THE ECONOMY

Who Is To Blame?

Some point to Alan Greenspan. But his hands-off approach to the economy originated with Ayn Rand.

By Barrett Sheridan | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Dec 10, 2008

« Return to Article

Discuss

Member Comments

  • Posted By: RodiKenley @ 05/04/2009 2:29:08 AM

    I'm also going to guess: those that go out to ball games, are poor but need a life, some bank problems with people's accounts, people from the internet or else that get into your account, those with little to no health insurance and others.

  • Posted By: RodiKenley @ 05/04/2009 2:24:38 AM

    Who's to blame for the financial crisis? I'm going to guess smokers, those that buy wine often and others.

  • Posted By: dvdburns @ 12/14/2008 1:44:22 AM

    So let me get this straight. The free market think tanks like the Mises Institute, the Cato Institute and the Ayn Rand Society saw this bubble collapse a mile away yet it's their fault? Way to go Newsweek! Are your socialist bosses still ticked they can't defeat Von Mises "Economic Calculation" argument?

    Now, for Americans ready to hang Libertarians over this LOL "free market" fiasco, let me ask you something: since when have our policies ever been in place? Since when have we been in charge? Since when have Libertarians gotten more than 1% of the popular vote? If you've been voting Republican or Conservative, you're voting for the Old Guard, and there's nothing free market about that. If you're voting Democrat, you're voting for Socialism, and there's nothing free market about that. So, again, explain to me how this is the fault of Libertarians? F*ck you people, we saw this stuff coming since 1913. Educate yourselves. You can't legislate out stupidity

    • Posted By: YashBudini @ 12/15/2008 9:27:02 AM

      There are no libertarians, one need only look at old people to figure that out. When they are young they complain bitterly about the money taken from them. When they are old their principles go out the window, they start getting money from the government and health care and they shut the hell up. Apparently what modern libertarians want is to not pay for services while receiving services. That's not being a libertarian, that's just being white trash. Ever see an old person turn down government payments based on a principle they believe in? Ha ha, that's never going to happen. Hypocrites, the lot of them.

      • Posted By: Ragnars spawn @ 04/15/2009 3:07:06 PM

        YashBudini.. while you are busy spouting off rhetoric and vitriol that accoplisheses nothing other that perhaps a to give youirself a sense of undesrved moral superiority and self righteousness, Libertarians are out there silently earning their keep and paying their way every day. They're too busy living their lives to be trying to tell others how to live theirs. The fact that that "old people " use the system they paid into all their life does not negate this fact or their contribution to that sytem any more than it would have if they put it into a trust fund for their retirement . You seem to forget the fact that IT WAS THEIR MONEY TO BEGIN WITH. AND IT WAS TAKEN FROM THEM WITHOUT THEIR CONSENTAT THE POINT OF A GUN ( which is what backs up all forms of government expropriation) The only difference being that along the way back to it's source , the greatest portion of that weath was redistributed to those who had not earned it.." for the betterment of mankind" for the good of society.. but certainly not for the good of the person who caused it to come into existence in the firstplace.. This is what today passes for justice and morality.. to take that what is deserved and give it to those who don't desrve it.. THIS IS WHAT WE CALL MORAL??? Would you also endorse the right oif af a holdup man to rob you of your weekly wages? Why then do we condone behaviour from our lawmakers that we refuse to tolerate in our law breakers? Every productive human being who wishes to earn the keep and refuses to ask for handouts is at heart a Libertarian.. they just don't know it.

      • Posted By: shrugatlas_JGalt @ 01/31/2009 7:42:27 PM

        Old people receiving checks have been paying into the system their entire lives, so they are just staking their natural claims to get back a small fraction of whats been taken from them all along. If so much hadn't been stolen through the years, maybe they wouldn't have to rely on government money in their golden years.

  • Posted By: Nicole C. @ 12/12/2008 9:13:54 AM

    Geez pete. This guy is just another Republican flack who can't admit he was grievously wrong about everything (is that you, Georgie-boy? C'mon, 'fess up...) If too much regulation is bad, then so is too little, which is what we've had with the free-market fundamentalists. Don't listen, people, look at your stock portfolio and ask yourself how trustworthy this thoroughly discredited and debunked economic theory is. Hopefully Ms. Rand will be at the top of that junk heap where she belongs.

    Don't fall for this "socialism" crap; most Americans including the people throwing around the term don't even know what it means. The Republican definition for socialism is pretty much "anything that prevents the flow of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the rich and superrich where it belongs." Fortunately, Americans seem to have realized they can no longer afford to be stupid (or racist) and are paying more attention to what's really going on in the world and have voted accordingly.

