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The Annotated Ayn Rand
It is no secret that Geoffrey Raymond, the author of the infamous "Annotated ____" series, is one of Zero Hedge's favorite artists, in no small part due to the crowdsourced method of artistic creation. Indeed, it was only last summer that a copy of the Annotated Cramer (who can forget that prominent third nipple) was sold to a mysterious collector for a stately sum after it was annotated (in addition to the comments from the usual disgruntled suspect scribbling directly on the canvas) with comments compiled from our own post revealing this masterpiece. And once again, just as it should be, Zero Hedge and it's readers get the last word. Prior to shipping his portrait of Ayn Rand to its new buyer, Geoffrey Raymond has invited ZH readers to submit a final round of comments, which he will then transcribe, more or less verbatim, onto the painting. He painted The Annotated Rand to coincide with last month's release of the Atlas Shrugged movie (a truly terrible flick, we are told) and the annotations inscribed in black were taken outside the premiere, then later at theaters around NYC. The blue comments were taken at his usual stomping grounds outside the NYSE. The Raymond market, as we've predicted here before, remains hot, with prices for this best work now flirting with six figures. Might make sense to go to www.annotatedpaintings.blogspot.com and pick up a choice one while they still cost just a little more than a handful of gold coins in CME-adjusted terms. Regarding the Rand painting, our favorite annotation is "Rand + Greenspan = Bonnie + Clyde". All you closet Objectivists can now step up to the plate and have at it...
Take it away.
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You call me stupid and retarded but cannot understand in the slightest how the Fed, with the backing of a government-granted monopoly, fundamentally distorts the market and forcibly taxes through artificially low interest rates and inflation, respectively.
I do understand in completeness why the Fed does what it does. Greenspan was acting in his self-interest, as well as survival/self-interest for the banks and the higher class. Also, thanks to laissez faire capitalism, we had the housing/credit crisis. You can thank Rand's 'ideas' for the crisis. The experiment in objectivism was a total and utter failure.
Objectivism is as bad of an idea as the horse and sparrow theory. They were both formed to create ultra privileged wealthy and the surfs to do their bidding. If the only moral clause is to pursue self-interest, DSK events, Grimshaw v. Ford, would all be acceptable and those that harm others are unaccountable. So in an essence, I find severe flaws with her ideas and philosophy.
What Greenspan did at the Fed ran contrary to Rand's principles, specifically those regarding hard currency. We all know this. Why do you pretend otherwise?
Ayn Rand opposed the oligarchic and corporatist crimes which created the current economic current crisis. We all know this. Why do you pretend otherwise?
Ayn Rand predicted this crisis and said that she believed America could prevail through a grass roots movement demanding a restoration of liberty. Such a movement is currently underway. It's time for you to stop mooching off the labor of hard working people and let them live free lives.
You're funny. So Rand predicted that there would be a housing/credit crisis before her death in 1982. She was waaaaay ahead of her time. Just saying a financil/economic crisis will happen is not very predictive. They happen all the time. From Rome's currency devaluation, the Dutch Tulip crisis, to the Credit/Housing Crisis. Not very hard to be Nostradams, and say that there will be a "great economic crisis".
About those "freeloaders", get a time machine and tell Rand to stop mooching off SS and Medicare in the 70's. She freeloaded when she was given the chance. So in my opinion she is a hypocrite and an example of how her philosophy is not grounded in reality.
Regarding this right-wing "grassroots" movement that you mention....Rand was an atheist that fought for pro-choice....not exactly someone that could carry the republican ticket. Also, Tea Partiers, have it all wrong. The Boston Tea Party was not about new taxes, nor taxation in general. It was about taxation without representation. In other words, taxes are okay, as long as the taxes are agreed upon by your elected representative.
Why do you hate people who assert their right to self determination?
Why do you hate being objective? Why do you hate being rational?
I hate hypocrites. Rand was a hypocrite, Ted Kennedy was a hypocrite, and David Koch is a hypocrite.
So you believe that to seek self determination is irrational?
I believe that acting only in ones self-interest is detrimental to society being able to advance and survive. They live for self-interest in the ghetto, and look how that works out for them.
The acts of participants in a free market are beneficial to all participants. That can only be achieved through voluntaryism where each party weighs the pros and cons of the deal and concludes that that particular deal is beneficial.
