Who Is To Blame?

Picture the fallen giant tree with its rotted core exposed. Picture Washington where once giant automakers, financial institutions and practically everyone else are demanding taxpayer???s money. The root cause is identified in ???Atlas Shrugged??? where the cultural shift from individual responsibility to collective irresponsibility blurs the lines between cause and effect. ???Who is John Galt????
As we have followed a path to right all wrongs, make mountains flat and valleys high, we have fostered a culture of dependency. Being dependent make irresponsible decisions easy to make, expecting a bailout a right, and ultimately avoiding accountability. The solution does not lie with more or less regulation; it lies within each individual creating a culture of responsibility and accountability. Unfortunately, our culture is rotten at the core.

This is too funny. We have not had a free-market in this country for at least over 200 years, if then, yet the sheep continue to blame something that does not exist. The Amerikan economy is heavily regulated and overburdened by all levels of government. Now more Amerikans (over 55%) either work for the government or sit at home and suck at the tit of government. The people who provide real wealth can only do it for so long and then the parasites kill them.

Obviously many of the responders have not read the works of Ayn Rand. IF we were following her thinking, the housing loans to people who cannot afford them would not have been made. We wouldn't have the bunch of idiots we claim as "responsible" leaders in Washington. There are just too many things to list. Go back and read Atlas Shrugged again, or if you don't have the time, read Anthem. Then think about how similar GM is to Orren Boyle and his Steel Company.

A hip, youth-oriented side note related to this article: has anyone here played Bioshock? It shows what happens when Ayn Rand's utopian theories are taken to their extremes like it seems this guy would like to do ??? everyman a king or in the game's case a deranged lunatic with delusions of being a god. That is where Rand's ideas lead.

She was a refugee from Communism so her beliefs were in the extreme opposite direction. Anything taken to an extreme is bad. No pure ideology ever works. History has proven that over and over again. A healthy balance and blending is what is needed. Of course the trick is finding that sweet spot. That is a job for people much smarter than I.

As a gamer, I appreciated the game bringing some brains to table. It mixes Ayn Rand???s utopian ideas with the repercussions of moral decisions in a universe rendered in the visual style of her book covers. It???s a very smart first-person shooter that entertains while making you think. It came out last year before the full force of the melt down occurred. Now it seems very timely. I???m sure there will be a sequel.

The Federal Reserve is responsible for the business cycle? Read your history, buddy. The business cycle was WORSE, with much longer and deeper crashes, before the Fed was created. There were several depressions - not just recessions but depressions - in the 19th century.

I will take Objectivism seriously when it makes a scientific case for its claims, based on observation and evidence in the real world. So far I have not seen Ayn Rand or her adherents offer anything of the kind. Despite their professed admiration for science, they seem unwilling to apply scientific standards to their own beliefs, preferring instead to follow received wisdom.

I used to believe in Objectivism when I was a teenager. Then I grew up a bit and realized that the real world is just a bit more complicated than Ayn Rand makes it out to be.

"The problem with Ayn Rand is that her ideas are ridiculous, and not evidenced anywhere in her life. All this drivel she spouted about the individual making it alone was just an academic's fantasy. And she, herself, was a person who was coddled and protected by others in her life. For this person, who was such an antithesis of her own concepts, to have such an influence is a testament to the power of fantasy in the world at large AND among academics."
This is what's known as an ad hominem attack. It has no basis in logic. What does Rand's charcater have to do with the validity of her ideas. The validity of her ideas has to do with their adherence to reality, nothing more.
Brook is right in his attack on this mixed economy. The "de-regulation" passed in 1999, was a farce. It simply gave the Federal Reserve an enormous amount of power. How is power in the hands of government hacks a form of capitalism? Laissez-faire is exactly what it says: no government interference in the economy. None.

Greetings Barrett;

Please read (or re-read) Ayn Rand's political essays carefully, specifically her book "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" and her essay "Egalitarianism and Inflation" from "Philosophy: Who Needs It?". In the Capitalism book, Greenspan is a co-author and observe that he identifies capitalism, not a mixed economy as the only moral political system. Also observe that Ayn Rand's position regarding the existence of the federal reserve bank and arbitrary monetary policy (redundancy added for emphasis) is that they are not proper functions of a government. Whatever Alan Greenspan was advocating through his actions as federal reserve chairman, it was not Objectivism. When a government entity fails at achieving it's stated objective why do individuals such as yourself attempt to pin the blame on freedom and capitalism?

