I think it's pretty safe to say now that idiot followers of Ayn Rand are the ones who took down the world financial system - starting with her #1 disciple Alan Greenspan, and ending with idiot realtors on commission who spout her crap endlessly.I'm not sure which is more disgusting - hearing realtors on commission quote Ayn Rand as if she was some sort of god or messiah, or hearing them justifying their evil ways via The Secret. Both make me hurl.
This Ayn Rand crap now goes into the dustbin of history of failed and discredited philosophies/religions, joining Marx, Hitler, Hubbard, Kristol and many others.
However, I don't think the realtors and mortgage brokers have got the message yet. Maybe when they're packing up their boxes from their foreclosed homes, THEN they'll finally understand.
Or maybe not. They really are that dumb.
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"Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself especially, are in a state of shocked disbelief."
So said former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in his dramatic testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, as he was grilled by committee members on the causes of the nation’s financial crisis. Greenspan, whose laissez-faire capitalist leanings led him to reject decades of calls for more robust government oversight of financial markets, was repeatedly interrupted by the lawmakers in a contentious exchange that clearly shows the gloves are off in regard to the former chairman’s legacy.
In his startling admission, the former head of the Federal Reserve reveals that his long-held and controversial notion that enlightened self-interest alone would prevent bankers, mortgage brokers, investment bankers and others from gaming the system for their own personal financial benefit has, as the English say, come a cropper.
Bankers ruled by anything other than greed?
Where did Greenspan ever get that idea?
Ayn Rand.
http://www.wowowow.com/post/greenspan-shrugged-did-ayn-rand-cause-our-financial-crisis-128286
They love "The Secret" too dont forget
Hard to undo decades of brainwashing. Anything that could bash Russia would make it a hit.
Her message was what America wanted to hear for decades.
Could it be that the reason Idiot realtors On Commission™ still spout that is because dumb people are who they prey upon?
Let's get some perspective here. "The Secret" is pure bullshit belonging in a bomb fire of the whole pulp psychologist movement that began with "I'm Okay, Your Okay" thirty years ago. Alan Greenspan's admission quoted above was one of the most remarkable statements made in a hundred years and the idiot press really didn't get it. Blaming Ayn Rand is about as silly as blaming Marx for Joe Stalin. As bad as this is I will take boom and bust instability over the iron fisted euthanasia of the human spirit that is state inspired economies. Rand was a product of her times and her experience.
Rand, just like Greenspan, got it wrong in that human systems will check human tendencies to act short term. They don't. That is why a conscience must be cultivated and valued. The Conservatives thought that God would take of that and they were wrong too. We must find a way to measure economically our worth by the quality of who we are not the products we produce or consume nor the intellectual/religious/political banner we fly.
Don Payne
When this is all over, the fiat currencies, including the US dollar won't be worth toilet paper... we WILL be back on the gold standard, like it or not, because that is the only thing that will be accepted by other countries...
this was Rand's position and Greasepan has succeeded in proving its correctness by destroying everything else... score 1 for Rand...
also- the fundamental theme of Atlas shrugged was how the gov trashes everything it touches and used the crises to grab more power - Rham/Obongo are following this script to the LETTER... score 2 for Rand...
I just had an epiphany! I figured out why the t-baggers think obama is a socialist. See, W's treas scy paulson just up and gave tarpI to the banks, like any good fascist in the govt, he didnt have no strings attached. obama, OTOH, has put restrictions, such as the banks cant take this bail out and pay only themselves with it, they have to "spread it around". See this equivocates to govt running free enterprise, or in rush limbos words, socialist. its a secret backdoor to nationalize the banks, and thats why the t baggers walk around with their socialist signs. Wow. To tell the truth, i thinkg th banks SHOULD be nationalized, fixed up and later sold off at a profit. t-baggers may think i am a socialist for holding this view, but i would prefer that than the idiotic rush limbo republican neo-fascist plan of theirs thats already been a PROVEN failure...