Your insistance that people should deliberately do things which are against their own interests is absurd. Any living being which pursued such a course would die in short order. Reality is easy to see when you make the effort to open your eyes.
So was it in the Dodo's self-interest to stop fucking?
The experiment in laissez-faire economics was proven to be a failure. In case you did not notice, we had a massive crisis that was caused by deregulation of banks and mortgages. Also, deregulation proved fatal in the S&L crisis. There are waaay too many examples of the failure, and lop-sidedness of laissez-faire economics. By your belief in self-interest, Skilling should have never been prosecuted, all the banks are acting/acted fine, and Madoff is a hero.
When George Bush bombed Iraq in the name of freedom he was lying about his intentions. But that doesn't make actual freedom a bad thing. Likewise, deregulation is not a bad thing simply because politicians have used this positive concept in order to justify bad policies.
Gramm-Leach-Bliley was said to be an act of deregulation however it did not simply repeal Glass-Steagall but rather replaced it with an even larger set of regulations. This increase in regulations which was used to protect existing financial sector elites can not reasonably be called an act of deregulation. If banks had been deregulated you or I could open one right now by hanging a sign on our front doors. But we are not permitted to do that because banking was never deregulated.
The crisis of 2008 onward is a result of too many regulations which are used not to protect the little guy but to protect the existing positions of the financial elite. Government regulation is always used by those it is supposed to regulate to strengthen their own positions and maintain barriers to entry for competitors. That is the very essence of the "too big to fail" mentality.
Yes, that has been my belief for many years. At least, it matches exactly what one would expect if he really did believe what he has consistently said he did (and still does) about the gold standard.
Judge Jesus by Judas' actions.
That's the ticket!
Judge Jesus by Judas' actions.
Insightful, succinct and a fine example of Anglo-Saxon alliterative meter. Well done!
1200 pages and 50 years later and all I have to say is I told you so, you stupid socialist bastards
"Who is Geoffrey Raymond?"
The movie wasn't really all bad if your weren't expecting something that Hollywood would like. The scene where the train first crosses Rearden's bridge is worth the price of admission all by itself.
+++
I really enjoyed the movie. The good guys winning (at least for awhile).
...and if you were a REAL nerd and attended the opening, you got a free poster!
Ahhh, um.. someone told me.
Are you sure? Look up what is in and around Denver.
http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/Revenue/REVX/1176842266433
http://www.colorado.gov/PEAK/services-programs.html
http://www.unions.org/unions/colorado/6
http://www.scc-asp.org/american_socialist_party_colorado.html
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Kind of OT, but too funny...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x2093328
boulder is the biggest hypocritical city in amerika. you are moving because of too many minorities. damn lady, you want minorities in and around you. you will just get so bored at looking at these white liberals in boulder. it probably has the highest per capital homeless population in amerika. i am so tired of just looking at these sorry assed white prius driving liberals. god i can't even go out for a walk on a perfect day any more and looked at these clueless people. men woman and the young people are void of any emotion, thought or action. the beauty of the environment is hard to not yearn, so see what kind of balance you can obtain, in a liberal town such as boulder colorado. colorado is the epicenter of the globalists.
Do Mork and Mindy still live there?
Nanoo nanoo!
It takes all the self-control I can muster to NOT empty a clip into vehicles with CO plates I may encounter on the interstate here in Redstateistan.
The money bonfire is bound to become fashionable sooner or later.
What is the Matrix?
Ok here's my quote if they want to use it.
I am John Galt, and there are millions more just like me.
I usually don't agree with you, but that's a good quote.
+10
Interesting how none of the contributors I saw could spell John Galt.
"Who's this Anne Rand, anyway?"
Alans father!
They can't make me!
TD: We have a spammer: kingston123
Is that a scarf or did someone slit her throat?
'Atlas Sharted'
"The reptillians are another commonly reported alien species, with scaly skin, a human-shaped physique, and often bearing some type of insignia. They apparently have an unusaul interest in human sexual behavior. Unlike other types of aliens, they are reported to be very evil. UFO researchers like David Icke believe that some reptilians have infiltrated the human world to decive people so that their species can enslave humanity."
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"
bollocks ...self sufficiency is where it's at, the best we can do is look after ourselves and our nearest and dearest ..all the rest is 2 parts removed and delusional it makes anything better (see socialism, charities, Govt)
Amish, the way of the future...
The Amish never asked the government for a bailout but each of them is always happy to help a neighbor raise a barn. That's real life.
