Free Republic

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2009/01/stiglitz200901?printable=ture&currentPage=all

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...

Who determines what your money is worth? There was a time when the American government did not have control over the nation's money supply. Should this be of concern to you? If you want that $20 bill in your pocket to be worth $20 in a few years, you should pay close attention. At the heart of this issue - and something every citizen needs to understand - is that government-controlled paper money does not fit into the natural order of economics. Through the phenomenon of gradualism, the government was able to replace intrinsically valuable commodities such as gold and...

Well, here we are.David over at NRO has an interesting piece....it's sort of written in code. You have to have a certain level of literacy and political awareness to get his meaning. You PhD's are mostly WAY TOO SMART to understand what he is talking about. But for the regular folks...give it a read. And then weep, and then like so many in the conservative sphere, I'm thinking it's time to start SHRUGGING. Practical ideas for stay at home mothers intent on providing a legitimate future for their children and grandchildren.1. Put in a supply of survival foods and a...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A writer for a libertarian group has written perhaps the most scathing attack on pro-life vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin since the Alaska governor was announced weeks ago as John McCain's running mate. Nicholas Provenzo condemns Palin for the birth of her baby Trig, who has Down syndrome.Provenzo, who writes for the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism, not only bashes her for allowing Trig to be born, but says she should have made the so-called morally justifiable decision to kill him in an abortion.The Center for the Advancement of Capitalism bills itself as a...

Address To The Graduating Class Of The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York - March 6, 1974 Since I am a fiction writer, let us start with a short short story. Suppose that you are an astronaut whose spaceship gets out of control and crashes on an unknown planet. When you regain consciousness and find that you are not hurt badly, the first three questions in or mind would be: Where am I? How can I discover it? What should I do? You see unfamiliar vegetation outside, and there is air to breathe; the sunlight seems paler...

Even more relevant than when she said it in 1961. Substitute "Islamists" for "Communists" Hopefully, we will see in our lifetimes a realignment of the GOP in favor of reason and individual rights and away from faith and tradition. Religion is a private matter. With the respective candidacies of Giuliani and Huckabee the split has become even more glaring: the pro-freedom Giuliani (pro-choice, socially liberal, capitalist, anti-regulation- who respects profit and achievement) vs the christian socialist Huckabee (pro-tradition, anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-reason, anti-capitalist, pro-regulation altruist) Interestingly, in Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged (celebrating 50 years in publication) the President is the...

One of the most profound corporate philosophers of modern times was the writer Ayn Rand (1905-1982), whose landmark novel "Atlas Shrugged" is celebrating its 50th anniversary. During her lifetime, Rand's pontifications on individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism, presented under the theory of Objectivism, never touched upon alternative energy issues. Her successors in Objectivism, however, are aware of today's alternative energy industry and believe its heavy reliance on government tax incentives and rebates is hurting the growth and viability of this sector "Government incentive programs for adopting alternative energy are totally corrupt," warns Alex Epstein, business analyst with the Ayn Rand...

Phoenix Objectivists will dedicate their November meetings to the topics of global warming and environmentalism

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. As I write, the book ranks Number 237 at amazon.com. That is phenomenal for a 1,200-page novel that contains philosophical speeches, one of which stretches to 90 uninterrupted pages. The book has sold over 6 million copies. In one survey from 16 years ago, Atlas Shrugged was ranked second only to the Bible as the book that influenced people most. My Ayn Rand craze happened in the late '70s when I was a professor of Biblical Studies at Bethel College. I read most...

For intellectual heft, the capacity to spark debate and controversy, the number of young people inspired by her writing over the decades, the endurance of her ideas as the basis of a philosophical movement, the broad influence of those ideas -- and oh yes, for the number of books sold -- she was the most important American author of the post-World War II era. And on this, the week of the 50th anniversary of publication of her greatest work, "Atlas Shrugged," if you happen to disagree with that assertion, Ayn Rand would not be at all bashful in pointing out...

