That's correct. You can't understand her in 30 second sound bites.

Soros is one of the most immoral looters and power-hungry SOB's on the planet. He makes Blofeld look like Little Orphan Annie. I bet he has several white cats...

Agreed. I don't believe in statistics, but just in general I'd say we've never had anything more than perhaps an "80%" free market, anywhere, probably maximized during the time of Tocqueville's "Democracy in America". "The First Tycoon" sounds like a great read...thanks.

IMO, modern economic theory (and The Founders were profound thinkers and theorists) lagged the American Revolution by about 150 years. Had the Founders had the economic theories of the classical economists, and the Austrians, at least up to and including Mises' "Theory of Money and Credit", available to them, The Constitution would been much stronger on property rights, government interference in any way in the markets, and strict and total non-involvement with money and banking.

I always found it ironic that Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nation" was first published in 1776...

Nice... I just find AR nailed so many things we take for granted today, the population is so jaded, AS must seem like some sort of boring documentary...

Soros is literally the last person now living whose motives I would trust. He is a traitor to the human race, because he doesn't want anybody to be rich but himself.

To go along with the Banana republic...

Another negative article about Ayn Rand from salon.com. What a surprise.

If only they cared about journalistic integrity.

(PS: I get it)

I'd love some grapefruit but it is forbidden as it interacts with my meds. I don't know what it does but I suppose it's bad.

I am nominating this comment as a "best of." . your
analysis, Herb, is direct, succinct, accurate and
focused. . I love it!!! -- j
.

The point is missed when it assumes wealth is a finite value. Wealth is constantly being created, and destroyed. The individual is a good example of wealth creation and the government is a good example of destruction. Wealth will travel where the creation is greatest, which is why the "artificial wealth" introduced by all the fake instruments and derivatives today, in addition to the load from government controls and siphoning, has muddied the water to the point you cannot see true value. The Marxist process of defining and distributing wealth is exactly what we see today in our so called "economy".

oh, how I wish that we had a free-market economy!!! -- j
.

Exactly so. The "people" of the US let the political machine take it over dating back to the War of 1812. Since then, control has been exerted by the special interests, families and political parties to the point they have successfully screwed up the system to a point of dysfunctionality. Grapefruit, anyone?

Sounds like unintegrated liberal hogwash to me. True enough though, that our 'Present' Crony, central bank driven and white collar hoaxter run system should be eradicated. But that is not the free market capitalistic system our forefathers intended nor the one Ayn Rand was talking about.

Odd that Ricard attributes the failure of the financial industry during the 2006 - 2009 period to free markets when the banking industry is one of the most heavily regulated markets. John Allison's book on the housing finance crisis is a great place for shedding some light on this.

Ricard quotes Soros as saying, "The doctrine of laissez-Faire capitalism holds that the common good is best served by the uninhibited pursuit of self-interest." I'm sure there are some voluntary market economists who take this position, but it is not the one that Rand takes. She makes no claim as to what best serves the "common good." She was not a utilitarian.

More garbage. In the first place, the Free Market
has not been tried and then failed; it has not been
tried. We had a partially free economy once, but
it was never fully free. Then, too, the government
is not supposed to take an economic system, give it a name (Laissez-faire, or anything else).,
and then impose it as a political system. Man
is supposed to be free, and have his rights as
an individual recognized; and then laissez-
faire follows. Thus, freedom, and prosperity.

George Soros, a wild speculator and backer of everything anti-capitalist, is going to lecture us about economics? hahahahaha

We really didn't have to take anything that crowd says seriously.

Soros is a marxist.
'Nuff said.

Salon is a sewer. This articles fallacies and histrionics are innumerable.

You start far to late.

In the early 1800s exclusive contract to the waterways around new york for steam ships was given to one aristocratic family. Later when Vanderbilt started to run "illegal shipping" into new york and became associated with Gibbons. Vanderbilt suggested he continue his actions until the Livingston file suite against him to stop him. It was also suggested by a late teen Vanderbilt that the exclusive restriction placed by the government was unconstitutional to Gibbons. Gibbons jumped on the idea. The eventual result was Gibbons vrs Ogden in which the supreme court ruled the exclusive contract was unconstitutional.

The actions of Vanderbilt created a friendship between Gibbons and the would be tycoon. Vanderbilt looked at Gibbons much as one would a father. Vanderbilt and his ability are much the reason we had any free markets at all. He beat steamship ventures over and over again that were subsidized by the state of new York. He beat out subsidized railway later in his life and refused to take government monies unless it was in the form of a contract for services rendered to the government.

The fact that law worked based on constitution rather than case law an we had a businessmen with principles who lived by them is why we had a free market for a while. Others would pick up the Vanderbilt way of doing business and it would be keep us free for a while.

New York state attempted to (through is corrupt government leaders) in 1962 to collapse Vanderbilt railways by doing an attack on his stock. They did it by shortselling shares they did not have. Vanderbilt bought up the short sales and every other piece stock on the market, This caused his stock to increase rather than decrease and left the politicians holding an empty bag and owning him the shares they did not have. Today this is illegal to do, then it was a free market and Vanderbilt proved that a person could defend against it.

I am reading "The first Tycoon" right now and its a great book. It has changed by view of early America because the market was not kept free by government but by constitutional law and a man willing to fight for a free market. I recommend the book.

True. I hear you loud and clear Herb7734. We did not leave our country. It left us.

Good answer. Exactly right.

The author would probably prefer to invest in organic farming, give the girl a job, and she'd run away to the city for the $8k.

Herb,

Very well said.

Answer to your last question: the author's feelings.