SOLVED! IT'S AYN RAND'S FAULT.

It has been revealed by the fabulous Bill Moyer---well not by Bill himself exactly---that Greenspan actually read "The Fountainhead" and that horrible "Atlas Shrugged" while in college. Even worse, he actually met that horrible Rand person and was "smitten," so it should come as no surprise that he was brainwashed by the Rand books and became the handmaiden for her philosophy, one that puts the individual above state, religion, family, and society. This simplistic prologue by Moyers, who always needs to impose his philosophy upon everyone, helps to obscure the focus of much of the interview he conducts with Alan Galbraith, a very smart guy, a total establishment liberal and the author of "The Predator State: Why Liberals abandoned the Free Market and why Conservatives Should Too." A (too) quick taste of Moyer's POV

Rand was a hedonist, an exponent of radical self-interest, who so believed in unfettered, unbridled capitalism that she advocated the abolition of all state regulations except those dealing with crime. In the gospel according to Rand, the business community was constantly beleaguered by evil forces practicing, are you ready for this? Altruism! Yes, the unselfish regard for the welfare of others was a menace to greed, and Rand would have none of it.

The usual horseshit sandwiched between accuracies. The Rand facts, as if they make any difference to people like Moyers, say that there is no such thing as altruism; the concept itself is a fake. We do things for others in order to please ourselves, period. That the plight of others or animals or the environment offer us this array of feel good choices to slobber over---and this slobbering makes us feel good without much regard for them. And Big Business, the favorite target of the Left? In her two novels the heroes are squashed by big business as well as the rest of the mediocrities who gang up on both heroes in their attempt to ruin them. Lastly, none of her heroes gives a rats ass about money, in fact they succeed by triumphing over the lords of money. In Rand's view view the only nobility is that of the individual. That isn't accurate either: the only nobility is that of the super individual, because that is what it takes to overcome the collective that is always at our heels.

Now getting to the Moyers interview with Allen Galbraith whose latest book examines our situation through the telescope of zero regulation of markets, which he says is the root cause of the crises in which we find ourselves today as we flop about the deck of a fishing vessel with our gills desperately seeking the curative water of regulation needed for survival. In essence the interview is a paean to the New Deal and a cry for a "New" New Deal and a retooling of the old one. In other words he correctly (in my view) examines how the abandonment of regulation by the people entrusted to regulate our markets, fucked us.

Galbraith lays waste to the notion of "self regulation," something I've had twenty years of experience with. The government agency assigned to regulate and enforce commodities markets (CFTC) made itself into nothing and assigned almost all enforcement to a private industry "enforcer" called quite grandly The National Futures Association, which til recently was an industry group that served the interests of the largest commodity firms, only. To give you a quick idea: the broker fraud, theft, and misrepresentation of all aspects of the market is rampant. The list of so called disciplinary actions are all taken AFTER hundreds and thousands of people have been swindled. As just one example, GO HERE . (Note: he actually started swindling people back in 1996) I worked with this guy for almost a year and he was without doubt the biggest crook I've ever met. When you go to the page linked you will only see that "gee he's been a lot of places." What it doesn't say is that all firms were shut down after years and years of ripping off customers RIGHT UNDER THE NOSE of the NFA. Not a single customer recovered a dime in so far as I know, yet it was the incompetence of the NFA (the industry watchdog) that allowed these frauds in the first place.

There is not a single "self regulatory body" that I know of that regulates. We need look no further than Chris Cox of the SEC, who admits to doing nothing for his entire term.

Go over to Moyers place and read the interview. You will learn something about how the "let industry regulate itself because it's in their own best interests to protect both themselves and their stockholders" is total bullshit. Greenspan did buy into the "Objectivision" philosophy and now admits to getting it all wrong, after the shit hit the fan.

I take no second place in my view that government is corrupt, always seeking to squash the individual into conformity, and is in a constant drive toward fascism, but this self regulation is total bullshit.

An interesting take.