-JDF
Ayn Rand wrote some really bad books. But the philosophy in them appeals to those seeking simple minded reasons for why the world has gone to hell.
Libertarians in particular seem to really like her crap. Simple reasons for simple minds.
Hmmm...I think what Greenspan said was actually different that what is claimed.
a) Ayn Rand suggested that it can work out well if individuals pursue their own self interest and that systems should be designed to support that, as it is easier to get people to work in their own self interest than against it.
b) Greenspan attempted to create a system that depended on people behaving in their own self interest.
c) People supposedly failed to act in their own self interest.
Therefore, the failure could be couched as people are too stupid to know what is in their own self interest. On the other hand, the way that many of these banks were set up, it was in the self interest of these people, via the ridiculous short term incentive bonus plans the banks had, to pursue extremely risky strategies in order to get big quarterly and annual bonuses. So, perhaps the problem is that the bankers designed a stupid short term incentive system, driven by the short term incentives in increasing stock price that are driven by short term focused investors.
Thus, the rethinking of the Ayn Rand vision should not be to dispute the virtue of selfishness, but rather to structure systems that favor long term incentives over short term incentives. 90% short term capital gains tax (that applies to homes!) combined with 10% dividends tax ought to address the root causes of these issues.
this was Rand's position and Greasepan has succeeded in proving its correctness by destroying everything else... score 1 for Rand...
also- the fundamental theme of Atlas shrugged was how the gov trashes everything it touches and used the crises to grab more power - Rham/Obongo are following this script to the LETTER... score 2 for Rand...
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yes, that is the message I too get from Atlas shrugged.
I don't know about her other books as I have not read them.
December 2008
I see REALTORS not fitting the "producing" types depicted in atlas shrugged but rather the leach type that live off the producers and are always conspiring to leach more and more under the cloak of "doing good" for society (like the BO administration).
December 2008
I remember reading one of Ayn Rand's novels in the 1960's because everyone was talking her up, and one of her characters said something that struck me as so self centered, and basically wrong, because it was not seeing broadly enough [don't remember, just the visceral response]that it made me sick, because it was so blind, [probably about self interests] and because people were praising what she was saying.I took that as a bad omen.
I was young but I had already had experiences with self-centered thinking, and I'd met evil in a crowd, and had no taste for movements or group think, because even though it was supposedly about individualism expressed collectively, it represented to me, cultural permission to consider only one's own needs as
criteria. I tend to think of the generations which will follow me,
and that we all fit into a context, of a world for all, not just for some.
Straight up, I think the lady was wierd and a bit off in her thinking.
grandma PKK
Greg Swann is an admitted Ann Rand follower and 'self lover' whatever that means
True.
Yes, someone sent me this one that was at Swanns unintentionally hilarous blog a bit ago, from a mortgage broker no less.
I guess you all would be the losers and mealy mouth pieces of excrement? Add that to our childish list of names
http://tinyurl.com/p852v9
Feeling Overwhelmed? Turn To Ayn Rand
Again, I found this:
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours. -Ayn Rand
If your reading this, chances our, the world is yours. Don’t get discouraged by the losers, mediocrities and mealy mouthed pieces of excrement that want to homogenize the best among us.
In Atlas Shrugged there is a great investor who decides to go on strike (just leave) because the government wants to tell him who "deserves" to get a loan.
Sound familiar?
Too bad none of the bankers of 2000-2006 had that sort integrity.
>Greg Swann is an admitted Ann Rand follower and 'self lover' whatever that means
>True.
Casey is an admitted Obama follower.
Alan Greenspan said he couldn't see the coming downturn,
Now he say's he see's the bottom.
Hey Alan,
You may want to check your glasses!
>Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours. -Ayn RandAyn Rand was talking about using your industrious energy, not being a mindless speculator. She would have spit and Greg Swann's face.
You're an idiot Keith. You don't have the slightest clue what free markets have done for human civilization.