    • Posted By: Ragnars spawn @ 04/15/2009 2:23:19 PM

      your diatribe begs the question.. debunked by whom?.and to what end ? for what purpose and to whose benefit? It's certainly not being debunked by the current economic collapse which , if you actually read the article instead of ridiculing it you would have noticed that the basic premise is that the current situation has it's roots in ever increasing government intervention into the marketplace. In a truly free market people keep wEVERYTHING that they produce .. nothing more nothing less, regardless of social standing or ecomomic class."The flow of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the rich and superrich where it belongs " can only occur in a government regulated economy where the efforts of productive members of society are redistributed without their consent.Oh, and by the way.. Freedom ( ie free markets , politacal freedom and freedom of speech.. such as the freedom for you to use this forum to resort to insulting opposing points of view and arguments ad hominen..a logical fallacy often resorted to when one can not win an argument with FACTSj is inherently incompatabile with racism .. where the hell did that little nonsequiter come from? certainly not from reality.. i suggest you get your facts straight befoire you spout off endorsing something that you have shown that you obviously know very little about.. Yes, you are right.. the voters have spoken..and now they will get exactly what they asked for.. including such enlightened individuals as yourself.. This has happened time after time thoughout history in every statist empire that has ever existed ( free markets are inherently anti-imperial) History once again is repeating itself. I'm going to it back on top of that junk heap with a copy of Altlas Shrugged in my hand laughing my ass off because i saw it coming.

    • Posted By: fleurdelys @ 12/16/2008 1:58:39 AM

      Well said, Nicole.

      • Posted By: objectivist10028 @ 03/03/2009 12:16:06 AM

        Rand would have wanted the government to regulate fraud, to ensure honesty in contracts, to go after the Madoffs of the world. She would have wanted the government to arrest anyone--industrialist or otherwise--who tried to interrupt the peaceable assembly of unions, who tried to force a worker to work in a factory, who tried to stop boycotts on those factories, or who tried to use the government to change workers wages--up or down. She would have wanted any slaveholder to be arrested--she would have condemned any murder of native americans-though she would have pointed to the sale of manhattan for beads to argue that, from a purely capitalist perspective, native americans made some bad decisions. She would never want wealth to be forcibly taken from the poor or the middle class. Is it force to buy an ipod? Is it force to choose to buy food you didn't farm yourself? When people like you encourage those who've never learned to make their own food to steal from the evil rich--at what point do we run out of wealth? Or will it be provided by your indignation? Were you so pampered as a child that you think that money grows on trees, and the mean capitalists take it and hoard it? In capitalism, you don't have to buy houses, ipods, or cheese if you can't afford to pay what those who freely created it want for it--they don't have to sell it to you, and you are welcome to boycott them (not that you do that--you use the government instead) if you find them evil. If what you mean is, that Rand would have had a problem with people taking money from those who made their wealth freely to give to people--regardless of need--who did not create wealth and do not on a regular basis (either with a job, a business, a farm) then she'd oppose that, yes. Wealth is created and can disappear--if a farm does not produce, there's no food--the food doesn't come from god or by magic. The people who make food and products get to keep what they make--or would you rather we take it from them because someone else claims to need it? Someone creates wealth. Someone creates a new product by using his brain and is rewarded freely, not by gov't but by his fellow men. Moral indignation doesn't create. People do--whether black or white, female or male, gay or straight (Randians would vehemently support gay marriage-the gov't has no business regulating what people do in their homes or their businesses).

