This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
A Warning For Americans - Is Money The Root Of All Evil?
Is money the root of all evil? Mike Maloney discusses this provocative question in this brief clip. Starting with the following short extract from Ayn Rand (who incidentally was born in the Crimea region of Ukraine):
"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 rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you, you may know that your society is doomed." - Ayn Rand
Maloney (and his team) express their mission thus:
To enlighten the world that maximum prosperity can only be achieved through individual freedom, free markets, and sound money.
As he noted in his first documentary,
"Your true wealth is your time and freedom. Money is just a tool for trading your time. It's a container to store your economic energy until you are ready to deploy it. But the whole world has been turned away from real money, and has been fooled into using currency - a deceitful imposter that is silently stealing your two most valuable assets - your time, and your freedom."
Full clip below:
»
- 23718 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
America is the root of all evil!
The love of money is the root of all evil, according to the bible.
Exactly. But some how the inanimate object becomes the evil thing instead of the emotion atatched to it. Sort of like guns are evil instead of the people that misuse them.
Gold Standard.
Baseless fiat finances evil.
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Matthew 6:24
Mammon....so that's what they call Ben Bernanke.
the eleventh commandment, and the only one religiously followed in New York -
Thou shalt not criticize those who worship money.
Is money the root of all evil? Honestly don't know...Perhaps ask Yoda.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/head-online-currency-excha...
don't know about that story, neither.
decide, you must.
Google knows all... it's the Fed
Bible : "The LOVE of money is the root of all evil" ---> Mike Maloney is making the case that money = productive capacity, therefore to LOVE money = to LOVE production.
The Bible quote is not intended to diminish HONEST PRODUCTIVITY (ie, MONEY), but that it is making the case that money, in and of itself, is nothing without PRODUCTION. To "LOVE" money (according to the Bible) is what Wal Street and the Federal Reserve have done - it is not what "we the producers" have done.
1 Timothy 5:18 For Scripture says, "Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain," and "The worker deserves his wages [MONEY!!!]."
ayn rand is the greatest philosopher since Aristotle.
Said ... no one who ever read three or more philosophers.
guess again mr cocknballs.
i'm not sure of going all john bonner was the right way to read this declaration of willful self direction and the pointed condemnation of the stateist.
Money is a proxy for your ability to produce.
and Yellen, Wammon.
But apparently they can serve two passports. /sarc
Evil is as evil does.
No, but some try to excuse their evil acts with that conclusion.
Just need more ipo's. And inflation. http://hedge.ly/1gS7qvL
gold is money.
and the lack of gold is the root of all evil
Gold is money.
Concerning the lack of gold - not really. Neither Gangis Kahn nor Hitler sought gold, yet both were on a warpath that killed millions. The root of evil is when someone demands power over another individual.
Moneychangers are the root of all evil!
Washington DC is the centre of evil - Joe Citizen is getting screwed
America has been manipulated, set up and used for a long time to become the whipping boy that will be (is being?) propoganised as the root of all evil; instead of globally vilifying and neutering the likes of the Rockefellers and their historical puppet masters who are in fact the evil behind "money" ....
so yes 'America is the root of all evil' is the emerging mantra, watch for more and more "leaked" evidence distracting from the "evil" of the UN, IMF, Club of Rome, Committee of 300, Vatican, British, Russian, Chinese, Africans etc etc etc
Appealing to ingroup-outgroup morality in order to polarize people into taking your side.
Americans are not worse nor better than any other country's population, but the US Gov certainly is worse than virtually all other countries' governments.
The use of the levers of political power to profit is awfully close to the root of all evil.
I've said this before. Worthless fiat money conjured up out of thin air and loaned at interest is the root of all evil.
see other reply below. the usual suspects
I've slao said this before. FEAR is the root of all evil.
The fear of death is the begining of slavery.
More like the fear of being alone.
The HumAnts gotta be enslaved to the colony.
You must be young. When you are older, you will realize that some men fear death; others will welcome it.
I'd have to say that whatever is the nature of some of mens/beings desires to forcefully control, oppress, rob, dominate, etc their fellow life is where the origins of what we call evil are. Deceptive or forced debt currency for theft and control is certainly evil and perhaps even the highest level of evil, but the root lies in the why. Where does that urge to enslave come from?
It works very well for survival. Government couldn't exist without it.
Even ants developed slavery.
Ants, as with all animals, do not possess knowledge of ethical behavior. Humans do.
"The use of the levers of political power to profit is awfully close to the root of all evil."
Nah, just one of the more vile expressions of it.
"Schlomo, squeeze Senator (X) a little more. AIPAC isn't getting enough love. I also want a law passed that gives my true country first crack at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And we have another co-religionist who wants to be bailed out and named too big to prosecute. Oh, and Suzy Orrman wants to peddle more of her crap on public television. Put her on after Charlie Rose and his parade of kosher guests."
Lack of money (or current medium of exchange) is the root of all evil.
Poverty has no unkinder cut than this, that it makes a man ridiculous.
