Commentary By Ron Beasley
The image on the left may mark the beginning of the current economic crisis. It was taken in 1974 by David Hume Kennerly and pictured are President Gerald Ford, Alan Greenspan, Ayn Rand, Rand's husband Frank Conner and Greenspan's mother Rose Goldsmith. The occasion was Alan Greenspan being sworn in as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. The significance of the picture is that Ayn Rand is there next to her disciple Alan Greenspan. Greenspan was a Rand cultist who believed that nothing but good could come from unrestrained capitalism. This was Greenspan's guiding ideology while he was head of the Federal Reserve Bank. It was only after his own reputation suffered collateral damage as a result of Rand's Objectivism that he was forced to admit that it didn't work as advertised.
That was yesterday but today FDIC chairman Sheila Bair officially tagged Alan Greenspan's FED with the blame for the crisis.
The Federal Reserve was blamed by a fellow regulator for contributing to the financial crisis on Thursday as the central bank and one of its former chairmen fought back against congressional moves to curb its powers.
In unusually pointed criticism, Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that “much of the crisis may have been prevented” had the Fed dealt with subprime mortgages seven years before it did.
In New York, Paul Volcker, former Fed chairman and now White House economic adviser, was making the case for the defence.
He said there was “a compelling case that central banks should have a strong voice and authority in regulation and supervisory matters”.
Both Ms Bair and Mr Volcker carry weight on Capitol Hill, where the Fed has drawn blame for aspects of the crisis.
Although normally on opposite ends of the political spectrum both Independent (Social Democrat) Bernie Sanders and Republican (Libertarian) Ron Paul agree that something is rotten at the FED. Unfortunately few other lawmakers have the guts to do anything serious about it and the Obama administration is hostile to any real change.
Ayn Rand just turns my stomach. Partly because she was a terrible philosopher (i.e. not my disagreeing with her philosophy but her inability to make real arguments for essential portions of her philosophy). Partly because of the great havoc she helped bring down on the United States. But mostly because she's a black, black mark on the long and fine tradition of Russian philosophical novels.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, Rand was the most profound philosopher I've read. I've read "Atlas Shrugged" three times and grasp more every time I did. I believe many of her critics are unread and can't grasp Objectivism but somehow sense it is a danger to their intellectual and moral lethargy. The attacks usually are not on an intellectual level but are normally animalistic and feral. The ad hominem and ad captandum monologues will always exist. The personal attacks become a strawman to divert the study of her works. It's like saying, "Let's not study Aristotle because he reportedly beat his wife, ergo it is sufficient to not consider his works."
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