Boydstun

Better Capitalism – Jesus, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, and MLK Jr. on Moving from Plantation to Partnership Economics (2022)
Paul E Knowlton (Engineer, Attorney, Pastoral Counselor)
and Aaron E. Hedges (MDiv, MBA)
This book urges reformation of the current US economic system to what the authors name Partnership Economics. The reforms are mostly via private actions under guideline of the conception Partnership Economics. The particulars of that conception are vague, not very specific. They are a perspective and attitude in business behavior. I’ll display some of the authors' interpretations from the names in the subtitle of the book to show the authors' picture suggesting how those leading lights are consonant with Partnership Economics.

Without the voice there is no echo, without the speaker there is no voice , without desire there is no voice. An echo is a shadow.

Lost my Mom a month ago, so sorry for your loss too.

Each Reach
Each reach, root, clasp, or grasp,
     all flights, all calls, all nests,
     all pulsing blood, all valves,
     all meters and accounts,
     bows of gifts, ties of love,
     treasures of loveliness
     in being and thinking[...]
Shattered by your loss, Stephen. 

I am so sorry for your loss.

Your poetry's really wonderful. I'm sorry for your loss.

My condolences.

My condolences.
 

My poetry book was dedicated "To Walter, my wonderful"
my husband
my everything.
Walter died yesterday. 

My poetry book was dedicated "To Walter, my wonderful"
my husband
my everything.
Walter died yesterday. 

The story of the painting and its recovery, was a movie a few years ago. The family's lawyer, played by Ryan Reynolds, was a grandson of the composer Arnold Schönberg.

And whichever possible perspective you'd imagine would cut you off from the other, it's almost as bad as the 'following' eye portraits and I mean bad in no way. If I'm ever in Chicago....
(or perhaps in Trump's private aircraft)

Actually I meant that their gazes make me want to see what they are seeing, the scene is self broadening.

To begin where I began to see works in the great art museums, The Art Institute of Chicago. 
I've a good picture of On the Terrace by Renoir. It is my favorite painting at this museum, a truly great museum. I'll link to some other paintings I especially like in this collection.
Corot's Interrupted Reading
Carravagio's The Resurrection
Melcher's Mother and Child
Monet's Water Lilies
Homer's Prout's Neck, Evening
Hopper's Nighthawks
Bougeruere The Bathers
Goya's Boy on a Ram
Rothko's Untititled (. . .)

Besides pointing out that you didn’t respond to my questions, I’ll mention that neither breast-augmentation nor breast-reduction are amputations, and these accounted for over 96% of gender-affirming surgeries for minors in 2019, per my link. There were about 150 breast-reduction surgeries for minors in 2019. 

If you think there’s an epidemic (or hell, even a verifiable example) of kids cutting off their penises because of some nebulous “trans ideology” then I invite you to provide evidence. 
 

For some actual numbers related to gender-affirming surgeries on minors, see here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2820437#:~:text=The rate of undergoing a,or younger (Figure 1).

CD says that "metaphysics, for Rand, is negative: it puts up a palm and says, 'Only this far, and no farther'." Well, no, that is not what metaphysics is most fundamentally for Rand.
It is written that “metaphysics is nothing other than the philosophy of the fundamental principles of our cognition.” But that was not written by Rand; rather, by some pre-Kantian German philosopher, one with some influence on Kant. There have been thinkers who think in the way CD would have us believe is Rand's thought. But no, Rand's fundamental conception of metaphysics did not involve guidance for good thinking.
Rand's was in the tradition of Aristotle's metaphysics as "the study of being as being" which is known to any beginning philosophy student. Hers is even not terribly far from Christian Wolff's idea of general metaphysics as a "science of being in general, or insofar as it is being."  Rand's conception of metaphysics most fundamentally is "the study of existence as such."
CD has it that "Rand repurposed metaphysics [from what model epoch?] to 'serve' us sensory, empirical data, and systematically, to feed data, validated by perception, to epistemology for thinking. Metaphysics governs knowledge in the sense that it determines the first proper channel toward determining truth, which is via the senses." Could we have some specific text of Rand's supporting the proposal of this as her view?
Some philosophies have metaphysical axioms. They never have the same role as axioms in geometry. They can be closer to the very different role of axioms in an area of physics when those are put into an axiomatic organization of the area, such as mechanics or thermodynamics. Rand's philosophy has metaphysical axioms. Not put to work as in geometry or in physics. She portrayed her metaphysical axioms as "touchstones" of knowledge. From her metaphysics, one can, for one utility, look at other metaphysics and see places it goes wrong. There was a metaphysics that began with the concept of "nothing" which it took as whatever is contradictory. It then defined "something" as that which is not nothing. That is contorted and not in tune with what is prior to what, logically and in order of learning. So sayeth one in step with Rand (and many other philosophers) on the priority of general existence over nonexistence.
One can have various special interests for taking up metaphysics. On might be led to it from religious training, of course. When we die, do we go on existing but in some new form? or do we just go clean out of existence? One might have a sense that there is something metaphysical about great sculpture and come looking into metaphysics. One might come looking from interests in mathematics or science. Or ethics. But metaphysics is not something parasitic on those things (though it should certainly be informed by physical sciences and rightly situated with them). Nor is it parasitic on epistemology. It is needed for right epistemology as it is needed for right comprehension in so many arenas. But to challenge Rand's metaphysics, challenge it head-on. Lock horns with the metaphysics itself. Refute any arguments that have been offered, for example, showing that certain metaphysical tenets cannot be denied without self-contradiction. Talking about a metaphysics as screening for this or that mistaken source of knowledge is not getting on the diamond and actually playing ball.