Juvenal
I've always liked this one too. It sounds elitist, but it has broader roots in possibilities and degrees of freedom.
and then I realized, without money, it doesn't matter what sort of taste you have...
Keats.
Bullshit. There are plenty of people who are dirt-poor and are also virtuous.
I'd argue that the rich are, in general, more evil than the poor.
23Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.
24And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
Matthew 19:23-24
Well we are just about all screwed in the USA and EU, as we all rich compared to a rich man of Jesus' time. Because of freedom, the economic corollary of which is capitalism(with rule of law applied, not what we have now). Jesus also said "The truth will set you free". So He meant for us to prosper. QED.
it all depends on how they became rich
Girlfriend = Time * Money
Your girlfriend is a woman!
Girfriend = Woman
Woman = Time * Money
We all know that time is money...
time = money
woman = money * money
woman = (money)^2
We also know that money is the root of all evil,
correct?
money = sqrt(evil)
woman = [sqrt(evil)]^2
Hence,
woman = evil
inaacurate but always worth a smirk
Plenty of female and male gold diggers. When the money is gone so are they.
who would down arrow that? My "misogeny' was offered up as a joke. Bimbos and mimbos.
Along the same lines, when useful idiots outlive their usefulness they'll still be idiots
Prob some hairy armpit flat top having feminazi broad.
Something to look forward to.
I wonder if there is any women on this blog. Impossible. How can you care about politics and the economy if you are worried about shoes, dancing with the stars, shopping and the Oscars?
How can you care about politics and the economy if you are worried about video games, Duck Dynasty, buying the latest electronic gizmo and the Superbowl?
What an asinine title for a place like Zhedge.
Money is not the root of all evil - it is a tool.
Greed - thus the LOVE of money - is the root of most evil. of course some people are just inherently born assholes....
You're right. But to be fair to this Tyler, he (?) set the title based on Mike Maloney's question, not ZeroHedge.
Heck, just think, with the way our so-called "leaders" have been setting-up to make ammo purchases harder, and with the latest news from Russia, ammo is going to likely become a form a money. Then, gun grabbers can really get into a hissyfit about "money" being the root of all evil. Sigh...
-----------
Breaking: Ammo Rush Begins Again As Russia Halts Ammunition Exports To the US!
http://thenewsdoctors.com/?p=121192
You're right of course. I have to quit drinking while I read this blog.... there's just nothing like Zero Hedge and a cocktail (or two) before sitting down to discuss the day and world events with the wife and kiddies at the supper table. It's the simple things in life that are the best.... wine, dinner, conversation and world politics...... then more wine....
My elders and betters taught me to look at money as just another form of inventory, but the least safe and productive form.
-1
Evil is evil. Greed can be good. I am extremely greedy but I am not evil. I refuse to profit by taking from others. I make as much money as I can by providing value to others in mutually beneficial agreements.
The desire for the un-earned is the root of all evil!
Damn that wrung my belll. I think im going to finally read some of his work. Thanks
He's a chick.
I'm guessing that was a pean to an obscure Simpsons joke.
Kinda. She hit a few branches on the way down.
Francisco would differ
http://capitalismmagazine.com/2002/08/franciscos-money-speech
These green pieces of paper with the pyramids and the hidden owls on it are going to kill us all someday.
http://www.rationalchristianity.net/jesus_angry.html
Zeal......for it is zeal that will rue man, not greed. There can be good forms of greed (think: your wife).....but zeal blackens the soul. And with that comes graves consequences potentially, for us all.
Snide, hateful Ayn Rand comment from LetThemEatRand in 3...2....1
Wrong:
"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 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.
“You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it’s crumbling around you, while you’re damning its life-blood–money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men’s history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves–slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody’s mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers–as industrialists.
“To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money–and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man’s mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being–the self-made man–the American industrialist.
“If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose–because it contains all the others–the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘to make money.’ No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity–to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality.
“Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters’ continents. Now the looters’ credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide– as, I think, he will.
“Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns–or dollars. Take your choice–there is no other–and your time is running out.”-Francisco d’Anconia (Atlas Shrugged)
Clear it up Any????
Yeah, the randian nuts are the ones who brought us Big Baby Brother (Google), and plenty of other dystopian methods.
Grunt
You have done good.
"suddenly everything that was really clear is"...
well...maybe TOO clear!
I don't want to be "hacked" into.
I might post stories about "Space Invaders"...but it ain't because I like the idea!
This isn't a game of "truth."
This is a game called "Truth or CONSEQUENCES."
"Is this the consequences phase"?
Thats the way I look at it.
If money were the root of all evil, evil people wouldn't be in the business of trying to control all of it. Money is freedom (in the material sense) it allows one the opportunity to break from their own bondage and to help others break free from theirs, commonly called charity when given freely.
Its when the pursuit of money becomes the only driving force in your life, that the pursuit of it, (it, being the pursuit itself) can come to control your life.
Nmewn, one of your most insightful comments I've seen. You really should write a book - in 39 pages you'll have more weight than shrugged.
lol...maybe some day I'll get laid off and have the time and need the money.
