Procrustes Stretched
"intuition and imagination and intelligence"
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- #141
Ayn Rand's ideas taken out of the world of academic and intellectual bs and brought into the real world where people actually have lives to live is always going to end up causing catastrophy. Why? Because Ayn was a fruitcake.when I first watched the program, I was like "oh no, people are going to blame this as a regulatory problem"
but it was NOT. It simply was not. The problem, first and foremost, was the excessive control the Fed had in the first place, which led it to lower interest rates far bellow what the market would have.
This was in part due to the fact that, at times of war (this was around 2001), low interest rates ease the borrowing load of the government. It was also in part due to the entire system of $USD recycling which requires continuous re-investment of dollars in USD assets.
Derivatives were the worst form of excess in terms of useless junk used to store excessive cash, another one being California and Nevada real estate, etc.
The crisis was clearly from the very beginning an issue of government over-stepping its bounds and dropping rates too low for too long. This created TOO MUCH MONEY IN THE MARKET. Which is the problem, first and foremost. All other problems were basically related to this one major issue.
Now I'm not saying I agree with everything Rand said, nor that regulation was not blocked by many people (because it is evident it was). But to assume Greenspan and the republicans genuinely believed Rand's ideas and attempted to genuinely implement them is akin to suggesting Stalin's actions are to be blamed on the writings of Marx, or the Nazis inherited Nietzsche's philosophy.
You're wrong, but at leats you had the time to view things with a critical skill set. Maybe you can help transform this message board into something mirroring ... ahhh, on second thought...
I never suggested that Greenspan's actions (really a lack of actions and actions are what are being criticized by everyone) are to be blamed on Rand's writings. Greenspan agreed with and attempted to introduce her ideas into policy with disastrous results. MAybe you'd like to suggest giving more of that medicine to the dying patient because more of IT would be better?
Except that never occurred.