“Donor of Ayn Rand Manuscript, U.S. Are Not on the Same Page

Dispute: Giver saved a portion of 'The Fountainhead' manuscript as a memento. It is seized.

Ayn Rand Memento
(MARK BOSTER / LAT)
Mar 5, 2002

By BOB POOL, TIMES STAFF WRITER

Ayn Rand wrote the book on the chasm between personal happiness and a heavy-handed government. Leonard Peikoff illustrated it.

That's how Rand fans say the empty picture frame on Peikoff's wall figures into the fight over two pages of her original handwritten manuscript of "The Fountainhead."

Federal officials seized the pages after Peikoff joked that he "stole" them from the Library of Congress. Peikoff, a writer and philosopher, was a lifelong friend of Rand and is an expert on her philosophy of objectivism, which teaches that individuals--not the government--are the key to the development of a healthy society. He inherited the scrawled first drafts of "The Fountainhead," "Atlas Shrugged" and two other books when she died in 1982.

Eleven years ago he donated the manuscripts and other Rand papers to the Library of Congress. For sentimental reasons, he said, he kept the first and last pages of "The Fountainhead" and sent photocopies to Washington with the remainder of the manuscript. Peikoff displayed the original pages under a spotlight on the wall of his Irvine home.

The groundbreaking 1943 novel helped define Rand's philosophy. Part of that doctrine contends that man's pursuit of self-interest requires government's willingness to step out of the way.

But it is Peikoff who said he was forced to step aside when a government agent showed up at his front door in January. The official cut Rand's manuscript pages from his picture frame and confiscated them as federal property.

The irony of the seizure is not lost on Rand devotees.

"Ayn Rand, I feel sure, would have said: 'The whole case is another outrage by looting bureaucrats so drunk with power that they must possess and flaunt even the very pages in which I have denounced them,'" Peikoff said.

Yaron Brook, head of the Marina del Rey-based Ayn Rand Institute, agreed. "Ayn Rand portrayed the government as never happy with the power it has. The bureaucrats always want to take more."

Peikoff, 68, became acquainted with Rand in 1951 after reading "The Fountainhead" as a 17-year-old.

"It had changed my life," he said. "I took the train from Winnipeg, Canada, and went to her house in Chatsworth to meet her."

Soon, he was among those who would have 10-hour philosophical discussions with the Russian-born author.

Rand embraced Peikoff's work when he began interpreting her philosophy in his own writings. Eventually, she wrote the introduction and reviewed each chapter of his book on objectivism, "The Ominous Parallels." It analyzed the philosophical causes of Nazism and their parallels in contemporary America.

Peikoff's decision to donate Rand's papers to the Library of Congress came after he was hospitalized in 1991 with a heart attack. Years earlier Rand had talked of sending them there. So Peikoff had an assistant load 11 boxes of manuscripts, proofs and other documents and ship them off--minus the original first and last pages of "The Fountainhead."

Peikoff said he later sent a private appraiser to Washington to attest to the value of the Rand papers and to tell officials that two of the "Fountainhead" pages were copies. The appraiser reported back to him that the library didn't care, Peikoff said.

But in 1998 Peikoff was interviewed for a Los Angeles Times Magazine article about a resurgence of interest in Rand's work. The interviewer spied the framed manuscript pages on the wall and was taken by the famous opening paragraph written in Rand's own hand: "Howard Roark laughed."

Peikoff explained that he had given the 2,158-page "Fountainhead" manuscript to the Library of Congress. "But I stole the first and last pages," he added with a laugh. The throwaway line was included in the lengthy magazine article published Aug. 16, 1998.

Library officials weren't laughing when they read the piece. They demanded the missing "Fountainhead" pages, claiming them to be property of the U.S. government.

When Peikoff refused to turn them over, officials threatened to sue him for $1.1 million--the amount the library had spent "in storing, archiving and preserving the manuscript" in the belief it was the complete original.

Peikoff scoffed at the claim. If library officials had even looked at the documents, they would have noticed the obviously photocopied pages and the appraiser's report, he said.

After he hired a lawyer, library officials offered to let Peikoff temporarily keep the two pages, provided that he post a $30,000 bond and place a sign on his home's wall beneath the frame reading: "On Loan From the Library of Congress." He declined.