Thanks ;-)
But I don't care if a person spends 100% of his time working if he's earning his money honestly. I might think his priorities are out of wack but it's his life. I think you really lose your soul when you'll stoop to robbery, assualt, slavery and murder for ill-gotten gains.
She had some good things to say.
That is a far cry from earning worship status.
"That is a far cry from earning worship status."
Who mentioned "worship status", what the hell does that mean?
One thing is for sure Ayn Rand had a way of pulling covers with surgical precision and many self proclaimed academic intellectuals to include liberals, conservatives and the clergy hated her for it!
Rand was a Russian, and she wrote like a Russian, too many characters, boring speeches, preaching, books that were brutally long, sometimes the plot got away from her, sometimes she made shit up, like static electricity as a form of power, BUT as you suggest,
at her best, no one was better. Her brief essay on capitalism should be required reading in every class room in the world, every year. It is that important.
You must be reading the wrong Russians. They are far and away the best writers in the world.
there happens to be rather interesting power generating device in developement tha harnesses static electicty as power
compact enuf for them to put into the soles of shoes to harnes the power generated in evey step
"Who mentioned 'worship status'"
I did. Right up above your comment.
But I will concede, as you may have noticed, the Ayn Rand luster has been wearing off...
which is a good thing.
But think of all the time we've wasted.
Fair enough, but as Yogi Berra liked to say, you can look it up.
Surveys of academics and professional book people never list anything by Rand as in the top 100 books of all time.
Surveys of book readers, nearly always list Atlas Shrugged, and the Fountainhead as among them. No other modern author comes close to that support.
Indeed Mr. Kaiserhoff.
What I find pathetic is academics romance Statism as some kind of heavenly gift, when, in this reality it has always been a curse. Ayn Rand new that all governments, no matter the type will always loot those of us that produce.
One of the most egregious looting schemes I have witnessed in my lifetime is the global warming, CO2 is a pollutant, tax the air we exhale looting fraud. They must have been on LSD when they came up with that idea. Here they figure out a way to tax the air we exhale, which in their mind would be an endless revenue stream. They just had to figure out a way to rig the data to match their brain dead theory and they did with witch doctor colluding scientists and politicians to spin the lie to the naive and ignorant masses. What I find baffling is the so called intellectual academics coming from the most prestigious Ivy League Universities believed the CON, which goes to show just how absolutely mindless many of them are!
I'll also add, that those same academics with all their intellect and grandiose ideas that have reached the apex of the political game in Washington are bankrupting the Nation. Quite frankly they're as dumb as a fence post, lacking any economic or societal sense, because they are always in it for themselves never learning from history and it's the people that always pays the price, never blaming themselves.
See this!
The Public Be Suckered
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=1230886
"...when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and..."
Edit - ...idleness is all that is required for basic support, "...you may know that your society is doomed."
Despite quote above, and not seing the irony, a lot of "finanaciers" or generaly "money changers" hold her as a Godess.
For those that have not read Atlas shrugged, I suggest you do so. It's a long book and quite an undertaking as the political/economic gist is couched in novel form making it very long. But, it is a great read and a brilliant book by a brilliant writer.
Rand provides a pre-packaged ideology for egotistical and conceited megalomaniacs to be self-indulgent through, since it provides a shallow view of the world, that is great, as long as one does not think any deeper about that. Rand delivers the goods for petite bourgeosie to try to be honourable shop keepers, until they realize that they were always actually taking for granted the pre-established systems of social robbery, in order to have operated within those systems.
Did you read it? Honestly, did you?
She believed a human being can be completely rational in every instance, even when she got jealous over a man cheating on her, she was totally rational apparently. Take the worst marxist and the worst liberal and there you have objectivism.
Still worth reading, but only as a blueprint for disaster. Everyone decries the NSA here, and yet Rand is held in esteem. However her philosophy is in keeping with the deeply pathological and paranoid surveillance game theory of the Cold War. Her philosophy was inhuman.
Yeah, khakuda, decades ago. I made it a point to try to read all the famous classics. Since then, I have found that all the people I encountered who think Rand was profound were people with silly, superficial political ideas.
Private property does not exist outside of some system of public violence. Planet Earth did NOT come cut into pieces with name labels on them. People staked claims, and backed those up with coercion. Money, as a form of private property, is a particular form of claims backed by coercion. Therefore, MONEY IS MEASUREMENT BACKED BY MURDER.
Rand promotes the same old-fashioned false fundamental dichotomies and related impossible ideals. Baloney Maloney does the same thing. They both do good analysis of the history of the problems, but then propose impossible "solutions" based on idealized notions of money, and private property in general. What is fundamental is lies and robbery. Everything else was built on those foundations, because that is the way the world really works. What controls production is the production of destruction. Nobody who produces anything can do so without taking natural resources, which requires that they stake a claim on those resources, and rely upon some system of coercion to back up their claims to be able to use those resources.
All productive people engaged in trading through voluntary contracts necessarily operate inside of some pre-established systems of involuntary contracts, where there was some history of some people staking claims over resources, and backing those up with coercion. Rand and her ilk like to day dream that somehow the productive, "good people" do not necessarily operate within the context of the political systems that the destructive "bad people" made and maintained.
