• • Capitalism is killing our morals, our future; Commentary: In a Market Society, everything is for sal 
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Capitalism  | Capitalism is eliminating moral values, as Nobel economist Milton Friedman and capitalism’s philosopher Ayn Rand had been preaching to the generation. As [Harvard philosopher Michael] Sandel puts it: “Each party to a deal decides for him- or herself what value to place on the things being exchanged. This nonjudgmental stance toward values lies at the heart of market reasoning, and explains much of its appeal.” But unfortunately, market capitalism “has exacted a heavy price ... drained public discourse of moral and civic energy.”      View blog reactions

• • Critical Warning No. 13: Stockman’s ‘Apocalypse’ 
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Capitalism  | [David] Stockman’s aggressive attack makes it painfully clear that [...] the conservative dogma of Nobel economist Milton Friedman and its high priestess Ayn Rand, of Fed dictators Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, of budget hawk Paul Ryan and his Tea Party mercenaries is now imbedded in American politics, on the left as well as right, deep in our DNA and our souls.      View blog reactions

• • 10 explosive bubbles that will kill capitalism 
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Capitalism  | In an update to his 1998 book, “A World Transformed,” [Brent] Scowcroft says, “once we were viewed as trying to do our best for everyone: now we are seen a being preoccupied with our own special interests,” a myopic vision that reflects the trend among many politicians to govern using Ayn Rand’s extreme capitalism. [....] Bottom line: America’s new Ayn Rand style of extreme capitalism is self-destructive.      View blog reactions

• • • Capitalism is so broken it can’t be fixed 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | Rand’s ideas have a lot to do with polarizing American politics. In her classic, “Atlas Shrugged,” a capitalist elite engages in perpetual class warfare for the soul of America, fighting society’s “moochers, looters and parasites,” anyone and everyone demanding government money to solve their problems. More recently this has become the rhetoric of the ideological war between “makers and takers.”      View blog reactions

• • • Ayn Rand: Patron saint or soulless capitalist? 
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Altruism  |Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  |Egoism  |Individualism  |Image  | [S]oon the commanding inner voice of Ayn Rand’s extreme capitalism that’s now imbedded deep in America’s emerging conservative conscience will, as did Roark’s building, blow up Adam Smith’s grand design, the Cathedral of Capitalism, taking down the financial markets, triggering an economic collapse bigger than 2008 and profoundly handicapping America’s political destiny as the global super-power. At least that’s the liberal narrative.      View blog reactions

• Presidential Sector Investing: That’s rich 
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Capitalism  |Paul Ryan  | For the average investor, it doesn’t really matter who’s President, Romney or Obama. [....] How about if you’re a Wall Street bank CEO? You love America’s anarchistic government. And you definitely want a new and very conservative Treasury secretary, maybe even Paul Ryan. Some one to defund the SEC, CFTC, that new Consumer Financial Protection Agency and void all new Dodd-Frank regulations to create a pure free-market capitalist society as taught by Ryan’s economic guru Ayn Rand. Plus maybe we can finally get a flat tax and finally privatize Social Security to add to Wall Street’s casino.      View blog reactions

• • • Halftime in America? More like sudden death 
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Altruism  |Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  |Egoism  | Unfortunately, Smith’s original 1776 capitalist economic ideas have been turned upside down and enshrined in the extreme ideology of Ayn Rand, the patron saint of today’s Super Rich. In “The Fountainhead,” Ayn Rand hints at the inevitable destiny of capitalism. The leading character Howard Roark is the ultimate individualist, an idealistic architect and archetypal free-market capitalist. Enraged when some second-rate competitors compromise the integrity of his plans for a modern building, he seeks revenge, takes the law into his own hands, sneaks onto the construction site at night, dynamites the construction, destroying it. “The Fountainhead” is a perfect metaphor for today’s self-sabotaging capitalism.      View blog reactions

• • • Top hedge fund mixes Ayn Rand, behavioral psych 
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Alan Greenspan  |Altruism  |Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal  |The Fountainhead  |The Virtue of Selfishness  |Egoism  |Image  | Ayn Rand, high priestess of capitalism, reincarnated in an American hedge fund? Deep in the collective conscience of the world’s leading hedge fund, the $122 billion Bridgewater? Yes, Rand’s spirit is alive, in the vision of the iconic Ray Dalio, the perfect capitalist, 55th on the 2010 Forbes 400 with $5 billion, a guy who could easily be cast as Howard Roark, the ultimate individualist in “The Fountainhead.” Here’s his secret: Why his flagship fund Pure Alpha II returned 44.8% in 2010.      View blog reactions

• • • Ayn Rand’s ‘Death of the Soul of Capitalism’ 
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Altruism  |Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  |Egoism  |Individualism  |Inaccurate  | “Atlas Shrugged” is Ayn Rand’s most popular work. A mysterious rebel leader John Galt saves America from economic ruin. But before we rise from the ashes, before the redemption, comes the blowup. And for that, let’s turn to my favorite, “The Fountainhead,” where Rand offers a subtle hint of capitalism’s eventual demise and self-inflicted death. In “The Fountainhead” Howard Roark is the ultimate individualist, an idealistic architect and archetypal free-market capitalist. Enraged when second-rate competitors compromise the integrity of his plans for a modern building, Roark seeks revenge, takes the law into his own hands and, in a terrorist act, sneaks onto the construction site in the dark of night and dynamites the building — kaboom — destroying it.      View blog reactions

