Edmond Dantes

Two things: 1) If Bitcoin (or something like it) ever does substantially threaten the Dollar, the government will outlaw it. But it won't threaten it because... 2) Bitcoin can never compete with the Dollar because it's not allowed to be issued as physical currency. The convenience and flexibility of carrying around little paper "contracts" that are so open-ended that literally millions of people will take them (and don't have to check to make sure you are who you say you are, or that you actually have the Bitcoins) is unassailable.

I think that's probably about right.

To be fair, Binswanger's comment wasn't that it was "good news" that BB died; only that it "wasn't exactly sad news." Maybe he didn't mean it sarcastically? Maybe he meant it quite literally? Perhaps it was his subtle way of saying that she wasn't a good person that one should be "officially sad" about dying, but neither was she completely undeserving of any degree of sadness?

Of course, when David Kelley tried to do the same things with Libertarians that Biddle now allows for, he was denounced as being subconsciously motivated by a desire to defang Objectivism by having it conflated with Libertarianism. It's curious if Biddle would have said the same things he did in that article had he not also felt ARI's (read: Peikoff's) wrath over the John McCaskey controversy, and therefore has nothing to lose. I'll say this for him though: at least he's willing to discuss - if not admit - the issues that make him a transparent hypocrite. The ARI personnel won't even do that. When they associate with "faith-based capitalists", it's just supposed to be accepted without any derision.

The problem I have with people like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, et al is that they decide, in their formative years, that they are going to work in politics in some capacity, and that becomes an end in itself. How they get/maintain their involvement in politics - ie: which ideas they hold - is secondary. A means to an end. So it goes with philosophers. There is only so much of Ayn Rand's legacy to go around. Only so many people who can make (or at least substantially supplement) a living by being Objectivists. But, because such people made it up in their minds long ago that they were going to be professional intellectuals, they will violate their own principles in order to ensure that that happens/continues. They will invent or exaggerate flaws in their competitor's ideas and/or character simply to make/ensure room for themselves. This, unfortunately, is what happened with The Brandens. Whether or not you agree or disagree with what was said about them (and I agree with much), nothing they did deserves the kind of sarcastic callousness that Binswanger expressed at the news of Barbara's death. Save that for the Clintons and Obamas of the world, Harry.

"Logic." In what rationalistic, context-less universe? Are you seriously trying to tell me that having 51 units of worthlessness is better than having 50? Simply because Sally and Jimmy know how to react to economic fluctuations - at least 50% of which are politically-caused (so say nothing of the indirect distortions in motivation) - and as a result come out ahead, doesn't mean that they've expanded their real wealth. It's one thing to say that Sally doesn't think ipods will ever replace CDs, so the market takes her money and gives it to Jimmy who does - but it's another thing entirely to say that Sally is wrong because she doesn't think that moving from CDs to ipods at all costs (ie: at the cost of being able to create the basic necessities of life) is the most advantageous long-term use of her resources. Back before the government made conservative, low-risk, predictably profitable (because they were based upon production that was adding objective and proportionate value to people's lives)... back before predictably profitable investments were effectively outlawed (to pay for the welfare state, etc), Sally's opinion would have been seen as the rational one. Simply because Jimmy and everyone else is too stupid to see that the demand for ipods isn't because "those other, simpler things have been taken care of" (but rather because they are being taken care of at the expense of our freedoms, international credibility, and even our national security) - and such people benefit as a result of their actions - doesn't mean that they're right. You can sit there and insist that the ability to pull up just about any movie you want to watch within a matter of minutes (instead of having to get in the car, drive to the video rental store, etc), is some stupendous achievement, but it doesn't cancel out the fact that the time you saved only needed to be save because you had to spend extra time on the clock (because inflation, regulation, and taxation continues to rise, while your hourly wage remains the same) or the commute (because you can't live close enough to be able to walk to work unless you want to be killed by an inner city gang member who's hard up because he just spent the last of your paycheck/his welfare check on Chinese-made designer sneakers)? How much cheaper do you think gasoline, for instance, would be if we didn't have to cow tow to the Middle East - because China, India, and Japan need their oil (most of ours comes from Canada and Latin America) - so that we can continue to get what those countries manufacture? Yes, 51 is greater than 50 - but only if a whole bunch of other 50's are becoming 49's in 4 or 5 other aspects of one's life at the same time.

