I've done enough homework on Rand to know what's quality commentary and what isn't, and there's very

little quality
commentary. And what quality commentary there is, is usually very positive because it grasps what Rand was
actually up to. The way she uses the term "selfishness," for instance, is not the way her critics use it, and it's quite
clearly so. She advocated a eudaimonist individualism and an ethics of virtue with rationality as the primary virtue -
which already puts her well within Aristotelian tradition. Her philosophical methodology - spelled out most fully in
Peikoff's 'Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand' and 'Understanding Objectivism' - only further cements her
position within the Aristotelian tradition. It's a shame Rand-denigrators don't have a clue about these works, but there
you are.

Sagan and Chomsky are great thinkers in their areas (although Chomsky won't get much support from the
mainstream of the econ profession on his economic notions). And so is Rand, and the areas she excelled in make her
objectively a more important philosopher than just about any (ten, a dozen perhaps) in the history of thought. Of
course no one who is unfamiliar with Peikoff's work is going to recognize this fact for what it is. And anyone who
wants to provide a serious and informed commentary on Rand has to be familiar with Peikoff if only because Rand
endorsed/"deputized" him as a teacher of her ideas.

It's thoroughly silly to attribute financial crises to "laissez-faire" after the creation of the Fed which centralized
monetary manipulation with Congress's blessing. The Fed's screw-ups were the primary impetus to the Great
Depression, and to think we have had laissez faire in any serious sense since the early 20th century is silly.

As for the creation of the underclass, the illegitimacy rates that began to skyrocket in the '60s is so primary a cause
that to leave it out of the discussion is downright dumb. It's not to say that other things, bad policies for example,
weren't a contributor, but the illegitimacy numbers are all too devastating to downplay and place it merely alongside
other factors. Contrary to the implicit assumptions of "progressives" and Democrats, there's much more to people's
lives in a largely free society than whatever the government is doing for/to them, the family being the most important
social unit.

re:

"Unfortunately, this has created a race to the bottom for wages while those that own the means of production give
evidence to the problems associated with capitalism displayed by both Marx and Piketty "

I don't know of anything Marx got fundamentally right about the nature and logic of capitalism; referencing him is not
going to do much for the referrer's credibility in my view. I don't know what "race to the bottom" you're talking about;
the abundant evidence shows that the spread of capitalism around the globe has reduced the rate of absolute
poverty. If the idea is that capital-owners (capital being the phenomenon that increases productivity and wages no
less) want to drive down wages/costs as much as possible, that's just standard economics. The history of capitalism
has been one of wage growth, however. What critics of capitalism *should* be doing is explaining the conjoined
phenomenon of third-worlders competing American and industrialized-nation jobs away while the American median
has *not dropped* (instead of flatlining more or less).

Probably leaving out some points namely having to do with various historical claims you make (although interpreting
them in the light of economic understanding might not get the conclusions you want - I see some of that in the case of
your statement about capitalism and the brilliant but laughably bad Karl Marx). Of course, the fundamental key to
America being the world's superpower has not a whole lot to do with this or that administration's policies but
something more causally comprehensive than that, something about a distinctively American ethos in the area of
economic production. Not that there isn't tons of room for improvement. But it would be nice to see critics of
American-style capitalism come up with a decent explanation for its superpower status, one that doesn't rest on this
or that fallacy. One might want to have a look at what Rand said about the *theme* of 'Atlas Shrugged' to get some
idea.

1) It's thoroughly silly to attribute financial crises to "laissez-faire" after the creation of the Fed which centralized
monetary manipulation with Congress's blessing. This is a scapegoat which is the rallying cry for libertarians
everywhere. If we observe back into history, the American economy often had a financial collapses instituted at least
once a generation secondary to independent banking collapses. Without a safety net, this continually collapsed
throughout history. We can see a stock market collapse in 1907 where JP Morgan rallied men with money to attempt
to save the banking collapse from stock market collapse. The Federal Reserve was quite literally created to provide
liquidity to the financial system during times of crisis because events like 1907 continually happened. After the
creation of the Federal Reserve, we attempted to decrease the dependence upon monumental figures like Morgan.

