Comment by cs702 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cs702 | Hacker News Reader

Uh-oh.

I wonder how all the Ayn Rand acolytes in power today will react to the bad news.

Their approach to macroeconomics can be summarized as: first, they always blame bureaucrats for bad economic conditions; and second, they believe that if they can get the bureaucrats out of the way, they need only to inspire people, to get everyone's animal spirits roaring, so the economy can grow, because they believe "growth is a choice." I'm exaggerating, but only slightly.

Well, all these Rand devotees are successfully destroying the federal bureaucracy, or at least preventing it from functioning, as they have always dreamed, and they're constantly chanting about making things great again, to inspire people. So far, they're getting everything they want, and yet... here we are, seemingly headed for a recession.

Could it be they don't understand things as well as they think they do? It sure could. Alas, they won't want to change their minds. As J. K. Galbraith wrote, "faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."

If we indeed have a recession, my best guess is that we'll see them repeatedly calling for more optimism, or something like that.

Turns out that one of the best things for a healthy economy is a stable economic infrastructure provided by a reliable government! Not randomly and rapidly disintegrating conditions and unclear directions.

Businesses like predictability and if there is change, steady predictable change. Across the board tariffs on our closest trading partners and allies results in recessions and depressions. It doesn't take a genius, it just takes a bunch of yes men and a cult leader.

Yep, exactly. Predictability makes logistics work. Unpredictability makes logistics break. This is all the kind of thing that we could probably teach to children with blocks. Stupefying that a large number of supposedly intelligent computer scientists are duped into this via "move fast and break things" type logic.

To be fair, I don't think Ayn Rand acolytes love tariffs, in theory.

Though experience has shown me that plenty of people love Ayn Rand not because they love the ideology, but because they're a bit selfish and support policies that remove barriers to their personal success rather than those which they feel are best collectively. So in that sense, ideological consistency is not mandatory.

I agree, they don't "love" tariffs, but many are so uneducated about economics that they will publicly state things like "import tariffs are better for the economy than income taxes."

they don't. The Ayn Rand thing is a bad call. This is the work of chaos worshippers of a circus clown.

It's not hard to find out that many individuals in the current administration -- and the thinkers they praise -- are fans of Rand. In particular, they are fans of her novel, Atlas Shrugged. Many of the terms these individuals use, like "moochers" and "looters," come straight off the pages of Atlas Shrugged. Even the president, who by all accounts almost never reads anything, says it's his favorite book. Am I exaggerating Rand's influence? Perhaps, but not by a lot. All it takes to verify my claim is a few web searches.

sure they're fans, but they certainly are not in any way acting like libertarians. Libertarians are live and let live, leave my property alone, personal rights, we'll settle this in court, people are equal; that's not what the MAGA movement is. These MAGAs want women's right taken away, free press jailed, LGBTQ people punished and declared insane, and on and on. It's a christofascist movement at it's core, and they only want one voice in the room, theirs.

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