you don't need a weatherman

The New York Times today ran a story called The Reckoning: Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy. The basic theme of the piece can be deduced from this... "Clearly, derivatives are a centerpiece of the crisis, and [Alan Greenspan] was the leading proponent of the deregulation of derivatives," said Frank Partnoy, a law professor at the University of San Diego and an expert on financial regulation. Now, what I know about financial regulation wouldn't cover the period at the end of this sentence. But I do know a little something about Alan Greenspan. Even before reading the article, I knew it would at least touch on his lifelong "intellectual" relationship with Ayn Rand. And sure enough... A professed libertarian, he counted among his formative influences the novelist Ayn Rand, who portrayed collective power as an evil force set against the enlightened self-interest of individuals. In turn, he showed a resolute faith that those participating in financial markets would act responsibly. So hey, in the aftermath of the biggest clusterfuck ripoff in the history of the republic, let's hear it for Virtue and Responsibility and Freedom. Would you like fries with that?

have you seen your mother, baby, standing in the shadows?

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