      • Posted By: objectivist10028 @ 03/03/2009 12:15:39 AM

        Rand would have wanted the government to regulate fraud, to ensure honesty in contracts, to go after the Madoffs of the world. She would have wanted the government to arrest anyone--industrialist or otherwise--who tried to interrupt the peaceable assembly of unions, who tried to force a worker to work in a factory, who tried to stop boycotts on those factories, or who tried to use the government to change workers wages--up or down. She would have wanted any slaveholder to be arrested--she would have condemned any murder of native americans-though she would have pointed to the sale of manhattan for beads to argue that, from a purely capitalist perspective, native americans made some bad decisions. She would never want wealth to be forcibly taken from the poor or the middle class. Is it force to buy an ipod? Is it force to choose to buy food you didn't farm yourself? When people like you encourage those who've never learned to make their own food to steal from the evil rich--at what point do we run out of wealth? Or will it be provided by your indignation? Were you so pampered as a child that you think that money grows on trees, and the mean capitalists take it and hoard it? In capitalism, you don't have to buy houses, ipods, or cheese if you can't afford to pay what those who freely created it want for it--they don't have to sell it to you, and you are welcome to boycott them (not that you do that--you use the government instead) if you find them evil. If what you mean is, that Rand would have had a problem with people taking money from those who made their wealth freely to give to people--regardless of need--who did not create wealth and do not on a regular basis (either with a job, a business, a farm) then she'd oppose that, yes. Wealth is created and can disappear--if a farm does not produce, there's no food--the food doesn't come from god or by magic. The people who make food and products get to keep what they make--or would you rather we take it from them because someone else claims to need it? Someone creates wealth. Someone creates a new product by using his brain and is rewarded freely, not by gov't but by his fellow men. Moral indignation doesn't create. People do--whether black or white, female or male, gay or straight (Randians would vehemently support gay marriage-the gov't has no business regulating what people do in their homes or their businesses).

      • Posted By: objectivist10028 @ 03/03/2009 12:13:25 AM

        Rand would have wanted the government to regulate fraud, to ensure honesty in contracts, to go after the Madoffs of the world. She would have wanted the government to arrest anyone--industrialist or otherwise--who tried to interrupt the peaceable assembly of unions, who tried to force a worker to work in a factory, who tried to stop boycotts on those factories, or who tried to use the government to change workers wages--up or down. She would have wanted any slaveholder to be arrested--she would have condemned any murder of native americans-though she would have pointed to the sale of manhattan for beads to argue that, from a purely capitalist perspective, native americans made some bad decisions. She would never want wealth to be forcibly taken from the poor or the middle class. Is it force to buy an ipod? Is it force to choose to buy food you didn't farm yourself? When people like you encourage those who've never learned to make their own food to steal from the evil rich--at what point do we run out of wealth? Or will it be provided by your indignation? Were you so pampered as a child that you think that money grows on trees, and the mean capitalists take it and hoard it? In capitalism, you don't have to buy houses, ipods, or cheese if you can't afford to pay what those who freely created it want for it--they don't have to sell it to you, and you are welcome to boycott them (not that you do that--you use the government instead) if you find them evil. If what you mean is, that Rand would have had a problem with people taking money from those who made their wealth freely to give to people--regardless of need--who did not create wealth and do not on a regular basis (either with a job, a business, a farm) then she'd oppose that, yes. Wealth is created and can disappear--if a farm does not produce, there's no food--the food doesn't come from god or by magic. The people who make food and products get to keep what they make--or would you rather we take it from them because someone else claims to need it? Someone creates wealth. Someone creates a new product by using his brain and is rewarded freely, not by gov't but by his fellow men. Moral indignation doesn't create. People do--whether black or white, female or male, gay or straight (Randians would vehemently support gay marriage-the gov't has no business regulating what people do in their homes or their businesses).

    • Posted By: skysi @ 12/12/2008 4:21:30 PM

      Educate yourself before you start spewing nonsense. Republicans have nothing whatsoever in common with free market economy or the philosophy of objectivism.

      • Posted By: Horrible Bastard @ 12/12/2008 4:33:11 PM

        Yes, even the GOP is too smart to fall for that rubbish.

        • Posted By: skysi @ 12/12/2008 7:38:50 PM

          Therefore the GOP is not smarter than you. If you have a modicum of intelligence in you go and get a nice book on the free market economy by famous Austrian School economists, older or contemporary.

    • Posted By: djr_nw @ 12/12/2008 3:58:30 PM

      Such wit & logic. Remind me what percentage of our GDP is eaten by taxes. Remind me how many thousands of bills congress signs (but probably doesn't read) every year.

      I think many put too much stock in these minutely different parties, and too little into actually thinking things through. I pretty sure Brook is unlikely to be a fan of Republicans.

    • Posted By: Bill Smith @ 12/12/2008 10:26:35 AM

      Obviously you have not a clue about either side of the demopublican party. They ALL support theft, they ALL support regulation, and they ALL support murder.

  • Posted By: Ragnars spawn @ 04/15/2009 1:44:01 PM

    Those who wold sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.. (including the "security" of government regulation)enjoy your shackles.. you asked for them

  • Posted By: gcv1 @ 04/14/2009 6:03:47 PM

    The basic ideology that free and unregulated markets are good for the whole is an argument that selfish greed eventually benefits us all. This is an ideology that can't survive - eventually to much of this sort of "prosperity" results in too much consumption. We need to live in a balanced world where we individually only take our fair share from this world. But this is not human nature - it is our inate nature to be greedy and take what we can get. And for this reason, we need governments and regulations to govern or control the extent to which we exploit our planet - we won't do this on our own.

