The Federals Papers and a Country Divided

The following is an excerpts from The Federalist Papers, © Copyright, 1961, by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.

But whatever may be our situation, whether firmly united under one national government, or split into a number of confederacies, certain it is, that foreign nations will know and view it exactly as it is; and they will act toward us accordingly. If they see that our national government is efficient and well administered, our trade prudently regulated, our militia properly organized and disciplined, our resources and finances discreetly managed, our credit re-established, our people free, contented, and united, they will be much more disposed to cultivate our friendship than provoke our resentment. If, on the other hand, they find us either destitute of an effectual government (each State doing right or wrong, as to its rulers may seem convenient), or split into three or four independent and probably discordant republics or confederacies, one inclining to Britain, another to France, and a third to Spain, and perhaps played off against each other by the three, what a poor, pitiful figure will America make in their eyes! How liable would she become not only to their contempt but to their outrage, and how soon would dear-bought experience proclaim that when a people or family so divide, it never fails to be against themselves.

PUBLIUS.

This is very interesting...let's go down the check list:

U.S. National Government:

efficient: No

well administered: No

our trade prudently regulated: Yes but having problems

our militia properly organized and disciplined: Yes but spread thin

our resources managed: No

finances discreetly managed: No

credit re-established: No

our people free: Yes (but losing more and more everyday)

contented: Definitely Not

united: Definitely Not

"what a poor, pitiful figure will America make in their eyes!"

The Forgotten Man of Socialized Medicine - Atlas Shrugged

The following is an excerpts from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand.

“I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago,” said Dr. Hendricks. “Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observe that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything – except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the ‘welfare’ of the patients, with no thought to those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire, or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only ‘to serve.’ That a man who’s willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards – never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at this smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind – yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kinds of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it – and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn’t.”

Related Links:

Atlas Shrugged, Health Care, and Collectivism

Tocqueville - Democracy In America

This week's quote of the week comes from a book I am slowly reading: Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. It is a book about the United States in the 1830s and its strengths and weaknesses.

Tocqueville speculates on the future of democracy in the United States, discussing possible threats to democracy and possible dangers of democracy. These include his belief that democracy has a tendency to degenerate into "soft despotism" as well as the risk of developing a tyranny of the majority.

I will not lie and say it is an easy read, but it is very fascinating to read some of his predictions, some which have played and some that look like they are headed that way. It is really teaching me the history of America from a perspective I have never been taught or even thought of. So even if you do not feel like reading the book, I would highly suggest checking out the wiki page and browse around it and its links.

The following excepts are from Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville ©1835

"Look where you will, you will never find true power among men except in the free concurrence of their wills."

"He(the American) trusts fearlessly in his own powers, which seem to him sufficient for everything. Suppose that an individual thinks of some enterprise, and that enterprise has a direct bearing on the welfare of society; it does not come into his head to appeal to public authority for its help. He publishes his plan, offers to carry it out, summons other individuals to aid his efforts, and personally struggles against all obstacles. No doubt he is often less successful than the state would have been in his place, but in the long run the sum of all private undertakings far surpasses anything the government might have done."

I find it so amazing that people do not understand this concept, that we can do what every we want 10 times better than what our government can do, it just might take us longer. The problem is that our government has their hands deep into our pockets and our decision making. People say that we have to have the government help in this situation or that situation. Tocqueville goes on to say about social prosperity:

I am persuaded that in that case the collective force of the citizens will always be better able to achieve social prosperity than the authority of the government.

He uses China as an example:

China seems to offer the classic example of the sort of social prosperity with which a very centralized administration can provide a submissive people. Travelers tells us that the Chinese have tranquillity without happiness, industry without progress, stability without strength, and material order without public morality. With them society always gets along fairly well, never very well.

Again this book was written in the 1830's, but isn't it sounding more and more like the USA? The faster we wake up and take control of our government is the day we can start the recovery our great nation. Until then, we will keep seeing major corporations, banks and politicians becoming wealthier while the normal people keep having to work harder and harder to make it and get ahead.

Related Post:

GM - Government Motors

John D Rockefeller and Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged, Health Care, and Collectivism

This weeks quote is from Atlas Shrugged and since one of the main topics being discussed in Washington right now is Socialized health care I thought I would share a story to illustrate the devastating effects of collectivism. The story is about a tramp Jeff Allen, former shop foreman at Twentieth Century Motor Company who had snuck onto the The Comet(train) and Dagny offers him to be her guess for diner. He explains to Dagny how the owner of the Twentieth Century Motor Company had passed away and that the heir had come in and brought a new plan of how to run the factory.