Sincerely,

Matt

Greetings Barrett;

Please read (or re-read) Ayn Rand's political essays carefully, specifically her book "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" and her essay "Egalitarianism and Inflation" from "Philosophy: Who Needs It?". In the Capitalism book, Greenspan is a co-author and observe that he identifies capitalism, not a mixed economy as the only moral political system. Also observe that Ayn Rand's position regarding the existence of the federal reserve bank and arbitrary monetary policy (redundancy added for emphasis) is that they are not proper functions of a government. Whatever Alan Greenspan was advocating through his actions as federal reserve chairman, it was not Objectivism. When a government entity fails at achieving it's stated objective why do individuals such as yourself attempt to pin the blame on freedom and capitalism?

Sincerely,

Matt

The problem with utopian theory is that it all looks great on paper. It just won't fly. Managing a national economy by whatever philosophy is the rub; If no one minds the crash. Once policy goes beyond the individual without rules, then all that's left is anarchy. To some degree market forces are always playing on that field and rightly so. But if the turf is not maintained by some groundskeeper then the game (capitalism in this case) faces an ever changing parameter.

The problem of todays economy is not due to a hands-off approach. The problem stems from the implicit agreement of the government to cover all debts. That is not what a free market does. What I find so laughable is that the very people who say they believe in Darwin and the survival of the fittest look to Intelligent Design (from the the government, no less!) when it comes to the economy.

The problem with utopian theory is that it all looks great on paper. It just won't fly. Managing a national economy by whatever philosophy is the rub; If no one minds the crash. Once policy goes beyond the individual without rules, then all that's left is anarchy. To some degree market forces are always playing on that field and rightly so. But if the turf is not maintained by some groundskeeper then the game (capitalism in this case) faces an ever changing parameter.

The problem with utopian theory is that it all looks great on paper. It just won't fly. Managing a national economy by whatever philosophy is the rub; If no one minds the crash. Once policy goes beyond the individual without rules, then all that's left is anarchy. To some degree market forces are always playing on that field and rightly so. But if the turf is not maintained by some groundskeeper then the game (capitalism in this case) faces an ever changing parameter.

Also, "saying the current crisis is the result of too much regulation is like saying that crime exists because we have too many police officers." Does that analogy prove the converse? Will having more economic policemen prevent economic calamity? I don't know if police prevent crimes or discover the criminals after the fact. I don't know of any government program that I would say has been run well....

LA2000: I agree that Dr. Brook didn't make his case, but I'm not sure he can in a short Newsweek interview. He does at least raise the possibility that there's an alternative explanation to lax regulations. While I don't think he made much of a case for the Great Depression, I think he made a decent case against the causes of the current situation (Fannie, Freddie, and the CRA). Everybody loved Bill Clinton for trying to raise homeownership. Now we are paying the price for his "help" (for the record, I like Bill Clinton).

Sure lets blame a dead writer for our problems and totally ignore the fact that:

1. Foolish individuals took out mortgages that clearly had the potential to become unaffordable for them,
2. Foolish banks made those loans,
3. Greedy commercial lenders packaged those bad loans into "invetments"
4. Foolish politicians repealed existing legislation that was specifically designed to prevent the action described in #3 above.
Here is how the current economic problems originated:

http://www.theaureport.com/pub/na/1842

Let's understand the real causes and create real lasting solutions.

Who is going to regulate the flawed human nature you refer to "wolvie"? Other flawed humans? You acknowledge that people tody are imperfect, and your solution is to allow other imperfect humans to regulate them with force? Only private property keeps people responcible for their actions, and that's the only way to give people an incentive to be better. Or do you just want us to stagnate and not expect to be better, because that's more comfortable for you?

Flaming Brook's commentary as "nonsense" when what he says is clearly well-reasoned and original, while offering no counter arguement, is pure trolling. The crimes that police officers (generally) prevent are initiation of force. Market regulation are the initiation of force, they take, not protect, and so they serve the opposite purpose. Corrput police officers enforcing indefinable laws that rewards reckless greed and punishes productive greed will indeed encourage crime - and that's what market regulitons have been doing. And a market ploy? The interviewer brought that up, and Brook referenced the fact in passing as part of refering to why it would be successful - which related to what most of that response and the rest of the article talks about, the actual solutions.

I know it's inconvenient to be offered such an approach to this problem when everyone around us is clamoring about the market having gone too far it would be tiresome to try to challenge the apparent consensus - but Brook is offering better reasons than anyone else.

Ayn Rand's book "Atlas Shrugged" lifts her to the status of being truly prophetic. Although I've never claimed to be an "objectivist" I can see that that is exactly what I am. The characters in her book certainly find their counterparts in todays political world and i fear greatly that there appears to be no "John Galt" on the horizon.

Ayn Rand's book was prophetic - in it's entirety. Although i've never claimed to be an "Objectivist" it is clear to me now
that my thinking has bought her premise totally.