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Strategies & Market Trends : John Pitera's Market Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Pitera who wrote (9299)	5/3/2008 6:39:05 PM
From: John Pitera	Respond to of 33421

Ayn Rand (IPA: /'a?n 'rænd/, February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982), born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum (Russian: ????? ?????????? ?????????), was a Russian-born American novelist, philosopher,[1] playwright, and screenwriter. She is widely known for her best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism. She was an uncompromising advocate of rational individualism and laissez-faire capitalism, and vociferously opposed socialism, altruism, and other contemporary philosophical trends, as well as religion. Her influential and often controversial ideas have attracted both enthusiastic admiration and scathing denunciation. ........... In 1950 Rand moved to 120 East 34th Street[30] in New York City, and formed a group (jokingly designated "The Collective") which included future Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, a young psychology student named Nathan Blumenthal (later Nathaniel Branden) and his wife Barbara, and Leonard Peikoff, all of whom had been profoundly influenced by The Fountainhead. According to Branden, "I wrote Miss Rand a letter in 1949 … [and] I was invited to her home for a personal meeting in March, 1950, a month before I turned twenty."[31] Rand launched the Objectivist movement with this group to promote her philosophy. The group originally started out as informal gathering of friends who met with Rand on weekends at her apartment to discuss philosophy; later the Collective would proceed to play a larger, more formal role, helping edit Atlas Shrugged and promoting Rand's philosophy through the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), established by him for that purpose. Many Collective members gave lectures at the NBI and in cities across the United States, while others wrote articles for its sister newsletter, The Objectivist. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Rand developed and promoted her Objectivist philosophy through both her fiction and non-fiction works, and by giving talks at several east-coast universities, largely through the NBI. "The Objectivist Newsletter, later expanded and renamed simply The Objectivist, contained essays by Rand, Branden, and other associates … that analyzed current political events and applied the principles of Objectivism to everyday life."[32] Rand later published some of these in book form. ................................. Political and social views Rand held that the only moral social system is laissez-faire capitalism. Her political views were strongly individualist and hence anti-statist and anti-Communist. She exalted what she saw as the heroic American values of rational egoism and individualism. As a champion of rationality, Rand also had a strong opposition to mysticism and religion, which she believed helped foster a crippling culture acting against individual human happiness and success. Rand detested many prominent liberal and conservative politicians of her time, including prominent anti-Communists, such as Harry S. Truman, Ronald Reagan, Hubert Humphrey, and Joseph McCarthy. Rand is considered one of the three founding mothers (along with Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson) of modern American libertarianism, although she rejected libertarianism and the libertarian movement. [37] .......................... Economics Rand expressed *qualified enthusiasm for the economic thought of Ludwig von Mises* and Henry Hazlitt, and The Ludwig von Mises Institute notes that "it was largely as a result of Ayn's efforts that the work of von Mises began to reach its potential audience."[42] Later Objectivists, such as Richard Salsman, have claimed that Rand's economic theories are implicitly more supportive of the doctrines of Jean-Baptiste Say, though Rand herself was likely not acquainted with his work.[citation needed] --- from wikipedia.... you notice that Ron Paul was the only presidential candidate to talk about the Austrian school of economic thought and I believe mentioned Ludwig von Mises by name. the whole deal of Ron Paul supporters coming up with campaign slogan of Who is Ron Paul.... was based on the "who is John Galt" question which is the central leitmotif in Atlas Shrugged. I notice that Ron Paul's book is number one on Amazon this week. John