I don't know why I have to spell this out to morons like you but it seems free market capitalism is always the first to be blamed with the "throw the baby out with the bath water" massive generalized thinking that fools like you engage in.
Look at every luxury you have around you and every technology that aids your life and allows you to live a long comfortable life cruising around Europe and blogging your days away as you sip on coffee made from beans imported from Guatemala.
How do you think this all arose? It came from the hard work and decisions made by individuals freely trading goods and services it did not come down from on high from the dictates of some worhipful leader like Barack H Obama.
Are there problems in a capitalistic society? Of course there are! There will always be criminals that cheat lie and steal but that occurs in any system. How you can go from blaming criminals all the way to blaming the idea of capitalism just blows my mind.
As for Greenspan, he may have been an admirer of Rand and associated with her back in the day but it is his actions that count. He either doesn't understand what Rand was on about or simply a power groupie. This is the same man that headed the Fed which is the anti-thesis to free market economics and attends the Bohemian Grove with the biggest monopolistic, corporate cronies on the planet so in an Ayn Rand novel, Greenspan would most definitely be one of the villains.
Have you even read any of Rand's novels?
I doubt it.
If you're going to spout your strong opinions on everything under the sun at least have a little deeper understanding of things. Sheesh!
-Gonzo
I once tried to read the Fountainhead after hearing so much acclaim over it. After about 50 pages I was ready to put my finger down my throat. The general theme I got from it was something like this:
Some people are exceptional. If you are than you have the right an to an asshole to everyone else.
The book was truely some of the most sanctimonious, self-righteous bull crap I had ever attemped to read.
BTW - The Bilderberg Group is meeting in Athens this week:
Bilderberg Group Meets in Athens Amid Tight Security.
And where's the media covering this? It's pathetic. Don't you people understand that the mainstream media is controlled?
Of course, you can get coverage of the Bilderberg meeting at www.infowars.com.
-Gonzo
"Ayn Rand suggested that it can work out well if individuals pursue their own self interest..."
i feel bad keith...selling my condo at the height of the market was not good for the collective dumbasses.
Re anonymous and Gregg Swann and the /self-lover reference.
Do you ever have an encounter, and puzzle over it for years?There's something about it you just don't get?
I'm laughing. In the late 70's, I was invited to dinner by some people I didn't know well, along with my kids, who went to school with their kids. I was a single mother who's husband had flown the coop, and we were on our own. After a while I realize the other guy at the dinner was someone they'd invited for me to meet. He looks at me, over his glass of wine and says to me,
"Don't you think the word Me is the most important word in the world?" I was dumbfounded. I didn't know if I'd been talking too much, or if he meant it, or if it was a conversation starter, but I figured if he didn't get that a woman with two children, on her own can't even afford to think that way, I didn't feel it was my job to educate him. And if he meant it, well, enough said. And if it was a conversation starter it was too pathetic.
But now I get it: perhaps he was a follower of Ayn Rand.
Grandma PKK
I don't know why I have to spell this out to morons like you but it seems free market capitalism is always the first to be blamed with the "throw the baby out with the bath water" massive generalized thinking that fools like you engage in.
Look at every luxury you have around you and every technology that aids your life and allows you to live a long comfortable life cruising around Europe and blogging your days away as you sip on coffee made from beans imported from Guatemala.
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Give me a freakin' break!
Half the stuff you are consuming today came from some form of government investment and/or research.
We've never had real communism nor have we ever had pure capitalism.
Wake up and smell the coffee... that most probably came from beans grown thanks to some kind of government subsidy.
All systems fail in the long run. Why? Because they always go to extremes. Why? Because they are mostly run by power hungry people who think of themselves before thinking of you.
I always thought it appauling how in Dirty Dancing they had the rich kid asshat hand over a copy of the fountain head and say "Some people matter and some people don't".
The fountain head did have this message, but it was people like Baby and Johnny that mattered, and the rich kid medical student who didn't.
I always thought it appauling how in Dirty Dancing they had the rich kid asshat hand over a copy of the fountain head and say "Some people matter and some people don't".
