Live Blogs Pannic Reads Stuff He Hates

Pannic2012-06-30 18:18:12

It's like a clarification of my comment on the first post in this series.

"If it weren't for government meddling, we'd be paying our workers in pennies, and safety would never stand in the way of profits!"

"That's not really a selling point."

And then Rearden gets a phone call. Turns out that the government passed the "Equalization of Opportunity Bill." Rearden is furious. He says "I'll sign away my other companies, but they are not getting my metal!"

• Wait. What? Not the part about them not being established. But 1) if the law doesn't take immediate effect and isn't backdated to the day of its passage, you can just merge them and 2) if the law was written that way, even only late in the process, why didn't he take this step already? Is Rearden supposed to be an incompetent owner?

Wait, why would he need to run multiple companies? Couldn't he consolidate them into, like, one unified "Rearden Industries" thing? Sounds like a pretty easy way out of this mess. Just merge your assets. Merge your assets you fuck!

• Oh hey, it's happening here, too. But yes, it's an obvious step to take.

I mean, like I mentioned in the last update, your standard C Corporation is a collectively-owned entity.

• It can be, but doesn't need to be. They don't tend to be because for tax purposes a C corporation is inefficient if it's closely held.

And furthermore, what kind of businesses are these? They don't appear to be C Corporations, but thing alike "Inc." and whatnot indicates that it might at least be a partnership or something.

• I'm not 100% on this, but I think that at least some C corporations don't need "corporation" or "incorporated" in the name if they existed before the relevant law was passed. And strictly speaking, you don't need partners for a partnership, just like you can have a C corporation wholly owned by a single individual. I still don't know why an apparent industrial magnate is incapable of handling basic financial management.

"You're busy, I'll be brief. We're not going to allow you to run that train on the John Galt Line."

• How would they even stop her? Strictly speaking, wasn't she starting a new company for the line? Why would she even care if they stopped the functioning of her brother's company? And given hers is new, there's not even a real barrier to stop her from finding a few scabs (well, not really, if it's a new company that was never on a union contract, but same idea).

Then another restaurant. News thing. Dagny's addressing reporters, saying the train will go 250 miles per hour.

• You mean . . . significantly slower than already existing trains in Japan and France (at least)? MY GOD! Also, yet again, a failure resulting from giving the movie a date.

The dialogue comes back when they start talking about oil. Wyatt's found an untapped reservoir of oil in a place that'd been considered "dry" to conventional drilling.

• The American horizontal fracking boom has been going on for a decade. It's the only reason that oil production is above its 2005 level. This isn't really impressive in the real world in 2014. And that's ignoring any problems with the technology.

Scene ends, aaaaand will this music please shut the fuck up? It's trying way too fucking hard. Just shut up. You're allowed to have moments of silence in your film. You don't need to fill every second with the fucking orchestra.

• Given that it's been close to the film's only strong point, this is both disappointing and understandable: the temptation to overuse your one strong point can be strong.

Rearden and Dagny decide they'll take a getaway up to Wisconsin to see that engine. On the way, Rearden explained that the company failed because of their wage policy. They paid people according to their needs, not their contributions.

• So, another example of pointing out the flaws in a straw man?

The only issue I have with the In-N-Out Burger example is the use of the irrelevant federal minimum wage ($7.25), rather than California's ($9.00).

Those great industrialists like Carnegie and Rockefeller weren't just titans of the businessworld, but they gave shittons of money to charity, Carnegie because he felt it was his responsibility as a rich person, and Rockefeller because he was really religious. And that continues today with people like Bill Gates. Guy thinks he got his money by a series of lucky circumstances, so he gives back to malaria research.

• In fairness, there's also an arguably darker side sometimes, as with Gates's work in education, which depending on your views is likely to be counterproductive and anti-labor.

Your thing works by generating static electricity? I dunno about this electrical engineering stuff, but doesn't that sound a little inefficient or something?

• Yeah, not likely to be the best choice. Static tends to be better for high voltage, low power stuff (see Tesla coil, Wimshurst machine).

Then Dagny gets a call from Eddie saying that the Union is demanding that all the trains on the John Galt Line be reduced from 100 to 60 miles an hour. Umm, it was 250 miles per hour in this movie, screenwriters. You might want to double-check. Did anyone proofread this script? Anyone?

• I can think of reasons for this, but they run into the problem that it doesn't make sense to build locomotives capable of 250 if you were planning on maxing out at 100.

So we get a nice shot of Dagny facing the fire as the camera zooms out, and written on a sign is "I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours." Pardon my skepticism when you claim that Ellis Wyatt found his oil reserves on fire.

• And we're supposed to support this destructive, petty action, right?

Sounds like an avoidable train wreck, on the whole. But the question is, could it have both worked as a movie meant to appeal to real people rather than sociopaths and the incredibly greedy who want a philosophical cover while also pushing the themes and (a-)morals that were the driving force? I have to assume that it's possible, but evidently this wasn't the movie that accomplished it.

Oh yeah. Loads of environmental destruction. In all fairness, if you ignore that and you suppress your mental connections to Kuwait, it's at least good as a big "fuck you." I mean, sure, it collapses under thought, but at least it's memorable.

Actually, now that I think about it, how the fuck is Wyatt going to carry on his oil business in "Atlantis"? Is Galt going to give him land to drill on? Like, he's abandoning tangible assets he has in exchange for... what, exactly? I'm so confused.

You could try, but greedy sociopaths are kind of the target audience.

• Actually, now that I think about it, how the fuck is Wyatt going to carry on his oil business in "Atlantis"? Is Galt going to give him land to drill on? Like, he's abandoning tangible assets he has in exchange for... what, exactly? I'm so confused.

The bigger issue I have is just how they'll manage generally. If it's not completely self-sufficient—which would suggest they'd need more than just rich guys and servants—they'll need to import a ton. How will they do that? How can it hold up in the long term if they are essentially abandoning their means of income? Even if they are leaving their companies intact to live as rentiers, isn't going off alone all at once just making expropriation easier? Is there a logical connection between their actions and the outcome they are trying to achieve, and if so, is it coherent? If they are self-sufficient, doesn't that mean that they're all taking a big hit in income? You can't amass billion-dollar fortunes in a closed economy with a population of a few thousand; there just isn't the demand base or the labor. And for all their self-importance, I'm pretty sure these magnates just aren't as productive as they think they are, and are even less so if they lose their capital and the labor operating it.