Maloney promotes the mainstream baloney about what money should be, which deliberately ignores what money really is, and therefore, he has high esteem for those like Rand that analyze those social facts, only to them propose some impossible ideals as being the better way to resolve those problems. However, in the real world, governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.
While Rand and Maloney sort of recognize and admit that, they then take a ridiculous flying leap towards asserting that that should not be the way things actually are. Therefore, they propose ideals without any realistic mechanisms to make or maintain them ever exist in the real world. The ideas about free market capitalism are ridiculous in the face of the reality of fraud and murder, which exist in the real world, and actually dominate and control the real world, ironically through promoting bullshit about the idealized notions of free market capitalism.
What actually exists is could be called fascist plutocracy. That is what results after one adds the reality of fraud and murder to free market capitalism. There was never a time when those features were not part of the overall mix, and indeed, the dominant attributes. It is plainly obvious, IF one is willing to look at it, that all the private property in North America was based upon robbing everything from the first Americans, who were living here for more than ten thousand years before the European invasion started about 500 years ago. All the natural resources that have had claims staked upon them, and backed up with the coercion of government, regarding all private property in North America, were necessarily built on top of the genocides of the people who were living here before Europeans grafted their Neolithic Civilization on to it.
People like Rand and Maloney know about that history, of course, but they want to erase it from their idealized economic systems. However, such an erasing of history is not possible. Rather, money exists because measurement and murder exists, as a special case that private property exists because people stake claims, and back those claims up with coercion. Those are the things which really exist, and some dynamic equilibria between those different systems of organized lies operating organized robberies are the only things which can actually exist.
"...All productive people engaged in trading through voluntary contracts necessarily operate inside of some pre-established systems of involuntary contracts..." Reading such gibberish tells me it's time to boot down and go to bed.
Ok, I'm glad you read it. I have to believe that most commenting have not.
You have a point of view, to which I don't subscribe, that life on the planet would be better if no one claimed resources and added value to them to make life better for humanity. Under your theory, I couldn't claim water, filter and purify it and sell it to others at a price that compensated me for my time and effort. People unucky enough not to be near a natural spring would be better off drinking water with bacteria in it and dying?
Rand's point is that it is the people who work and create things for others that should be celebrated, not controlled and berated and stolen from. If we increasingly punish the productive, they will stop producing at some point. To me, that doesn't mean you shouldn't pay taxes or be charitable, it means government control should be minimal - ideas that have led the U.S. to have INCREDIBLE progress in a couple centuries, a blip in the scheme of the life of this planet. If no one should earn a wage or profit as an incentive to do things maybe the ablest of us would sit around smoking pot all day long. Society's progress would be based on the charitable goodwill of other men, which would make progress slow dramatically.
Look, you are entitled to your opinion. If you want to sit around smoking pot all day and not doing anything to make life better for others by becoming a doctor, starting a business or operating a cash register, that is your right in a free country. But, you should not expect me to get up at 5am to study for 8 years to provide you medical assistance in return for nothing because I'd rather sleep late, too.
My ideas do NOT suggest that there be no production! My ideas are based on the real facts that the production of destruction controls all other production. The production of destruction is the most important kind of production. Militarism is the supreme ideology, because it deserves to be. The most important thing that people do is kill other people, because the death controls control everything else. Therefore, I am NOT saying that people could not work to purify water, and exchange that for work done for other people. What I AM saying is that the people who work to kill other people and destroy things, so that they can claim to "own" that water supply, and back that claim up with coercion, do the most important functions.
It is NOT an accident that the most important business is weapons, and that making better weapons has always been a priority, because the production of destruction has always been the most important form of production. However, now that we have had progress in basic sciences, so that our weapons have become trillions of times more powerful, we should be changing the ways that we think about politics. It is all one energy. There are no fundamental dichotomies. The murderers are doing a job too. The top carnivores, and degenerate parasites both have roles to play in the overall systems. What I work at is attempting to understand the REAL money/murder systems, which is something that the vast majority of people do not want to do.
Maloney's mainstream baloney about "money," and so, his respect for Rand, promote a reactionary revolution, which I think is based on too superficial a view of reality. I do NOT respect impossible ideals. I respect efforts to really understand energy systems. Ad hominem stuff continues to deliberately ignore what I have been writing. No surprises there. I would not expect most people to comprehend that I am talking about better ways to operate death controls, as the most important thing that we need to do, which considerations are mostly excluded from Maloney's baloney about what money should be.
Most people love their favourite impossible ideals, and therefore, are attached to their favourite false fundamental dichotomies. Therefore, we have the runaway contradictions of sciences transcending previous false fundamental dichotomies, which then enable technologies to become trillions of times more powerful and capable, BUT which are still being channeled through old-fashioned religions and ideologies, which are based on false fundamental dichotomies, and their related impossible ideals, which actually make the opposite happen in the real world. THOSE RUNAWAY CONTRADICTIONS ARE AUTOMATICALLY GETTING WORSE, FASTER, WHILE, AT PRESENT, THERE APPEARS PRACTICALLY NOTHING THAT IS POLITICALLY POSSIBLE TO PREVENT THAT HAPPENING ...