His lawyer told Peikoff that he probably would win the lawsuit, but warned that the outcome was far from certain under the theory of "promissory estoppel" that courts often use in cases involving gifts.

"I'm 68 and a heart patient and could not accept the prospect of being further weakened physically by the stress, and perhaps even bankrupted in a fight against what is now, it seems, a virtually omnipotent government," Peikoff said. "I capitulated ... this was the payment I received from the Library of Congress for my gift."

Library officials denied being heavy-handed. They said Peikoff signed an "instrument of gift" giving the government ownership of Rand's papers and a letter confirming that he had sent "the complete materials."

"The library did not know that Dr. Peikoff had kept two pages of the manuscript. The library relied on Dr. Peikoff's presentations that the manuscripts were complete," officials said in a federal court complaint.

But George Houle, a West Los Angeles rare book expert who traveled in 1991 to Washington to appraise Peikoff's donation, said he informed officials that two of the "Fountainhead" pages were photocopies.

"The appraisal made note of the fact they were facsimiles," Houle said. "His remark about 'stealing' them was clearly flippant. He didn't go to the Library of Congress and steal them."

Houle said he was surprised by the library's treatment of the Rand papers during his inspection trip. "The librarian had them in a cardboard box. She almost spit on them. She was not a fan of Ayn Rand. She made some disparaging remarks about Ayn Rand," Houle said.

Library of Congress spokeswoman Helen Dalrymple denied that the librarian mistreated the Rand materials or looked upon them with disdain. The library had sought Rand's papers for years, Dalrymple said. And Houle did not tell her colleagues of the photocopies, she said.

Dalrymple asserted that Peikoff's treatment of the two pages he withheld was not the best, however.

"From being in the frame the ink had faded and the paper had turned a different color," she said.

Peikoff, meantime, vowed to never again give anything to the Library of Congress. And he said he has given up on ever seeing his beloved manuscript pages again.

At his desk beneath the empty picture frame he is writing a book on the relationship of philosophy and physics.

The book will include a discussion of the principle of "inductive proof" in physics. And maybe a chapter on a more inexact science: the physics of give and take.

If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives. For information about reprinting this article, go to www.lats.com/rights.”

“How ironic!!! She couldn't have written a better story than that herself!”

“Ok - just a comment - I've been reading this thread and thinking that maybe I should put down the Grisham novels and backpacking books for just a sec and get through some Rand.”

“Hey Phil!
Glad I caught you. Do you think you could send me some more jpg files of your dutch ovens? I need some taken in different light conditions (less contrast between lid and sides). Could you take some in the late afternoon? I need them where I can see detail in the sides. Shoot some shots from about five feet away and two feet above the plane of the lids and with the dutch ovens in the right side of a landscape and as if the dutch ovens are framing a shot of people sitting in chairs about 10-15 feet away. Thanks Phil and glad to see you on TT. Best regards!”

“And how.


I just don't see them bull#&%!$ting their way out of this one.

Dr. Doom was before the joint committee today, saying the recession started in Q1.

”

“recession?

I thought there had to be two consecutive quarters of negative numbers in a row before there is a recession.”

“Yeah, I think that's the standard defn.”

“Not.
A recession is a significant decline in activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, visible in industrial production, employment, real income, and wholesale-retail trade.


The 2001 recession beagan March 2001 and ended November 2001.

The first number is GDP percent change based on current dollars
The second is GDP percent change based on chained 2000 dollars

2001q1 2.8 -0.5
2001q2 4.4 1.2
2001q3 0.2 -1.4
2001q4 3.6 1.6”

“Based upon employment figures alone, we're surely in a recession.
last edited: 10/31/08 3:36:13 AM”

“V - on NPR last night they had one expert saying it wouldn't last much longer, and another saying a year. Any thoughts?”

“With the massive contraction in credit it is only natural to see a slow down in economic activity.

On the other side of the coin though if people and businesses are being forced to operate more within their means, not racking up more debt then that can only be good in the long run.


