How Prophetic Was 'Atlas Shrugged'
Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago to Philosophy
I received this e-mail a couple of days ago. How similar does it strike you as the owner's of John Galt's employer, The 20th Century Motor Co. that caused him to shrug, or remind you of James Taggert? Note the use of the words, 'equal and livable wage', and 'Champion of Change'.
"The White House, Washington
Hi,
I'm Randy, the founder of the Red Hen Baking Company in Middlesex, Vermont.
Our 42 employees are the core of everything we do -- the heart of Red Hen. That is why my wife Liza and I insist on providing paid sick days, an equal and livable wage, health coverage, and other benefits that help everyone balance the work they love with the life they lead. Through these workplace policies, we know we're making our employees more secure, our bakery more productive, and our business more profitable.
It's common sense -- plain and simple. That's why I'm so excited and honored to be at the White House today as a "Champion of Change" for working families. I'll be joining President Obama, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, and other champions of workplace policies to talk about how crucial they are to building a stronger business. This is too important of an issue for anyone to sit on the sidelines. So you should join us, too.
Watch live at the White House today starting at 12:15 p.m. ET to hear what ordinary people are doing to make an extraordinary difference for America's hardworking men and women.
You can join in on the conversation using the hashtag #WorkingFamilyChamps. Whether you're an employer, an employee, a working mom or dad, or brand new to the workforce, your voice can help lift up the challenges millions of working families face and the solutions that will make a difference.
So I'll hope you'll join us live and be a champion for your employees, coworkers, or your community by standing up for common-sense workplace policies.
Because the bottom line is this: Employees that are happy at work perform better. Focusing on policies that make sense for working families has paid dividends for our business. There's no reason more companies across the country can't do the same thing and realize those benefits.
If you have thoughts, I'd love to hear them. I hope you'll join the conversation today.
Thanks,
Randy
Randy George
Middlesex, Vermont"
Can you point to other predictions from AS that are real today?
"The White House, Washington
Hi,
I'm Randy, the founder of the Red Hen Baking Company in Middlesex, Vermont.
Our 42 employees are the core of everything we do -- the heart of Red Hen. That is why my wife Liza and I insist on providing paid sick days, an equal and livable wage, health coverage, and other benefits that help everyone balance the work they love with the life they lead. Through these workplace policies, we know we're making our employees more secure, our bakery more productive, and our business more profitable.
It's common sense -- plain and simple. That's why I'm so excited and honored to be at the White House today as a "Champion of Change" for working families. I'll be joining President Obama, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, and other champions of workplace policies to talk about how crucial they are to building a stronger business. This is too important of an issue for anyone to sit on the sidelines. So you should join us, too.
Watch live at the White House today starting at 12:15 p.m. ET to hear what ordinary people are doing to make an extraordinary difference for America's hardworking men and women.
You can join in on the conversation using the hashtag #WorkingFamilyChamps. Whether you're an employer, an employee, a working mom or dad, or brand new to the workforce, your voice can help lift up the challenges millions of working families face and the solutions that will make a difference.
So I'll hope you'll join us live and be a champion for your employees, coworkers, or your community by standing up for common-sense workplace policies.
Because the bottom line is this: Employees that are happy at work perform better. Focusing on policies that make sense for working families has paid dividends for our business. There's no reason more companies across the country can't do the same thing and realize those benefits.
If you have thoughts, I'd love to hear them. I hope you'll join the conversation today.
Thanks,
Randy
Randy George
Middlesex, Vermont"
Can you point to other predictions from AS that are real today?
The Ant and the Grasshopper - modern version
TheCitizen.com ^ | 2010 | Unknown
Posted on 2/1/2010 11:41:37 PM by bogusname
The Ant and the Grasshopper - modern version
(I got this in an email today. Again, I am not claiming to have written this)
Old version:
The ant worked hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thought the ant was a fool and laughed and danced and played the summer away.
Come winter, the ant was warm and well fed.
The grasshopper had no food or shelter, so he died out in the cold.
Moral of the story: Be responsible for yourself!
Modern version:
The ant worked hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thought the ant was a fool and laughed and danced and played the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper called a press conference and demanded to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others were cold and starving.
CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC showed up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America was stunned by the sharp contrast.
How could this be in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper was allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appeared on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cried when they sang, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'
Acorn staged a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations filmed the group singing, ‘We shall overcome’.
Jeremiah Wright then had the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid exclaimed in an interview with Larry King the ant had got rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both called for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the EEOC drafted the Economic Equity and Anti - Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant was fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home was confiscated by the government Green Czar.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ants food while the government house he was in, which just happened to be the ant's old house, crumbled around him because he did not maintain it.
The ant had disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper was found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, was taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorized the once peaceful neighborhood.
Moral of the story: Be careful how you vote in 2016.
Equal pay means equal work. When working for the government I found the Russian system firmly in place - in most places. They pretend to pay us we pretend to work.
The rest were inclined to read books like AS.
I am always happy to help.
This site has a tremendous amount of functionality.
Regards,
O.A.
You're awesome! Thank you.
Lolol. I've been wondering what those little hash marks were for days.
Strike 1
Good commentary.
A helpful hint: You can increase the size of the window by clicking on the lower right corner and dragging.
Respectfully,
O.A.
1. It makes more sense where work is systematized and output is highly corrected to time in. I'm not saying it's right, but that condition makes it easier for people to sell the employee / employer conflict narrative. It's harder when work is creative. Much systematized worked is being automated, so this struggle narrative is harder to sell.
2. I suspect it's a vocal minority that accepts the narrative. Every day millions of people go to work and solve customer problems and never think about a workers' political struggle. When a politician wants showcase his "concern for the workers", he does an interview like this and blasts out an e-mail, so we hear about the unusual case of labor being politicized.
#2. If it is not *freely* then it must be forced. It is impossible to trade value for value if it is not freely. So you contradict yourself in that one. Employees must go freely to work, and there are many situations where this is not true.
#3. You can twist my words as you wish. There is plenty of evidence to point many employers abusing. That is undisputable. I certainly don't believe their goal in business is to abuse and I didn't say that in the first place.
#4. Who said otherwise? What you apparently didn't understand was that going beyond employees expectations is, in my opinion, in direct interest for the business. Because (I will sustain my last claim) companies don't produce value for the good performance of some or even the majority of the employees in isolation; the value is produced when the whole company is synchronized, and for that you need collaboration. The more synchronization, the greater the value. It is a team effort. If it wasn't, there would not be companies at all, only individuals trading time for money.
By the way, altruism is a good thing. I know what AR said about it. She redefined the word and I agree with her on the message: nobody has the right to force you onto altruism (disgusting and it is not altruism anymore), but it is a good thing when someone does good to another just for the sake of being good (it is in self interest). I didn't use that word but as you introduced it in this argument, I just recalled the accepted meaning in the dictionary.
I must say that your patronizing tone is very unpleasant, your reading skills are just acceptable and I couldn't care less about your strikes thing. You may have the force to hide me off the thread, but you didn't show where I was illogical. Go ahead, make my day :-)
Load more comments...