• • Gold And Silver - Ayn Rand, Sir Walter Scott, and Nearing “Crunch Time” 
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Alan Greenspan  |Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  |Personal life  | "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 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"
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.

Leave it to a foreigner, and a woman, to describe the future course of the United States in a single, cogent paragraph.      View blog reactions

• • S & P - Ayn Rand nailed this over a half century ago! 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | It is simply amazing that a Russian-born woman had such insight into the shift of a free capitalist society to what has devolved into a government-run market. This was back in 1957, when Atlas Shrugged was published, panned by many critics, but very popular with the public. It remains one of the most popular books of the 20th Century. One might think Miss Rand wrote a letter to the editor just the other day: “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 money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and 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.” – Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged, page 413.      View blog reactions