Ayn Rand: Discredited By Greenspan
I have longed to see this day. Naturally, it took the pain of tens of millions worldwide to reach it.
Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation
Although he defended the use of derivatives in general, Mr. Greenspan, who left office in 2006, told members of the House Committee of Government Oversight and Reform that he was “partially” wrong in not having tried to regulate the market for credit-default swaps.
But in a tense exchange with Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the committee, Mr. Greenspan conceded a more serious flaw in his own philosophy that unfettered free markets sit at the root of a superior economy.
“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” Mr. Greenspan said.
Referring to his free-market ideology, Mr. Greenspan added: “I have found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.”
Mr. Waxman pressed the former Fed chair to clarify his words. “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working,” Mr. Waxman said.
“Absolutely, precisely,” Mr. Greenspan replied. “You know, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”
Emphasis added by me.
Ayn Rand was a self-alienated drug-addicted psychopath. To her, people should act like robotic and inevitable logical syllogisms.
Her own life was fucked-up by that belief.
She crushed her husband, turning him into a depressed, emasculated dipsomaniac.
She began an affair with her most-devoted acolyte, Nathaniel Branden, which just about destroyed Branden’s marriage (a marriage Nathaniel and Barbara Branden each admitted never should have happened to begin with — and wouldn’t, had they not been in Rand’s orbit) and did manage to destroy the “movement” he had created.
Her own philosophy destroyed her fiction writing career by painting her into a corner from which she couldn’t escape.
My own questioning of her judgment came when she proclaimed Charlie’s Angels — one the worst programs of the 1970s — to not only be worth watching, but “the last gasp of Romanticism” on TV!
I was lucky. I came to her well after the breakup with Branden. The fans I met would never speak frankly about what happened.
It wasn’t until Nathaniel Branden’s book that I found out the truth. The fans were content to remain deaf, blind, and obeisant!
Imagine that: people who looked at independent and self-sufficient Howard Roark and John Galt and Hank Reardon acting more like Peter Keating and James Taggart!
That was her handiwork. That was her true legacy.
And now the worldwide failure of Greenspan’s belief in laissez-faire and rationality as the prevailing value among human beings.
I’d laugh. I’d dance with glee.
But too many people are suffering because of it.
See the video:
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October 23, 2008 at 7:41 pm
That was an astonishing display of ignorance and arrogance.
If you think Greenspan follows any other economic theory but that of Keynes, you are either an ignorant fool or a liar.
Oh…you may actually want to read some of Ayn Rand’s work before offering any commentary on it.
October 24, 2008 at 8:03 am
You have no idea what you’re talking about. Go fuck yourself.
October 24, 2008 at 8:21 am
@Warren: Aside from Rand’s works, you should read the two Branden books plus The Cult Of Ayn Rand. How old are you, fourteen?
@Mark: Go fuck yourself. No wait. Go fuck John Galt. How old are you, thirteen?
October 24, 2008 at 11:16 am
I’ve read several of the Branden’s books. They pick non-essential matter, blow them up to seem important, and lead you to false conclusions. You are egregiously uninformed about Rand, and the entire financial crisis…
from The American Competitive Enterprise Instiute:
“While the Dow collapses, we have a bull market in government regulations. The 50-plus departments, agencies and commissions are now at work on 3,882 rules; 757 will affect small businesses. More than 51,000 final rules were issued from 1995 to 2007.”
That’s 51,000 NEW regulations, added to what was there before.
http://cei.org/articles/%E2%80%98hidden-tax%E2%80%99-rules-hits-economy
On another of their web pages:
“Well over 48,000 final rules were issued from 1995 to 2006–that is, during Republican control of Congress.”
That ain’t capitalism, that’s fascism/corporatism & some socialism. At root, the very things Rand’s lifetime was spent exposing to Americans with half a brain. Greenspan lost his sometime before he became head of the Fed., and became a major part of the problem.
October 24, 2008 at 11:26 am
You, and readers who agree with you, are egregiously uninformed about Rand, and the entire financial crisis…
from The American Competitive Enterprise Instiute:
“While the Dow collapses, we have a bull market in government regulations. The 50-plus departments, agencies and commissions are now at work on 3,882 rules; 757 will affect small businesses. More than 51,000 final rules were issued from 1995 to 2007.”
