards the price of gold.

To our minds, $1000 gold is toppy, risky, uncertain, overbought, and exhausted.

To 4 billion Asian savers, $1000 gold is simply another step along the way towards a brighter and better future - a small price to pay for financial security and nights of soothing and untroubled sleep.

Believe me, gold at $1000 today - or even less - is going to look like the last bargain of the decade in the very near future.

$1000 gold.

Think Asian. Stand on this floor for a better and more secure financial future.
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Hamas Is Killing the Children of Gaza

5 January 2009

CBC News reported today that 23 children have died in Gaza during the current Israeli invasion.

The international community is aroused, blaming Israel for the deaths of innocent civilians.

Sometimes the obvious must be said.

The people of Palestine elected Hamas to direct their affairs. During the 6-month so-called "ceasefire," Hamas has done nothing but rearm itself and continue to direct rocket attacks with ever more sophisticated and longer-range missiles against the Israeli civilian population.

By every standard of international relations, lobbing missiles across international borders to target urban populations is an act of war.

Israel has responded in kind to the unapologetic aggressive stance of Hamas by escalating its longstanding blockade into a land invasion of the Gaza territory.

I'll grant you, the background situation is complex. Israel has often been wrong, unjust, and brutal - as have the Palestinians. The blockade of Gaza has induced hardships among Gaza's population proportionate to the suffering of Israel's citizens in response to continued rocket attacks.

However, both peoples have a right to exist. Hamas does not acknowledge this basic right of the Israeli people. Thus they are able to rationalize their out-and-out defiance of the negotiated terms of peaceful coexistence on repeated occasions. Hamas demonstrates no respect for international standards of peaceful coexistence, forcing the Israelis to contemplate and pursue a variety of retaliatory actions.

Hamas has rightly been identified as an international terrorist organization. By waging war on Israel, they have brought inevitable (in fact, preconsidered) consequences upon their own people.

Israel's withdrawal from Gaza is not the solution. It is Hamas that has to go.

Until the Palestinians and their surrounding neighbours acknowledge Israel's right to exist, Israel has no option but to fight for its survival. This is human nature, and I salute the Israelis' commitment to the defense of their civilian population.

Hamas is forcing Israel into ground warfare in their urban operational base. They know civilians live here, and yet choose to conduct their operations in these settings.

By strategy and by policy, Hamas itself is killing the children of Gaza, but setting the stage to make Israel appear responsible. This is strategic cunning at its very worst. It is a ploy on their part to build heightened resentment against Israel, but the Israelis see through the smokescreen. You should too.

Don't blame the Israelis for the suffering of the Palestinian peoples in Gaza who have been sacrificed through the cold calculations of their own leadership. Present events are unfolding by Hamas' playbook. The children of Gaza will not be safe to live and grow in peace until Hamas is entirely discredited and removed from power.

Israel's incursion is intended only to eliminate the personnel and infrastructure that support the continued illegal missile attacks on their soil. I wish them every success in this venture.

Remember that in times of peace, Israel sought to incorporate Palestinians into the fabric of Israeli society by providing education and employment opportunities to a people who previously had no such opportunities. The secular Israeli state was intended to incorporate and not to exclude the Palestinian people who chose to join in Israeli society.

When locked in combat with the Palestinians, Israel may appear the bully on the block. Certainly Israel has far more wealth and power at its disposal than do the Palestinians. By the same logic, however, Israel's citizens are greatly outnumbered by the Arabic and Islamic population of the Middle East. Israel is locked in a struggle for its survival and the Israelis know it. They are fighting strategically to assure the continuance of their people in a world that was willing to let every Jewish person on the planet die little more than half a century ago.

However paternalistic or one-sided Israel's original plan for the Palestinians may have been, it was an inclusive one. Hamas' only goal is to eliminate the population of Israel. That is genocidal intent, plain and simple.

Internationally, Hamas advocates genocide. Internally, Hamas has planned the death and suffering of its own citizens. Shame on them for adopting and acting upon this brutal logic.

(Images sourced through the Wall Street Journal Online.)
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It Is Time To Arm the Populace - A Proposal for How This Can Be Done

27 November & 3 December 2008

We are presently in the midst of terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India. Similar attacks were planned in Canada, but fortunately averted, due to apprehension of the conspirators. Escalating incidents of automatic-weapon fuelled piracy on the high seas are now also being reported (see this link for a report of piracy in Somalia). Gun-enabled gang violence is escalating in the urban centres of many of the world's leading nations.

Terrorists and gangsters on land - and pirates on the sea - take advantage of the fact that our world is largely a peaceful place, with the consequence that the general populace is not armed. Obviously the world is changing, and our citizenry must now also change to adapt to the new circumstances.

To be clear - I am not calling for all citizens to carry arms - this must still be a privilege, not a right. But I do wish presently to submit a proposal for how an armed citizenry might defend itself against the emerging reality - that outlaws carry guns and weapons freely, using them to terrorize citizens.

I have long been an advocate of two years of national service for all citizens. I now propose that emergency situation and weapons training be a component of that two years of service, even for those who might volunteer to perform peaceful duties of service, such as work in hospitals or with senior citizens. Those who have completed two years of supervised service (including in-depth crisis intervention and weapons training and field practice, with careful scrutiny of their competencies and with fully positive evaluations) might then be authorized to travel freely as armed citizens, a citizen militia if you will. This would greatly increase the likelihood that when gangsters or terrorists strike, they will encounter citizen adversaries who are in a position to defend themselves and those present against the criminal use of weaponry.

Similarly, the present situation appears to require that there be training and arming of the personnel of merchant ships on the high seas, as well as of persons in positions of responsibility in areas of public transportation - whether trains, buses or airlines.

