Category Archives: Atlas Shrugged

And it's against the rules to have a child more than 2 on your lap for a whole flight.

Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.

There was little Taizo sitting in his own seat on a flight from Houston to Boston.

He's 27 months old, so this must have felt like something of a treat. His mom, Shirley, had paid almost $1,000 for his seat.

She was on her way to a teacher conference.

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Suddenly, Taizo's fun was cut short. Another passenger turned up with a boarding pass for his seat. And promptly took it.

Shirley told Hawaii News Now that she explained to a flight attendant that she'd paid for that seat. They couldn't possibly give Taizo's seat to this standby passenger, could they?

She said the flight attendant said the flight was full and shrugged like Atlas.

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United Bans Leggings Two passengers weredenied boarding because they were wearing leggingsin March. According to United, the airline had a right to deny boarding based on dress code because the girls were using buddy passes and were, therefore, representing the airline when they fly, similar to employees.

Photo Credit: Getty

David Dao Definitelynotan employee, David Dao was forcibly removed from a United flight in Aprilafter he refused to give up his seat on an "overbooked flight," resulting in a serious concussion, a broken nose, and two lost teeth. Video of the incident went viral, causing United tochange their policyand get slapped witha lawsuit thatwas quicklysettled.

Photo Credit: Youtube

Giant Rabbit Dies United also faced another controversy whenagiant rabbit being transportedon one of its planes died in the cargo duringa flight.According to The Sun newspaper, the animal, named Simon, was the son of the worlds largest rabbit -- a four-footlong continental rabbit called Darius --and was expected to have grown larger than his father.

Something very strange has happened and I want to know what. Ive sent rabbits all around the world and nothing like this has happened before," said owner Annette Edwards.

Photo Credit: Twitter

Bride and Groom Booted From Flight Abride and groom traveling to Costa Ricafor their wedding in Aprilwere escorted off a United Airlines flight after they noticed a man sleeping in their seats and decided to move up three rows as to not wake the passenger. However, it was an "Economy Plus" seat and although the passengers said they complied to return to the seats, a U.S. Marshal removed them.

Photo Credit: Getty

Altercation Between American Airlines and Mother American Airlines suspended a flight attendantwhile investigating a scuffle between him, a mom and two babies. In a viral video, a woman is seen hysterically crying while holding a toddler, with a male flight attending yanking away the stroller for her second child.g a scuffle between him, a mom and two babies. In a viral video, a woman is seen hysterically crying while holding a toddler, with a male flight attending yanking away the stroller for her second child.

Photo Credit: Youtube

Delta Removes Passenger After He Used the Bathroom At the end of April, aman wasremoved from a Delta flightafter he used the bathroom while the plane awaited takeoff on the tarmac.

Photo Credit: Getty

Delta Worker Threatens Passengers With Jail Time EarlyMay, aSouthern California family saidthey werekicked off an overbooked Delta flightbecause they refused to give up a seat they had bought for their young son sitting in a car seat.They were asked to have their son sit on their lap for the duration of the flight.They refused, saying they paid for the seat, to which the airline staff threatened the family with jail time.

Photo Credit: Getty

Spirit Airlines Riot In May,Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport descended into total chaosafter nine Spirit Airlines flights were canceled, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded and increasingly irate in the terminal. The cancellations were the result of a legal dispute between the budget airline and the Air Line Pilots Association International.

Courtesy of Jary Romero/Handout via REUTERS

Teen Trapped in Airport Alone Overnight According to CBC News, a 15-year-old boy was "trapped" overnight in an airport alone when Air Canada rebooked him on another flight after he missed his original one. However, the flight was almost 24 hours later and the airline did not offer him any accommodation or vouchers for food. Because he is a minor, he could not get a hotel room, he says.

(Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Passenger Forced to Pee in a Cup Also in May,apassenger claimed she was forced to pee in a cupaboard a United flight after flight attendants told her she wasnt allowed to use the lavatory until the pilot had turned off the fasten seatbelt sign.

The woman, who had an overactive bladder, was told the flight attendant would be filing a report about the incident.

Photo Credit: Getty

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Did I mention this was a United Airlines flight?

"I had to move my son onto my lap," Shirley told Hawaii News Now. "He's 25 pounds. He's half my height. I was very uncomfortable. My hand, my left arm was smashed up against the wall. I lost feeling in my legs and left arm."

This, by the by, appears to be against United's own rules. Any child over 2 years old has to have his or her own seat. Yet here the mother was holding her son for three and a half hours.

Moreover, the FAA warns against holding a child over 2: "Your arms aren't capable of holding your child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence."

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Shirley said she was scared to speak up more because of the United incident with David Dao, infamously dragged bloodied from a flight after refusing to be bumped.

"I started remembering all those incidents with United on the news," she said. "The violence. Teeth getting knocked out. I'm Asian. I'm scared and I felt uncomfortable. I didn't want those things to happen to me."

I contacted United and a spokesman told me: "On a recent flight from Houston to Boston, we inaccurately scanned the boarding pass of Ms. Yamauchi's son. As a result, her son's seat appeared to be not checked in, and staff released his seat to another customer and Ms. Yamauchi held her son for the flight. We deeply apologize to Ms. Yamauchi and her son for this experience. We are refunding her son's ticket and providing a travel voucher. We are also working with our employees to prevent this from happening again."