It`s difficult to comprehend 6 billion people isn`t it?
Well it is impossible for a centralized government to correctly interpret the talents and desires of billions of people. Just one more reason that personal sovereignty is the only workable political system.
Some of the actions of her characters are far fetched, but her philosophy is not -- and that is what sells and keeps selling the book decades after its publication as well as current events. Greenspan was a Rand follower early in his life, but acted contrary to her economic views once he gained a position of power. So if anything he was more of a traitor that a criminal cohort. There are even some commentators who see Greenspan's actions as Galt-like, that he tried to bring down the system from within (and succeeded). Who knows? He still advocates a gold standard which, given his official actions, is very odd.
As for the movie, I thought it was a good effort but tried to accomplish too much even given that it was to be produced in three parts. If anything, it failed in the editing. The performances of the actors playing Reardon and Dagny were excellent; others, pretty bad. But worth seeing when it comes out on DVD.
Greenspan did nothing contrary to her personal views (which are very different from her writings). She was actually proud that her boy got selected by Pres. Ford.
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/08/02/business/02bbt_CA0.ready.html
See how they're all smiling?
Anybody that can spout the incoherent ideology that a strong centralized state is required to safeguard individual liberty is no true friend to liberty, or to coherent ideology.
The "Bonnie and Clyde" label fits these two to a tee. They are nothing but agent provacateurs in service of power. If she believed what she wrote originally, she quickly abandoned it in exchange for the cult of personality she gained once she hit the big time.
Objectivism was created as a dead-end street for those who thought it was putting her words into action. Luckily for many of us, Rothbard quickly figured her game out and told anyone who would listen.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html
LOL, I just noticed that Greenspan's mother was named Goldsmith.
Oh, the irony.
So "A" is not "A"?
Objectivism was created as a dead-end street for those who thought it was putting her words into action.
Now tell us about Bigfoot and his magic UFO, please!
That woman represents nothing more than an unrealistic philosophy for unrealistic people I'd say.
Somewhere between the cold, un-empathetic ideology that she espoused and the 1984-esq nightmare we live in today is what we should strive for.
Ayn Rand and other Libertarian thinkers have some good ideas about personal responsibility and what makes a strong nation and people...but taken literally and to their logical conclusions just don't seem to really be practical
Same goes for the progressivism / socialist idology. There is something admirable about wanting to create a society where equality abounds....but implementing it on a large scale and in a way that works (and without creating an entire class of people who abuse and exploit the government assistance) has been very elusive.
How about, instead of running our political / social systems based on an ideology or a philosophy....we have a political/economic and social order that is based on common sense and common purpose.
Oh fuck it....nevermind....there ain't any money in that!
That will never do.
Agreed. Rand's objectivism is an economic footnote to social Darwinism (the biological facet would be eugenics). The equilibrium/equality she sees is gained by everyone pulling for himself as hard as he can in a 300,000,000-way tug of war. Not my idea of utopia. In fact, it is neither efficient, harmonious, nor the most productive way. A liaisez-faire fantasy by a wannabe great philosophical economist. Rather, she acheived the status of long-winded novelist writing about two-dimensional characters with a transparent agenda.
What is your idea of utopia and where is it located?
My idea of utopia is not located anywhere, since utopia is by definition, a perfect fantasy. And why would I state what constitutes my utopia? so that you could tell me that it is unrealistic?--utopias are inherently unrealistic. The world is dystopian, which is part of the reason why Plato's Republic, Thomas Moore's Utopia, and Marx and Engles Manifesto of the Communist Party, and Atlas Shrugged (Communist Manifesto:Communism::Atlas Shrugged:Capitalism) aren't useful for modeling institutions.
I find mine at the very bottom of a bottle of scotch.
So there's lots of them.
How about, instead of running our political / social systems based on an ideology or a philosophy....we have a political/economic and social order that is based on common sense and common purpose.
That was kind of Rand's point. It is common sense to encourage people to pursue their special talents and not try to stop them because their ideas are misunderstood or their success makes others jealous. When individuals find success the whole world benefits.
Beg to differ with your assessment of the recent release of "Atlas Shrugged", which I had seen a few weekends back on the GIsland. For 10 mm investment it was constructed quite well in comparison to Hollyweird flops at high multiples of that sum.
Who is John Galt, in the current context?
Q: "Could you give us some of your political beliefs?"
