In the era of 1949 through 1956 Rich elites of course continued to express political beliefs to one another on Golf courses and social events, as well as with policy papers, business lobbies and meetings with political leaders. As well as Cold War ideology, the elites enabled an even more encompassing dogma that would serve as a guide to the “natural order” of the world they envisioned.
My recollection of ATLAS SHRUGGED is the American government had taken over and weakened American businesses and the heroine Dagny Taggert met a steel innovator named John Reardon, who was showing the government-control industry up really bad and not at all popular with said government. They had a fling, then Dagny finally got around to meeting the mysterious John Gault, fell for him, they coupled up, and, as I recall, Reardon became a Gault follower, too. As I also recall, Ayn Rand was an atheist and in ATLAS SHRUGGED John Gault represented her own personal version of the Jesus she had not found or had rejected in her youth.
I grew up in the less-affluent side of the all-white Birmingham, Alabama "over the mountain" suburb Mountain Brook, which long has been nicknamed "The Tiny Kingdom".
My father and his father were astute businessmen, made their mark in manufacturing and in stock market investments.
In his youth, my father was a scratch golfer (at or below par), and he let that go, mostly, via being a combat aviator in the WWII Pacific theater and then coming home after the war and going into business with is father, who, with his brother in law, had purchased what was known as the Golden Flake Potato Chip Company from its founders in Birmingham.
My father then proceeded to learn the company from the ground up, and eventually he bought out his father and uncle in law, and then the company really began to grow under his sole leadership, with the help of able men already working there and brought in by him and those men. They worked very hard. One step at a time. They set up an employee profits sharing plan, which was sort of a new thing. Unions tried but were unable to get into Golden Flake, principally due to my father's relationship with his line employees, who loved and trusted him. Golden Flake slowly became a market force in Alabama and adjacent states.
Often my father told me that learning golf was very important, because all business deals are made on the gold course. I took up and learned and began to play the game pretty well, but I never beat my father, except one time I did not count all my strokes - I cheated.
My father played golf the old way, by the rules. The old way, you get no mulligans. You count all your stokes. You don't improve your lie in sand bunkers or the rough. Nor in tournaments do you improve your lie.
Golf is a great life metaphor, if you actually know the game. A wonderful book was written about that by the Zen guy Michael Murphy, GOLF IN THE KINGDOM, which I bet every PGA touring pro has read. I doubt a golfer like Donald Trump would have a clue what golf and that book really are about.
The fortunes of Golden Flake slowly but inexorably began to slide downward due to Frito-Lay, which dominated much of America, channeling its profits elsewhere into Golden Flake's market area in the form of paying large sums of money to grocery and convenience store chains for more shelf space in their individual stores. Shelf space was critical to who won that market battle. Law graduate me was convinced it was an anti-trust violation - unfair competition - but was advised there were loopholes.
Slowly, but inexorably, that's how Frito-Lay ground down and chewed up and wore out Golden Flake, which was a shadow of its former self when it was bought by Utz Quality Foods of Pennsylvania in 2016 for about 3.5 times more than Golden Flake common stock was trading on NASDAQ.
Yes, I am a trust fund baby. But, I learned Golden Flake from the ground up, working there during summer vacations, and then four years after I graduated from law school and clerked for a U.S. District Judge in Birmingham. I knew the business back then. I gave it my heart and my soul, and it cost me a great deal of my heart and my soul, and had a great deal to do with my life going to hell personally and otherwise. I quit working there to save myself and spare my father even more grief. I should have practiced law after the federal judge and then perhaps gone to work for Golden Flake, or not.
Now, my father was a very shrewd investor. He bought a lot of Frito-Lay common stock, which kept going up. Then, Frito-Lay merged with Pepsi-Cola and the merged company became known as PepsiCo on the NY Stock Exchange. PepsiCo stock kept going up. As my fortunes, so to speak, kept going down.
Eventually, I walked away from it all. I moved away from Birmingham, got deeply involved in the spiritual side of living. I went down many rabbit holes, including living on and just off the street for several patches of time. I ran many times for local office in Key West and the Florida Keys. Even as something a lot bigger and smarter than me stayed with me and somehow got me through it, even as I became the family black sheep, aka, the nut case.
You connected with me in comments under American Historian Heather Cox Richardson's very blue Democrat LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN on Substack. Heather is the highest dollar earner on Substack - well over $1,000,000 per year. When I pointed that out in a comment under one of her letters, some of her devoted followers let me know I was out of line. Heh, me, who belongs to no political party, views all political parties as cults.
As you well know, America is in very deep doo doo. Alas, I cannot blame it all on the alt right, to which I definitely do not belong, and they would not invite me to play golf with them more than once, I don't imagine. Nor do I get invited to Democrat social gatherings more than once 😎.