How does one scan a boarding pass "inaccurately"? It seems like a fairly simple process.

If Yamauchi's telling of the tale is accurate, surely the most disturbing thing is that no one seems to have wanted to fix the problem before takeoff.

After the Dao incident, United CEO Oscar Munoz was at pains to explain that staff would now be given more freedom to behave with common sense.

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Yamauchi says she had proof that she'd paid for the seat. She surely had two boarding passes.

Wouldn't the right thing to do have been to explain to the standby passenger that the airline had made a mistake?

Oh, you'll cry, but he paid a lot of money for his ticket too.

KITV news reports that he paid just $75.

More from Inc.: This Airline Made a Wheelchair User Drag Himself Up a Staircase, Using Only His Hands

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United gives toddler's seat to standby passenger, makes mom hold him for whole flight - AOL

The Fountainhead, part 1, chapter 10

Peter Keating is attending a party thrown by another architect, a pompous old windbag named Ralston Holcombe who designs state capitols and other monumental buildings. He secretly despises Holcombe and is only there for appearances sake. Hes glancing at his wristwatch, calculating the time when it would be permissible to leave, when he notices another guest across the room. Its Dominique Francon:

She stood leaning against a column, a cocktail glass in her hand. She wore a suit of black velvet; the heavy cloth, which transmitted no light rays, held her anchored to reality by stopping the light that flowed too freely through the flesh of her hands, her neck, her face.

So her skin is transparent? I cant picture this scene in my head without imagining her as a glass frog, which you have to admit changes the tone somewhat.

Peter goes to find Guy Francon, asking him to make introductions. He does, but then excuses himself as soon as possible, as if he cant stand to be around his own daughter. Dominique seems to be amused:

I have waited to meet you for such a long time, Miss Francon.

This will be interesting, said Dominique. You will want to be nice to me, of course, and yet that wont be diplomatic.

What do you mean, Miss Francon?

Father would prefer you to be horrible with me. Father and I dont get along at all.

Peter tries to brush this off, insisting that he can make up his own mind about her regardless of what her father thinks. Dominique is unimpressed:

Dont say that Im beautiful and exquisite and like no one youve ever met before and that youre very much afraid that youre going to fall in love with me. Youll say it eventually, but lets postpone it. Apart from that, I think well get along very nicely.

But youre trying to make it very difficult for me, arent you?

Yes. Father should have warned you.

He did.

You should have listened.

See, that was funny! Even though Rand hardly ever writes satire, lines like this almost make me convinced that she had a hidden talent for it.

Its a common problem in fiction to make the heroes into humorless do-gooders, and this was especially pronounced in Rands case. The seriousness of their mission rules out all fun. Often, its only the bad guys who get to be clever and witty and complex, because theyre not bound by moral standards and can say whatever theyre thinking. That certainly seems to be the case here. By the time Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged, she was no longer willing to give herself that license, and we got villains who were as bland as the heroes.

Trying for a compliment, Peter tells Dominique hes been reading her column. He remembers too late that one of her latest entries was an attack on his work. Shes undaunted, apparently taking it for sarcasm:

Oh, yes, she said. The Ainsworth house. You designed it. Im sorry. You just happened to be the victim of one of my rare attacks of honesty. I dont have them often. As you know, if youre read my stuff yesterday.

Ive read it. And well, Ill follow your example and Ill be perfectly frank. Dont take it as a complaint one must never complain against ones critics. But really that capitol of Holcombes is much worse in all those very things that you blasted us for. Why did you give him such a glowing tribute yesterday? Or did you have to?

Dont flatter me. Of course I didnt have to. Do you think anyone on the paper pays enough attention to a column on home decoration to care what I say in it? Besides, Im not even supposed to write about capitols. Only Im getting tired of home decorations.

Then why did you praise Holcombe?

Because that capitol of his is so awful that to pan it would have been an anticlimax. So I thought it would be amusing to praise it to the sky. It was.

I admit Im having trouble picturing the typical reader of Dominiques column. She could be the architectural version of a catty gossip columnist or a ferocious movie critic, affording her readers the entertainment of seeing which withering insults shell unleash on the latest crime against good taste.

But apparently, thats not her idiom. More often, she praises places she hates, just for the sake of her own private amusement. So does her column appeal to bored housewives and dilettantes who dont know any better? Or is it for jaded cynics who enjoy seeing garish buildings trashed in print? It seems anything that would appeal to one of those demographics would turn off the other.

Peter asks her if she knows Ellsworth Toohey. She replies in the affirmative, and even says she admires him, despite the fact that he has principles and she has none. She calls him sheer perfection in his own way:

Sometimes, when I feel bitter against the world, I find consolation in thinking that its all right, that Ill be avenged, that the world will get whats coming to it because theres Ellsworth Toohey.

What do you want to be avenged for? She looked at him, her eyelids lifted for a moment, so that her eyes did not seem rectangular, but soft and clear.

That was very clever of you, she said. That was the first clever thing youve said.

Why?

Because you knew what to pick out of all the rubbish I uttered. So Ill have to answer you. Id like to be avenged for the fact that I have nothing to be avenged for.

