By Daniel Rigney
Corporate Satire/revised and reposted from 4/22/2011.
Billionaire
Donald Trump took the financial world by surprise this morning when he
announced he had acquired full rights to the popular AynRand® product
line, including books and other paraphernalia currently owned by heirs
to the celebrated social-science fiction writer’s estate. Rand died in
1982.
Other
products in the AynRand® line include prospective films based on her
writings, bumper stickers, T-shirts, board and video games, and adult
novelties.
Trump
said that he saw promising growth opportunities in the traditionally
strong adolescent-male segment of the popular philosophy market, but he
also hoped to make inroads among older consumers who identify with the
Tea Party movement. Trump took pains to emphasize that the perennially
popular Monopoly board and video games are not currently AynRand®
properties, but that he may be interested in them as potential future
investments.
Trump
also stressed that vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan, despite
having a similar name, is not genetically related to Ayn Rand (though
many note a strong ideological resemblance), and that Ryan is not
currently in his vast entrepreneurial empire's portfolio, which includes
golf courses, resorts, gambling casinos, condominiums, and speculative
political futures.
Trump
also hopes to acquire and privatize highways currently in the
government-owned and controlled Interstate Highway system. “Freeways
aren’t really free,” he said, citing confiscatory tax rates on the
wealthy and repressive traffic regulations as two areas in which he
hopes to make reforms to the current system.
“We
need to unleash the power of creative driving in this country,” Trump
said, “if we want a prosperous and competitive future.” He added that
we’re being ”played for patsies” by Asian automobile manufacturers, and
that it’s “time to get tough with those around the world who have
laughed at us ever since Obama became president.”
The
mood today was somber among Randists (or “objectivists,” as they call
themselves), followers of the late author and screenwriter, when they
heard about Trump's announcement. Rand’s philosophy extolled the virtues
of individual liberty, selfishness, and the accumulation of private
wealth with minimal interference from government by those who, like
Trump, are society’s most productive, successful and deserving members.
“I
didn’t see this coming,” said 23-year-old Ayn Johnson, who lives in an
economically exclusive gated suburb of Dallas, Texas, and who was named
for the popular author. “How could Mr. Trump have abused his property
rights in such an unprincipled and unscrupulous way? I feel betrayed. It
isn’t fair to people like me.”
Others
merely shrugged when they heard the news. "Who's Ayn Rand?," asked John
Galt of Dayton, Ohio, an unemployed assembly-line worker whose wife and
two young children are working six part-time jobs among them to pay the
rent and keep the electricity on in their modest two-bedroom apartment.
Onion
News Network, often the first to report stories of this kind, was
“caught napping on this one,” according to a spokeswoman. ONN
anchorwoman Brooke Alvarez added that she thought Mr. Trump was
“behaving like a narcissistic bully,” and that she would remove his
framed picture from her night table immediately. “I'll leave the picture
of Ayn Rand in place,” she said. “She's meant a lot to me. May she and
her philosophy rest in peace.”
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