The following is an excerpts from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand.

"They let us vote on it, too, and everybody—almost everybody—voted for it, We didn't know. We thought it was good. No that's not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need.

The Starnes heirs made long speeches about it, and it wasn't too clear, but no body asked any questions. None of knew how the plan would work, but every one of us thought the next fellow knew it. And if anybody had doubts, he felt guilty and kept his mouth shut—because they made it sound like anyone who'd oppose the plan was a child-killer at heart and less of a human being. They told us that this plan would achieve a noble idea.

He goes on to explain how it worked

"Try pouring water into a tank where there’s a pipe at the bottom draining it out faster than you pour it, and each bucket you bring breaks that pipe an inch wider, and the harder you work the more is demanded of you, and you stand slinging buckets forty hours a week, then forthy-eight, then fifty-six - for your neighbor’s supper - for his wife’s operation - for his child’s measles - for his mother’s wheel chair - for his uncle’s shirt - for his nephew’s schooling - for the baby next door - for the baby to be born - for anyone anywhere around you - it’s theirs to receive, from diapers to dentures - and yours to work, from sunup to sundown, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it but your sweat, with nothing in sight for you but their pleasure, for the whole of your life, without rest, without hope, without end … From each according to his ability, to each according to his need…"

"We’re all one big family, they told us, we’re all in this together."

"It took us just one meeting to discover that we had become beggars - rotten, whining, sniveling beggars, all of us, because no man could claim his pay as his rightful earning, he had no rights and no earnings, his work didn’t belong to him, it belonged to ‘the family’, and they owed him nothing in return, and the only claim he had on them was his ‘need’ - so he had to beg in public for relief from his needs, like any lousy moocher, listing all his troubles and miseries, down to his patched drawers and his wife’s head colds, hoping that ‘the family’ would throw him the alms."

He goes on to explain how good men were forced to become bad

What was it they’d always told us about the vicious competition of the profit system, where men had to compete for who’d do a better job than his fellows? Vicious, wasn’t it? Well, they should have seen what it was like when we all had to compete with one another for who’d do the worst job possible. There’s no surer way to destroy a man than to force him into a spot where he has to aim at not doing his best, where he has to struggle to do a bad job, day after day. That will finish him quicker than drink or idleness or pulling stick-ups for a living.

“God help us, ma’am! Do you see what we saw? We saw that we’d been given a law to live by, a moral law, they called it, which punished those who observed it - for observing it. The more you tried to live up to it, the more you suffered; the more you cheated it, the bigger reward you got. Your honesty was like a tool left at the mercy of the next man’s dishonesty. The honest ones paid, the dishonest collected. The honest lost, the dishonest won. How long could men stay good under this sort of a law of goodness?

Rand demonstrates the hypocrisy in the behavior of the villains.

Was there any reason why this sort of horror would ever be preached by anybody? Was there anybody who got any profit from it? There was. The Starnes heirs. I hope you’re not going to remind me that they’d sacrificed a fortune and turned the factory over to us as a gift. We were fooled by that one, too. Yes, they gave up the factory. But profit, ma’am, depends on what it is that you’re after. And what the Starnes heirs were after, no money on earth could buy. Money is too clean and innocent for that.

And the downfall..

Well, we got what we asked for. By the time we saw what it was that we’d asked for, it was too late. We were trapped, with no place to go. The best men among us left the factory in the first week of the plan. We lost our best engineers, superintendents, foremen and highest-skilled workers. A man of self-respect doesn’t turn into a milch cow for anybody. Some able fellows tried to stick it out, but they couldn’t take it for long. We kept losing our men, they kept escaping from the factory like from a pesthole - till we had nothing left except the men of need, but none of the men of ability.

To work - on a blank check held by every creature born, by men whom you’ll never see, whose needs you’ll never know, whose ability or laziness or sloppiness or fraud you have no way to learn and no right to question - just to work and work and work - and leave it up to the Ivys and the Geralds of the world to decide whose stomach will consume the effort, the dreams and the days of your life. And this is the moral law to accept? This - a moral ideal?

Well, we tried it - and we learned. Our agony took four years, from our first meeting to our last, and it ended the only way it could end: in bankruptcy.

Pretty powerful writing and would take the time to not only read the book but read this part of the book. I know some might say it is extreme, but Health Care is not right it is a service. And to tax the wealthy to run/make deficit neutral is not right, I'm sorry it just isn't. Why are we forcibly taking someone’s income to the benefit of someone else?I have a problem with the concept of taking the fruits of someone’s hard earned labor simply so that I or someone else may benefit at their expense.