What has happened is not an indictment of Greenspan or Rand but an indictment of the Democrats and Republicans who refused to reign in and regulate the unsound business practices of FannyMae/FreddieMac.

It won't get air play now but history will show the culprits as being Dodd, Frank, Schumer and the spineless Republicans who allowed themselves to be rolled out of fear of being labeled "racist".
last edited: 10/31/08 6:00:44 AM”

“Nice party line post Ron, but profoundly wrong.


DH - I only wish I knew. I'm a terrible prognosticator. I'm holding a few thousand shares of WaMu stock as proof. My fear is that this recession is going to be particularly long and deep.”

“thx, I just try to ask all the financial types when I get the chance.”

“So Dodd, Frank, Schumer and complicit Republicans didn't hinder or block reforms to Fanny and Freddie?”

“This is what I'm hearing: � Fannie & Freddie hold 12-14% of the failed subprime market. � The implosion of Credit Default Swaps and similar derivatives was ten times the size of the subprime failures. � If that's the reality, you can only pin 1.4% of the financial meltdown on them.

The belief that the financial markets could self-regulate was a pipe dream.


(and.... � in keeping with TrailTalk Tradition.... � Ayn Rand was one creepy old broad)

”

“Ron - there are some bigger problems here. FMs were just a small part of it.

The real problem now is how do we get people spending again? Where's the money going to come from that will make people feel secure enough to go out and spend.

Once we get them feeling more secure they'll go out and spend as there will be a huge pent-up need to spend out there.”

“Buy new gear....... !!!!! Then put your old gear up for sale on TT. That'll do it. TT to the rescue of the world.”

“You accept Visa?”

“The belief that the financial markets could self-regulate was a pipe dream.

Thinking that bailing out the institutions that caused this crises with government money is going to solve the problem is also a pipe dream.

Those banks/institutions that were negligent are rewarded with being saved and those banks/institutions that were wise and prescient are being punished by the government power grab.”

“Ron - attitudes like that are exactly how we got into this mess. Adhering to an ideology at the expense of reality.

What should they have done? And what were the cost of your favored course of action?”

“I mean you realize the cost of doing nothing was potentially losing every financial institution in America right, and possibly the planet right? Then we would have started seeing the majority of other businesses starting to fold, as well as state and local governments?

I mean you saw what the collapse of a single investment bank did to the world's financial system right?”

“Follow the money.... somebody has made a stinking fortune on this little power trip. Conspriacy theories abound....!!!!!

"You saved the Bailey Building and Loan and I saved all the rest." Mr. Potter, It's a Wonderful Life
last edited: 10/31/08 10:46:27 AM”

“Hoover was hands-off and the result was The Great Depression. � Unfortunately "too big to fail" is a reality.

The gov't types seem to have backed off the buying of toxic assets in favor of direct capital injections.

How about we stop treating corporate entities as individuals, � hmmm?

”

“There is some very compelling evidence the Great Depression was orchestrated for the benefit of a few individuals. The failure of a Jewish bank in NYC was the first bank to fall and it was intentionally set up to fail. Follow the money... Vast fortunes were made during the depression.”

“The governments intrusion and trying to fix things more often than not makes things worse.

FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx?RelNum=5409

I hope this recent power grab and the coming "solutions" the empowered democrats come up with after the election aren't a replay of that era.”

“ChicagoRon... I still think you are missing the mark. It matters not a whit whether the democrats or the republicans are elected. The source of the power grab is not in the political parties, but in those who control the systems and they couldn't care less who wins.”

“Ron - that's one report one one element of the of FDR's policies, and one that lfies against the thinking of most economists and historians.

Even is we accept this is true we have to think about what value we put on economic security and stability. Are we prepared to lose everything - and for tens of millions of people or more, and that does mean everything, for the sake of some potentially slighly better economic growth further down the road.

You also run the risk of social unrest and political instability during this period.

Again, what do you think the consequences of doing nothing were?”

“Y2, the only issue I have is the same folks that made the mess are the ones claiming the whole house of cards will come down if the government does nothing.

Fool me once...”

“No Hoovervilles this time, we hope.

The laissez-faire clowns bite the big one then don't even have the integrity to quietly slink away, � LMAO

But don't fret. � Your guys will get another chance to govern.... about 2040.”