The EU let go of controls last year in finally accepting free trade with a bloc of countries in South America.* The USA has been offered that free trade deal from Argentina et al. but is not willing to try freedom. The USA could champion a free trade deal with EU just as the President of Argentina did last year and earlier, but the US leadership is not willing to try freedom. 

Trump denial <– But Trump, like all other politicians, only more so, and like many salespersons, lies a lot. What's a lie, a denial of a threat in a phone call, to him? Nothing.
$

This, but this reddit user made an insightful point:
 

—Walter Olson on Facebook
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barro
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
President Trump has threatened US Auto makers if they raise their prices. This is the closest to Mr. Thompson in power since President Nixon's Wage and Price Controls. With the economic crisis Trump's tariff's will bring about over the next year and with the history of what happened to the Republican Congress in 1890 when they triggered this sort of wreckage, the current President may attempt another fake "national emergency" to interfere with the 2026 election. This could bring us closest to the dark days of Atlas Shrugged since the book was written. No, we don't need a John Galt rescue. We need citizens saying with Galt to this Administration "get the hell out of my way."
Let us try freedom.
McKinley Tariff

There's no method. Trump administration is mistakenly calling the trade deficits that US has with other countries as "tariffs" on the US and imposing tariffs based on this. There's nothing reciprocal about this. These are not based on actual tariffs imposed on USA. Here are the tariff numbers:

Here is how the Trump administration calculated it (I added the last two columns on Excel, the rest are from Wikipedia😞

Idiot Americans are wrongly calling the trade imbalance as "tariffs". They are calling the 'trade imbalance'/import*100 as "tariffs charged to the USA" (they're not) and then initiating tariffs. These aren't reciprocal trariffs. These are just new tariffs, completely initiated by the US and unrelated to tariffs by other countries. Americans are calling it reciprocal tariffs because they want to feel like a victim (countries do impose tariffs on others but these numbers aren't that). Americans are trash enough to pretend to be a victim while also pretending to be kind while initiating theft (hence the fake "semi-reciprocal" claim). It's like the old American claim of spreading freedom while toppling more socialist democracies. US is initiating tariffs and blaming others and dumb conservatives believe whatever the government says.
Countries will not be scrambling to reduce tariffs because these "reciprocal tariffs" are not a response to tariffs initiated by other countries (that's just American propaganda). If these were actual reciprocal tariffs, then it might have led some countries to reduce their trade barriers, but these aren't that. These are tariffs initiated against the competitive advantages of other countries. Some countries will have a competitive advantage no matter what, so they'll be tariffed by the US even if they have zero import tariffs (since the tariffs are based on trade imbalance). If anything, other countries are likely to impose reciprocal tariffs against these tariffs initiated by USA (the alternative would be for countries to destroy their own competitive advantage). No country is going to destroy their own competitive advantage to get lower tariff rates from the US. Ideally, they would impose real reciprocal traiffs against the fake reciprocal tariffs of the US and decouple from the US (as US will tariff others regardless of if other countries have import tariffs or not). An even better solution would be to stop using USD as international currecy as most countries will now have no reason to trade with the US as the US will tariff their competitive advantage. That would stop the nonsensical flow of money from the rest of the world into the overvalued US stock market, which is pretty much an artificial bubble.
The only "method" is that this is a transfer of income from US consumers to their own domestic corporations (if the corporations can produce goods slightly below the tariff rate). Capitalists are trying to destroy free trade, as they have always done throughout history: by tariffs, mercantalism, colonialism, protectionism and other rent seeking behaviors.
Edit: WSJ reported on this: "The tariffs are pegged to amounts it said other countries impose on the U.S. In many cases, those amounts appear to match a basic formula: the size of a country’s goods-trade imbalance with the U.S., divided by how much America imports from that nation." These aren't reciprocal tariffs, and there's no way for other countries to counter these tariffs except by decoupling from the US (the alternative being to reduce their own competitive advantage, which no country will do).

I first used 2023 numbers. Here are the 2024 numbers these fake "tariffs charged to the USA" and the fake "semi-reciprocal tariffs" and pretend kindness are calculated from (last three columns are mine):

Countries below 10% got a 10% minimum. Those 10% aren't actual tariffs either, just something made up by brain dead Americans.

There are no free trade agreements anymore. Trump is imposing tariffs on all countries that have trade agreements with the US. Trump made up fake tariff numbers for countries that have little to no import tariffs for US goods. US has broken FTAs with every single country. All previous free trade agreements of the US are now null and void and countries probably won't sign FTAs with the US anytime soon.

Godel's result applies only to systems that consist exclusively of logically deducing propositions from other propositions.  It does not apply to any system that involves induction or reasoning on the level of concepts or starting with the evidence of the senses or checking conclusions against reality.  Thus it applies neither to human cognition nor to Ayn Rand's philosophy.
Concepts are very different from sets.