The fountain head did have this message, but it was people like Baby and Johnny that mattered, and the rich kid medical student who didn't..
That's not what the Fountainhead was about at all you dolts. The message in the Fountainhead is one of liberty vs tyranny. It rails against cronyism and applauds the entrepreneurial spirit in a free market economy.
I don't know where you people get these distorted views of the novel. It couldn't be any more clear.
Ayn Rand came from a totalitarian society - the USSR to a country that had freedom and free markets like so many other immigrants have done.
The USA used to be the beacon of liberty and freedom in the world. It was where one could come and work hard and have a chance at building a great life through commerce and ingenuity. That is what is being lost in America today by a clueless generation of f*ckwads like many here on "Soot and Ashes" who have NO IDEA how precious liberty, freedom and free markets really are.
Let's make it clear. In an Ayn Rand novel the criminals would be the very same people we see as criminals. I'm talking about the Paulsons, Bernankes, Geithners, Bushes, Obamas, Rumsfelds, Pelosis, Reids, Dodds, Cheneys and all of the other corrupt cronies whom hold their allegiance to their networks of cronies, kickbacks and corporate fraud above their own morals and nation.
-Gonzo
Let's make it clear. In an Ayn Rand novel the criminals would be the very same people we see as criminals. I'm talking about the Paulsons, Bernankes, Geithners, Bushes, Obamas, Rumsfelds, Pelosis, Reids, Dodds, Cheneys and all of the other corrupt cronies whom hold their allegiance to their networks of cronies, kickbacks and corporate fraud above their own morals and nation.
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You have a point but kind of funny you did not include Greenspan.
"...How you can go...all the way to blaming the idea of capitalism..."It's certainly a wonderful idea...
You CANNOT be seriously asserting that is what we have; after all the bailouts of private stockholders.
I'll start worshiping capitalism when it reveres the sanctity of free markets.
Handing us all it's individual/private losses...?
Not. So. Much.
First of all, 'the Secret', is not a secret. It's called being positive and being able to seize opportunities when they come to you. Kinda like instead of complaining about one's job, get additional training and take the CPA or patent agent exam to see if one can switch fields within the same firm or adjacent one. No big secret there.
As for Ayn Rand, capitalism was always a part of the American fabric. Again, BFD, people have been engaging in industry and commerce for decades. There's no need to make a philosophy out of it. Get either a Nevada or Delaware Corp (or LLC), hang out a shingle for some service or product, and viola, you're essentially a follower of Ayn Rand. Hmm... it's been happening for ages.
It seems that for the realtors to co-op the message behind Atlas Shrugged, they would have had to have dummied it down a bit. Rand didn't want government controls, but she also didn't think people should profit from who they know or who they could take advantage of (one of the main vices of the book's antagonists, if I recall...)
Rand's biggest failure was that she was naive: she expected people to act ethically. Sorry Ms. Rand, that business model died off years ago.
Before you trash Ayn Rand, please actually read one of her books.The message of say Atlas Shrugeed has been twisted by those who would make an excuse for their behavoir.Yes I did skip thru the 30 page speech on money.
it was a warning to what we have right now.Crooks getting rewards while productive people are punished.
Being positive in the face of adversity isn't a bad thing...if one is also able to look at the facts, do the math, and be able to see the shit that's coming down the pipeline.
To use "positivity" in order to live in a state of denial is a self defeating thing.
However, self help books profess to being the "recipe for success". Some have very valuable insight but what the people take from them is usually the wrong message.
THe thing that's "ok" for me with "self help" books such as the secret and every other rehashed one is that the reader is in control.
Seminars such as EST, Lifespring (both of which I have completed) are extremely psychologically damaging. Some people don't even realize what the purpose of many of the excercises are.
I went to a boarding school that was an offshoot of Synanon, a cult in the 70's. We were forced to complete both those seminars.
All the new ones are just rehashed old ones.
