Who Is To Blame?

The truth about how we truly got to this point in our American economy is not being reported by the main street media. Certainly not Newsweek who is just about as liberal as they come. Ask yourself this question: Are Chris Dodd and Barney Frank good guys or bad guys- in relationship to our financial dilemma? If you are scratching your heads and saying to your self, what do they have to do with this? - you are poorly informed. Here is one more to Google - John Maynard Keynes..

Doug from Eagan

Advice to the uninitiated: Read Atlas Shrugged. Become familiar with the Austrian theory of Economics, and how is differs from the widely accepted and employed views of Keynes. Check out the Ludwig von Mises Institute online, and LewRockwell.com as part of your education. Definitely read "The Law" by Frederic Bastiat to understand what is happening to our society today.

Eventually it should be clear that Greenspan is akin to Dr Robert Stadler of Atlas Shrugged. Someone with great potential who sells out to the Looter philosophy. The Fed is a centrally planned bank that has freedom to print paper currency not linked to intrinsic wealth, and has the ability to arbitrarily set interest rates by which private institutions decide how and when to do business (rather than private assumption of risk). Government insurance (FDIC) and precedents of previous bailouts by government of private companies gives private businesses and banks false senses of security when making decisions about risk. This has led to the continued boom bust cycles, and government intervention will make the current situation worse by prolonging the presence of wealth killing businesses in the economy and delaying the purging of malinvestments. Everyone knows the mantra about "risking" capital in the market, but on a large scale correction, this being the largest correction ever, the government and the portion of the populace supporting this way of thinking is unwilling for the suffering that inevitably comes from a correction/panic/recession/depression from occurring. One hears of businesses being "too big to fail." So, instead of the actual businesses and clients that would suffer from the business failures of the burst bubble, government intervenes and we all suffer. Monies are looted from the responsible and given to the irresponsible. Incentive given to failure and mediocrity instead of rewarding virtue. This is one of the many facets of the looting by the State that Rand deals with in Atlas Shrugged. The title of this article is: Can Ayn Rand Survive the Economic crisis? Any blame laid at Ayn Rand's feet via Greenspan's role in the Fed would only be by those who do not know Rand, the philosophy of Objectivism, and therefore have no clue that Greenspan's involvement in the government is contrary to anything that Rand stood for (and Objectivists and Minarchists still stand for). To those who believe in activist States and the economic philosophy of Keynes: Can your philosophy survive the economic crisis?

Great interview, Dr. Brook nails it.

Making this a discussion of capitalism versus socialism obscures what it is really about -- venal, stupid, greedy people convincing an uninformed populace that helping the rich get richer (iegetting ripped off) is patriotic. You can say the S-word as much as you like, as if we are supposed to scream in horror when we hear "socialism," but countries with democratic socialism have a higher standard of living than the USA, better healthcare, lower infant mortality, etc.

The failure of the economy pivots on the inherent greed in all parties. Those who used their homes as ATM machines or credit cards drove up the housing markets to a boiling point, especially those sub-prime mortgages, adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) and Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOCs). Of course across the table were investors, mortgage bankers, brokers and originators, appraisers, title attorneys, and title companies. They all stood to profit by funds from mortgages. Not all may have been punished in this market, but those holding the empty bag, like the global commercial banks (which have mortgage divisions), the government insured entities (Fannie, Freddie and Ginny), the stock brokerages with mortgage backed securities, and insurance companies. Now it will be a debacle like the Savings and Loan crisis of the mid-1980s, when the US taxpayers footed the bill for the reconstruction of the real estate and and mortgage industries while the FSLIC and S&L's vanished. Behold: the taxpayers are going to foot the bill again!

How could anyone blame capitalism based upon Alan Greenspan's comments or actions? He ran the government agency, the Federal Reserve, which manipulates interest rates. He lowered rates below the inflation rate which drove people to speculate on houses. That is not capitalism. On top of that, Fannie Mae made loans to those who could not afford them. That is not capitalism. And...federal regulators pushed private banks to make loans to those who could not afford them. That is not capitalism. What we have here is a failure of government folks. Not capitalism. Driving all is this government initiating force. That is the core problem from a political perspective.

My last sentence was cut off by, apparently, a server error. It should read: "So don't hold your breath waiting for a new renaissance."

This article is oddly funny in that it approaches Ayn Rand as if she were an actual economist or philosopher of free will or even a philosopher at all. Sure Rand is an interesting voice on behalf of individual moral efficacy over the death of individualism prescribed by Marx through Keynes, but maybe we could look at this problem in terms of a real philosopher like say, Locke? or Mill? or maybe even Adam Smith or God forbid Hume or even the Existentialists. Randianism is a popularist philosophy cult just like Deconstructionism, lots of irate high-principled haughty hokem with a bit of truth melded in. Ho hum. No wonder Greenspan wasn't a TRUE follower.

The death penalty is compensation for the loss of very important personal property. The person on death row chose to steal a life. That equitable cost of that theft, is their own life.

No human being has ever been exposed to the vacuum of space. So by your logic, since this has never happened we can't know for certain that it will cause the death of a person. We don't know if killing the cancer in someone will let them live as long as they would have if the cancer never appeared, yet many individuals choose to fight it.

WildBilltheOldFart, what you have just said is total nonsense.. Read Ayn Rand.

Anyone who has actually read any of Ayn Rand's works knows that Alan Greenspan is no Objectivist, and his policies at the Fed were not free market. No one of the "the free market failed" camp seems to want to actually look at the details of the regulations already in place that largely caused the financial meltdown, i.e. The Fed's massive expansion of credit out of thin air, the Community Reinvestment Act forcing banks to take on risky loans at the point of a gun, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac subsidizing loans to high-risk people. The banks such as AIG that got themselves in trouble were acting on the belief that the Fed would keep the party going by continuing to inflate the money supply. Had the Fed, the CRA, Fannie, and Freddie not done what they did, these banks would not have taken on such risky loans. They would have regulated themselves just fine. When you have the Fed in control of the money supply and can increase it or decrease it at any rate it wishes at any time, how can anyone honestly say that the so-called "freedom" of the banking industry is what caused this mess? I also find it striking that people denounce Ayn Rand considering the fact that she promoted the idea that YOUR thought and YOUR action is what keeps you alive, that people require freedom to act on their own best judgment, and that free trade is required to expand wealth beyond what anyone person can achieve on his or her own. Anyone against this must be either incapable or unwilling to think and act for his own survival, and wants to make slaves out of those people that can. The beautiful part of Atlas Shrugged is that it demonstrates that the capable men and women can "shrug" off the non-contributing fleas any time they want.