Let's stop making it easy for gangsters and terrorists to ply their trade by allowing them to exploit our society's peaceful citizen environment.

My proposal would thus see a fully qualified, trained and licensed citizen militia backing up our police and military forces.

Woe be to the terrorists and gangsters who attempted to dominate citizens by force of arms in such a world. In any public setting, they would surely meet their match, and tragedies such as that in Mumbai today - or that which was narrowly averted in Canada - would no longer dominate our headlines.

Normal checks and balances must apply, and my proposal cannot proceed without careful consideration of multiple safety measures and safeguards, for example, regular reviews of the licenses of armed citizens, ongoing training, clearly spelled-out accountability mechanisms, carefully-defined guidelines for weapons use, and of course speedily-implemented sanctions for misuse of the privilege.

But who can question that advancing weapons technology and the widespread manufacture and availability of armaments has made the modern world a playground for those who practice terrorism and gangsterism? It is now time to make the world unsafe for terrorists, gangsters and pirates. The way ahead is not entirely unclear.

As is the case with all post-liberal reforms, the greatest obstacle to action is perhaps our reflexive aversion to measures which entrust citizens to exercise wise judgement in assuming responsibility for the solution of dilemmas which are apparent to all.

Peaceloving people have armed themselves to fight terrorist and criminal elements before. I regret that we now live in an era where this has again become necessary - but as I see it, bold action is what is now required. I believe that our citizens are smart enough to take on a responsibility of this kind, and that our lawmakers and judges are wise enough to hammer out the checks, balances and tests of efficacy that will assure the success of such a policy.

Restoring safety to our world must surely be possible, though as I see it now, only through an effort of rebalancing of forces, such as I have proposed. I see no way through to this goal without provision for professionally qualified and accountable citizen militias.

Let us debate the matter publicly and work out the checks and balances that will be needed, but then let us get on with the business of creating a world that is unsafe for the perpetrators of crime and of terror - because criminals and terrorists will no longer hold a position of unfair advantage over the general citizenry.

Note (3 December 2008): John R. Lott has a proposal much simpler than mine. He advocates that concealed handguns be worn on a discretionary basis for self-defense by citizens who do not have criminal records or a history of mental illness. Mr. Lott marshals extensive statistics in his book, More Guns, Less Crime, to support his argument that this simple practice makes the general population safer. Why? Because criminals are deterred by the prospect of costly consequences of their decision to engage in violence against law-abiding citizens. When their unfair advantage is removed, criminals are less motivated to engage in gun-based crimes. A brief summary of arguments against his view can also be found on the Amazon.com website. I believe my proposal is substantially different than that of Mr. Lott, though I think that his arguments are worthy of further examination.

On to the matter of arming citizens against terrorist attacks. Clearly terrorists take advantage of the fact that their vicious attacks against noncombatants are statistically infrequent and therefore unlikely to involve most citizens at any time. What therefore is the sense of arming the citizenry against low probability events?

The statistical answer lies on the other side of the equation.

For the terrorist storming a railroad station, for example, the low probabilities work very much to his or her favour. That is, if there is a low likelihood of encountering armed resistance, then only two gunmen can kill dozens and maim many more, as was recently the case in multiple locations in Mumbai. To increase the likelihood that terrorists will encounter armed opposition in response to one of their low probability attacks, there must be a very high probability of armed opposition in most public places at most times of the day.

That is, the real statistical question does not concern the likelihood that if I carry arms, I will happen to be in a position to repel a terrorist attack. The likelihood is that I will never encounter such a situation. However, the key question has to do with the chances that a terrorist storming a public transportation terminal or a hotel will encounter armed opposition among those citizens present. In order to assure that this will occur, a very significant component of the population should be bearing arms.

The plain fact is that we are living in a world out of balance. I know what it feels like to sit back as an observer in a position of powerlessness while terrorists carry out their heartless attacks against innocents. I do not know what it will feel like when a terrorist raids a school, movie theatre, airport, restaurant or hotel and is shot down - or, better still, disarmed and captured - as he draws and prepares to use his weapon - before harm to innocent civilians can occur.

I do know that it will be better still if terrorists can be apprehended before carrying out their planned attacks, as occurred in Toronto in 2006 (though I'm not sure that the general population appreciates fully the seriousness of the attack that was averted in this case).

If we can learn to prevent the conditions that breed new terrorists, that will be yet again more preferable - and the key to this may actually lie in easing the massive flow of funds to unstable Middle Eastern and South Asian countries, as well as, of course, in forming friendships with individuals in such unstable circumstances who are open to alliances with the peoples of the West.

Let me also speak to the general question of the prevention and detection of terrorist action. I am very impressed with the British video surveillance system which has made apprehension of many terrorists possible. Certainly further harm to innocent persons has been prevented due to the use of such measures. We also require more sophisticated systems to prevent suicide bombings and the transportation of explosive materials. This is well beyond my area of knowledge. I'd certainly be happy to have widely dispersed and ideally unobtrusive scanning systems for explosives so as to prevent their further exploitation by terrorist or criminal elements.

Until the likelihood of the apprehension of terrorists becomes reasonably high, it is unlikely that terrorists will be dissuaded from plotting harm against civilians around the world. Until the odds of survival and success are in favour of civilians and to the disadvantage of terrorists, we will not truly be inhabiting a world that is unsafe for terrorists. And until we have learned to dissuade young people in vulnerable areas from looking up to terrorists as role models and heroes, the possibility of returning to a way of life free of the intrusion of weapons of violence will not be available to us.

There is much more to consider before our actions in response to this problem are complete.
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