A: "Kill everyone now! Condone first degree murder! Advocate cannibalism! Eat shit! Filth are my politics, filth is my life!"
Was that Ayn Rand, or was it Divine?
I thought it was The Bernank.
I can't believe I just heard a John Waters' reference on this here board.
This is a special place.
Yeah, it was in fact Divine. Watch the video and you can see why it's sometimes hard to tell Ayn and Divine apart:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2YVRu09nAo
Pink Flamingos and Atlas Shrugged: couple of classics.
Everyone will pass the scrutiny of time, most will look back in horror.
traders proverb*
*i just made up
Daft punk is playing at my house.
MY house.
Have you seen this mashup?
http://www.news.com.au/technology/sydney-designer-makes-definitive-daft-...
"one more time" summer of 2001 was the best time in my life.
Nice! Congrats
A good number of their tracks are scattered about the playslists in my music library
I only re-discovered Daft Punk last month because they auctioned off a Ferrari for Japan relief. I bought 3 CDs and the 5555 DVD, couldn't be happier.
lol i love it when shit like that happens.
Like the denizens of Galt's gultch, many here are exiting the system as well - all at various degrees and depths - by growing their own food, buying and holding their own physical metals, paying off debt and living within means and buying that first gun and ammo. Collapse will take everyone leaning on this house of cards..
Bingo! The final step is to kill your TV and computer, I am not quite there yet.
As for the economic collapse, I think we are in the "in between time" similar to 9/11 after the planes hit the towers (10/08) and when they collapsed (??/??).
Agreed. Gonna be hard to kill the PC since I like watching the game unfold. All the pretty nuances that lace the ether.
Yes, but I'm a Thoreau fan.
DUMP ISRAEL!
She hit some very large nails not quite squarely on the head.
May she (Ayn R. and the new movie) inspire new generations of clueless college/univ. educated idiots....longing for the trappings of fictional future-worlds...and a serious lack of "T-shirt syle".
Whatever nausea may result from her silk screened homage...would still be a healthy break from the mass commercialism of Che Guevara
You truly have perfected the art of the comb over, Ayn.
satanic talmudic jewess.
John Galt works for the gubbermint now.
Actually, the gubbermint works for Galt.
Always did. Always will.
Rand doesn't get that. And that's what makes her work fiction.
In Atlas Shrugged John Galt refuses to help the government even though they hold him hostage and threaten his life. Government and fat cat corporatists are the villains in the story. But if you ever read the book, you'd know that.
He's a communist who has openly threatened to steal from productive people with a regiment of soldiers.
He is worse than fucking scum.
He's a communist
And he calls himself "downwithbanks?" Where does he think socialism would be today without Bennybucks? Doesn't he realize that only socialism can save the banks because only free money for special interests can solve the whole fighting deflation/can't push on a string problem?
You're not productive, banker-gangster.
I suppose I should have put "John Galt" in quotes, because I wasn't specifically referring to the book (which I read a couple decades ago).
The previous poster inquired as to who he was today. It was to that question that I responded that all John Galts - in the REAL WORLD - use the government. That's what Capitalism has done since it's emergence.
That Ayn Rand created 'Capitalists' who don't behave like Capitalists is hardly suprising. It's what makes her work fiction.
Check your premises.
"Everyone I fucked betrayed me; making it into a philosophy made me rich".
"I might have been the original sociopathic cougar and loved the drugs, but Objectively, history remembers me for turgid prose and simplistic idealism".
"My philosophy champions rationalism; I fucking destroyed anyone with heavenly fire who didn't agree with me. And then purged the fuckers out of my cult. And I spit on their graves".
"When you see the murals of Ben Gold, you see my innermost fantasies".
"I was too stupid to read Nietzsche or Kant"
"Objectivism: Or what I did for the KGB against the useful idiots"
Um. Wait.
You want positive comments?
"Ayn Rand: A six-foot floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign was placed near her casket when she died, showing her true love. Then again, McDonalds made millions selling shit to the masses as well - and fiat dollars aren't a good score card".