"Rand provides a pre-packaged ideology for egotistical and conceited megalomaniacs to be self-indulgent through...."
You do realize R. Marijuana that the reefer represses the limbic system in the brain causing emotional developmental arrest. In other words one may be an adult but have all the emotional characteristics of a young child. They also suffer from identity loss. Having prostituted themselves out to an image manufactured by whatever psychoactive drug they chose, in this case radical marijuana, and whose residual effects causes them not to know who they are. They're sick because they're not themselves. If one falls under that catgagory the only remedy is to practice sobriety to even have a chance to come back to themselves again otherwise, in the end, when that time comes they will have died a stranger to themselves! Clear it up any holmes!
No, G-R-U-N-T, your ad hominem did not clear up anything.
I rest my case! LOL
Extremely greedy by highly ethical protagonists were too much for me to bear.
"For my own selfish reasons" liked some nippets here and there though, like drunken sculptor's rant about "how one is supposed to hire an artist".
The root of all evil is the human need for something for nothing that ALWAYS enables the frauds and politicians to rob us blind. Rather than earn and save for financial security, lever for financial gain without labor. Those who perpetrate this fraud of "money" on us seek to "capitalize" on our weakness for "money for nothing" to transfer the value of our labors into their own pockets. There are those who produce and then there are those who wish to prosper from the production of others....the overhead.
Greed is.
I enjoy watching Mike Maloney's videos, however, his superficial views about "money" are baloney, because they propose "solutions" based upon the ideal theories about what money should be, rather than upon what money actually is.
Money is measurement backed by murder.
Money is primarily a symbol of human coercion.
IF, and only IF, there is achieved relative dynamic equilibria between social forces, then, and only then, money can become a symbol of human cooperation.
Like most guys who have been relatively successful operating within the established systems, Maloney is too superficial and optimistic about how the system really works, and therefore, too idealistic about how it should possibly be improved in order to work better.
Money is NOT the root of evil. Entropy is the root of evil, and also the only way that it becomes possible to experience good, because those come as a complete package deal. Maloney does not come within a light year of the kind of radical critique of the concept of entropy in order to be able to get remotely close to proposing how money could operate as a better general energy system accounting method. Since he is able to deliberately ignore that money is necessarily backed by murder, he can propose all kinds of pie-in-the-sky ideals about what money should be, which get away with deliberately ignoring what it actually is!
Jeez. You need to hookup with fonestar. In the YMCA steam room.
This is where Marx's economics trump all other forms. Economics are primarily just a constructivist mathematics, mystifying what is going on in society (this is clear in the nubmber of people who are killed through economic war and hardly anyone knows about the violence involved). Marx included a critique of economics within economic theory itself, this is what people do not like. And it is the theory of self-valorising value which is much like a concept of entropy, that economy destroys at least as much as it builds. There is also a connection to religion which secular societies do not like.
Where Marx went wrong was in making economics an absolute, and strangely enough this is the problem of this society and most of its critics; it's all about the economy. But as you suggest there are deeper problems, the entropy or valorisation in all forms of organisation:politics, religion, ideology, science and technology etc. If all the problems are not figured out the next society will just end up with similar problems as we have now.
Yes, general ambivalent:
"If all the problems are not figured out the next society will just end up with similar problems as we have now."
Only what actually exists can actually evolve. The only things that actually exist are systems of organized lies, operating organized robberies, which tend to have labels about themselves which are also lies, because that assists with them with their robberies.
Assuming that our current civilization will decline and fall, like all other civilizations did before it, and assuming that there is enough surviving after that, to enable some new civilization to emerge, then there is no doubt that that new civilization will be born from some of the surviving seeds left from the old civilization. Therefore, some of the seed systems of lies and robbery that survive through will surely become the basis of whatever new systems of organized lies and robbery might be able to grow under whatever new conditions might make that possible in the future.
Meanwhile, as I expected, most of the mainstream morons and reactionary revolutionaries who read Zero Hedge have down voted my comments, because I have gored their sacred cows, and therefore, they have responded in ad hominem ways. People do NOT LIKE to face the fact that money is based on measurement backed by murder, because all private property is based on claims backed by coercion. Rather, the point of most religions and ideologies is to bury that under the kinds of bullshit that they do want to believe.
FWIW you might do a bit better getting your ideas across here if you simplify.
This part seems obvious:
Then this bit sounds off as written:
Murder might be quite accurate, but it isn't as clear as coercion, force, or a big stick. Yes, maybe it is just semantics, but we tend to think of murder as a violent crime against an individual for personal reasons (revenge, anger, financial gain, pleasure, etc.) vs. the application of police/military type powers by the state.
Once upon a time on Roubini's site there was a fellow who argued housing was a right, a utility to be provided by government (Ryskamp) and a lady who argued that our entire wage system is a form of theft as every human's life should be equally valuable, so paying someone less whatever arbitrary value is agreed to is a theft of that individual's precious and finite time. She basically saw all profit as theft with the "life has equal value" thing plus private property through coercion, and rentiers "owning" the means of production.