Moving towards the great depression, it is a massive multifactorial mess as all economic collapses. Historians agree
several factors: Chronic agriculture overproduction leading to the dropping in price of food (America was a primarily
Agrarian economy) which also led to the dust bowl, overproduction of consumer goods by the industrial complex, the
ever recurring theme of Income Inequality, Investor speculation, an unsound banking system which was not regulated
by the Federal Reserve. The invisible hand of Adam Smith had quite literally strangled America. The selfish actions
of a few and inaction of the Federal Reserve after interest rate fluctuation led an already precarious economic
situation after we had displaced the UK as the primary economic force.

After the collapse, we see the Fed fulfilling its created role and provided liquidity in hopes to prevent another collapse.
With the administration at the time looking at the Fed with a speculative eye as acting under expansionary
jurisdiction, they aimed to curb the Feds power. The Fed then did not provide enough money into order to preserve
the gold standard. This was their first great failure.

Lessons to be learned: A financial bubble from rampant speculation, inequality, and overproduction led to instability
within the market. The federal reserve made a bad situation worse by delaying intervention and applying an improper
remedy. While the Fed made the bad situation worse, it was lack of regulation and and corporate greed which
created the powder keg. The Fed only lit the match.

With Americas relatively undamaged position compared to that of Europe and Asia with the degradation of the gold
standard resultant from WWI, the Bretton-Woods system was created underneath FDR which standardized the
American Dollar as the global reserve currency which would be based on the Dollar. The Fed would effectively be
the World Bank. With this Era of Prosperity for the US, we created the Worlds infrastructure, became the Global
Police Force. This further cemented Americas rise to regional and arguably global hegemonic power. This was not
secondary to the American Ethos, but carefully planned intervention. Kennedy, only after the great builders of
America, instituted tax cuts which began to increase growth while the American Economy Flourished. The building
blocks had been paid for by his predecesors through progressive taxes, regulation of the financial system to prevent
instability inherent within the financial sector, while America prospered from the military-industrial complex and its
role as the center of global finance.

LBJ changed this with his pressure on the Feds Chair, William Martin. He had created a war on poverty while
consistently pushing for democratization/capatalism within Vietnam after the loss of the Korean war and China to the
red tide. This was only after the Renvue Act of 1964 which led to a reduction of teh top marginal tax rate from 91% to
70% and a reduction of corporate taxes from 52% to 48%. This reduction in taxes, paired with a costly war and the
Great Society Programs led to the Fed wanting to raise interest rates. LBJ strongarmed the Fed into keeping them
low while producing more money for the war.leading to the Great Inflation.

Consequently, LBJ killed the gold standard and the Bretton Woods Agreement. Nixon looked at the situation and
detached the US dollar to gold which caused a rapid devaluation of the dollar as living expenses doubled. Burns did
not raise rates and allowed a biggest period of growth within the 60s to come to an end. Carter decided to pull in
Volcker. Volcker advocated for Independence of the Fed while pushing for controlling the production of cash and
increasing the interest rate. This led to the longest recession in post war history and stopped rampant inflation.
During this era of the great inflation, we saw the greatest rise within American prosperity for the average family.
Volcker had also laid the foundation for the upcoming era of instituted by Reagan and presided over by Greenspan, a
devout follower of Rand, known as The Great Moderation. This would also cement the position of Modern
Conservatism and the ideal that Government is the problem and taxes should be cut dramatically. This led to a
rampant change within the Gini coefficient, a relative stagnation of the average workers pay while the bourgeoisie
began to accumulate their power and cement their reign within the structure of Crony Capitalism. This also created
the Era of derivatives based off .

The stock market suffered its largest one day drop within 1987. Again, the Fed decreased interest rates and
learned the original great collapse. This only led to a complication to the Fed under Greenspan. The Fed was now
tied to the stock market and allowed Greenspan to become the Maestro of the economy. WIth Clintons election and
policies, this created teh biggest boom in the stock market EVER. With Greenspan at the helm, he became Diefied
and was promoting Randian Ideals he was being deified. This hero Worship would eventually lead to his downfall.

The great inflation of the 1960s was a quickly receding memory, fading into the fog of forgetfulness while a new
nemesis arose: Asset Inflation. Asset inflation pushed real estate values, stocks, and bonds further, pushing the
wealth of the Bourgeoisie further while the Average American continued to stagnate under this condition. This was
paired with a 15% stock market boom when Greenspan, the supposed proponent for a Laissez Faire economy,
began to raise a red flag because he thought it was a bubble. Observing from the asset value explosion in Japan,
greenspan wanted to prevent a bubble from popping. The real estate and stock markets collapsed and have crippled
the Japanese economically ever since 1989. After the leaders of the market looked at Greenspan like a loon in 1996,
he radically altered his position to allow for the people to continue. Never again would Greenspan sway from popular
opinion, he would only strike during the first signs of decline.