“Palin in 2040??

You betchya !!
last edited: 10/31/08 12:22:09 PM”

“Tilt, "your guys" are just as complicate in the mess as anyone else.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Except worse IMHO.”

“Nooooooooooo ---------- Not That! � � � Not Ever!! � � ROF!!”

“The current economic mess is a thorough repudiation of radical conservative ideology.”

“Yeah Tilt......................they're all the same!!

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha(ROF)”

“Oh ok Ron - we're pretending the global financial collapse is all a big conspiracy are we.

No, no consequences, we'd all have been just fine. It was just a big scheme by the Free Market capitalists in charge to hand the election to the lefties.”

“Hank Paulson got together with Ben Bernanke and all the guys on Wall Street and Dick Cheney and George Bush to hand the country over to Obama as part of secret squirrel plan to create the USSA?”

“Oh ok Ron - we're pretending the global financial collapse is all a big conspiracy are we?
I'm not saying it is a conspiracy, where did I say that?
It is the result of incompetence all the way around. Even the so called experts were and are befuddled. Thinking that Obama and his brain trust will be better or fix things is muddled thinking at best. Obama has been in bed with the FM's since he stepped foot in Washington. What makes you think he has new ideas when his advisers were complicit in the origination of the mess we have ongoing?

The current economic mess is a thorough repudiation of radical conservative ideology
Nice try except the facts aren't on your side. This is a global problem that has hit the quasi socialist governments in Europe just has hard if not harder than us. We are actually from what I have read still in the best shape out of everyone else globally.
last edited: 10/31/08 12:55:11 PM”

“As far as Greenspan and his policies are concerned he presided over the Fed Reserve during the greatest expansion of wealth for ALL people in the USA in our history. Even our "poor" prospered during his management of the FR.

His policies helped people all across the planet as a rising tide in fact lifts all ships.

If he was so bad why did President Clinton keep him around? Could it be that the economy was booming under his monetary policy?
last edited: 10/31/08 1:01:57 PM”

“The ONLY reason America is in a better shape than some at the moment is that it's the world's biggest economy and it would cost people too much money to pull out.

If there wasn't so much invested here then we'd essentially be Argentina a few years ago.

So essentially then Ron, you have no answers, no solutions, no clue, but you don't like the word socialist.

And no one is claiming America needs to become like Stalinist Russia - all we need is a period of realism.

And yes Ron, conservative policies have landed us EXACTLY in this mess. Idealogy had trumped commen sense.

We need solutions not slogans. Some of them may even come from the other side of the political coin. (I know this must be scary for you on halloween).”

“See this is it Ron - it's all or nothing isn't it. Either you're totally free market in everything you do - or your a communist.

This is where the BS lies, and it's stinking to high heaven.

There are some things that can be done to stabilize things for a period which won't make us the US the soviet union.”

“Bill Richardson now says those under $120,000 will get a tax cut under Obama...the number is changing daily.”

“The ONLY reason America is in a better shape than some at the moment is that it's the world's biggest economy and it would cost people too much money to pull out

Translated: we are still the best place to put your money.

If there wasn't so much invested here then we'd essentially be Argentina a few years ago

Ifs and buts...that is baseless conjecture, in fact I have more faith in America than to think foreign investment is all that keeps us going.

And yes Ron, conservative policies have landed us EXACTLY in this mess. Idealogy had trumped commen sense
It is inconvenient "your guys" have their fingerprints all over the scene of the crime also, lol.

We need solutions not slogans...
looks like a slogan to me...

See this is it Ron - it's all or nothing isn't it. Either you're totally free market in everything you do - or your a communist
Strawman, I never said that, never even used the word communist.

This is where the BS lies, and it's stinking to high heaven.

There are some things that can be done to stabilize things for a period which won't make us the US the soviet union.”
I'm not so much worried about becoming like the Soviet Union as I am worried about us emulating the failed policies of our European friends.





last edited: 10/31/08 1:20:06 PM”

“There's nothing there though Ron is there.

1) Well yes, it is, but at the moment this is more but luck and history than good leadership. America has a great future if we inject some realism.

2) Foreign investment IS ALREADY keeping us going.