Ayn Rand goes into a bar. The bartender asks, "What would you like?"
Ayn Rand says, "I'm not really sure. I'm very fond of red wine, but I always find I get terrible writer's block whenever I drink it. Is there anything you'd recommend?"
The barman says, "Red wine."
Damn.... he got all choked up reading that passage about 16 minutes in.
Nobody here actually, you know, WATCHED the clip (or read the book from which he read in the clip), did they?
i watched the clip, having never read the book
my mother usde to have atlas shrugged on her bedside table
it was there for years
being she was a democrat intent on milking the system, i'd hazard a guess she never read it
I would take this as a sign that it's time for you to read the book your mother never did. You sound ready. Like it or hate it, agree with it or disagree, it will mean something to you now.
I read the book back in 2010. The principles covered in it like the one read is this clip are what sells 30+ million copies, or how ever many have been sold since the 50s.
Here's my take:
It's been stated on Zerohedge over and over that the characters are flat and easy to identify who are the good guys and bad guys. I agree with this. I theorize this was done intentionally, as it is consistent with all her novels (which I will add that I own and have read her complete novel-anthology). And it was so as to not cloud her philosophical underpinnings, which again, is consistent in all her novels.
If you wanted to truncate her novels to extract the philosophical underpinnings, D'Anconia's speech as shown here; Galt's speech later in this book; Roark's speech while he's on trial in "The Fountainhead"; The instant "WE" becomes "I" in "Anthem".
If you prefer reading her philosophical material without the guise of a novel:
"The Romantic Manifesto"
"The Virtue of Selfishness"
"Philosophy: Who Needs It?"
I may be your lone up-vote tonght. I hope it counts more than 20 mindless ones. I sleep better at night knowing there are at least a few who've done the reading before expressing an opinion. Thank you.
Of course, No Debt, I did both. I thought it touching that Maloney got so choked up when reading to his audience what he believes is profound truth. However, my views continue to be those expressed above.
Tricking people into thinking the fed is a gov agency, forcing them to pay income tax to such private entity, and blowing up skyscrapers and blaming it on imaginary boogeymen is the root of all evil
If not the root, then at least a branch or fruit, and absolutely evil.
Who did the tricking?
Who did the forcing?
Who did the blowing-up?
Who blamed it on imaginary boogeymen?
The answers to these questions will point to the real evil!
To those who watched the entire video. It is clear that Maloney is no Brando. He is not an actor. He is a class act.
http://capitalismmagazine.com/2002/08/franciscos-money-speech
Francisco (via Ayn Rand) would disagree
"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 rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you, you may know that your society is doomed." - Ayn Rand
That is some strong and true words right there.
Yeah yeah....think about it.
My wife who wants me to buy her more stuff is the root of all evil.
I like tradin' with friends and neighbors, myself.
.
"Yes, yes it is. Give it all to me so you'll be safe."
Ollie Gark
Spas- Had to up vote you even though I'm an AR fan. That was just funny.
It's the love of money:
1 Tim 6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
What constitutes "money" has been questioned for thousands of years. Jesus was most PO'd in the Scriptures when he turned the tables on the money changers in the temple. Based on that, I would guess He was very well aware of how money is used for control purposes. Having a third party, that establishes and controls value, enter into a transaction between two parties can really muddy the waters.
So, just to sum up...its NOT money that's evil. It's the love of it.
And money can't buy happiness, but the lack of it can make you pretty unhappy.. - someone famous
It's been said on Zerohedge that having enough money to ensure your basic needs are met allows you to focus on the real problems in your life.
I do not remember who it is credited to but there is an expression that is fitting:(paraphrased) " Most often, more of something is just more. But, a whole lot more is sometimes something completely different"
For most, more money means things like: more freedom (options), opportunity to expand personally ,provide comfort , joy and opportunities for others(ie.children) and less stress about the future. For the uber-wealthy, the ones who have everything personally they could imagine; it means something "completely different". It translates to power. More specifically the power to command ones will over others.
Oye. I believe in sound money... and watch everything from Mike but... the definition of greed according to Wikipedia is "intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth power or food". Mike Maloney thankfully recovered from an horrific accident in his Tesla Roadster. The $120,000 Roadster he was driving is built for speed and acceleration... entertainment and luxury. A play toy for the wealthy elite. I have no doubt that Mike is crying in this video as he quotes about the evil of "mootches" that drain wealth from "productive" members of society. Unfortunately i suspect it just is what it looks like... a wealthy elite crying and whelping over even the thought that someone might try todrain some of his fortunes away. Without the desire for something you are unlikely to achieve it. On the other hand wealth flows in huge proportion to those who have "an intense and selfish desire for wealth and power". Make no mistake, while Mike may be right about gold, when he is crying in this video he cries for himself.
Mike is crying because Ayn Rand's words ring so true for the situation in America today.
It can be dangerous to your health.
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/03/05/bitcoin-firm-ceo-found-dead-in-su...
