Feb 15, 2019 | Business, Politics
The leading Objectivist economist, “Saysean” Richard Salsman has an excellent article in Capitalism Magazine on why “Justice Demands That We Should Celebrate Diversity in Wealth Too“.
Writes Dr. Salsman:
In most realms of life today, diversity and variety are justifiably celebrated and respected. Differences in athletic and artistic talent, for example, entail not only robust, entertaining competitions, but fanatics (“fans”) who respect, applaud, award, and handsomely compensate the winners (“stars” and “champions”) while also depriving (at least relatively) the losers.
Yet the realm of economics — of markets and commerce, business and finance, income and wealth — elicits a near-opposite response, even though it’s not, like sporting matches, a zero-sum game. In the economic realm, we observe differential talents and outcomes unequally compensated (as we should expect), but for many people, diversity and variety in this realm are disdained and envied, with predictable results: a perpetual redistribution of income and wealth by punitive taxation, stiff regulation, and periodic trust-busting. Here winners are more suspected than respected, while losers receive sympathies and subsidies.
What accounts for this rather odd anomaly?
Read the rest of Justice Demands That We Should Celebrate Diversity in Wealth Too.
Jan 23, 2019 | Business, Politics
John Allison highlights the key role Objectivism has played in his success. Allison, the former Chairman and CEO of BB&T, was selected by the Harvard Business Review as one of the one hundred most successful CEOs in the world.
Recorded at Objectivist Summer Conference (OCON).
May 27, 2018 | Business, Politics
Brian Philips‘ online course on The Principles of Property Rights is now free online at Udemy.
Here is the course description:
Property rights have long been a part of America’s political heritage. Indeed, the Founding Fathers wrote extensively on the importance of protecting property rights. But property rights are under attack in America today. Part of the reason for the success of these attacks is imprecise or fuzzy thinking. Even many advocates of property rights are unable to clearly define the concept, and thus, they are unable to provide a consistent and principled defense. In this course, we will examine the principles that underlie property rights, as well as the principles underlying attacks on property rights. Only by understanding these principles can we clearly defend property rights and refute the claims of their enemies. Who is the target audience? Business owners harmed by regulations Property owners restricted by land-use regulations Organizations involved in defending property rights.
Link: The Principles of Property Rights
May 27, 2018 | Business, Politics
Brian Philips‘ online course on The Principles of Property Rights is now free online at Udemy.
Here is the course description:
Property rights have long been a part of America’s political heritage. Indeed, the Founding Fathers wrote extensively on the importance of protecting property rights. But property rights are under attack in America today. Part of the reason for the success of these attacks is imprecise or fuzzy thinking. Even many advocates of property rights are unable to clearly define the concept, and thus, they are unable to provide a consistent and principled defense. In this course, we will examine the principles that underlie property rights, as well as the principles underlying attacks on property rights. Only by understanding these principles can we clearly defend property rights and refute the claims of their enemies. Who is the target audience? Business owners harmed by regulations Property owners restricted by land-use regulations Organizations involved in defending property rights.
Link: The Principles of Property Rights
Mar 27, 2018 | Business, Politics
From A Conversation With John Allison, the CEO Who Led BB&T Through the Financial Crisis:
The Fool: In your opinion, what caused the crisis?
Allison: I view the crisis differently than a lot of people. I was a long-serving CEO when the crisis struck and I think the whole thing was caused by regulatory policy.
Yes, some big banks made mistakes. But it was a combination of government housing policy, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in particular, which had $5 trillion in liabilities and $2 trillion in subprime mortgages when they failed, and the Federal Reserve, which held interest rates below inflation, that contributed to the bubble in the housing market, along with bubbles in other markets.
I don’t believe the whole industry was failing. I think that’s ridiculous. It was a relatively small number of large institutions that were in trouble. Banks like Citigroup. I think they should have been allowed to fail and the world would be a better place today.
The whole idea that everybody would have gone broke if one of the big banks failed was absurd. We had been doing business with investment banks like Bear Stearns andGoldman Sachs, but we controlled our risk with those companies just like we did with any borrower. If they had gone broke, we would have lost money, but not nearly as much as we lost to residential builders in the marketplace.
It was a relatively small number of large banks and a handful of small banks that were in trouble. It was not an industrywide crisis, except to the degree that the regulators created a crisis by choosing to fail Wachovia, save Citigroup, fail Lehman Brothers, save Bear Stearns. The uncertainty caused by that response took what was going to be a normal correction and transformed it into a crisis, making everything worse than it had to be.
The Fool: How did regulators’ response to the financial crisis differ from their responses in past crises that you witnessed?
Allison: I went through the financial correction in the early 1980s, which should have been more severe because we were in bad trouble economically after the inflation of the 1970s. I also went through the correction in the early 1990s. In neither case did we have a panic. And the reason we didn’t have a panic was because at least you knew what to expect.
Thousands of banks and thrifts failed in the 1980s and 1990s. The unwillingness to let banks fail in the latest crisis — they were effectively bailing out everybody — prevented the natural correction process from happening.
We had rule of law in the past. In this crisis, we had no rule of law. When Washington Mutual failed, instead of taking the losses out of the FDIC fund, they took it from bondholders. That crashed the capital markets, which then caused Wachovia to fail. That was a regulatory decision.
The entire interview is definitely worth a read.
Link: A Conversation With John Allison, the CEO Who Led BB&T Through the Financial Crisis.
Dec 20, 2017 | Business, Philosophy, Politics
From Is Ayn Rand Affecting Trump’s America? An Interview with Steve Simpson | Merion West.
[Alex:] To what degree do you think Ayn Rand’s philosophy is influencing the modern Republican Party?
Steve: I would say very little honestly. It’s really hard to say that she’s influencing the Republican party. She’s definitely influenced the right, generally speaking, in a huge way, but that does not mean necessarily that conservatives are interpreting her ideas correctly.
I would put it this way: the right is just as afraid of Rand’s ideas as the left is; the right disagrees with her important ideas just as much as the left does. But what Atlas Shrugged has done is give people who are in favor of business, in favor of the free market, in favor of capitalism an ideal to aspire to. Atlas Shrugged is the only novel I’ve ever heard of that portrays businessmen as heroes. I think if you’re on the right and you think there is something good about capitalism, Rand gave the most ringing endorsement to that view that anybody could have given. So it makes really good sense that people on the right, who are sympathetic to capitalism, would like her novel, but that’s a very different thing from them saying they agree with her.
I think she’s influenced the right in general, but the caveat is that it does not mean those on the right necessarily agree with her. When you get to things like “Trump is the Ayn Rand presidency,” that’s nonsense. She’s influenced the right, but there’s still a big gap between Objectivism and what many conservatives believe.
Read the rest: Is Ayn Rand Affecting Trump’s America? An Interview with Steve Simpson | Merion West.