I personally think it will take an Act of God to wake up the American right, left and middle, and since that has not happened lately, nor more distantly, I suppose I should not be holding my breath.
John Birch was a billionaire?
My recollection of ATLAS SHRUGGED is the American government had taken over and weakened American businesses and the heroine Dagny Taggert met a steel innovator named John Reardon, who was showing the government-control industry up really bad and not at all popular with said government. They had a fling, then Dagny finally got around to meeting the mysterious John Gault, fell for him, they coupled up, and, as I recall, Reardon became a Gault follower, too. As I also recall, Ayn Rand was an atheist and in ATLAS SHRUGGED John Gault represented her own personal version of the Jesus she had not found or had rejected in her youth.
I grew up in the less-affluent side of the all-white Birmingham, Alabama "over the mountain" suburb Mountain Brook, which long has been nicknamed "The Tiny Kingdom".
My father and his father were astute businessmen, made their mark in manufacturing and in stock market investments.
In his youth, my father was a scratch golfer (at or below par), and he let that go, mostly, via being a combat aviator in the WWII Pacific theater and then coming home after the war and going into business with is father, who, with his brother in law, had purchased what was known as the Golden Flake Potato Chip Company from its founders in Birmingham.
My father then proceeded to learn the company from the ground up, and eventually he bought out his father and uncle in law, and then the company really began to grow under his sole leadership, with the help of able men already working there and brought in by him and those men. They worked very hard. One step at a time. They set up an employee profits sharing plan, which was sort of a new thing. Unions tried but were unable to get into Golden Flake, principally due to my father's relationship with his line employees, who loved and trusted him. Golden Flake slowly became a market force in Alabama and adjacent states.
Often my father told me that learning golf was very important, because all business deals are made on the gold course. I took up and learned and began to play the game pretty well, but I never beat my father, except one time I did not count all my strokes - I cheated.
My father played golf the old way, by the rules. The old way, you get no mulligans. You count all your stokes. You don't improve your lie in sand bunkers or the rough. Nor in tournaments do you improve your lie.
Golf is a great life metaphor, if you actually know the game. A wonderful book was written about that by the Zen guy Michael Murphy, GOLF IN THE KINGDOM, which I bet every PGA touring pro has read. I doubt a golfer like Donald Trump would have a clue what golf and that book really are about.
The fortunes of Golden Flake slowly but inexorably began to slide downward due to Frito-Lay, which dominated much of America, channeling its profits elsewhere into Golden Flake's market area in the form of paying large sums of money to grocery and convenience store chains for more shelf space in their individual stores. Shelf space was critical to who won that market battle. Law graduate me was convinced it was an anti-trust violation - unfair competition - but was advised there were loopholes.
Slowly, but inexorably, that's how Frito-Lay ground down and chewed up and wore out Golden Flake, which was a shadow of its former self when it was bought by Utz Quality Foods of Pennsylvania in 2016 for about 3.5 times more than Golden Flake common stock was trading on NASDAQ.
Yes, I am a trust fund baby. But, I learned Golden Flake from the ground up, working there during summer vacations, and then four years after I graduated from law school and clerked for a U.S. District Judge in Birmingham. I knew the business back then. I gave it my heart and my soul, and it cost me a great deal of my heart and my soul, and had a great deal to do with my life going to hell personally and otherwise. I quit working there to save myself and spare my father even more grief. I should have practiced law after the federal judge and then perhaps gone to work for Golden Flake, or not.
Now, my father was a very shrewd investor. He bought a lot of Frito-Lay common stock, which kept going up. Then, Frito-Lay merged with Pepsi-Cola and the merged company became known as PepsiCo on the NY Stock Exchange. PepsiCo stock kept going up. As my fortunes, so to speak, kept going down.
Eventually, I walked away from it all. I moved away from Birmingham, got deeply involved in the spiritual side of living. I went down many rabbit holes, including living on and just off the street for several patches of time. I ran many times for local office in Key West and the Florida Keys. Even as something a lot bigger and smarter than me stayed with me and somehow got me through it, even as I became the family black sheep, aka, the nut case.
You connected with me in comments under American Historian Heather Cox Richardson's very blue Democrat LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN on Substack. Heather is the highest dollar earner on Substack - well over $1,000,000 per year. When I pointed that out in a comment under one of her letters, some of her devoted followers let me know I was out of line. Heh, me, who belongs to no political party, views all political parties as cults.
As you well know, America is in very deep doo doo. Alas, I cannot blame it all on the alt right, to which I definitely do not belong, and they would not invite me to play golf with them more than once, I don't imagine. Nor do I get invited to Democrat social gatherings more than once 😎.
I personally think it will take an Act of God to wake up the American right, left and middle, and since that has not happened lately, nor more distantly, I suppose I should not be holding my breath.