Two important events occurred in October 1957. First, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, named Sputnik, into orbit, causing many to speculate the West was losing to the superior technology and, possibly, inevitable ideology of communism. Second, the novel "Atlas Shrugged" was published. Its author, Ayn Rand, had fled the tyranny of Soviet communism in 1926 for freedom in the West. Today communism in Russia and its satellite countries is dead. "Atlas" and Miss Rand's other works continue to sell millions of copies. A 1992 Library of Congress survey found it to be the most influential book in...

The famous question remains pertinent a half-century later: "Who is John Galt?" In 1957, Ayn Rand introduced a generation of readers to Galt, the reclusive engineer whose radical pro-capitalist stance brings a socialist government to its knees. Mixing romance, mystery, science fiction and philosophy, "Atlas Shrugged" has since fascinated millions with its epic tale of railroad heiress Dagny Taggart, who struggles against greedy union bosses, incompetent management and corrupt bureaucrats until her encounter with the refugees of "Galt's Gulch" enlightens her to the true nature of the "anti-life" forces that oppose the entrepreneurial spirit. The novel's 50th anniversary will be...

Remember the big question in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: "Who's John Galt?" In the novel, more and more people ask the question, but no one knows the answer, or even where the question came from. Ironically, the same thing now seems to be happening to Ayn Rand and her philosophy of objectivism. Even leading objectivists don't know the whole answer, but one thing is sure: A quarter century after her death, and half a century after the publication of Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand is back. The autobiography of former Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan, in which he credits her for his...

It has been half a century since the publication of Ayn Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. That book like no other has inspired millions of readers; motivated individuals to pursue their own happiness and achieve the best within them; influenced philosophy, politics, ethics and aesthetics; and has created the Objectivist movement. The Atlas Society will celebrate this great achievement with an all-day conference and gala concluding banquet in Washington, D.C. and give you any updates on the planned Atlas movie! Our keynote speakers: *John Stossel, ABC News 20/20, author. Dinner Speaker *Charles Murray, author, philosopher and social scientist. Luncheon Speaker....

New York, NY (CNS) - Lionsgate has signed "House of Sand and Fog" director Vadim Perelman to direct the film adaptation of Ayn Rand's iconic novel "Atlas Shrugged." According to trade magazine Variety, Perelman will also rewrite a draft of the script penned by "Braveheart" writer Randall Wallace. The latter will remain involved with the project. The film follows, Dagny Taggart, a railroad executive to be played by Angelina Jolie, who strives to keep her family-owned trans-continental railroad company alive amidst worldwide strike involving industrialists and thinkers. Howard and Karen Baldwin ("Ray"), who hold the rights to Rand's most ambitious...

"It is taken for granted," said Alex Epstein, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, "that OPEC, a despicable cartel of tyrannical regimes that coercively limits their oil production to raise prices, can manipulate our energy future on a whim. But such a state of affairs is completely unnecessary; it is a product of U.S. environmental regulations that strangle domestic energy production.

When Ayn Rand wrote about the moral code she originated, the code of rational self-interest, she stressed that morality is a matter of life and death. The right ethics, she held, leads to individual (and societal) survival, prosperity, happiness; the wrong ethics leads to misery, poverty, death. This is true in every field but is especially true in the realm of war, as the present struggle has made clear. We are losing the war on Islamic Totalitarianism because our leadership, political and military, is crippled by the morality of altruism, embodied in the tenets of Just War Theory. The moral...

Egoism is a state of mind where a person values all things in terms of their value to the self. Egoism and selfishness are virtues, in fact the greatest of all virtues, as they enable life. All living beings are selfish. To survive, they must be. Without fulfilling one's basic needs of water, food, or protection, one would cease to exist. Although selfishness is a necessity, many people hold selflessness as their goal in life, and this altruistic thinking is a dominating and corrosive mainstay of today's society. If one were to give all of his money to charity or...

Every Memorial Day, we pay tribute to the American men and women who have died in combat. With speeches and solemn ceremonies, we recognize their courage and valor. But one fact goes unacknowledged in our Memorial Day tributes: all too many of our soldiers have died unnecessarily—because they were sent to fight for a purpose other than America's freedom. The proper purpose of a government is to protect its citizens' lives and freedom against the initiation of force by criminals at home and aggressors abroad. The American government has a sacred responsibility to recognize the individual value of every one...