As I said in my original post on this thread, it isn't that people like Blankfein or your neighbor* engage in that sort of behavior, it's that they do so for no other reason than their own personal agrandizement. It's predatory - and just because doing it may cancel out the negative effects of the same sorts of predatory actions that others take against them doesn't change that. I'm by no means saying that you shouldn't engage in such activities, I'm simply saying that if you do, you should see it for what it is (and, as I said, take whatever benefit you receive from it and dedicate it solely to making it - by whatever means necessary - so that such activities aren't required in order to also do legitimate business activities. I would consider that just as "Roarkian" as working in a quarry). *I should point out that the example of your neighbor isn't the same as the examples of Goldman's behavior that the OP listed. It's apples to oranges. Your neighbor is simply paying "protection money" so that he can do something he should have every right to do anyway. I'm sure Goldman does such things too (ie: that a significant portion of it's "government insider favors" are simply bribes in order to be left alone), but they also do things on that actively harm competing businesses and individuals. I don't think it's the scale that makes them worse, it's that.

That's cute, but that extra dollar is still borrowed. It still doesn't change the fact that Sally sells a zombie video game app that Andy, Johnny, and Bobby play in leiu of their homework or mowing the lawn. Or that Jimmy sells credit default swaps because Sally bought more house than she needed (and Mary and Amy are willing to buy them because they need to make a quick buck in order to keep little Andy, Johnny, and Bobby happy by having the newest video game for them come Christmas time). I'm not disagreeing with you that money lending, per se, is a productive activity. I'm simply pointing out that all of the "production" it's facilitating today isn't productive (and that it's only our government's massive foreign borrowing that neutralizes the consequences). That extra dollar isn't making our lives better. It's simply (temporarily) keeping them from getting worse.

Nicky, It wasn't a personal attack. I was describing the psychology of the people we are discussing, not you. That is, after all, the topic of this discussion. I regret that you misunderstood that. Nothing you said discredits my argument. Debt "owed to ourselves", or to Westernized institutions in other countries, is still debt. It still indicates a lack of productivity (or, more precisely, value added as a result of what is produced). It still doesn't change the fact that we're dependent upon foreign (ie: state-controlled, even if not officially) industrial infrastructures for the fundamentals of civilized life. It isn't an indication of "great plans for the future", it's an indication that everyone everywhere is trying to game everyone else. I won't quibble with you about who owes who what, because it doesn't matter. Ultimately it is all dependent upon the ability of our government to farm out the consequences. What do you think would happen to the consumer credit markets if, suddenly, the Federal Government started paying it foreign debts? I mean really paying them? As in: taking real wealth from Americans and shipping it overseas? The lenders would immediately start calling in their loans in order to cover their own asset losses, and the price of consumer credit would skyrocket (sending the average American household's already impossible requirement to go 10 months without any consumption in order to get out of debt to 3, 4, maybe 5 years). The figure of $17.3 trillion is a reflection of what the government has done in order to keep the illusion of prosperity at home floating along. It's is nothing more than the government shouldering the burden of our own profligacy because, as I alluded to in my earlier post, it is the one institution that everyone (most importantly foreign powers) is afraid to stand up to.

This is absurd. America is over $17.3 trillion in debt. Up from $1.3 trillion just 30 years ago. Do you think this is because Americans have been as economically productive as they had always been, but just started living at 13 times their income? Of course not. It's because their actual productivity has declined, while their standard of living has stubbornly not. Figuring out gimmicks to get people to spend money that they should be putting towards debt reduction isn't productive - even if it takes just as much effort, and even if just as many dollars change hands. It's Brownian Motion. The only reason why Facebook and cheeseburgers with pretzel buns enrich people to the degree that the Bessemer process and moving oil through pipelines (instead of by rail) did in times past is because, as a result of extraordinary credibility (and an extraordinarily powerful military) we have been given the fruits of the labors of 2 billion+ proxy slaves in places like China and India by their politically-powerful owners (so long as we give them their cut - and the rights to our hypothetical future production). This - and this alone - is what makes today's ability to track your pizza delivery step by step on your cell phone seem like the introduction of pennicilin or vulcanized rubber. The third world's proxy-slaves receive a fraction of the value that they create (and it doesn't matter if it's a greater amount, in real terms, than they were creating and receiving before "trade" with The West, or that they are ultimately responsible for their own governments - it remains an emperical fact)... so that Americans can continue to sit pretty despite everyone being either perpetually in college or selling pet supplies for a living (a $55 billion industry in 2011; more than the GDP of Britain). This is what puts money in the pockets of people like Blankfein, and simply because it also puts money in the pocket of the man on the street doesn't change what it is. Psychologically speaking, what kind of mind can evade all of that? Certainly not a rational, honest, ethical one.