Long term Capital Management had wound up borrowing 125 billion dollars creating one of the Largest Hedge Funds
ever created. These individuals unfortunatelly had hedonistically applied this funds into inappropriate markets and
threatened to facilitate a financial collapse. This had created the too big to fail movement

1998 LTCM
Leverage
Falsified Theories
Mystified Derivatives
Bailout

John Succo at Lehman Brothers was fired as they filed for bankruptcy because he raised the flag of a potential bust
associated with LTCM

Lehman CEO borrow 600million dollars to become teh biggest mortage invester on wallstreet and coincidentally the
biggest bankrupcty ever. So Greenspan, the Randian Libertarian, bailed out the Lehman Brothers because it was a
cornerstone of wallstreet. This presided over the social safetynet created for the risks taken by the wealthy.

He now cut the interest rates a total of 3 times, only proliferating the tear within the economy. This became known
as the Greenspan Put. This created excess trading and hazard. This safetynet emboldedened these high risk
investors. While greenspan was in control, it shifted the economy towards the financial market. Following this
Financial derivatives boomed despite LTCM and 1987. Furthermore the promotion of deregulation

182 billion dollars would now be done to bail out AIG

Now he pulled away the glass steagal act which pushed towards the integration of banks and wallstreet. Speculation
and private banks were now.

Greenspan had changed his opinion from 87 and 98. He had reverted to the pre Depression mentality that we must
wait to pick up the pieces. In 2000, we saw a massive bubble collapse. Aggressive interest rate cuts resultant of
teh .COM collapse had led to another great boom. With Bush Jrs decreased Mortgage regulations created an
unsustainable realestate boom. This recession only presented as progress under Bush because of Tax Cuts and
artificial equity generated through asset inflation once again. Housing investment

Bernanke then pushed towards printing more money to prevent against deflation. Cheap credit, lax loaning
regulations, and anti-deflation policy wound up creating a feedback loop. The creation of incentives perpetuated
Greenspans theories of modified the measurements of inflation. This illusion of wealth and the lack of equity created
a collapse of the American family. Geenspan, through hubris, would create the largest bubble in American history.
Our phantom recovery perpetuated by was at the root of the collapse.

The banks responded to the run on the banks

Financial institutions were pushed towards these deals because of profits associated with low interest rates to
financial institutions. apparent boom / value, Deep truth: new currency created was valued at nothing. Barney Frank
was a proponent which helped facilitate the respect. The only facility with the ability to regulate the mortage, they
stayed taht the side but instead allowed the irresponsible loans and pushed the Laissez faire economic policies of
Green Span. Bernanke only carried on his essence

The fascade of the economy was presented. Finance was booming, housing was bloated, and a anarchic regulatory
environment

I made a mistake in presuming that the self interests of banks and others were such as that they were best capable
of protecting their own firms. Based on the persumptions that these individuals knew what was best in an
incentivized economy, despite warning signs continued to push the market.

Bernanke inhereted the position and pushed the economic policies of the easy money and lax regulatory environment
Bernanke never took into consideration the isolated asset inflation of the market

Academics presnted with an issue that they live in isolation. From thier ivory tower they are able to make
proprositions which will change teh game. Bernanke

within the great moderation, the seeds were sown of its own destruction. like a cell propogating cancer it presented

The bank run exploded in in the darkness much like the big bang. The existence was hidden in the shadows and
never regulated as these new institutions

bernanke put - 1.3 trillion, fannie may freddy mack

2010
600 billion

These individuals created the centrally planned economy in their vision to deregulate.

it has cause a decrease in overall effective growth while we have more and more people pursuing finance.

non-zero sum world = read as indefinite supply generated by Randian objectivisits pushing fiat money

Marx and Engles believed that instability was inherent within the system. The Russians had amassed a great
collection of books on the economic collapse because this was The day that capitalism failed.

Discrediting someone for utilizing Marx as a reference, a man who inspired an entire economic system which has
generated 2 superpowers, crediting him laughably bad, while glorifying the American Ethos and Rand is American
Exceptionalism to the T. Harping continuously on democrats for not understanding the effects of globalism displays
nothing more than hubris.