Galt's Gulch

Cast recommendations for Atlas Shrugged: Now Non-Fiction?

Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago to Movies
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Does anyone want to put together a cast for "Atlas Shrugged: Now Non-Fiction"?

A place to start would be Glenn Beck's compilation of Obama's czars.
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/article...

Mr. Thompson - Mr. Barack Obama
Hugh Akston - Dinesh D'Souza
James Taggart - Jeffrey Skilling (GE CEO)
Do not forget that GE has a trains division.

Starnes' heir - Auto Recovery Czar Ed Montgomery or car czar Ron Bloom

Floyd Ferris - Energy and Environment Czar – Carol Browner
Robert Stadler - former Energy Secretary Stephen Chu

Claude Slagenhop - Green Jobs Czar Van Jones

Tinky Holloway - Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein

Mr. Larkin - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

Cuffy Meigs - Craig Becker (Associate General Counsel of the Service Employees International Union)

This is a start. I'm very open to suggestion.

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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
    Galt invented an industry from first principles without building on prior knowledge. Is that even possible today? That is part of the reason that I am not a harsh judge of Jobs and Gates. As many do today, they took something interesting that had been invented by others and dramatically improved on it. The closest thing I can think of to inventing a whole industry out of almost nothing was probably J. Craig Venter's Celera Genomics.
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    • Posted by khalling 10 years, 1 month ago
      Both Gates and Jobs worked actively, once their companies enjoyed success, to pass laws that were skewed toward big business and against the independent inventor. Neither company has a very good record on respecting intellectual proprty rights while vigerously enforcing their own.
      As far as Galt goes, every invention in the world is built from known elements.



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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
        I can't disagree with Gates and Jobs' protection of their own interest once they had made their success. Where does one draw the line between protecting one's fortune from the looters and not violating other Galtish principles?
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        • Posted by khalling 10 years, 1 month ago
          well I draw the line at stealing. Both companies lobbied hard to get patent laws changed from "inventor" to "first-to-file." Think if you are an inventor trying to build support for your invention or sell it-you show it to a big company (most don't sign non-disclosure agreements) and with their resources they run to the patent office and file an application on your invention. Before, the patent office always recognized the inventor-that's the meaning of the word, right? Now after that law has passed, it's the first one to get it in the patent office. That bill was overwhelmingly passed btw.
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          • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
            Having a patent myself, I understand completely what you are saying. Every company I ever dealt with requires NDA's, and so do I. In fact, one of my companies suffered because of "first to file".
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  • Posted by MarR 10 years, 1 month ago
    Hank Rearden: Bill Gates (especially in the 1990's)

    Dagny Taggart: Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo)

    Ragnar D.: Edward Snowden

    John Galt: Steve Jobs

    Francisco d’Anconia: George Paz
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    • Posted by $ winterwind 10 years, 1 month ago
      NO, No, no, no, no no to Jobs. He might have done great and wonderful things later in life, but he and his sidekick STOLE the technology for the desktop computer [among another ideas and products] and I'm sure we can find an honest man for the job. NO.
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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
        Steve Jobs didn't consider what he did with Xerox theft. Jobs and Wozniak bought the GUI technology. Gates - now there was a copier of technology, but once again, he would consider it building off of someone else's success. It is not as clear cut in the real world, as opposed to in a novel.
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    • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
      Steve Jobs and Edward Snowden seem well chosen. Bill Gates opposite Steve Jobs would be interesting - kind of like the Pirates of Silicon Valley (a great movie from 1999).

      For Dagny, I was considering Meg Whitman (of EBay) or Carly Fiorina (formerly of HP). I don't know Marissa Mayer or George Paz. That doesn't mean they are bad choices. Logical choices for actors to play Francisco d'Anconia and John Galt would be Antonio Banderas and Nicolas Cage, but I would like to stick with non-actors.

      Please educate me about Marissa Mayer and George Paz.
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      • Posted by plusaf 10 years, 1 month ago
        Fiorina? NFW! I was at HP when she 'downsized the company to success.' --- Not.
        She is NO Dagny Taggart.
        And many HP ex-pats aren't all that impressed with Meg's track record so far, either!

        Too bad there were so few female moochers in AS... Pelosi and her ilk would be naturals!
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        • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
          OK, Fiorina and Whitman go down. Someone mentioned the CEO of Yahoo. Tell me more about her.
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          • Posted by plusaf 10 years, 1 month ago
            CEO of GM has good chops, no? :)
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            • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
              Please don't remind me of GM. My parents had $100 K in GM bonds before the Obama administration offered him $225 (not thousand) for them as part of the "cash for clunkers" bailout.
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              • Posted by plusaf 10 years, 1 month ago
                I remember your comment to that effect, but the current GM CEO might not have been part of that 'Obama-Deal.' I don't know. Condolences on your parents' loss.

                But if they were GM employees, too, someone should have told them a lot more about 'diversification of your investments.' Enron ring a bell?

