The Gang of Four who helped lead us into the worst Recession in History with an ideology that government must be weak and step aside for unregulated free market capitalism, and generate wealth by eliminating taxes on the unearned income of the wealthy. You know, unearned as in not going to work like you do. Spotting the hardcore ideological descendents of these people is mostly a matter of counting the amount of times they use the terms statism or classical liberal in a sentence.
Ayn Rand – Author or Atlas Shrugged – the story of the perpetual motion machine (free energy) and how it was suppressed by the greatest evil in human history, The Government.
Rand is also the author of The Virtue of Selfishness which presents the fundamental principles which permeate her entire body of work – that self interest is the be-all and end-all of human existence, while any form of altruism (helping people) is evil and immoral. Really! No kidding! Funny hat and cigarette holder aside…
Her followers today are right-wing extremists. Mostly members of the Libertarian Party who have found Nirvana in trying to make Mad Max movies our future. Her political philosophy has taken root in conservative circles and the Republican Party, but her true followers – under the auspices of Reason and Objectivity – are often insanely intense.
An example of this can be found at Modern Library top 100 list where the people vote for the greatest books. In the top ten books ever written, Ayn Rand beats L. Ron Hubbard four to three. 7 of the top 10 books in the world are by Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard! It doesn’t get much sillier than that! Beware the Freeper
Milton Friedman – Author of the 1962 best seller, Capitalism and Freedom that catapulted him far above his head. Following Ayn Rand he put her philosophy into studies and formulas at the University of Chicago. Again it is the same theme as Ayn Rand, greed is the ideal, the individual wallet always trumps the common good.
Pluralism, a system where the best economic and political ideals are mixed together is out of the question for these laissez faire dogs.
Since the economy tanked – by following Milt’s studies and formulas – the University of Chicago has deferred naming a new building after him. After all, Rand, Friedman and the next character listed has lost us (the world), just this year, $40 trillion dollars. And it will get a lot worse.
Alan Greenspan – Appointed as the Federal Reserve Chairman by President Ronald Reagan, Greenspan – another follower of Ayn Rand – lorded over the agency for 20 years. Columnist and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman claims that Alan Greenspan – under his central belief in a self regulating market – is most to blame for our current Recession. Even Greenspan himself had to take some responsibility when he said on Oct 22, 2008:
“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organizations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders.”
Ronald Reagan – Special mention to our 40th President Ronald Reagan who with his nice hair, well written q-cards and homespun dialog managed to put the ideologies of all three of these losers into one small sentence.
“Government is not the solution, government is the problem.”
That nice sounding lie reverberated throughout the world and the construction of the house of cards began.
The world of financial tricks and treats. Built upon massive credit and cascading fees as incentive to push out more loans, the bigger the better.
In their hearts all four of these people knew the house of cards they built would one day fall, but not until they and theirs had snorted it up and took their limos to their shiney city on the hill.
A moment of silence please to all the multi Billionaires who have been reduced to Billionaires… You have to be there to understand the pain.