• 2008 crash deja vu: We’ll relive it, and soon 
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Alan Greenspan  |Capitalism  | During the 18-month run-up from July 2007 to the 2008 crash, our leaders, Paulson and Bernanke, were misleading everyone: Paulson, “best economy seen in my professional life.” Bernanke, “the subprime loan crisis is contained.” And earlier Greenspan, a myopic Reaganomics-Ayn Rand clone who later recanted, said the problems were just some “regional froth.”      View blog reactions

• 10 Doomsday trends America can’t survive 
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Alan Greenspan  |Capitalism  |Paul Ryan  | [Super-Rich Capitalists] want Americans to follow their rigid doctrine: In Milton Friedman’s 1962 “Capitalism and Freedom,” the bible of Reaganomics; In Ayn Rand’s manifestos that guided Alan Greenspan and now Paul Ryan; and in Steve Forbes post-meltdown apologia, “How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets Are the Best Answer in Today’s Economy.”      View blog reactions

• Fed dictator Bernanke needs to be toppled 
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Alan Greenspan  |Capitalism  | Bernanke’s ruling ideology is the culmination of a 30-year economic war that has forged together Reaganomics for the super rich, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s toxic allegiance to Wall Street, the extreme Ayn Rand’s capitalist dogma, culminating in the toxic bailouts of Treasury Secretaries Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner, two Wall Street Trojan Horses corrupting government from within.      View blog reactions

• Kamikaze capitalism: GOP out to destroy 
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Alan Greenspan  |Capitalism  | Economist Milton Friedman’s Disaster Capitalism attacked Social Security. His free-market ideology created the new Reaganomics, Fed boss Alan Greenspan, philosopher Ayn Rand, even Bill Clinton, all were part of an ideological conspiracy that deregulated Wall Street, led to today’s $670 trillion derivative trading casino and a global shadow banking system, the root cause of the 2008 meltdown.      View blog reactions

• Sell bonds now, Fed’s QE2 is doomed to fail 
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Capitalism  | Odds are Obama will be replaced by an ultra-conservative president whose brain will be driven by the discredited ideologies of Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand and Reaganomics … a political scenario guaranteed to trigger another, bigger economic meltdown that will push America into a long Japan-style recession.      View blog reactions

• Commodity ETFs: Toxic, deadly, evil 
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Capitalism  | Rolling Stone’s McKenzie Funk adds another brutal critique in “Will Global Warming, Overpopulation, Floods, Droughts and Food Riots Make This Man Rich?” Funk focuses on Phil Heilberg, a former AIG commodity trader who is one of the new “Capitalists of Chaos.” Heilberg is a self-proclaimed pure Ayn Rand capitalist hustling Africa, making “land grab” deals to control millions of acres and commodity rights in unstable nations.      View blog reactions

• • President Obama vs. Goldman’s Reaganomics 
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Capitalism  | For decades Rand was Greenspan's conservative guru: "When I say 'capitalism,' I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism ... the only system that can make freedom, individuality, and the pursuit of values possible in practice because capitalism demands the best of every man -- his rationality -- and rewards him accordingly ... free ... to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him." Rand and her disciple Greenspan demanded total, unrestricted freedom for Wall Street.      View blog reactions

• • Obama’s ‘predictably irrational’ economic policies 
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Capitalism  | [Alan Greenspan] Ayn Rand-ishly facilitated the progressive dismantling of governmental restrictions on financial behavior.      View blog reactions

• • Financial innovation is Wall Street’s new ‘soul sickness’ 
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Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  | Look closely and see clear signs of immoral, even criminal, misconduct fueling Wall Street's obsession with unregulated financial innovation. To fully understand why, you need to see financial innovation in the broader, historical context of the emerging new American capitalism. [....] 2. [Alan] Greenspan and Ayn Rand, author of 'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas Shrugged'. Rand was Greenspan's guru and mentor. For decades they had a profound impact on American capitalism. Rand was dogmatic: "When I say 'capitalism,' I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism, with a separation of economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as a separation of state and church." Why? "Capitalism is the only system that can make freedom, individuality, and the pursuit of values possible in practice because capitalism demands the best of every man -- his rationality -- and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him." Rand captured the conservative spirit of the emerging American capitalism, and through her disciple, both demanded total, unrestricted freedom for Wall Street.      View blog reactions

• Paul Krugman, meet Dr Sigmund Freud 
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Capitalism  | An imagined conversation.
[Freud:] There will always be economists and politicians who are not enamored with liberalism nor with behavioral economics. They believe passionately in free-market conservatism, in Friedman, Reaganomics and, yes, even in Ayn Rand.      View blog reactions

• Whodunit? 27 ‘villains’ planning ‘Doomsday 2011’ 
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Capitalism  | Another great villain: Alan Greenspan's obsession and blind faith in the free market capitalism cult of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman that kept interest rates low and set up the subprime meltdown.      View blog reactions