Peter tries to continue the conversation, but she abruptly seems to lose interest and drifts away to talk to someone else. Later that night, he meets Guy again, who offers to drive him home while making excuses for Dominiques behavior and lamenting his failures as a father:

I never know how to speak to her. He sighed. Ive never learned to. I cant understand what in blazes is the matter with her, but something is. She just wont behave like a human being. You know, shes been expelled from two finishing schools. How she ever got through college I cant imagine, but I can tell you that I dreaded to open my mail for four solid years, waiting for word of the inevitable. Then I thought, well, once shes on her own Im through and I dont have to worry about it, but shes worse than ever.

This is a small thing, but its so telling: Dominique has no backstory, no explanation for how she came to be this way. A good author, when introducing a character, will explain or at least hint at the life experiences that shaped them into who they are now, so that we the readers can understand them and sympathize with their choices. We have nothing like that in her case.

Granted, characters with no origin and no backstory are a common trope in Ayn Rands novels. Witness Howard Roark in this one, or John Galt in Atlas Shrugged. But at least Rand writes her solitary heroes to have no families or close friends, so it makes sense that no one has insight into them.

For her part, Dominique has a father. But even he has no idea why she is the way she is. The text mentions vaguely that her mother died at a young age, which could provide an interesting and plausible explanation of how her faith in humanity was shattered. (Imagine a scene where Dominiques mother promises to always love and care for her only to break that promise by dying, which leads Dominique to decide shell never trust anyone ever again.)

But as far as Im aware, the text never suggests this or any other explanation. It doesnt even seem interested in posing the question. Dominiques perverse nihilism is a given. Even the characters who want to cure her of it have no interest in finding out why she holds those views to begin with. This fits with Rands general style, where the characters arent really characters, but philosophical principles disguised as human beings.

Image credit: Orest via Wikimedia Commons, released under CC BY-SA 2.0 license

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The Fountainhead: Serpent's Tooth - Patheos (blog)

Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.

There was little Taizo sitting in his own seat on a flight from Houston to Boston.

He's 27 months old, so this must have felt like something of a treat. His mom, Shirley, had paid almost $1,000 for his seat.

She was on her way to a teacher conference.

Suddenly, Taizo's fun was cut short. Another passenger turned up with a boarding pass for his seat. And promptly took it.

Shirley told Hawaii News Now that she explained to a flight attendant that she'd paid for that seat. They couldn't possibly give Taizo's seat to this standby passenger, could they?

She said the flight attendant said the flight was full and shrugged like Atlas.

Did I mention this was a United Airlines flight?

"I had to move my son onto my lap," Shirley told Hawaii News Now. "He's 25 pounds. He's half my height. I was very uncomfortable. My hand, my left arm was smashed up against the wall. I lost feeling in my legs and left arm."

This, by the by, appears to be against United's own rules. Any child over 2 years old has to have his or her own seat. Yet here the mother was holding her son for three and a half hours.

Moreover, the FAA warns against holding a child over 2: "Your arms aren't capable of holding your child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence."

Shirley said she was scared to speak up more because of the United incident with David Dao, infamously dragged bloodied from a flight after refusing to be bumped.

"I started remembering all those incidents with United on the news," she said. "The violence. Teeth getting knocked out. I'm Asian. I'm scared and I felt uncomfortable. I didn't want those things to happen to me."

I contacted United and a spokesman told me: "On a recent flight from Houston to Boston, we inaccurately scanned the boarding pass of Ms. Yamauchi's son. As a result, her son's seat appeared to be not checked in, and staff released his seat to another customer and Ms. Yamauchi held her son for the flight. We deeply apologize to Ms. Yamauchi and her son for this experience. We are refunding her son's ticket and providing a travel voucher. We are also working with our employees to prevent this from happening again."

How does one scan a boarding pass "inaccurately"? It seems like a fairly simple process.

If Yamauchi's telling of the tale is accurate, surely the most disturbing thing is that no one seems to have wanted to fix the problem before takeoff.

After the Dao incident, United CEO Oscar Munoz was at pains to explain that staff would now be given more freedom to behave with common sense.

Yamauchi says she had proof that she'd paid for the seat. She surely had two boarding passes.

Wouldn't the right thing to do have been to explain to the standby passenger that the airline had made a mistake?

Oh, you'll cry, but he paid a lot of money for his ticket too.

KITV news reports that he paid just $75.

View post:

United Gives Toddler's Seat to Standby Passenger, Makes Mom Hold Him for Whole Flight - Inc.com

President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans are currently scrambling to push through the American Health Care Act,or Trumpcare, despite resistance from Democrats.

Although the Senate is still struggling to find support for the bill, with votingpostponeduntil after the Fourth of July holiday, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. Mitch McConnell remain committed to replacingthe Affordable Care Act.

Recently, the Congressional Budget Office released a report showing that, under the American Health Care Act, up to 15 million Americans will find themselves without health insurance next year. By 2026, that number will grow to 22 million.

Critics of the bill have not minced words, lambasting the proposed legislationfor how it would adversely affect low-income Americans. Former President Barack Obama has been among the outspoken, recently referring to the AHCA as a massive transfer of wealth aimed at benefiting moneyed Americans alone.

Polls are even showing that an overwhelming number of Americans do not approve of the health care overhaul; according to one pollster, a mere 12 percent back the bill.