[No, really. Hateful old hack, and not very bright. For a champion of rationalism, her brain wasn't up to the iconic role. Junk away, but she was one ugly soul, and her legacy is currently destroying the USA. Ironic, no? Or KGB deep mole planning *shrug*]
>>Cliff Notes:
#1 Misunderstood Darwin, as have others - social adaptation / altruism have very specific cost/benefit returns, and are fundamental to a functioning society. Predators should stop being so bloody self-absorbed [thanks Ayn, tool, for making them so] and realise that symbiosis works, and predator<->prey relations in ecology are hugely complex. The current crowd make me shudder, because they mould to fit their limitations, they don't grow to meet complexity. For this crime, they need purging; mostly maladaptive mutants with obvious flaws.
#2 Misunderstood business, as have others - greed is good, if you have a something to spend it on. This does not mean purely material goods; why else would the 0.01% masturbate over 'charity' and 'bequeathing a legacy'. Top tip - complexity is a function of the market; if you leave the market more complex [rich in information] then you are a benefit. If you do not, you are not a capitalist, you are a parasite. Now stop with the bollocks and start building infrastructure again, because without it, you all die. Fucking tools.
#3 Judgement of emotions. Behaviourism is a stupid, and "nice for the masses" thought processes. Yes, I'm looking at you, proponents of 'behavioural economics' and 'nudges'. Top fucking tip: You do NOT WANT a society where people do not notice the "context hidden" nudges or psychological guides, UNLESS you want slaves. If you want slaves, then do the decent thing & split homo sapiens into two breeds, a la H G Wells. Stop being so hypocritical about your self-indulgent morality. When I have custody over other species, I relate to them QUA species. Canine qua canine. Equine qua equine. Homo Sapiens qua Homo sapiens. Anthropomorphism is stupid, dull and egotistical to the point of insanity.
In ending - killing the oceans was also dumb. For 'rationalists' you'd have been better off preventing over-fishing than anything else. I find little to recommend the short sighted and foolish nature of my species.
p.s.
Yay, junked!
If you want a sensible answer: she was a smaller copy of Karl Popper, for an American overly Religious market. Try reading the original first.
If you want a sensible answer: she was a smaller copy of Karl Popper, for an American overly Religious market. Try reading the original first.
Rand was an atheist.
Derp.
So was Popper, you muppet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Society_and_Its_Enemies
So why are you going on about "an American overly Religious market?" That was my point.
Are you serious?
She was involved with Libertarian idealism and the Republican party; during her life, she argued (for instance) that pregnant unmarried women were whores, but deserved free abortions, or that homosexuality was perverse and irrational but shouldn't be legislated against. She had to deal with conservative christian americans every damn time she tried to get the American people to listen to her, because she was ideologically on the 'right' rather than the 'left'.
Oh. Wait. You've never read her works, have you now? You know fuck all about the history of your nation, or the socio-economic factors that have shaped it?
Fuck off. I'm invoking the A.R. rule: you fail the standard of excellence to engage in this debate.
Oh, and the 12 people who junked my post - you're idiots, and A.Rand would spit on you to defend my post. That, my children, is called - "Irony of the first order". The entire point is that A. Rand wouldn't "junk", she would attempt to debate. Anything else, you're a fool.
Top tip: A. Rand would never junk a post. Ever. If you've junked my posts, and consider yourself an "Objectivist" or whatever, then fuck off. You fail.
>"Owned, bitches".
[edit - updated, because the twats keep junking, and the irony is piling up higher & higher]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFy9A7WEzPA
Here's a clip in which Ayn Rand says that the problem with the Republican Party is the domination of the Christian right.
Yes.
Well done.
Exactly what I said.
Your point being?
Ok, wait. Sorry. I forgot that IQ's less than or equal to 80 might use the internet. Ok, ok.
#1 Yes, I know A.Rand was an atheist
#2 Karl Popper [who, btw, I happened to learn logic from one of his direct students] was also an atheist
#3 USA politics is never un-religious, despite the best efforts of people like A. Rand
#4 She went on TV, multiple times, to argue 'Rationality' versus their pathetic reasoning skills.
#5 During which, she got trolled, multiple times, by Bible bashers, the 'majority consensus' and so on.
You need more? Or just stfu, and ask for a lesson already. None of this means her axioms are actually worth shit all.
You said, "she (Rand) was a smaller copy of Karl Popper, for an American overly Religious market." How does that mesh with Rand's own negative view of the Christian right? Are you saying that she appealed to religious people because she criticized religiosity?
Ok, fuckwit.