Toohey is telling Dominique the one thing she doesn't know: that it's only him - and not some metaphysical shortcoming - that makes loving (and being exclusively with) Roark impossible. Roark is the "hypotenuse" most of the time because most of the time Dominiuqe is only with Keating (or at least not with Roark) because she's convinced that being with Roark is pointless. That such a relationship would be doomed from the start. Because of who he is, in Dominique's mind, Roark leaves her with no choice but to be with a Keating (if she is to have any sort of relationship at all). This is wrong, of course (a relationship with Roark is the only one that wouldn't be doomed - since it's based upon objective values instead of pretense) - but she doesn't know it. Toohey does, however. He knows that he (ie: the ideas he advocates and the influence he possesses) would be the only reason why a relationship between Dominique and Roark would fail, so since - at the time of that dinner - one doesn't exist, he sees himself as the hypotenuse that is binding the other two sides of the triangle (Dominique and Keating) together.

What I'm saying is that "Gail Wynand, but without the sleaze" can't exist. That's Howard Roark - and everything that that entails. Let's not forget that Wynand operated within a free-market economy (albeit a corrupt culture). He had a choice. It wasn't a choice that he should have had to make (ie: people should have rational values, so he could cater to those instead of pandering to their irrational ones), but he still had a choice about which way to deal with his predicament. A choice that was radically different than Roark's. People like Blankfein face a similar predicament: they can either be a cronyist/pragmatist/statist to a great degree (in order to be a capitalist to any degree), or they can be neither (ie: work at a fraction of their capacity. "Work in a rock quarry"). Blankfein's status as a high earner - like Wynand's - came as a result of the same mistaken philosophical conclusions that Wynand made (not as mistaken as those of people like Keating or Toohey, no, but mistaken nevertheless). To say that such conclusions aren't real - that Blankfein would be a Roark if not for merely the mixed-economy - is to eliminate the possibility of Wynands in a free-economy; and - more importantly - of Roarks in the real life mixed-economy.

Skylab72, Harrison didn't say that autism caused an inability to form concepts. He said that a failure to form the concept "man" (ie: to differentiate one's own consciousness from that of others - and to completely appreciate that others are conscious beings) is what causes autism. Crucial distinction.

If only that same approach would be taken by most Objectivists towards most libertarian types... but I digress. I agree with you that such people are, as you said, "extremely bright and action-oriented", but as Ayn Rand pointed out, everyone needs philosophy. Do you think such people just accidentally failed to acquire one (ie: became quintessential pragmatists)? Not likely. Most likely it was a byproduct of accepting the wrong philosophy, keeping it for all the wrong reasons, until it became an "anti-philosophy philosophy." Do I think that these people would, one on one and face to face, "pee on your leg and tell you it's raining", or steal the towels from a hotel room? No - but only because they don't need to. Or only because they know that if they did, sooner or later they would get found out and the same sort of people, with the same sort of mentality and the same sort of ambition, would use it against them. Morality is a giant, cynical pretense to these sorts of people - but that doesn't mean they don't abide by it with exceptional fastidiousness (since it's a powerful weapon, which swings both ways). At best, such people would do the right, principled thing when no one's looking as a kind of cosmic repentance for everything else that they've done.

A statement like this makes one wonder why the person who made it thinks there needs to be any unmixing of the the mixed economy. Evidently it is already just as adequate a judge of merit as a laizzes-faire market would be. If they would have been high earners anyway, and that is to be their defense for earning so highly, then some politician is going to come along, take all of their money, and say "the people I'm giving it to would have earned this anyway" (and they will deserve it when it happens to them). The moment all of these (allegedly) wonderful people at places like Sachs start taking whatever (sizable) portion of their income their same efforts would have amounted to if not for government favoritism, and donating it to The Ayn Rand Institute, or purchasing weapons for some kind of underground revolutionary movement, or giving it to Tea Party politicians, or even just to some half-baked Libertarian whom they think has his heart in the right place - instead of spending it on BMWs, exotic vacations, donations to Republicrat and Demublican politicians, church tithings, various "look at me" altruist causes, and the latest smartphone for their 10 year old daughters - then they will deserve moral adulation. Until then, they deserve to have their characters regarded with the same suspicion that any whining, alcoholic welfare recipient does when he claims that "the rich" have taken away all of his opportunities to make a better life for himself.