America is being destroyed by large (and prevously capitalistic) banks, MIC and other monopolistic corporations. It is the job of the SEC and other gov regulators to stop these monopolies but they have been corrupted and bribed by those very same corporations. Example: Glass Steagal, implemented after years of depression era suffering, was good gov regulation on the banks for 66 years and it has been corrupted. Without public vigilance this is the natural evolution of unregulated capitalism: a monopolistic corporate state. Government was supposed to regulate this but they are now wholly part of the beast and must be slain also to restore competetive capitalism.
What can you do before the coming melt down?
1. demand honest money (gold and silver)
2. support the underground economy
3. Avoid taxes any way you can. It's patriotic to withhold payments to a cuorrupt corporate state
4. Be as self sufficient as you can. It will help you in the future
5. Join a network of like minded people.
After years of trying #5, I had to give up, find my own hidden place in the extreme boonies, and build self-sufficient digs for myself.
Why so? I have my own general theories, but obviously the answer is not the same for everyone.
One important reason is, very few humans are committed to honesty, ethics, liberty and production. That eliminates the vast majority of humans from being viable collaborators.
Another important reason is, even people who more-or-less believe in honesty, ethics, liberty and production succumb to various forms of statist bankster propaganda designed to push them into debt, or at the very least, never accumulate any significant savings. Without savings, individuals assume they have no ability to collaborate on anything of significance, and so they don't.
And perhaps finally, very few individuals are thoroughly individualistic, or even understand what that means in practice. In my opinion, individualism is as near to necessary as any attribute can be without being an absolute necessity. Only humans with a significant streak of individualism in their being will walk away from the life they habituated in the heart of corruption, and strike out for new places where they have a good chance to live almost unmolested by the predators-that-be and the predator-class.
So I agree with the list, but only #1 to #4 are practical... unless you are very, very lucky, I suppose. Fortunately for me, I love a solitary life in the middle of nowhere, but I do recognize that collaborations can make possible what otherwise we cannot achieve alone. As it turns out, I am involved in one very important collaboration, but with people I only see in person once a decade or so.
PS: I suppose a simple "network" is worth something, but compared to a real collaboration, not that much.
The network I am a member of are the ocean sailors of the world from all countries who go where and when they choose to any non land locked place on earth. Where do I meet some of them? Assisting each other as line handlers to transit the Panama canal is one of the many places. I'm sure they don't all hold PMs but they certainly are fiercly independant and self sufficient in the extreme and many of them are not in any way financially well off. The people I have met in that community are truly unique and I am proud to be one of them.
That's great! You know, I just missed buying a 129 foot luxury yacht just before I moved to the boonies. Unfortunately I made my offer one day too late. Otherwise I'm sure I'd be part of your network. It was a once in a lifetime awesome opportunity, and I knew I'd never get another chance to buy such a gorgeous solid ironwood and teak sailing vessel (with engines) at anywhere near the price, so that was that.
Believe me, the idea of not living in any of the endless fiat jurisdictions on this planet is very attractive. Of course, there are inconveniences of such a life too, but... I'd love that.
As it turned out, I'm stuck as a land-lubber now, until I can drag my butt off this planet, which is where I really want to go anyway. At least I have a nice little airplane that can fly 4000+ km on a single load of fuel (or 6000+ km with extra fuel blatters in the cabin), so I'm quite mobile when I want to be. And I've visited about 10 island groups in the south pacific in my little airplane, and never once messed with passports, visas, ports, airports, officials or anything else. With GPS and careful preparation, I find out of the way places to land on back roads, dirt roads, fields or even moutain ridges and flats (only need ~40 meters to land and ~80 meters for takeoff).
But... living large on south pacific waters would be fabulous. Good for you!
PS: Also during my search for a place to move, I almost bought a ~1.2km x ~0.4km island in that far western chain off of Fiji. There was another totally awesome opportunity... a totally freaking gorgeous island of sufficient size with over 2km of white sand beaches (in 3 sections) with a ridge down the middle with a 80m altitude high point. At a cool million, that was more than I could manage myself. But as always, I could not find a collaborator/partner. I can't tell you how many mind-blowing awesome properties at amazingly low prices I found in the 6 years I searched the world... and every single one of them was 2 to 3 times what I could afford (my savings).
From my exploration and research, I learned that once price passes $600K ~ $800K, one can get 5x, 10x, sometimes even 50x more per dollar than typical properties ($250K ~ $350K). But humans are so stupidly conventional, when shown opportunities like this, are blown away by the jaw-dropping gorgeous super-high quality 8000 sqft properties with dozens to hundreds of hectares of land, gorgeous views, and so forth... but turn away and instead pay $350K for some 2000 sqft piece of cardboard on 1/13 acre in some cookie cutter subdivision in [pick your town]. Humans are so lame.
No. "The private control of the money supply is the root of all evil."**
Ergo, the Rothschilds are the root of all evil.
** You see, Kirk was actually paying attention to all the ZH articles and postings, and I don't easily get distracted by flashy, noisy, jumping things. :-)
America is being destroyed by the prevalence of some very bad ideas.