Even President Trump has expressed some doubts about the AHCA, reportedly calling it mean.

Even still, Republicans like Paul Ryan are hellbent on repealingthe ACA, despite the strong opposition. In response to the CBOs damning report, Ryan claimed the numbers were misleading because those losing their health care would only be individualswho are no longer being force[d] to acquire insurance.

Though a weak counterargument on Ryans part, it might provide a window into understanding how he and other Republicans can rationalize dumping millions from their health care.

Ryanspublicly declared justifications for the AHCA areimpotent for a reason he doesnt believe them. In reality, Ryan and Trumps motivations are substantially more transparent: They simply do not believe anyone who is unable to afford health care should have it and claim that makingtaxpayers subsidize insurance is an inherent breach of personal freedoms.

While this observation may appear to be an oversimplification, a look at the personal philosophies of these men couldprove illuminating. More specifically, we should look to author and cod philosopher Ayn Rand a figure highly revered by Ryan, Trump and other Republicans.

Ayn Rand rose to prominence in the middle of the last century due to her popular works of fiction, including The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Trump has even said that of the few fictional novels he enjoys,The Fountainhead is among them, saying that it relates to everything.

Through her various novels and short stories, Rand espoused a strain of thought dubbed objectivism. This form of morality, unlike many others, sees value and worth as being developed wholly from within that is, individualism trumps all else.

Boiled down, Rand essentially argued that selfishness is the supreme virtue; everything else is ancillary, if not unnecessary. In fact, she argued that it was deeply immoral to ask an individual to help another if that help was not entirely voluntary.

Put in practical terms, Rand viewed taxes particularly their use to fund welfare programs like health care to be a severe violation of personal liberty.

This world view ended up being adopted by a number of conservatives in the United States, not the least of which include the most powerful politicians in the country Paul Ryan and Donald Trump.

For these individuals, Rands objectivist morality not only justifies the United States massive wealth inequality, but also celebrates it. And with regards to implementing the AHCA, the imperatives of objectivism make perfect sense.

So even though millions of Americans willlose health care they would not otherwise be able to afford, in Rands eyes - and Ryan and Trumps that is no ones fault but their own. And this is something that Republicansgenuinely believe.

Photo Credit: White House / Wikimedia Commons

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Why Republicans Don't Care if Millions Lose Their Health Care - Care2.com

Sam Bee on Wednesday railed into the GOP healthcare plan in a five-minute blitz that hit Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and even Ayn Rand.

Bee torched conservatives for cutting healthcare coverage for poor, working and sick Americans, pleading, dont kill Medicaid, its only 52 years old! It just joined curves and is learning to dance like nobodys watching!

She then turned to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI), playing a video of the GOP leader bragging hes been dreaming of sending Medicaid back to the states [and] capping its growth rate, adding hes been dreaming of this since you and I were drinking at a keg.

Yes, while most college guys in the 90s were fantasizing about Pamela Anderson, Paul Ryan was jerking it to thoughts of poor people losing healthcare to pay for tax cuts, Bee said.

She then turned to Ryans comrade in the Senate, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for his thinly-annotated copy of Atlas Shrugged.

Watch the video below, via TBS:

Excerpt from:

WATCH: Sam Bee brutalizes Paul Ryan for 'jerking it to poor people ... - Raw Story

This would be the saddest thing Ive ever heard if it wasnt the funniest thing Ive ever heard ... Seth Meyers Photograph: YouTube

Late-night hosts on Wednesday took aim at Trumps fake Time magazine cover and the GOPs hugely unpopular healthcare legislation, the vote for which was delayed on Tuesday after failing to receive enough support from Republican senators.

Samantha Bee, of Full Frontal, began: Last week, Mitch McConnell and his gang of 12 finally unveiled their super-secret Obamacare repeal bill. Guess what the big secret was?

Bee went on to slam the bill, which includes huge cuts to Medicaid. Its called trickle-down, she said. Poor people will still get access to the antibiotics that rich people shed in their urine. It turns out, 13 rich white guys alone in a room isnt how good legislation happens. Its how Suicide Squad happens. But while Suicide Squad destroys your will to live, this bill destroys your ability to live.

Most people like Medicaid, including Republican people. Who the hell asked you to gut it by sending it to the states and capping its growth rate? she asked. Medicaid is the reason we dont have gangs of elderly people roaming the streets, robbing us of our soft food and sharing their thoughts about Asian people. Allowing states to cap Medicaid benefits also threatens the expensive long-term care that was so very important to Republicans back when it was keeping Terry Schiavo alive.

Bee then tore into Paul Ryan, who said hed been dreaming about the legislation since drinking out of a keg in college. While most college guys in the 90s were fantasizing about Pamela Anderson, Bee joked, Paul Ryan was jerking it to thoughts of poor people losing healthcare to pay for tax cuts. Easy there, cowboy! You might not be covered for carpal tunnel and blindness.

Amazingly, Mitch McConnells annotated copy of Atlas Shrugged wasnt greeted with unfettered senatorial rapture, Bee said. But dont put your sharpies and poster board away yet.

Stephen Colbert took aim at the legislation as well, a new version of which could be voted on after the Fourth of July recess.

