Time To Shrug

10/27/2014

I am speechless! Shame on you if you even consider buying a Tesla. Shame on Toyota for not standing on principle. Toyota’s CEO should have read and understand Hank Rearden’s trial speech.

How the Japanese car maker came to sell a factory to Elon Musk at a knockdown price.

The Toyota sudden-acceleration furor of 2010 was one of those colossal American dishonesties for which a reckoning never comes. No electronic bug was ever found (as government researchers attested). And among the many untold aspects is the Tesla connection.

More at TimeToShrug.org then What's New

09/22/2014

Do you like fancy sports cars? If so, you will soon own one without the privilege of actually having to take possession or drive it.

Even if you don’t like them you get to pay for them. Cronyism is alive and well and has a pretty face – not Musk, but the car.

This is more than pathetic. It is outright theft. Time to shrug?

See more at http://www.timetoshrug.org/commcrony.htm

05/28/2014

Budget Games

My comments:

This article sets the stage on why we cannot get rid of self-serving politicians of both political parties. If they all lie about the use of our money, what can we possibly trust them with? We need a system where the taxpayers can hold power over all spending and borrowing and have monthly veto privileges to insure accountability, much like a real corporation does.

The argument against this approach is that we have a representative government and as citizens do not have the knowledge and time to oversee our elected officials. BUNK. Look at the mess we have now then consider the knowledge and time we need to invest to insure accountability.

Commentary:

The standard media coverage of President Barack Obama's new budget claimed the proposals included $600 billion of budget cuts over the next decade.

It was just about impossible, though, to find any media story mentioning some basic numbers that belong in any story about a new federal budget. How much money is the federal government spending this year? How does that compare to what it spent last year, or expects to spend next year?

More at http://www.timetoshrug.org/commmisc.htm .

04/01/2014

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN CRONIES MARRY THE FED!

We went on a bond-buying spree that was supposed to help Main Street. Instead, it was a feast for Wall Street.

I can only say: I'm sorry, America. As a former Federal Reserve official, I was responsible for executing the centerpiece program of the Fed's first plunge into the bond-buying experiment known as quantitative easing. The central bank continues to spin QE as a tool for helping Main Street. But I've come to recognize the program for what it really is: the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time.

Five years ago this month, on Black Friday, the Fed launched an unprecedented shopping spree. By that point in the financial crisis, Congress had already passed legislation, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, to halt the U.S. banking system's free fall. Beyond Wall Street, though, the economic pain was still soaring. In the last three months of 2008 alone, almost two million Americans would lose their jobs.

See more at www.timetoshrug.org click on What's New.

Shrugging PageCommentary PageAtlas Shrugged IAtlas Shrugged IIAtlas Shrugged IIIFaceBook (TTS)The Atlas Society (TAS)Ayn Rand Institute (ARI)The Objective Standard (TOS)

03/18/2014

Crony business people are the most evil impediment to free market capitalism in existence. See the Clinton Show Returns at www.timetoshrug.org

01/20/2014

Our newly revised Mission Statement is now available for viewing at http://www.timetoshrug.org/mission.htm. Please send your comments to us via Face Book. Thank you.

12/31/2013

Relive Hank Rearden's court room speech. We need to pass this on to our top business leaders. They need to develop the courage to become like Hank Rearden. See the clip at www.timetoshrug.org/whatsnew.htm

08/20/2013

The majority of the voters and citizens of the United States believe they are entitled to free lunch.

It is time for the rest of us to quit picking up the tab.

Let them know that their cafeteria is closed.

See more at www.timetoshrug.org

08/15/2013

Watch an early TV interview with Ayn Rand at our web-site.
Link > http://www.timetoshrug.org/tv.htm

07/22/2013

John Kerry's ObamaCare Boondoggle

A bipartisan backlash is growing against another section of President Obama's health-care law. The president can blame this latest embarrassment on none other than Secretary of State John Kerry.

Everyone remember the origins of the so-called Affordable Care Act? The Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Gator-Aid, and other buyoffs for the votes of key Senate Democrats?

Three years on, yet another sweetheart deal has declared itself, this one inserted by the then-senator for Massachusetts. In Congress, it's becoming known as the Bay State Boondoggle.

Please LIKE us here. More reading at www.timetoshrug.org.

06/18/2013

The Fed’s Eminent Mistake

The Federal Reserve has spent trillions of dollars trying to revive U.S. housing prices, and at long last a recovery is underway. So it's more than a little surprising that amid this progress the New York Fed would suddenly lend its intellectual imprimatur to a dubious proposal for government to use eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages.

Yet there it was Monday on the New York Fed website: "Paying Paul and Robbing No One: An Eminent Domain Solution for Underwater Mortgage Debt," a research paper by Cornell law professor Robert Hockett. The title is certainly arresting since it promises an economics free lunch.

The rest of this feature at www.timetoshrug.org.

Please consider sending us your commentary.

05/28/2013

This is one of the most pathetic cases of crony business practices I’ve read this year. If you invest in or purchase from Tesla Motors, General Motors or Chrysler, shame on you.

But here is the real deal – if you make your living honestly you may have less money than the cronies, but you sleep at night and wake up proud and happy.

If you make your money as a crony you may have lots of money, but the stench of that unearned cash never goes away. You don’t sleep well at night because you know you are a fraud and you wake up with shame and unhappiness.

The Other Government Motors...

The list of the Obama Administration's industrial policy failures is long, from Solyndra to Fisker Automotive. But now we are hearing that one success redeems them all: Tesla Motors. Tesla's share price has soared this year on rave reviews for its electric car, growing sales and its first quarterly profit.

Rarely noted is how much this profit is a function of government subsidy and coercion. So let's take apart Tesla by the numbers, if only to give our reader-taxpayers a better sense of what they've paid to make Tesla's owners rich.

The rest of this feature at www.timetoshrug.org.

Please consider sending us your commentary.