Posted on 12/12/2008 3:39:13 PM PST by CE2949BB
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 themselvesand the economy more generallyunder 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, known as Objectivism. NEWSWEEK's Barrett Sheridan spoke with the head of the Ayn Rand Institute, Dr. Yaron Brook, about why he defends free markets while much of the rest of the world has turned away from them, and what he thinks of Greenspan today. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Lack of regulation is being blamed for our current crisis, and free markets are in disrepute. Has Objectivism been dealt a deathblow?
Yaron Brook: No, not at all. From a public-relations perspective, it's been hurt. But in the long term there will be a backlash against what's going on in the markets todaythe heavy government involvement, the nationalizations and the move toward socialism. If the free-market advocacy groups position themselves correctly, they can benefit from it.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
Obama’s Fault.
Government (mainly Congress) is the cause of our problems. They not only are the cause, they are the creators of this financial mess. Spendthrift, reckless and incompetent people (our Congress) are in charge. Why should anyone expect anything different. And unless and until Congress faces up to this fact nothing will change and the messes will get bigger and bigger and bigger.
‘rat Congress critters along with W and his minions for not taking them to task.
That would be after the markets really mucked things up!!!
Kakistocracy: n., pl. -cies.
Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.
This was the work of the kind of people we would now call 'Community Organizers,' or Marxists.
I don't understand why conservatives aren't making more of this as the single greatest cause of the financial turmoil we're now in. We have a "President-elect" who is the very kind of person who would've passed the CRA act himself.
Why don't we hear more about the affirmative action lending that was forced onto banks by Congress via the Community Reinvestment Act?
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