She was a smaller copy of = she was not up to the intellectual standards of
Karl Popper = do some fucking reading, you ignorant, ignorant troll. He defined the entire "falsifiability principle" that DEFINES MODERN SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND PEER REVIEW
for an American = aka, the USA couldn't handle mature debate at that time, especially on rationalism. Oh, wait.. did we notice 70% of your populace don't believe in Darwin? That means 70% of your populace is essentially food.
overly Religious market = unlike Europe or China, or the USSR, she was marketing [i.e. discussing, selling, trading] her ideas within a sociology that took puritanical Christianity as 90% of the mainstream audience.
Now fuck off and die, you stupid sheep.
Does that make sense before or after your meds?
Oh please. If you think your IQ of 85 can troll me, you need to go talk to DSK.
I was actually waiting for some decent trolling; all you proved was that your grasp of grammar is rather silly.
Now, as A. Rand would say - Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as a man is free to attempt to survive by any random means, as a parasite, a moocher or a looter, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment - so he is free to seek his happiness in any irrational fraud, any whim, any delusion, any mindless escape from reality, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment not to escape the consequences.
Aka, your silly inability to read English is ZZZz.
>> Done in the spirit of A. Rand, because kids - this is how she debated, you silly muppets. It is called irony / homage. Hint: if you've actually seen her debate, she would never let the silly idiocies of the US audience go, and would hound them down [famously], until a point of logical immutability. I've done the same, as a homage to her.
You, on the other hand, have just trolled, and trolled out of your league. /Fail. Now go sweep some floors or something, as A. Rand determines your level to be "service".
Your posts seriously sound like you are on drugs. Calm down, stop calling everyone asking questions a troll, and state your case, clearly and concisely, from the beginning.
I just want to add: lol.
Objectivism is the very antithesis of what Kant espoused. Check your premises.
Exactly.
She was attempting to discredit and destroy Immanuel Kant's philosophy of sacrifice, altruism and duty.
IMO she did a nice job of it.
If you've read the three critiques, please reply.
Otherwise. Hmm. Hush, my child.
Ye Gods.
#1 Kant isn't the antithesis of Objectivism - Rand is small fucking fry, and doesn't even come close to a critique of Kant
#2 My Axioms are more formal and more correct than yours, or Rands [Law of Identity (A=A) and Law of Negation (A=/= -A) ]
Hey, dipshit - hands up who has formal training in logic?
Derp.
^----He mad.
Who is Ayn Rand?
Just a shitty fiction writer.
She did testify before HUAC as a snitch.
Tell us who Ayn Rand supposedly snitched on to prove you're not a liar.
She agreed to go before HUAC as a "friendly witness".
In other words, she cooperated with big, bad, evil government to lay the foundations for Nixon's showtrials and McCarthyism.
That's her legacy in the real world.
And Greenspan!!
So you admit that you lied when you said she "snitched" on someone. That's a good start. Now please explain why you believe that the Soviet Union was a paradise for the proletariat.
WHO IS TYLER DURDEN?
WHERE IS MARLA?
WHO IS CHEEKY BASTARD?
WHO IS PROJECT MAYHEM?
WHO IS CHUMBAWAMBA?
WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?
The Who.. 1978
Rand's atheism was logically inconsistent (no proof); she should have been agnostic.
http://www.polycapitalist.com/2010/12/whos-confused-atheists-or-agnostic...
So much for her being "rational" or "objective".
If Rand Paul married Ayn Rand, he would be Rand Rand.
+
A few for the background:
"I hope that comb-over man cunt straps one on and ass fucks greenspan for eternity in hell" [you nailed the hair btw, although a hitler mustache might be a nice addition]
"My estate thanks the FED and the Federal Government for loose money policies that allowed Hollywood enough wherewithal to trash my writings with visual and audio vomit"
"If I were still alive, I would have fucked DSK and maybe that midget Roubini who reminds me of a drug crazed Billy Crystal hit with a wiffle ball bat doing an impression of a sex crazed foreigner"
feel free to paraphrase
Money is the root of all good.
You must be a Blankfein fan.
"Doing god's work" and the like.
"(pursuit of wealth) Money is the root of all good" is Randian philosophy.
Blankfein and his ilk are corrupt, enabled by the regulatory capture of the State. Corruption is the expression of evil. This is the Rand nightmare, that the pursuit of self interest gets confused with corruption. As in today, capitalism gets blamed for everything rather than the corrupt (corporate socialism).
"Money is the root of all good" (on a level playing field)
"The corruption of the process is evil"
Mr Event - Moving from fantsy to reality:
If regulation is taboo - How do you propose to keep capitalist players moral?