The Senate Trumpcare bill suffered some setbacks this week because theres one major flaw to the legislation, he began. I dont want to get too wonky, but its a hot pile of garbage.

Yesterday, Senate majority leader and man trying to keep a bird from escaping his mouth Mitch McConnell announced that voting on the bill would be delayed until after the Fourth of July. Its a smart move. You dont want to strip people of healthcare until after the holiday that mixes booze and explosives.

Colbert continued: While theyve pulled the bill, Republicans say theyre going to come back with something better. And theres a lot of blame to go around. Today, the New York Times said Donald Trump faltered in his role as a closer. Usually, hes a great closer. Just look at his casinos. But you cant. Theyre gone.

The host then discussed the Times report, which detailed some of the internal efforts to get the bill passed. One Republican senator said the president did not have a grasp of some of the basic elements of the Senate plan, Colbert said, before beginning his impersonation of the president. Whoa, slow down. Slow down. Start from the beginning. Whats a Senate? And, follow-up question, whats a plan?

Trump claims he does understand the plan, Colbert continued, tweeting: Some of the fake news media likes to say that I am not totally engaged in healthcare. Wrong, I know the subject well and want victory for US.

He totally understands healthcare, Colbert quipped. He thinks you can win it.

Seth Meyers of NBC addressed healthcare legislation and the Washington Post report saying the president hangs a fake Time Magazine cover in many of his resorts and hotels.

This week the CBO projected that the GOP healthcare bill could leave 22 million more people uninsured, he began. So what has Trump been up to? Well, yesterday, he got up bright and early to retweet four different stories in a row from Fox & Friends attacking the Russia investigation and the Democrats.

Meyers continued: One of the stories Trump retweeted was a link to a monologue from Fox host Sean Hannity, whose surgery to have those bolts removed from his neck was apparently successful.

Trump is so obsessed with praise from the media that according to the Washington Post, he keeps this framed Time magazine cover hanging in several of his golf clubs, Meyers said. Cool cover, flattering photo. Just one problem. The Time cover is a fake. Thats right, Trump hung a fake Time Magazine cover with his face on it in his private golf club. That is the literal definition of fake news. This would be the saddest thing Ive ever heard if it wasnt the funniest thing Ive ever heard.

Continued here:

'The literal definition of fake news': late-night hosts on Trump's Time cover - The Guardian

The markets central bank fetish is getting out of hand. The money manipulators were out in force yesterday. Their words moved markets all around the world.

Nothing else seems to matter these days, so lets delve into whats going on.

Bank of England (BoE) governor Mark Carney told markets last week that it wasnt time to raise rates yet. This week he said hed have to remove some stimulus.

The pound surged a per cent on the change in potential policy. But then the BoE PR team was out in force telling the markets they had it wrong. Carney wasnt going to raise rates imminently.

Meanwhile the BoEs chief economist put a date on the interest rate increases the second half of the year. Thats supposedly a bit of a scandal, as it puts his boss, the governor, into a corner. If Carney does vote to raise rates in the second half of the year, his economist appears to be running the show.

Yes, office politics and PR teams now run UK monetary policy. The former BoE Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member Kristin Forbes said so in her explanation for quitting the committee. In a speech to the London Business School she explained that the central bankers were too worried about the press to conduct proper monetary policy.

Central bankers around the world have accepted a far larger mandate than controlling inflation. Theyre now responsible for monetary policy, bank stability, unemployment, financial market stability, bank regulation, the stockmarket level and money itself. You can probably throw in exchange rates too. Not to mention the political issues that go with each of these.

The massive expansion in the role of central banking was supposed to make things more efficient and centralised. But it creates huge conflicts of interest and paradoxes. For example, what if meeting one goal comes at the expense of another? What if combating inflation means financial instability? When the central bank is faced with tough choices that cause problems within one of its spheres of influence, it can now be framed for incompetence.

Its not just in the UK that all this is happening. There must be an enormous jobs boom going on at central bank PR teams. Each time their governors, chairpersons and presidents open their mouths, the markets move and then the PR team comes out to clarify.

Its getting downright bizarre. For example, the comments from European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi which sent markets spinning were these:

As the economy continues to recover, a constant policy stance will become more accommodative, and the central bank can accompany the recovery by adjusting the parameters of its policy instruments not in order to tighten the policy stance, but to keep it broadly unchanged.

That gave investors a fright. The euro had its biggest move all year. The ECBs vice president promptly showed up on CNN to say the market had misunderstood the comments. They implied no change in policy.

Draghi is arguing that a change in monetary policy is not necessarily a change in monetary policy. Doing something can actually mean doing nothing.

Dont you see?

If we put on our central banking hat, it might make sense. If inflation rises, then increasing interest rates at the same speed keeps the real interest rate stable. The real rate is the interest rate minus inflation.

Despite the fact that Draghi said, even if he does do something, it will still be nothing, the market reacted. In the understatement of the century, the ECBs chief economist said markets are particularly sensitive to any perceived change in the future course of monetary policy.

Draghi may have a point though. When the Federal Reserve increased rates, the stockmarket reacted in the way youd expect from a rate cut. When Goldman Sachs chief economist tried to make sense of this, he concluded that the increase in rates was actually pushing the market higher because it wasnt big enough to count as a real increase.

