Rand blogging

I'm doing another reading of my DARK MARKET play in a week, and this time for a director I've worked with in the past and whom I hope to work with again. So I will be doing some re-writing and so will have Ayn Rand on the brain this week (ugh!) and will be doing a lot of Rand-blogging.

First up: Krugman is not impressed by Alan Greenspan, and in fact:

I guess we wait for confirmation before adding this to the file of examples establishing Maestrodamus as the worst ex-Fed chairman in history. But consider the notion that this group regards AG as an authority figure. 

Never mind the bubble denial; almost five years have passed since Greenspan declared that we were on the verge of becoming Greece, Greece I tell you, and wrote one of the most awesomely terrible passages in the history of economic policy:

Despite the surge in federal debt to the public during the past 18 months—to $8.6 trillion from $5.5 trillion—inflation and long-term interest rates, the typical symptoms of fiscal excess, have remained remarkably subdued. This is regrettable, because it is fostering a sense of complacency that can have dire consequences.

Yep: he was annoyed at the markets for failing to deliver the crisis he was expecting, and considered it “regrettable” that the crisis had not arrived.

I've been a fan of Krugman since at least 2001 when I realized he was one of the few pundits not swept up by the raging war-fever in response to the 9-11 attacks. So his detestation of Ayn Rand and her admirers, which of course very much includes Greenspan, is just a bonus. But I love it so much.

And Krugman has more than a passing acquaintance with her work, as was obvious to me by his blog post entitled Obamacare, the Unknown Ideal - you have to be pretty up on your Rand bibliography to get that one - Rand published a collection of essays called Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal which includes pieces by Greenspan.

I Tech has made the first essay What is Capitalism? available online in (poorly photocopied images) PDF format.