The Forgotten Man

This record preserves its author, date and source link. Open HN to read the full context.

This record preserves its author, date and source link. Open HN to read the full context.

This record preserves its author, date and source link. Open HN to read the full context.

I have not read "The Forgotten Man", may read it in the future. Actually I thought the article was trying for an easy to understand "hook" with the tax info, since it is unlikely that the top 1% of earners are the bulk of those buying the $7.99 (or whatever it is) paperback edition at the local Barnes and Noble.

Not mentioned: Amity Shlaes (the author of the article) also wrote a book about the Great Depression, called "The Forgotten Man". It is no surprise she would write about Atlas Shrugged. From the blurb about the book on her site: "Franklin Roosevelt systematically established the modern political constituency, from unions to artists, to senior citizens. Roosevelt's solution was to spend for these groups, so extensively that federal spending that year outpaced state and local spending, for the first time ever in peacetime. The consequence was the Roosevelt landslide of 1936 --but also the modern entitlement trap. Roosevelt often spoke of the Forgotten Man, the man "at the bottom of the economic pyramid." Yet, Miss Shlaes shows, his New Deal created a new forgotten man, the man who subsidizes the funding of other constituencies -- and who ha…

I didn't see the problem with the city's action until I read Amity Shlaes's "The Forgotten Man" ( http://www.amityshlaes.com/books.php ) in which she describes the federal government's fight to displace private utilities with the Tennessee Valley Authority. The government used all the means it had to win: deception, force, subsidization, taxation, regulation, and targeted prosecutions. As a result, the valuable time of good businessmen was wasted, their investors lost money, and the public got less value. If some politicians or bureaucrats want to compete with a private business, if they think they can do better, they should be free to try, but they should leave their government jobs and start their own company. It is unreasonable to expect a private business, which must persuade investors to give it money and which must persuade customer…