Not only are the PR reps obfuscating in force, so are the economists.

The central bank fetish dominates markets. While it continues, its hard to see how a drop in markets could occur. Central bankers have the powers, the mandate and the infinite budget to offset any problem I can come up with. That implies a steady boom in asset prices, which you can take advantage of.

But it also puts us in some sort of weird doldrums. Its the stability of the world described in Atlas Shrugged, whatever you think of the book and its philosophy.

Central bankers have destroyed financial markets as a mechanism for accountability, risk pricing, capital efficiency and anything else. Financial markets have become a government welfare system run by central bankers. Investments are just a pool of pension funds which must be kept afloat by pumping stock prices.

The question is whether this imposed stability really is stable. The economist Hyman Minsky said that stability begets instability.

Lets go back to the resigning BoE MPC member who highlighted the BoEs PR paranoia. The central bank has too many roles. Some of which can conceivably conflict. Perhaps this is where our answer lies.

At the moment, the various indicators that central bankers have to control are pulling in opposite directions. Inflation falls when the financial sector is in trouble, so the BoE can rescue and print money without worrying about inflation. Inflation rises as the financial systems health improves, so the BoE can tighten policy without fear of sabotaging the banks.

But these relationships need not persist. Perhaps the BoE will some day be forced to choose between its mandates. It will have to sacrifice inflation, the stockmarket or the banks. And then our stability ends.

Like some sort of circus, the authorities are keeping the markets distracted from the bigger questions. The latest act was bank stress tests in the US and an analysis of financial stability by the BoE.

Every now and then regulators around the world pretend to run a health check on their banks. Why? To look busy. And reassure everyone.

These test and reports are usually meaningless. But theyve opened the door to something else less innocent.

Back when a Mr Cowperthwaite was in charge of the Hong Kong economy, he refused to collect statistics. This stopped the central planners and economic meddlers in their tracks because they didnt have the data to justify their schemes. You cant regulate what you dont know anything about. Hong Kong boomed under the unique way of imposing free markets.

The regulators and central banks constant analysis of banks is an example of the opposite phenomenon. They have some much information, they cant help but meddle.

In the UK, the BoE decided to call upon banks to raise more than 11 billion as a capital buffer. The idea is to put money away for a rainy day. The rain being consumer credit defaults in this case.

This is an interesting turn of events. Central bankers are trying to run banks actively now. And the bankers arent happy about it. The increase in capital means they can lend less, or return less to shareholders. It also smells like backdoor monetary policy. By restricting bank lending, the BoE is reducing the economys money supply indirectly. We await the PR teams response on this.

Over in the US, the results of the second segment of the bank stress tests are out. All but one bank passed the first test with flying colours. Their stocks reacted accordingly.

The second test focused on the banks desire to pay profits out to shareholders. Such intentions must now be approved by the authorities as not endangering a banks financial stability because a payout to shareholders reduces capital. Again, this is regulators running bank business decisions. More symptoms of an Atlas Shrugged world.

The margin for error in the stress tests was large, with banks running far more safely than regulators decided was the bare minimum. The banks promptly decided to return funds to shareholders in the immediate wake of the stress test release. The $100 billion payout of the six biggest banks is close to 100% of their profits. In other words, they only had to behave until the report card came out.

At the heart of whats going on here lies an old question. Are banks businesses or utilities? They run a public function the money supply by providing the debt which creates money. The central bank is just the first step in the process. Banks control most of it. Having private institutions running a public function creates the problems we have now.

The debate is that we should choose between two options. Either banks should become proper utilities and controlled as such, or money shouldnt be a public function.

Until next time,

Nick Hubble Capital & Conflict

Category: Central Banks

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The central bank fetish - Capital & Conflict

wbur Review Mija with her "super pig" Okja. (Courtesy Netflix)

Some pig, Charlotte the spider famously wrote of her friend Wilbur in a timeless childrens tale, but she just as well could have been referring to the title character in Okja, filmmaker Bong Joon Hos scabrous satire for adults that premieres this week on Netflix.

A larger-than-life collision of conflicting tones, gargantuan set-pieces and unsubtle social commentary, the film follows in the footsteps of the South Korean writer-directors extraordinary English-language debut Snowpiercer with another series of hairpin stylistic curves and barn-sized performances, at once both heartbreaking and ghoulishly funny. Love him or hate him, theres nobody else making movies quite like this guy.

Bong whose breakthrough 2006 creature-feature/family-melodrama The Host followed a giant lizard rising from toxic pollutants dumped into the Han River by an American army base isnt exactly coy when hes got an ax to grind. Snowpiercer was a class warfare fable set upon a speeding bullet train, its final reel a sly takedown of Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged complete with Ed Harris as a gaseous John Galt-y industrialist. Okja fires a few shots at our current media culture but mostly its a horror movie about factory farming, detailing the ghastly practices of the fictional Mirando Corporation. (Any resemblance to Monsanto is presumably entirely intentional.)

A laboratory-engineered, floppy-eared super pig slightly larger than an Escalade, our lovable Okja is first seen frolicking around a South Korean mountaintop forest with her constant companion spirited, 14-year-old orphan Mija (An Seo Hyun). Mija has been raising the adorable animal for the past decade, as part of a PR campaign cooked up by one of the bickering Mirando sisters (played by twin Tilda Swintons) to try and make folks less wary of their genetically modified organisms by showing off some cute ones. The theory is that then we wont feel so weird about eating them.