In order to truly reform health care we must unleash the potential of the free market. The reality is that there are over 133,000 pages of health care regulation in the U.S. Code currently. This obviously goes beyond simple consumer protections and begins to invade in business’ and people’s affairs.

>

I know this is a hot topic, leave me a comment and let me know how you feel? Am I a child-killer? Is the government given us a moral program?

Mistakes Equal Success

This weeks quote of the week comes from a book I have previously talked about by Paul Arden It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be: The World's Best Selling Book. I think when it comes to every aspects of life we can learn a great deal through our mistakes. Matter of fact how can you become extraordinary if you never make mistakes? I make mistakes everyday and from each of those mistakes I learn something. A majority of the bloggers in the Personal Finance community have some story of how the mistakes they made as young adults helped them turn around their life and ultimately their finances. 

The following is an excerpts from It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be:© Copyright, 2003, by Paul Arden.

"The Person Who Doesn't Make Mistakes Is Unlikely To Make Anything" 

Benjamin Franklin said "I haven't failed, I've have had 10,000 ideas that didn't work."

Thomas Edison said "Of the 200 light bulbs that didn't work, every failure told me something I was able to incorporate into the next attempt."

Theatre Director Joan Littlewood said, "If we don't get lost, we we'll never find a new route."

All of them understood that failures and false starts are a precondition of success.

Failure was a major contributor to its success. 

This is some pretty powerful stuff, you learn and progress everyday by trying and making mistakes. When I first started budgeting I was constantly making adjustments to it because the first, second, third... ways weren't working for me. I am still making adjustments everyday to this blog. I constantly look at my site stats to see what is working and what is not. Which articles are people reading and which articles people seem to care less about. 

I have made my fair share of mistakes as well with personal finances and I know there will be plenty more mistakes along the way which I can point out and we can all learn.

I was reading the blog I Hope To Retire Someday and his latest post is about a mistake assuming someone was monitoring his retirement/investment. In the long run I think he will be better off because he will have learned from that mistake.

You have to learn from your mistakes though, as Albert Einstein said:

There is nothing that is a more certain sign of insanity than to do the same thing over and over and expect the results to be different.*

I think we as individuals and the government can learn from all these guys. Making mistakes is part of human nature, but understanding that they are a precondition of success is the importance of failure.

*Why is our government doing the same thing over and over and expecting the results to be different?

Related Post:

Small Lesson about Credit Cards

Advice to New College Graduates

Does my advisor have my best interest in mind?

What has been your biggest mistake and how did that mistake influence you? Leave me a comment!

New York: John D. Rockefeller and Atlas Shrugged

This past weekend we went to visit my sister in New York. I have been to New York a few times and each time I enjoy going to see something new. We arrived in NY Friday morning and one of the things I wanted to see was the Atlas sculpture at the Rockefeller Center which is on the cover of Atlas Shrugged soft cover. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

One of my favorite parts besides the Atlas was reading the inscription on this granite slab that faces the Rockefeller building over looking the ice rink as written by John D Rockefeller Jr. 

“I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.
I believe that the law was made for man and not man for the law; that government is the servant of the people and not their master.
I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.
I believe that thrift is essential to well ordered living and that economy is a prime requisite of a sound financial structure, whether in government, business or personal affairs.
I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order.
I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man’s word should be as good as his bond; that character — not wealth or power or position— is of supreme worth.
I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.
I believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individual’s highest fulfillment, greatest happiness, and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His will.
I believe that love is the greatest thing in the world; that it alone can overcome hate; that right can and will triumph over might.”

Wow, what can you say except that it is incredible that a man could express his beliefs in such an amazing way. We as individuals and our government need to take a hard look at the list of principles in which John D. Rockefeller Jr. believed. We as a society could learn so much from this, I can honestly say that I believe in every word he says here.

If you are ever in NYC, I would recommend going and seeing the Rockefeller Center. What do you think of Rockefeller's beliefs? Leave me a comment and let me know!

You Can Achieve the Unachievable

My creative director gave everyone in my department the book It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be: The World's Best Selling Book by Paul Arden. The book itself is very easy to read and is pack full of great quotes, images, inspiration and insightful ideas. I would highly recommend purchasing this book and to flip through it often. I keep it on my coffee table and open it up every once in while. It is mostly about advertising, but can apply to pretty much any aspect of life.

The following is an excerpts from It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be: © Copyright, 2003, by Paul Arden.

