Who Is To Blame?

Greenspan is so obviously NOT a free-market supporter - anyone can look at his history over the past 20 years and see very clearly that he gave up any support of capitalism a long time ago. By the end of his stiint with the Fed he was about as far from Ayn Rand's thinking on economics as one could get, yet the media and both liberals and conservatives stilll strrive to dishonestly find ways to vilify Rand (this time through Greenspan). This kind of undeserved, open hatred toward the benevolence of Ayn Rand, from peolple who many times have not even read her work, can only be explained by their fear of how correct she actually is.

"There' is a way that seems right to a man but leads to his destruction." [Bible] Objectivism is a sweet temptation, but it ignores the nature of man and rests on the assumption that a system can be set up free of distractions. It is a Utopian delusion; a satisfying delusion because of its consistency. In the world of Ayn Rand the unpleasant feeling of cognitive dissonance is happily avoided. That's why so many morons embrace it.

Here's a question for those who want to blame "laissez faire" or Capitalism: In America's heavily-regulated, over-taxed business environment, where do you see any of the economic freedom you want to blame? If you want to criticize Capitalism, at least ask those who advocate it what it is. Why not read the 4 great books on Capitalism: 1. Human Actions by Ludwig von Mises 2. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand 3. Capitalism, A Treatise on Ecopnomics by George Reisman 4. The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein Since individual rights is a defining fundamental of Capitalism, add to your reading list Dr. Tara Smith's Moral Rights and Political Freedom.
Without doing your homework, you criticize to your own embarrassment.

The Federal Reserve in 1990 distributed instructions to member banks describing the mandatory requirements of four laws which were passed by congress and how they were to be obeyed.
Space limits prevent detailing the full story, but the details are easily available when one accesses a ???guidance??? document issued by the FED in 1990 which details the proper compliance with, and the content of the laws mentioned above.
It is easily available on the internet at http://www.bos.frb.org/commdev/commaff/closingt.pdf

It's time to repeal the regulations that keep capitalism from working. The basic premise of business is that it's a risk, which the free market may or may not bear; businesses must be allowed to fail and to be reinvented. There is no crucial business that must be kept from failing by the government. Life-long job security does not exist and the government is trying to secure jobs with other people's money. People must be responsible for their own lives. The government needs to get its hands off. Get out of our way.

"securitized mortgage market, which is a government creation through Fannie and Freddie" created a global ponzie scam and the finacial institution managers gobbled it up.

"securitized mortgage market, which is a government creation through Fannie and Freddie" created a global ponzie scam and the finacial institution managers gobbled it up.

For many people, the recession started in 1982 and never went away. That was the beginning of the end for the middle class. They never recovered since then, really. Alan Greenspan aided in crushing of the middle class. He kept a tight money policy which meant that dollars took on more value than human labor. Real estate didn't skyrocket in 2002 -- it started getting out of hand in the 1980s...it's just that many people already owned homes so they thought they were getting rich.

"Leverage" was due to the fact that a dollar became worth more and more. What we should have done was printed more dollars because our economy was growing exponential. Leverage meant that a single dollar had more value than real goods at times...so those with dollars could buy up and dismember most of industry.

MUSQUA'S Comment is a good example of the pseudo-intellectual pseudo-thinking that characterizes the far left: pith-poor emotional argumentum ad hominem.

This is the kind of ihonest ntellectual reading material we should see a lot more of.

When I came home after a tour in Vietnam, I was shocked by the media's biased "coverage" of that war: It wasn't "tellin' it like it is." CBS and the New York Times were the worst, with NBC and the Washington Post close behind.

But "the times, they are a-changing." The Internet is making it much easier to access some some other points of view, some of which are slanted to the right, and some of which are OBJECTIVE, as Ayn Rand was.

Thanks Barrettt for giving Dr. Brook a chance to counter all the Capitalist bashing. Ayn Rand was concerned that ignorance of the free market was being reflected by the politician's laws. She wrote a strong defense/explanation: Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Unfortunately, the ignorance persists. Next time you hear someone say Capitalism has failed, ask them to define Capitalism. I'll bet they can't.

1 - Mr. Sheridan, Rand wasn't against government, just something like the 80% of government that falls outside of: National Defense, Courts & Police.
2 - As Brook says, Greenspan was no free marketeer; that ought to be obvious to anyone. He kept one hand on the interest rate, another on the money supply - how is that "hands off capitalism"?
3 - I would like to hear Brook's thoughts on the apathy of the public regarding federal, state, county, city debts that are every bit as up-side-down as the mortgages.

Good / quick read Newsweek!

apologies for the triple comments. Must not have a filter for new initiates such as I. Oh well, so much to do, so little time. Hurry now, let's get this off and running.

I'm for minimal government. I have read through most of the comments seeing the mixture of arguments from both sides. I think one thing we can all can agree on is no matter how many laws and regulations we have in our country 1 law or regulation or 500 million laws and regulations (the lesser the better in my book), the rule of law must be enforced in our country. Free market Capitalism will work, if we corral corrupt (not greedy, corrupt) individuals and make them pay dearly for their misdeed(s). Our country is moving further and further away from the rule of law every day and we need to turn the corner.