Wait till they feel like it?
Nobody suggested no regulation. It is the corrupt application.
The regulatory process is corrupt not the pursuit of self interests.
The market is far better at "regulating" it than a small group of elites,,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNbYdbf3EEc
"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, is this what you consider evil?
"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes.
Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.
"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.'
"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what
you consider evil?
"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.
"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?
"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?
"Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?
"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?
"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.
"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.
"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.
"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves.
"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.
"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.
"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.' "When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are.
Let's be clear what money is.
I once said money is the root of all evil in my adolescence not understanding what I was saying. Although my mind had already started to stray towards Cisco's view this speech was life changing. Anyone who speaks those misguided words should be given an opportunity to learn why they are completely wrong.
Dear Francisco:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_money
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5vC_8azMFk ("Money As Debt", by Paul Grignon)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Modern_Money_Mechanics.pdf
This is why we have a long way to go before we can talk about money the way you do.
...I wonder if Ayn Rand understood what credit money is...
Agreed, should be "Pursuit of Wealth" "money" is used to resonate with the masses, albeit inaccurate.
Pursuit of wealth (physical gold) is the root of all good. Who the fuck is Tyler Durden.
A pile of IOUs. If you had read the book, you would know that.
Dear tsmosley:
You are like a blind, deaf, anosmial, homosexual goat -- with a severe case of mental retardation distinct from its sense deficiencies -- that is perpetually stalking me trying to fuck me.
I thought you resolved a page ago that you need not talk to me more.
Please stop for today. Maybe another day on another thread we can interact again.
In Ayn Rand's day, the dollar was convertible to gold, but it isn't any more. Yet too many people treat the money speech as if it applied to money today, forty years after the destruction of any semblance of the gold standard. This is one of many details easily overlooked by Atlas Shrugged's true believers -- they act like FRNs are money and they act like Atlas Shrugged has a recipe for everyone to follow for utopia.
+ 1 gold dollar
Good = Evil
I gather you've safely exited Room 101?
"The lack of money is the root of all evil."
-Samuel Langhorne Clemens
"The lack of gold is the root of all Evil"
-Event Horizon
+ touché !
Just remember to heed the old saw, "possession is nine tenths of the Law".
"For the main Design of the Fable, (as it is briefly explain’d in the Moral) is to shew the Impossibility of enjoying all the most elegant Comforts of Life that are to be met with in an industrious, wealthy and powerful Nation, and at the same time be bless’d with all the Virtue and Innocence that can be wish’d for in a Golden Age; from thence to expose the Unreasonableness and Folly of those, that desirous of being an opulent and flourishing People, and wonderfully greedy after all the Benefits they can receive as such, are yet always murmuring at and exclaiming against those Vices and Inconveniences, that from the Beginning of the World to this present Day, have been inseparable from all Kingdoms and States that ever were fam’d for Strength, Riches, and Politeness, at the same time."
all I know is it's a long fucking book
She's got Tunga's eyes.
Indeed she did.
Nothing ever ends Use of Weapons.
"Jim Cramer is fine"
Objectivism: The sound of a teenager screaming and slamming the door, over and over again forever.
Ayn Rand was very bad person for suggesting that people should pursue their own dreams.
+1
Objectivism : a great system, just not for three - dimensional beings.
So if A isn't A what is it, a chicken?
A tautological cryptolect.
Ah, so it is some sort of chicken! The kind with the floppy red crest, right?
Ah, well there's your problem! Most beings I've encountered are at least 4-dimensional! Back to CubeLand with you! :>D
Ayn Rand was - like any other person who divides mankind into super-humans and underlings - a very unhappy person.
So little love - so much inconization.
Why don't all the atheist, money and icon loving Rand'ians get together and occupy a few states, where they can all be ubermench hyper individualists, worthy of each others' adoration - and leave the all the losers, the rest of sheepish humans in the dust?
In a land of all enlightened, supremely selfish and steadfastly atruism despising CREATORS - these human gods can blissfully and finally be liberated from the burden of even their own contempt for all underlings. What could be more wonderful than such a world? Imagine, no need for compassion, love, charity, helpfulness, sacrifice of ego - doesn't that sound like.... perfect.... like heaven on earth?
Perhaps even ateists and selfish materialists dream of a better world.... without everybody else in it...?