  • Posted By: kimtige @ 03/08/2009 2:22:49 PM

    The economic bust was caused by the Fed -- they forced interest rates below the natural rate of interest, fueling an unsustainable credit expansion boom that resulted in tremendous malinvestment and overconsumption.

    For the economic details as to why the Fed is primarily responsible, and why they are flying blind, see the following paper by economist Roger W. Garrison: "Interest-Rate Targeting During the Great Moderation: A Reappraisal".

    One of the best general articles that accurately explains the economic crisis in essential terms is: "The Crisis in 10 Points" by Robert Stewart.

  • Posted By: kimtige @ 02/04/2009 11:35:11 PM

    Like many of you out there I've been trying to understand the economic crisis. Here's one of the best articles I've found that accurately explains the economic crisis in essential terms: "The Crisis in 10 Points", http://mises.org/story/3263 . And to add perpective and depth, listen to this lecture by economist Roger Garrison: http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/MU2007/22-Garrison.mp3

  • Posted By: jscottu @ 01/30/2009 6:16:27 PM

    It is a myth that we have a free market economy. We have a "mixed economy" and that is the problem. Hold individuals responsible for their actions and allow them to keep the fruits of their labor. Christian charity will do the rest.

  • Posted By: Oldster @ 01/28/2009 3:05:43 PM

    How we like to pontificate. It seems to me that the world economies have grown a lot faster than they would have on a gold standard, but people are greedy so you cannot allow a 50 trillion dollar credit swap business to operate without supervision.

  • Posted By: msanc @ 01/17/2009 4:04:16 PM

    Ayn Rand was right these some 50 years since she wrote Atlas Shrugged. She depicted this world we are now living in where politicians take over the economy and dictate a businesssman's every move. Now ask yourself this question: what makes a politician a better judge about the world of business than the people who are actually making their living in that world? Politicians are not God, saviours or even very intelligent about how markets work. GET GOVERNMENT OUT OF THE MARKET PLACE and let people succeed or fail as the chips will fall. Each individual making their own choices could not possibly make such astounding mistakes as the government has made in the past 10 years. The question now is will Obama be a free marketer or a socialist? (www.kazooobjectivist.blogspot.com)

  • Posted By: Andru A. @ 01/11/2009 10:11:09 PM

    Um, what's so inerrantly evil about Rationality, Practicality, Hope, Charity and Love? We don't have to make those concepts our masters but neither do we need to disavow them as corrupt which would almost seem totally irrational. As much as I respect Ayn Rand, Objectivism is nothing short of a philosophy to make rich, greedy, self-righteous solipsists feel justified.

  • Posted By: linuxman @ 01/08/2009 2:24:06 PM

    So it's funny that I see both sides bickering about if this is government's fault or if this is all flawed thinking. Now objectivism has good points but it's not religion or law and just a person's perspective and thoughts. There are zealots on every side of every subject. Now my take on why all this happened. When the stock market system allowed the options thing to go amuck is what has ruined our market system. Executives and CEOs and the idiot stock analysts they listen and cater to are no longer interested in making a company sound and viable but are interested in getting as much money for their options granted and shares purchased for personal gain. All corporations grant millions and billions of dollars of options to the executives yearly and are worth far more than their normal executive salaries. Now if you made 3 million as a salary or 150 million on options where would your primary focus be? I brought the analysts in because they're the supposed experts that just wiped a trillion dollars from the market. They also are the same that tell companies you have to do layoffs to make your stock rating go up because expenses of humans versus price of stock and in their greed induced minds stock has more value than humans so you have to do layoffs. See this is where all this stuff gets so muddy is the humanity side of things. Funny that Rand or the market as is currently don't take in account the humanity of it all. Greed corruption lust for power are what's failing the markets and our government not if there are or are not rules in place. The whole lust over the housing market subprime was stock driven and option driven so you starting to get the picture here? Goes back to the saying of when's enough enough? How many rooms in a house make one successful, how many takeover bids makes you the man, how many cars in the garage gets attention? You can't just blame republicans or just blame democrats or just blame corporate executives or all the market analysts or the CFR! It's all 5 of them that are responsible for the mess we are in.