But when a broken-down TV veterinarian (Jake Gyllenhaal, overacting atrociously) comes to collect Okja for a Mirando-sponsored parade in New York City, Mija loses her cool. The remainder of the movie is devoted to madcap chase sequences and daring rescues, our plucky heroine joining up with the Animal Liberation Front an idealistic collective of gentle vegans turned violent revolutionaries. Theyre led by a wonderfully droll Paul Dano, attempting to reconcile his peacenik manifesto with the messy tasks at hand.

The movies early highlight is a massive foot/truck pursuit through Seoul with tiny Mija constantly dwarfed by the immensity of both her surroundings and her porcine pal. Bong once again demonstrates a sharp eye for controlled chaos, the bravura sequence crashing through an underground mall as frenzied circus music on the soundtrack gloriously, inexplicably gives way to John Denvers Annies Song.

Not every offbeat choice works so well Gyllenhaals performance is a flat-out disaster but the movie is full of bold, sidelong jabs. Sharp-eyed viewers might bust out laughing at a moment when Swinton and her confidant Giancarlo Esposito are framed to mimic that iconic Situation Room photo taken during the Osama bin Laden raid. (Swinton even puts a hand over her mouth.) Nobody ever accused Bong Joon Ho of being subtle.

"Okja" became the subject of much extracurricular controversy at last month's Cannes Film Festival when jury president Pedro Almodvarread a statement saying he "personally could not conceive" of awarding a Netflix-produced picture, citing the streaming service's refusal to release their films in movie theaters. The festival later announced that starting next year films without a French theatrical run will no longer be considered for competition. The Netflix logo was reportedly booed by festival attendees, and a (rare for Cannes) projection error during the first screening was assumed by the more conspiratorially-minded to be an act of sabotage by film purists.

Personally, I wish Netflix shared their competitor Amazons strategy of booking a theatrical run before streaming exclusively. It especially would have been nice to see Okja on a big screen considering how many of Bongs visual gags are based on size and scale. But this isnt my money, and let's not pretend modern movie studios are lining up to finance projects as kooky and idiosyncratic as this one. How soon we forget that the U.S. release of Snowpiercer was all but scuttled after lengthy disputes over editing with distributors at The Weinstein Company, and the film would not have even played the Boston area had it not been for heroic efforts by our friends at the Brattle Theatre.

I expect Almodvars position will become increasingly more untenable as independent film financing continues to contract and Hollywood keeps narrowing its focus to franchises and branded properties. Later this summer, Martin Scorsese is scheduled to start shooting another of his decades-spanning gangster epics, this one starring the murderers' row of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel. Confoundingly, Scorseses home studio Paramount Pictures (which just released Baywatch and Transformers 5) passed on the project, so now its going to be a Netflix Original Movie.

It's slim pickings for discerning viewers at the movies right now. I'm an almost pathological habitual moviegoer, and this is the first summer of my adult lifetime I can recall going entire weekends without a trip to the multiplex. To have a Cannes contender that's as big and crazily ambitious as "Okja" available through a streaming service is a paradigm shift that I'm sure makes a lot of people in the industry uncomfortable. But I'm just grateful there's finally something interesting for me to watch, even if I have to stay home to see it.

And Im also overjoyed that people are still giving Bong Joon Ho lots of money to make super-expensive movies about how capitalism corrupts and destroys everything good in the world.

Here's the trailer:

Sean Burns Film Critic, The ARTery Sean Burns is a film critic for The ARTery.

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Love Him Or Hate Him, There's Nobody Making Movies Quite Like The Director Of Netflix's 'Okja' - WBUR

A fter an hour-long debate last night that contained references to both Ayn Rand and The Twilight Zone, HB 581, aka the billboard bill, failed by a 49-66 vote.

Thirty Republicans and 36 Democrats voted against the measure; 43 Republicans and six Democrats voted for it.The bill was sponsored by Harnett County Republican David Lewis.

This is the worst billboard bill Ive seen since Ive been here, said Rep. Chuck McGrady, a four-term Republican from Henderson County. Its a corporate welfare bill.

Even after slogging through several committees, the bill was packed with perks for the billboard industry. Although outdoor advertisements couldnt be built where they are currently prohibited the Town of Cary and parts of Durham, for example it otherwise stripped local governments of their control over where billboards could be built.

The measure consolidated power within existing, large billboard companies, making it difficult for smaller ventures to enter the market and compete. A billboard permit would become as coveted as a yellow taxicab medallion in New York City.

Rep. Grier Martin, a Wake County Democrat, proposed an amendment that would have broken up the large companies monopoly, but it failed.

In the first of the evenings two mentions of Ayn Rand, Rep. Jay Adams paraphrased from Atlas Shrugged, noting that the bill used government regulations to prop up a failing industry. Todays free market, it seems, does not favor billboards, especially ones that dont blink every six seconds.

HB 581 allowed billboard companies to replace conventional signs with digital billboards. These arenot merely upgrades, said Rep. Ted Davis, a Republican from New Hanover County, who would probably like to keep his districts beaches from looking like a carnival. Going from a static billboard to an electronic one would have a major impact on our state in terms of visual clutter.