                My retirement cache is mostly in equities, but spread over scores of stocks and a very few bonds. If any one of them goes to zero for some stupid reason, my account gets hit for maybe a percent or two.

                And I had to piss away tens of thousands of my own investment dollars over ten or more years to get myself that kind of education, too.
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                • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
                  In fact, the current GM CEO is at least the second (and I think the third) since Obama "nationalized" GM and Chrysler.

                  Thanks for the condolences. That was only about 5% of what they had, so they had pretty well diversified. In fact, my dad worked for Mobil, not GM. The biggest insult were the threats about what the government would do if they didn't accept the "generous" offer of $225.
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                  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
                    The current GM CEO is a typical Obama stooge and probably would make a good Mr. Larkin from Starnesville. Someone made a comment about Detroit looking like Starnesville. Boy was that person right. I went to grad school in Ann Arbor in the 90's after Detroit had already gone down a lot, but now ....
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        • Posted by khalling 10 years, 1 month ago
          no way in hell, jbrenner. He is against intellectual property rights. Something Rand would have vehemently denounced.
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          • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 10 years, 1 month ago
            Arguments there. You do not speak for Ayn Rand. I have asked you to clarify the theoretical suppositions and applied realities on intellectual property. We agree that such exists. We do not agree on the specifics because I look to first principles and you look to current US law. As a published author - over 300 magazine and newspaper articles - I live by copyright, but I do not endorse current US copyright laws, which you seem to.
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            • Posted by khalling 10 years, 1 month ago
              Reality, MM, reality. Property rights are based on creation. Creators are OWNERS. it's simple. If someone uses somebody else's property without permission-well, they are a moocher. I take my stance from Rand who took it from Locke and Blackstone:
              “What the patent and copyright laws acknowledge is the paramount role of mental effort in the production of material values: these laws protect the mind’s contribution in its purest form: the origination of an idea.” Rand, Ayn, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Signet, New York, 1967, p. 130.
              your blade is dull, MM-hone it...;)


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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
    Historically, Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller would have been likely inspirations for characters like Rearden and Galt. Rockefeller was prosecuted for his monopoly for instance. Admittedly, they weren't perfect. They did buy off politicians to protect their interests after they had made their fortunes (President McKinley, for instance). The philanthropy that Carnegie and Rockefeller exhibited late in life would have been "going Galt" in that time period.

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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 10 years, 1 month ago
    George Bush Sr., George Bush, Jr., Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich
    Cuffy Meigs, Claude Slagenhop, Balph Eubank. Kip Chalmers
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    • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
      I would not have lumped Ronald Reagan in such company. Reagan was far more thoughtful than the banal Balph Eubank. Joe Biden would probably make a better Balph Eubank. He is constantly talking and never right about anything. I'll agree with you on Newt as Kip Chalmers.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 10 years, 1 month ago
    Robert Stadler - John Holdren, Science Czar. Who infamously suggested poisoning the water to stop people from having children.

    Ed Snowden as Ragnar Danneskjöld? Not so. Snowden would never be able to bring a thing like that off. He did something that needed doing, but not the way Ragnar would have done it. Snowden's way seems cowardly.

    Besides, when I think of Ragnar, I think of his privateering activities, and his famous raid on Orren Boyle's illicit steel mill.
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    • Posted by $ stargeezer 10 years, 1 month ago
      I'd pretty much agree. Snowden is a wuss that could never be a Ragnar. I'd actually place him as James Tagert, a wimpy tool being used by a government to fight against the people. Of course the government is Russia, but the "tool in their hand" is valid.
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    • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
      I think I mentioned Holdren at one point as well. I think I recommended him for Floyd Ferris' role, though. He would work for Stadler, too.
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      • Posted by Temlakos 10 years, 1 month ago
        You are correct, of course. Robert Stadler was a total naïf. Floyd Ferris was the cynical and "realistic" operator. But I could almost see Floyd Ferris as female. Try Lisa Jackson of EPA. (Who reminded me very much of Moira Baccarin as "Queen Anna" in "V (2009).")
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    • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
      If the pilot of the Malaysian airliner did get those passengers hijacked safely, perhaps he should be Danneskjold.
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      • Posted by Temlakos 10 years, 1 month ago
        If his motive was sound, yes. Understand, though, I'm thinking of someone who could go "all the way" with this. It occurred to me that, if a real-life John Galt had the secret of electrostatic motors, then Ragnar Danneskjöld could easily hijack an aircraft carrier now due to be scuttled, that has already had its nuclear reactors removed for decommissioning. I refer to USS Enterprise CVN-65. And what a name for a privateer in the cause of freedom of production and trade!
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    • Posted by MarR 10 years, 1 month ago
      Donald Trump gives capitalists somewhat of a bad name
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      • Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 1 month ago
        I am certainly not sold on Donald Trump. Capitalism is a term of the "progressives" - or should I say regressives.
        Trump would consider himself an entrepeneur willing to do what was necessary. JP Morgan would be a much better choice were he still alive.
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