You Can Achieve the Unachievable.

Firstly you need to aim beyond what you are capable of.

You must develop a complete disregard for where your abilities end.

Try to do things that you're incapable of.

If you think you're unable to work for the best company in its sphere, make that your aim.

If you think you're incapable of running a company, make that your aim.

If you think you're unable to be on the cover of Time magazine, make it your business to be there.

Make your vision of where you want to be a reality.

Nothing is impossible.

I believe this is so true, and we can apply this to being successful with life whether it is happiness, career, or wealth. If you look at the title of the book Pual says "The world's best-selling book" he is backing up everything that he is preaching.

When it comes to wealth, we can achieve the unachievable, we just have to set our goals high. I read blogs all the time where bloggers got themselves into serious debt, then they decided that not only were they going to get out of debt, but vowed to themselves they were going to create wealth. It is so easy to be in piles of debt and all you can tell yourself is that you will never be debt free, I know first hand that I thought I never could save any money living in L.A. It wasn't a raise that got me saving money(even though it helped) I still lived paycheck to paycheck. It was my attitude that one day I decided that I was not going to live that way. That first month with my new attitude, I had saved money because I believed I was going to save.

Some people want to be Warren Buffet, some just want to retire in their 50's, some might want to make enough to be charitable, I think at the end of the day you can be any of these if you believe and work at it everyday.  It's really is about you — "Make your vision of where you want to be a reality." I think everyone should use this except, we as a society need to promote this type of attitude. Having the attitude that you cannot get out of poverty, is going to be very difficult. You always hear the stories of people who came from nothing and they say things like "I just decided that I wasn't going to poor anymore, and that I was going to be somebody". I think this all goes back to, you can be whatever you want, you just have to believe it.

What do you think? What is unachievable to you? Nothing right! Go have a great weekend!

Man's Life Must be a Straight Line of Motion

This weeks quote is still from Atlas Shrugged part II Chapter VIII "By Our Love" where Dagny is contemplating what it means having a purpose to create and produce. I think when it comes to our careers, finances, and family we can apply her thought process to our lives. One of the main themes of the book centers around working hard and human achievement, Rand herself said the theme is "the role of man's mind in existence." 

The following is an excerpts from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand.

"It is not proper for man's life to be a circle, she thought, or a strings of circles dropping off like zeros behind him—man's life must be a straight line of motion from goal to farther goal, each leading to the next and to a single growing sum, like a journey down the track of a railroad, from station to station..."

What I like about this is the thought of going from goal to goal. Life should be keep on a straight path, straying away from that next goal could lead you awry. Next thing you know you are back around to the beginning of the circle, making the same mistake(s) as before. No matter if it is finances' or a career, a circle is "completed and gone, leading to nowhere". Building a working path is about leaving nothing behind to die, each step should be stepping stone to the next day, next job, next career, so on and so on...

In my last post I touched on this a little, every job that I have had, has lead me to where I am right now. Hopefully what path I lay down today will lead to tomorrow and so on till the end of my days. I ask each of you to go and create that straight path today and tomorrow and the next day and keep on till you have reached that first goal, then that 2nd goal and so on...

If you liked this, read more posts of all the Quote's of the Week

Hope you have enjoyed? If so leave me a comment!

The Origin of the Dollar Sign ($)

The quote of the week comes from Chapter 20 in the book Atlas Shrugged title "The Sign of The Dollar". This stuck out to me while I was reading it and thought it was interesting enough that I had to do a little research about the origin of the dollar sign and what it stands for. What I came across is since the symbol is more recent than the name, and the origins of the latter are well understood, one might expect that the origins of the sign would also be known for certain particularly when the origin of the British pound sign, £, which is far older, is well-established. However that is not the case with regard to the dollar. There seem to be a few theories of the origin's of the $ sign. I like the theory that Ayn Rand uses in Atlas Shrugged even though sounds like the symbol was already in use before the formation of the United States.

Dagny sees "the sign of the dollar" imprinted on Kellogg's box of cigarettes--costing five cents in a pure gold standard. She asks what the dollar sign stands for and Kellogg's answer is:

The following is an excerpts from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand.

"The dollar sign? For agreat deal. It stands on the vest of every fat, piglike figure in every cartoon, for the purpose of denoting a crook, a grafter, a scoundrel—as the one sure-fire brand of evil."

He goes on to say

"It stands—as the money of a free country—for achievement, for success, for ability, for man's creative power—and precisely for these reasons, it is used as a brand of infamy. It stands for the initials of the United States."