Im getting more confused, said Rep. Jeff Collins, a Nash County Republican who supported the bill. Am I in the House of Representatives or The Twilight Zone? (As if occasionally, they arent one and the same.) What industry do we not let keep up with the times?

The bill removed protections for redbud and dogwood trees, which under current law, cant be cut down to make room for billboards.Lewis, the bill sponsor, had included that language, he said, because municipalities were using redbuds and dogwoods as a tactic like a pawn in a chess game, apparently to block the construction of billboards.

Rep. Brian Turner, a Buncombe County Democrat, tried to convince his fellow lawmakers to pass an amendment to protect the trees. He argued that the flower of the dogwood tree is the official state flower. The amendment failed.

Although appeals to nature didnt sway lawmakers, the giveaways to the billboard industry were too unpalatable for many Republicans, albeit a minority of them. Thirty-six Democrats pushed the bill across the finish line.

Environmental groups saw the bills failure as a rare mark in the win column.

Tonights vote is a victory for North Carolinians who appreciate our states scenic beauty, said Molly Diggins, state director of the Sierra Club, one of many environmental groups that opposed the bill. It also shows respect for local governments and the wishes of their constituents.

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Republicans, inspired by Ayn Rand, and Democrats, sticking up for trees, join forces to kill billboard bill - The Progressive Pulse

A fundamental insight to be gleaned from studying aid to developing countries is that healthy institutions lead to healthy economies; countries with undeveloped or corrupt institutions invariably have struggling economies.

Even countries with prodigious supplies of natural resources do not benefit if they do not have strong institutions. Wealth is extracted, it flows to a few individuals, and then to other nations. Most citizens remain impoverished.

What sets flourishing nations apart is the mediation of wealth creation and distribution by healthy institutions. Schools, universities, government, laws, courts, banks, churches, media, families, libraries, service clubs, hospitals and neighborhoods all serve, when functioning properly, to bring people together in a common cause, protect people from exploitation, and provide opportunities for developing and exercising gifts and talents.

IIn the 1970s and 80s, institution was a bad word, especially among liberals. The movement to reform society, to make it more just, less racist and sexist, was pursued through rejection of the establishment. Traditional ways of doing things were suspect simply because they were traditional.

The modern conservative movement rose in response to the liberal reforms of those years. People like William F. Buckley and George Will advocated incremental change when needed, but not wholesale rejection of traditional forms of society. Conservatives tended to be pro-business, pro-religion, pro-family and pro-education. They supported traditional moral values: honesty, courage, faith, humility, hard work, duty and self-sacrifice.

That all changed during the past decade with the rise of the Tea Party. The Tea Party rejected traditional conservativism and replaced it with profound distrust of institutions of all forms.

The intellectual and historical underpinnings of the Tea Party movement can be found in the writings of Ayn Rand, in books like Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead and The Virtue of Selfishness. Rand criticized institutions, especially government institutions, because they restrict personal freedom. She believed society is best served by allowing individuals to pursue their own paths and not requiring them to put their own interests aside for the sake of the common good.

Rands influence on contemporary American politics is far-reaching. Prominent politicians like Rand Paul (who is named after her) and Paul Ryan shaped their early careers in light of her philosophy, and others such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and business leaders John Mackey and Mark Cuban have acknowledged her inspiration as a factor in their success.

But Rands influence is not to be measured by the number of disciples, rather it can be seen in the profound changes in attitude we are witnessing in society today.

It can be seen in the growing antipathy toward government in all its forms, in the disrespect shown toward professionals in education, journalism and health care, in the rise of conspiracy theories, in the decline in church membership and service organizations, in the antipathy toward science, in the glorification of the violent hero, in the prominence of the cynic.

But there is another, albeit smaller, movement in America today, a movement started by a contemporary of Ayn Rand named Robert Greenleaf.

In 1972, Greenleaf wrote an essay entitled The Servant as Leader in which he expressed an attitude diametrically opposed to Rands Objectivist philosophy. That essay gave rise to the Servant Leadership movement, a movement encouraging the development of individual talents not for self-interest but to serve the common good. He believed this was best done by working diligently to ensure that core institutions are healthy and ethical.

In The Institution as Servant he wrote:

This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built. Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them.

Greenleaf understood that when core institutions are weakened, it creates a void filled by the cult of the personality. Instead of society working slowly and consistently to fix its problems with long-term solutions, it tends to chase after a succession of quick fixes proposed by whoever happens to be most persuasive to the masses at the time.

That is precisely the situation in which most third world countries find themselves mired; it is the situation toward which America seems to be heading.

It is unfortunate that there are no strong conservative voices in American politics today. As a result, we have no political party that seeks, first and foremost, to protect and sustain core institutions as the foundation of democracy.

But there is hope. As long as we have a critical mass of people who believe in the common good, who are willing to sacrifice some of their own interests for the sake of others, who are willing to teach others children as if they were their own, and who are willing to share their vision for positive future, there is hope for a healthy, flourishing, ethical society.

Richard Kyte is the director of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University. He also is a member of the Tribunes editorial board.

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Richard Kyte: Institutions can bring people together - Chippewa Herald