BlackSabbath

I've read references to a speech that jimmy Carter made whilst president about a 'Malaise' affecting America. Does anyone have more details?

Yes I know you did.

Recently, I've noticed a trend with the medical profession, at least here in Britain, and I was wondering if it happens elsewhere. Whatever social problem there is, the medical profession recommends that the government solve it through tax, regulation and engineering. You get chased down the street by 3 Norwegians with a harpoon gun and the problem is not that you're a fat b******d who needs to get his act together. The problem is that the government needs to tax all the burger bars and sweet shops more heavily. You're only 35 and you were born white but now you look like one of the Simpsons and your breath can peel paint off the walls at 10 feet. The problem is not merely that you are a drunk but that the government doesn't tax you highly enough on your booze. There has just been a budget delivered by The Chancellor (Finance Minister) here and one of the responses in my favourite paper is : http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=301&id=311942004 GP says he should be paying more tax PETER Copp was left with mixed feelings following the Budget. Mr Copp, a medical director at GP-Plus in Edinburgh’s Wemyss Place, said the Chancellor’s measures failed to extract enough taxes from him. The 42-year-old, who is set to gain £218 a year when the Budget changes come into effect from April, had expected to be paying out several hundred pounds more in tax. And Mr Copp said he and his wife Gill, 37, felt embarrassed to be given family allowance, which has increased by £54 a year for his family, when he can already afford to feed and clothe their three children. Speaking from his seven-bedroom detached Victorian home in Murrayfield, on which he pays £350 a month mortgage and £300 council tax, Mr Copp said he remained "unconvinced" by the Budget. "I have mixed feelings because, although it is nice to think that we are slightly better off, I don’t expect to be. I expect to pay more tax so that our public services are better." The family, which has a total income of some £95,000 a year, will pay £257 less income tax per year, but £52 more on national insurance per annum. They have two cars, which will cost £37 more per year to fuel. Mr Copp, who buys two bottles of wine a week, added that the increase of 4p on bottles of wine and 1p on pints of lager should have been higher. "I see the problems that alcohol causes every day at work and therefore I think that it is still too cheap. One way to highlight that alcohol is a killer is to increase taxation on it."

I've never encountered any Marxists along the lines you describe in nearly 4 years as Admin on a similarly inclined forum to this one. I know that Marx said a load of contradictory stuff but most Marxists usually spout standard stuff and getting rid of them quickly allows people to concentrate on rational discussion rather than getting bogged down with people who turn to stone when the sun comes up (as everybody knows).

Be the best? There's nothing I can do about how well someone else does. If someone else has more talent and outdoes me then well done to him or her. I don't compare myself to others and the only person I try to outdo is myself yesterday.

I wasn't especially political or philosophical until I was about 24. I had been training on and off for years using Mike Menzter's Heavy Duty system and when I started applying myself to it, I got his HD II book and that was my start with Objectivism. I bought Atlas Shrugged just about 5 years ago ( at the same time as the LOTR but that's another story.) I then got my computer and went on the internet and I have loads of AR stuff plus a couple of efforts by Leonard Peikoff and I have the Objectivist Forum and "The government against the economy" by George Reisman.

Eddie could still have gone on strike and Joined Dagny though. I'm sure Ayn Rand's letters compilation has something to say about the point of Eddie's fate. I don't have aspirations to be the best. I do however do my best and strive to be good at my job.

I don't think it's meaningless. A Marxist is someone who says things which come from Marx or his followers. Their arguments are fairly standard and usually include ranst about the rich, the workers, imperialism and the idea that America is capitalist no matter how much the government taxes, spends, regulates etc. The short answer is to delete them post haste and that leaves much more time to talk about Objectivism, Capitalism and so on.

Hello, I'm Bruce and I'm from Falkirk, Scotland and I've been reading Ayn Rand for a bout 5 years now.

Form the shape of a gun with your hand, place it against their head (it helps if you have been weight training with one of Mike Mentzer's heavy duty courses) and tell them that you are re-distributing their cash into someone else's pocket.

I don't know about Eddie being a second-hander. I thought that the point was that Eddie continued working for the looters just like Dagny had been doing until near the end and that was why he met the fate that he did. Maybe if Eddie had been willing to quit and recognized that what he was doing was feeding the looters, he wouldn't have ended up beached in the middle of nowhere.

I'd ban communists if I could. It's not possible to be an honets communist, especially in Heusden's case where he was continually talking up the old Soviet Union on the Capitalism magazine site. If you know that someone is dishonest, what does that say about you that you are prepared to debate with them?