In essence, all they teach is "learned helplessness" and force your dependence on returning to the program as it is actually set up so you "fall apart" after you've been back in the real world for a while. Then you go back for more...and they get rich off you.
It's sad how many of my friends have committed suicide since the program I attended.
Alex Van Rensselaer RIP
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/classified/paid-notice-deaths-van-rensselaer-alexander.html
Keith,
You should really ACTUALLY READ Ayn Rand. You seem to be a very intelligent person. Therefore, you would realize that Greenspan's bailout mentality and interest rate-mediated market manipulations are diametrically opposed to her philosophy. Also, you seem to be against the moral hazard of bailing out speculators, yet you champion and praise Obama-an even greater looter than Bush. In concert with his corrupt admistration (staffed with tax cheats and wallstreet insiders)he is continuing (and expanding) the Bushes bailout of the most powerful and egregious global looters in human history while simultaneously destroying our dollar.
Ayn Rand philosophical achilles heel is that she expects humans to think rationally and to act ethically.
I recognize that Ayn Rand's books can be a bit pedatic, but to all those bloggers who could not 'make it through the book'- is it possible that you are products of a sound bite society and a MTV-created, attention-deficit-disorder generation? There was once a time...long ago...when people would actually read to entertain and enrich themselves. And... hold on.. this will come as quite a shock...they even would read philosophical works and didactic texts!
Greenspan is so far up Rand's ass you don't know where he starts and she ends. He worships at her altar. And that's what f*cked us
Read both books.
What Greenspan practiced had nothing to do with Rand or free markets. Greeny fell of the cart years ago, when he decided he could play as if the fiat dollar was gold. Once the Fed was established, we no longer had capitalism, which requires an honest money to preserve the honesty of private property and real markets. Money was invented in the market place, not by government. In an honest monetary system, both sides of every transaction have something of intringic value to human beings. With a phony, fiat monetary system, the government forces a phony money to be on one side of every transaction. We are now seeing how this phony "money" allows the government to become the owner of everything of value in society.
Greenspan is so far up Rand's ass you don't know where he starts and she ends. He worships at her altar. And that's what f*cked us
Read both books.Keith you are so wrong it blows me away. If anyone is "so far up Rand's ass you don't know where he starts and she ends" it is Ron Paul who named his son after Ayn Rand - Rand Paul!!
Heeelllooo??!!! Is anybody home Keith??
Ayn Rand's books rail against central planning and what is Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve? The ultimate central planning institution and chairman.
Greenspan also wrote this thesis on the gold standard and freedom back in the 60s:
Gold and Economic Freedom by Alan Greenspan.
Sounds like something written by Ron Paul or Ayn Rand doesn't it? But then look at the ACTIONS of Greenspan as Fed Chairman which were the complete opposite of sound honest money. He promoted massive leverage, low interest rates and ponzi scheme financing as the new wave of financial innovation.
Yes, it is true that Greenspan hung out with Rand in her intellectual salons back in the day but he either completely misunderstood her message or he is simply a political chameleon who's words do not match his actions - kind of like your hero Barack H Obama.
-Gonzo
Greg Swann who can't pay his mortgage is bragging about all the money he's going to be making again:
I’m about to do a Facebook deal with an old friend from high school. I will be representing her son in the purchase of the condominium he will live in while attending graduate school. Approximate purchase price: $80,000. Gross commission to me: $2,400.
I’m also about to help a very nice couple buy a small hacienda in Paradise Valley, one of the wealthiest towns, per head, in the United States. Approximate purchase price: $800,000. Gross commission to me: $24,000.
Obviously the differences between the two transactions are myriad, but here’s the one that matters most: The $80,000 condo will almost certainly take a lot more of my time than the $800,000 hacienda. I’ll get paid maybe $50 an hour for the condo, and possibly as much as $1,500 an hour for the hacienda.
Folks, instead of following Ayn Rand, how about Ben Franklin?