  • Posted By: Peter Jackson @ 12/12/2008 7:49:18 PM

    All of you socialist types need to realize that it's almost 2009 and capitalism IS economics. There isn't an economics school in the world that teaches the pablum you cling to, you'll have to take journalism or womyn's studies for that.

    This bubble started in the mid to late 90s when the CRA was revisited by Clinton, it's an inarguable, quantifiable fact. Before 1996 there was no such thing as "sub-prime" mortgages, and housing costs moved right along with the CPI until exactly that moment, at which point housing prices break north and rise faster than the price of everything else. And especially after 2003, with Fannie and Freddie happily "underwriting" this bad debt, the effect has been exactly as if we discovered that $1.6 trillion dollars in US financial system was counterfeit.

    • Posted By: paulmedina @ 01/04/2009 12:11:58 PM

      Actually, the CRA was not "revisited" by Clinton in a way that was detriminental. Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which legally allowed the consolidation of commercial and investment banks by repealing the Glass-Steagall act enacted during the depression to prevent the financial industry from meddling in each other's business. Democrats were against the GLB because in it's original form it would not comply with the CRA which many erroneously blame for the housing crisis. It is explicitly written in the CRA that it cannot be construed to force lenders to make loans that would place the business in jeopardy.

      The purpose of the CRA was to not have banks ignore lower income communities. Provided individuals in those communities could afford to pay their loans banks were required to do business in them. The only "revisit" of this act was to require the new financial services industries legalized by the GLB act to comply with CRA. As has been demonstrated after the fact, Democrats feared that these new institutions would discriminate against lower income communities. Having worked in the banking industry I saw how many large banks decided to become investment banks, servicing only corporate clients the very wealthy forgoing retail banking altogether. When the Republicans agreed for CRA compliance the Democrats caved and signed on to the GLB. CRA was in effect since 1977 but the problems in the housing industry did not start until the GLB was enacted. No one put a gun to lenders' heads forcing them to make loans to individuals or business whom they knew could pay them back. And even if there was a gun to their head, legally, lenders were on solid ground to deny the loans simply because of the CRA itself. The cause of the problems was, simply put, greed. Something that Rand disciples continuously fail to work into their "equations".

      As someone else commented on here, humans are not completely rational beings. They are also emotional beings continuously at war with rationality. Objectivism is a laboratory philosophy that can't be fully applied to the real world.

  • Posted By: papa72 @ 12/29/2008 3:54:15 PM

    All those responding positively to Dr. Brook's comments in this enterview that are not aware of the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI)and it's new Washington, DC based division, the Ayn Rand Center (ARC), should check their websites out. Basically, they have about forty individuals on staff - fighting, full time and in the most rational, principled way, for our freedom... and indeed our very existence. Contributing to their efforts, financially or otherwise, is probably the single best thing you can do to combat the irrationality that today borders on insanity. I don't think I would have survived the horror of what has transpired in the world in 2008 mentally or emotionally without them... and it's only going to get worse for some time. Their explanations of the current situation are spot on. Objectivism is just like mathematics - you begin at the proper beginning (1+1=2), you integrate without contradiction, you input all the facts and you come away with reality based truth... the only kind. you'll find answers you can live by and bank on. It takes money and effort to fight this war for rationality. ARI and ARC are certainly on the front lines.

    It's Reason vs Faith; Altruism vs Rational Egoism; Capitalism vs Socialism. We may take our pick, make our choice...But, we cannot avoid the consequences of the wrong choices... and those consequences are now snowballing towards us with ever greater speed. If it were chess, I'd guess we're in the end game. Rationalizations, Pragmatism, Faith, Hope, Charity, Brotherly Love, Atruism (in any form)... none of this will work - it's all played out.

    It's great to see such a rational voice as Dr. Brooks in such a mainstream venue. Good defense of Capitalism.

  • Posted By: ejmendoza @ 12/26/2008 7:07:17 PM

    I hope that more voices of Reason, like Mr. Brook's, are heard. Credit expansion is not a blessing, it is a curse to all men and it always has been. Fractional Reserve banking merely amplifiies the Boom and bust cycles that the Fed is the efficient cause of. Those interested in a really good read on today's economic situation should read Ayn Rand's essay Egalitarianism and Inflation" in her book titled "Philosophy: Who Needs It" for one of the best explanations of the philosophical and economic foundations of Inflation.