That’s 51,000 NEW regulations, added to what was there before.
http://cei.org/articles/%E2%80%98hidden-tax%E2%80%99-rules-hits-economy
On another of their web pages:
“Well over 48,000 final rules were issued from 1995 to 2006–that is, during Republican control of Congress.”
That isn’t capitalism, that’s fascism/corporatism & some socialism. At root, the very things Rand’s lifetime was spent presenting to Americans. Read “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” to see how “The Virtue of Selfishness” really works, and why Capitalism is the only moral system. (Greenspan dropped any pretense of understanding her arguments sometime before he became head of the Fed., and became a major part of the problem.)
October 24, 2008 at 11:52 am
@Richard: I didn’t know which version of the Comment you wanted, so I posted both.
>>>Greenspan dropped any pretense of understanding her arguments sometime before he became head of the Fed., and became a major part of the problem
Hahahahaha. Just like Karl Marx said: Blame my followers, not me. Please.
October 24, 2008 at 12:09 pm
So all the data on regulation in my comment you dismiss, and the fact that Greenspan contributed to those regulations you somehow consider is irrelevant to how he acted as Fed Chairman. Since he knew Rand and wrote for her, everything else he did can ONLY be explained by that one time liaison. Puh-lease.
While the elimination of YOUR rights continues, apace, you haven’t the decency to even begin to think. How very blinkered & foolish.
October 24, 2008 at 12:16 pm
What you Randroids fail to understand is critical to the lack of traction of Objectivism beyond your bizarre little cult: An understanding of HUMAN BEINGS.
There was Greenspan running the Randroid program in his head before the hearing yesterday and STILL not understanding that even with Best Interests as a motivator, PEOPLE WILL COMMIT OUTRIGHT FRAUD.
And your pimping of a regulation population is meaningless. If you REALLY knew your Rand, you’d recall she always said BUSINESS cries FOR regulation to KILL COMPETITION.
October 24, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Obviously you have an extraordinarily low view of human beings, even as you communicate with them. There was a time when leading and not-so-leading humans in Western Culture thought better of themselves. They even strived to do better. Not now.
That does not mean it can’t be done, but it certainly is less likely. Thousands of blogs and media articles are in abject failure of understanding Rand, never having read her works, yet are willing to blame her or echo other blogs and articles blaming her, rather than investigate if there is truth to their blame game. That is normal for Human Beings, it is a symptom of a human mental illness promoted by many academics and the aforementioned blogs and articles, who encourage, often with a pseudo-intellectual tone and arrogance, their special brand of irrationality and dishonesty. E.g.
“If you REALLY knew your Rand, you’d recall she always said BUSINESS cries FOR regulation to KILL COMPETITION.”
Simply false. However, there are businessmen who do… because most have been raised in the above mentioned culture and have merely caved to the same view. Of course, politicians encourage it, as that is how they get power, power over willing victims (or is that “useful idiots”) who vote for their handouts. That apparently includes you. Read up on your founding fathers before you lose what Benjamin Franklin referred to as “a Republic, if you can keep it”, and on Rand to see why people such as you are not effectively “keeping it”.
August 16, 2010 at 4:44 am
@Richard
“Thousands of blogs and media articles are in abject failure of understanding Rand, never having read her works, yet are willing to blame her or echo other blogs and articles blaming her”
My goodness you really are a true believer. You have such a high opinion of yourself vis-a-vis anyone else that you seem to see yourself as the ‘one true believer’ who truly understands the ‘genius’ of Ayn Rand.
Weirdo. I hope you don’t have kids.
October 24, 2008 at 5:13 pm
>>>never having read her works
Hey, I met Rand, I got her autograph, I was friends with someone who *worked* for her. Now take your obvious misunderstanding of both her work and how human beings operate and go bother someone else.
November 11, 2008 at 6:53 pm
@Richard: Bite me.
World business leaders back more regulation: survey
http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USTRE4AB00F20081112
March 26, 2009 at 2:27 pm
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