And no one tells about it-and offers the right alternatives-like Ayn Rand.
Alan Greenspan was an Ayn Rand acolyte and a member of the inner circle (jokingly called “The Collective).” Allegedly, Greenspan was the person who sent the large floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign displayed at her funeral. The fact that Maloney would cry while reading Rand speaks volumes about Maloney. Perhaps Maloney is really crying about the current price of gold since he’s been predicting that it was “going through the roof!” over the last four years-
http://www.thevoicemagazine.com/money-finances-business/economy/5000-gol...
Before anyone gets all misty eyed over Ayn Rand, they should do themselves a favor and read this-
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/11/09/091109fa_fact_mallon?curre...
and –
http://www.amazon.com/The-Rand-Cult-Jeff-Walker/dp/0812693906/ref=sr_1_1...
There’s plenty of evidence that Rand was a psychopath as well as a chain-smoking Benzedrine addict. It’s supremely ironic and wonderfully hypocritical that Ayn Rand would be a special guest at Greenspan’s swearing-in ceremony as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and later Fed Chair-
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/31/1126279/-Inequality-Is-The-Poin...
By the way, Greenspan was often criticized for being the worst economic forecaster on Wall Street.
he was the best economic forecaster. he kept all his money in treasuries during the biggest, longest bull market in bonds in history. he knew what he was doing.
"There’s plenty of evidence that Rand was a psychopath as well as a chain-smoking Benzedrine addict."
Do you care to dispute some of her work, or just cast a light on some of the seedier aspects of her life?
Ayn Rand’s personal life is rife with hypocrisy and this casts doubt on her work. She could not live according to her own philosophy and this is illustrative. If Ayn Rand’s life wasn’t the embodiment of Objectivism than who’s life could? Therein lies the fundamental flaw of this “philosophy” and can be seen in the dogmatism that runs through her novels.
There are many examples of logical inconsistencies if one cares to look. For example, the issue of military service for one’s country. Why would a true “egoist” sacrifice anything for their country? In a Randian world no one could be forced to fight… there could be no draft. Her solution was to compel those not willing to fight to leave the country; voluntarily, of course.
Another example, Rand found it difficult to name ANY country in human history that had the remotest allegiance to her ideals. Hong Kong was the closest that she would grudgingly acknowledge. The reason why no country could even approach her version of laissez faire capitalism is that all human societies naturally form governments and these governments will (naturally) be composed of elite members of society. Even in small groups, governments will form spontaneously. Elites will rule and the question is how to limit their power so as not to create a kind of slave society dominated by a few (the history of mankind until recently) Ayn Rand was no friend of democracy. In fact, her philosophy is supportive of a plutocracy.
Michael, if I were not monad I would be John Galt.
I am a polymath in action, not title. I am the best. I have it. They can't can't. They destroy.
Let them go.
One life, one chance.
no, love of money is
No. The LOVE of money is the root of all evil.
Please quote correctly...
I'm a 100% hetrosexual man however I love Mike Maloney. Wow, what a place to work. This is a very dedicated and serious man about what is money. Having read Ayn Rand's We the living, we named our daughter Kira after the Ayn Rand like character. Kira is now a very successful capitalist adult. She also read Ayn Rand. If I could name another boy, it might be Mike as I am grateful for his insight.
Money may not buy happiness, but you can pull your yacht up close enough to walk the rest of the way. David Lee Roth
Actually, when one thinks about it, it is "power" that is at the root of all evil.
Someone works hard and with a little luck becomes rich serving his fellow man: Dunkin Donuts, etc. No problem.
The problems begin when they use or turn to using violence, government, to protect and/or expand their business: Comcast, etc.
The real evil starts when some turn to violence, government, to protect their criminal activities and scams: Banksters, etc.
And what evil must be in the soul of someone that serves this evil as a pol or crat.
"Guillotines cut out evil."
Very true and very sad.
The problem with all these "true but sad" statements is that they create a state of powerlessness which is detrimental to a sound and productive life.
Money under the current Fed manipulated financial environment has no relation to anything referenced in the video. Until the current artificial environment eventually implodes on itself, money bears no relation to store of value or any other quality it might have previously held. The financially engineered distortions in the current environment did not exist nor were even dreamed of in Rand's time. Things truly are different now. And not for the better. We are truly through the looking glass and into neverland with no clue as to how we will ever get back. I feel confident that it is not sustainable in the long term. How long we can keep keep the top spinning and what will happen when and how it stops is unknowable as we have never been this far into neverland before.
Money is a necessary tool just like your car or vacuum cleaner. You wouldn't worship your vacuum would you?
For many guys money buys good time and pussies. For the super rich money buys government and more power. For me money buys my freedom from drudgery and slavery. I ain't greedy but I do want my liberty.
“No servant can serve two masters at the same time. He will hate one of them and love the other. Or he will be faithful to one and dislike the other. You can’t serve God and Money at the same time.” Lk 16
Sound money is far from the root of all evil, currency has the potential... with overissuance or fiat being the root.