"Do you know that the United States is the only country in history that has ever used its own monogram as a symbol of depravity? Ask yourself why. Ask yourself how long a country that did that could hope to exist, and whose moral standards have destroyed it. It was the only country in history where wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by trade, the only country whose money was the symbol of man's right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself."

I am in total agreement with Rand on everything except I have to say that some wealth was acquired by force in the days of slavery, but will let Walter Williams talk about this one. I do feel it stands for achievement, for success, for ability, for man's creative power, along with the symbol of man's right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself.  I also feel that the media/hollywood uses it as a symbol of depravity.

If you would like to find out more on the origins of the dollar sign check out the wiki page.

If you liked this, read older post of Quote of the Week

What theory do you think? Leave a comment

Robin Hood, the Foulest of Creatures?

It's time for another quote of the week, I usually try and post these on Tuesdays but I have been playing catch up this week.

So I have reached the Atlantis in Atlas Shrugged but I want to go back to a part of the noval that I had booked marked. This part only seems fitting since this week was Tax week. This great part of Atlas Shrugged is when Hank Rearden is talking to Ragnar Danneskjöld. 

The following is an excerpts from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand.

“I’ve chosen a special mission of my own. I’m after a man whom I want to destroy. He died many centuries ago, but until the last trace of him is wiped out of men’s minds, we will not have a decent world to live in.”
Hank Rearden: “What man?”
Danneskjold: “Robin Hood.”

Hank Rearden doesn't really know what he means and Dannesjold goes in and explains the horror which Robin Hood immortalizes as an ideal of righteousness.

He is remembered, not as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became the symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don't have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does.

It is the foulest of creatures - the double-parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich-whom men have come to regard as a moral ideal.

Without getting to political, I have to say that some of our politicians today feel that the people who have created an abundance of wealth should pay more for people that haven't created anything but feel the right that they are owed something. Don't believe me? Check out Man vs Debt's article about some of his lesson learned while preparing taxes this season.

Have a great weekend! I am headed to the beach to surf this weekend so I am really excited! Hope yours is good as mine!

Production is not private choice, but a public duty

Every Tuesday I like to use a quote or excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, espically since I read something and the next day on the news I here our government saying the same thing. Its funny how this book is being played out right before our eyes. This latest passage is from chapter VI - Miracle Metal.

The following is an excerpts from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand.

"that in the twelve-month period ending on the first day of this year, the rate of business failures has doubled, as compared with the proceeding twelve-month period. Since the first of this year, it has trebled."

"Be sure they think it's their own fault," "Whatever you do, don't apologize," said Dr. Ferris. "Make them feel guilty."

"I'm not apologizing!" snapped Mouch. "I am not to blame. I need wider power."

"But it is their own fault," said Eugene Lawson, turning aggressively to Dr. Ferris. "It's their lack of social spirit. They refuse to recognize that production is not a private choice, but a public duty. They have no right to fail, no matter what conditions happen to come up. They've got to go on producing. It's social imperative. A man's work is not a personal matter-or a personal life. That's what we've got to force them to learn."

"They have no right to fail, no matter what conditions happen to come up. They've got to go on producing." Isn't that what is happening to the auto industry? Haven't we all heard that we cannot allow GM to go bankrupt or go out of business? That so many people would lose their jobs? Isn't it what they(our government) are saying that it's social imperative that GM/Chrysler stay in business? see @ 2:15.

Have a good great day! Let me know your thoughts on this?

So you think that money is the root of all evil?

"Francisco's Money Speech"
by Ayn Rand

The following is an excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.' ...Read in entirety

This is perhaps that greatest written speech ever put forth supporting the free market and capitalism. I will never forget reading this laying in bed and not being able to put it down. After reading this I proceeded to lay their contemplating that speech for the next two hours trying to go to sleep but was not able to. Everything I had always thought and felt seeing my father and mother working so hard to have their own successful businesses was achieved by reading this speech from Atlas Shrugged.

I highly suggest everyone one read Atlas Shrugged no matter what your belief is, Ayn Rand was was an incredible writer and philosopher. Reading Atlas Shrugged was one of my 2009 goals for the year since it is so long, but I have not been able to put it down since I started reading it.

Atlas Shrugged

"We are breaking up the vicious tyranny of economic power. We will set men free of the rule of the dollar. We will release our spiritual aims from dependence on the owners of material means. We will liberate our culture from the stranglehold of the profit-chasers."

Sound Familiar? Being a Profit-Chaser in these days is looked down on.