Newsweek: Ayn Rand caused America’s Crisis?
December 14, 2008 by FCD Administrator
Filed under Brain-Off Awards, Principle 04
Barret Sheridan (Newsweek) | It’s not easy being Alan Greenspan these days. As the former Federal Reserve chairman, he urged government regulators to take a light touch while banks like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers buried themselves-and the economy more generally-under a mountain of debt. Now that his reputation is plummeting faster than the stock market, he’s been forced to admit a “flaw” in his hands-off ideology.
Of course, things look entirely different to members of “free-market advocacy groups,” as they like to be called. One such group is the Ayn Rand Institute, named after the matriarch of the movement, whose antigovernment and anti-regulation views are embodied in her best-selling novels “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.” Indeed, Greenspan himself was a friend of Rand’s, and a devotee of her extreme free-market philosophy…[Read Full Article]
After hitting the roof while my jaw was still on the ground I read the article provided. Dr. Brook did a very good job at defending the Capitalist Premise. What is amazing to me though is the consistent belief that government intervention will solve financial crisis, when it is precisely this intervention that aids in causing it. It reminds me of an addict, who after experiencing the hell of coming down from his drug goes back for more, expecting a different result. It is insanity.
This article makes me sad and want to run to the gulch….
I hope people will read the whole article and not just the title. I wonder what Barrett Sheridan was after? I can’t help but compare national government to family government. I’m imagining playtime with a controlling parent who must not only referee but also decide the games to be played. Talk about high-energy and counter-productive parenting! The thought of a truly free market to me seems a lot like the best sort of play-time.
This article was fantastic and poignant. It stated clearly how the involvement is what caused the problem and I liked the point how during the last depression it was not the New Deal that saved the people.
The questions being posed as silly - MORE regulation would help? What is sadly lacking from today’s society is an analysis of what caused and sustained the Great Depression, which was alluded to in the article. We absolutely need less regulation and more freedom to let things work!
I loved that someone asked the Ayn Rand Institute about Alan Greenspan. As any true capitalist knows he did not practice his beliefs, of no government interaction.