Wasn't he essentially an embodiment of her philosophy? A self-made multi-millionaire in publishing, studied the arts & sciences but on his own (not at Harvard with his other founding father buddies up in Boston), and a statesman as a retirement hobby (*Hint: he didn't need the kickbacks to keep his publishing houses in business)?
That's kinda the perfect American gentlemen who's both a cross product of 'The Secret' and Ayn Rand.
Greenspan was a living proof that "Power corrupts." How can anyone accuse Greenspan of not regulating when he was micromanaging the price of money (interest rate), the most important commodity in an economy, for two decades?
To his credit, Greenspan did actually warn "irrational exuberance" back in 1996, when the bubbles began . . . however, he was quickly slapped down by the congressional grilling. Goes to show the fundamental correctness of Randian philosophy: that government bureacrats are in a terrible position to be setting prices and regulating, because they reward for fighting the mob and being right is nil, unlike the market place where the contrarian wins if he is correct. In fact, the survialist in bureacracy is the one who plays ball and stokes the mob hysteria . . . which was what Greenspan eventually did.
Randian philosophical acumen on the hopelessness of bureacracy and central planning however does not save individual Randians from falling into the same trap ("power corrupts") when they are in position of power. Greenspan is one example; Rand herself was another example: they way she ran her organization was quite "totalitarian." Randians are correct in that the fundamental problem is institutional and of human nature. The solution is to be found in preventing the rise of institutions of concentrated power . . . not in finding a "wiseman" (or even a Randian) to run the institutions endowed with concentrated monopolistic power.
Artistic value is achieved collectively.
Signed Ellsworth Monkton Toohey
Love Ben.
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be."
By the way he spent a lot of time in France and loved it.
All these hard-core Randians saying "Our philosophy is perfect except that no one has put it into action correctly" remind me of hard-core communists who say the same thing about Karl Marx's book. Yeah, that was a perfect system too. Damn shame that us fallible humans were never perfect enough to implement it.
Zealots: wrong on the Left, wrong on the Right.
:Love Ben.
Ben told the headmaster at the prestigious Boston Latin school to go f' himself. From what I'd heard, it was a literal expletive. As a result, he was expelled and lost his chance to attend Harvard, not that he really cared. His plan was to study the arts and sciences but during retirement, not while he was running a business. Today, Latin still considers Franklin to be an alumni despite the fact that he said that the place sucks and that they kicked him out.
Keith you are such a fucking moron.
The people who got us into this mess were followers of John Maynard Keynes.
Ayn Rand, and Austrian economics has not been around since the early 70's when America went off the gold standard.
Now please STFU about this topic and write about stuff you are not ignorant about.
---"Our philosophy is perfect except that no one has put it into action correctly" remind me of hard-core communists who say the same thing about Karl Marx's book.
As I'd said, the average successful entrepreneur is doing exactly what Rand had said. It's the academics/the Univ of Chicago-ians, monetarists, and politicians who're trying to institutionalize what's been the American life since colonial times. So again, there's no comparison here, a Rand philosopher is a non-entrepreneur trying to tell others to become entrepreneurs.
What the communists tried to do, however, is to create a dictatorship of the masses which is again, no different from any other form of dictatorship. Rand philosopher, however, need to stop philosophizing and start getting down to the work. Therefore, follow Ben Franklin's example, no one's ever accused him of being a right winger.
Anon said:
"[Rand believed] it is easier to get people to work in their own self interest than against it."
Wrong Anon- Rand said that self-interest is HARD, it requires rationality and unceasing focus. Self-sacrifice is easy - picture a big slob crying for Jesus "have mercy on me a sinner!!!" Submitting to God/Allah requires merely that you turn your brain off. Catholics are well-known to attend Saturday night services drunk. No need for brain cells to perform self-sacrifice.
YOU DON'T KNOW RAND. Neither did Greenspan who relied on the supposed self-interest of the general public. Rand would never rely on the average person's supposed pursuit of self-interest, because irrationality (against self-interest) is rampant around the world.
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