From the Economist:
Whenever governments intervene in the market, in short, readers rush to buy Rand's book. Why? The reason is explained by the name of a recently formed group on Facebook, the world's biggest social-networking site: "Read the news today? It's like `Atlas Shrugged' is happening in real life". The group, and an expanding chorus of fretful bloggers, reckon that life is imitating art. Some were reminded of Rand's gifted physicist, Robert Stadler, cravenly disavowing his faith in reason for political favour, when Alan Greenspan, an acolyte of Rand's, testified before a congressional committee last October that he had found a "flaw in the model" of securitisation. And with pirates hijacking cargo ships, politicians castigating corporate chieftains, riots in Europe and slowing international trade--all of which are depicted in the book--this melancholy meme has plenty of fodder.
Some were reminded of Rand's gifted physicist, Robert Stadler, cravenly disavowing his faith in reason for political favour, when Alan Greenspan, an acolyte of Rand's, testified before a congressional committee last October that he had found a "flaw in the model" of securitisation. And with pirates hijacking cargo ships, politicians castigating corporate chieftains, riots in Europe and slowing international trade--all of which are depicted in the book--this melancholy meme has plenty of fodder.
melancholy meme... barf. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
His thesis is that no one who reads them with a mature mind can find them aught but drivel. The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