  • Posted By: BarackObamaJefferson @ 12/14/2008 2:35:44 PM

    The Federal Reserve has a political agenda. You can read it at CFR.ORG or in the journal Foreign Affairs. David Rockefeller is the Chairman Emeritus of the CFR and the CFR's Think Tank is called the David Rockefeller Studies Program. This agenda is known as Fabian Socialism and Economic Integration. It was originally called the Open Conspiracy (HG Wells, 1928, member Fabian Society) and later The New World Order (also HG Wells, 1940). It is also known as The Third Way, which is the political philosophy of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair (see Blair's book, The Third Way published by the Fabian Society).

    Rockefeller, via JPMorgan, is a shareholder in the Federal Reserve corporation. When CFR scholars say we must abolish national currencies in order to "globalize safely" and then the FED prints money beyond Stalin & Lenin's wildest hopes. The FED clearly uses monetary policy to enable their political agenda. Inflation, military Keynesianism and open boarders all promote Economic Integration which according to their own definition has a 6-step process that ends in WORLD GOVERNMENT -- just like HG Wells' original answer to world peace in his book The Open Conspiracy nearly 80 years ago.

    This is the IDEA that Bush Sr. talked about. This is the IDEA that Robert Gates said happened when you give Bush Sr. and Scowcraft too much time. This is the IDEA Bush Sr. said a thousand wars had waged for and a hundred generations had fought for.

    And it is evil. Collectivism. Against a Constitutional Republic. Against Jefferson. And Against Jesus.

    Ayn Rand saves the world.

    • Posted By: skysi @ 12/14/2008 5:32:11 PM

      I think Jesus would be a champion of this Order hadn't he been so much dead :o)

      • Posted By: YashBudini @ 12/15/2008 9:46:39 AM

        Jesus said of charity give until it hurts, hardly a position Rand would take.

        • Posted By: BarackObamaJefferson @ 12/24/2008 12:54:42 PM

          I quoted Jefferson from the Library of Congress -- this is his belief, his understanding of Jesus. Many individuals during the Age of Enlightenment believed Jesus to represent something much more than what was presented by a known corrupt institution's version of religious history. There is nothing wrong with charity -- only infringement of the natural rights of an individual to compel him to do anything, whether right or wrong, for charity or for selfish desire.

        • Posted By: BarackObamaJefferson @ 12/24/2008 12:54:24 PM

          I quoted Jefferson from the Library of Congress -- this is his belief, his understanding of Jesus. Many individuals during the Age of Enlightenment believed Jesus to represent something much more than what was presented by a known corrupt institution's version of religious history. There is nothing wrong with charity -- only infringement of the natural rights of an individual to compel him to do anything, whether right or wrong, for charity or for selfish desire.

        • Posted By: BarackObamaJefferson @ 12/24/2008 12:52:14 PM

          I quoted Jefferson from the Library of Congress -- this is his belief, his understanding of Jesus. Many individuals during the Age of Enlightenment believed Jesus to represent something much more than what was presented by a known corrupt institution's version of religious history. There is nothing wrong with charity -- only infringement of the natural rights of an individual to compel him to do anything, whether right or wrong, for charity or for selfish desire.

  • Posted By: eddiewillers @ 12/15/2008 5:28:53 PM

    If my reading of Miss Rand is correct we must rely on the integrity and ethics of our powerful men and women..(i.e.Henry Reardon..Dagny Taggart..Howard Roark..Dominique Francon)..If my reading of the events we are sufferring now is correct integrity and ethics are the same fiction as these heroic charaters..

    • Posted By: johnRGT @ 12/16/2008 11:24:53 AM

      Ayn Rand's Eddie Willers would never make your mistake. We need no protection from powerful men when there's complete separation of economy from government, ie, real Capitalism.

      It's the very existence of the Federal Reserve, the epitomizer of government intervention in the economy, that brought us to this -- just as it did with the Great Depression. Further, economic stimulus packages will prolong our agony -- just as they did with the Great Depression.

      • Posted By: Walker B. @ 12/22/2008 4:24:41 PM

        Here, hear. Good call on this one. Eddie knew what he was talking about. Ayn drew him well.

  • Posted By: tomahawkpilot @ 12/22/2008 10:51:37 AM

    Brook is right about the Federal Reserve. That is the real, proximate source of our monetary problems. Why would we trust the same idiots who created the problem to solve it? Just remember that these people -- Greenspan, Bernanke, Bush, Republicans in general -- are absolutely NOT capitalists and do not promote free markets. Pay attention to their actions and not their words.

  • Posted By: fedorovingtonboop @ 12/20/2008 12:40:58 PM

    not worth much. these are generic talking points

Reply

Report Abuse

Enter comments if any for reporting abuse