3) MY guys? This is a problem caused by conservatives ideology. Crashes and bubbles are a feature if Free Markets get out of control. This isn't rocket science, but it's a central theme of conservative ideology. If the economy were booming then it would be a conservative success. It goes wrong and all you hear from conservatives is whining and bleating and blaming everyone else - it's cowardly stuff.

4) Yep, but you need to back them up. Like putting money in the hands of AMerican cosumers and middle classes to get them spending again - not more failed trickle down!

5)We have the entire conservative movement chanting the word socialist and marxist right now. Not difficult to make the connection here is it.

6) Well maybe if you actually admitted there were some problems here and came up with a solution then we wouldn't need to go here.

7) This is an American initiated problem. The reason European banks have got in this problem is that they bought up the mortgage securities with 'Made in the USA' written on the side.

There's also a more fundamental problem at work here because during the past eight years, under Bush, with those tax cuts, the average American hasn't got any wealthier. His bills go up, but he has no more money.

It was his mortgage he couldn't pay first, but there will be other things.

THIS IS THE FUNDAMENTAL FLAW - you need to make everyone better off for America to thrive as a country, not just billionaires and corporations!”

“Sorry Ron.

What political faction holds nonregulation as the cornerstone of governance? � Why the sudden bout of selective forgetting?”

“Regulation - That sounds like socialism to me Tilt.
last edited: 10/31/08 1:43:15 PM”

“Ayn Rand was one creepy old broad
Tllt
7:00:42 PM
10/30/08

Well that's certainly an enlightening thought. I'll bet Rand would have thought you were one creepy little dude. I know I do.




Thanks for the info on recession, violin. That was a very interesting piece. I too had always believed that a recession was two consecutive quarters of negative growth. One thing we can agree on is that economists can disagree. This gives me much food for thought.




Ron - that's one report one one element of the of FDR's policies, and one that lfies against the thinking of most economists and historians
Y2
12:02:23 PM
10/31/08


Don’t expect Y2 to listen to any evidence contrary to his dogma, Ron. He may be the most closed-minded person you’ll ever encounter and he’s a complete buffoon. That study is all over the web and provides some interesting reading. And the majority of economists DO believe New Deal policies prolonged the depression. We know that the U.S. was the last major industrial power to come out of depression.




“…For many years now economists and historians of different political backgrounds have been questioning the traditional take on the New Deal. As a reminder: the traditional take is that Hoover hurt the economy because he was a cold man of laissez-faire philosophy. Traditionally, we also heard that Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration was inspiring. We learned that FDR and his New Deal programs made the country feel better, helped it get back on its feet again, and that World War II cleared the air at the end.

But scholars and economists have been demonstrating the limits of this argument for a long time. Research by his biographer, George Nash, reveals that Hoover was no libertarian. He argued that private property could be a “fetich,” (yes, he spelled it that way) and even wrote of an “increasing tendency to regard right of property not as an object in itself but in the light of a useful and necessary instrument in stimulation of initiative to the individual.” The position of being pro-initiative with a cut-off line sounds familiar — today that cut off is $250,000 in earnings, apparently. In fact Hoover shared a number of traits with FDR — a penchant for high wages in downturns, a penchant for support the union radical John L. Lewis, a habit of blaming the market for trouble. Hoover in fact generated unemployment precisely because he was too progressive and insisted employers pay a prohibitive wage.

The first critics of the New Deal economics were FDR’s own peers. In the 1930s a respectable think tank produced an enormous tome concluding that Roosevelt’s pride, the National Recovery Administration, was on the whole retarding recovery. (The name of that think tank was the Brookings Institution.) A number of economists and journalists spent the 1930s quantifying the way in which the New Deal was doing damage. One was Benjamin Anderson, the economist for Chase National Bank, who concluded that Roosevelt’s pro-union moves had forced companies to give out too much of their profits in wages and therefore denied them the possibility to invest or hire. This argument has lately been updated by Lee Ohanian of UCLA and Harold Cole of Penn. Other New Deal skeptics are interviewed at length in Randall Parker’s books on economists and the New Deal. …”

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWY0YmJhODY0YzQ0NTc3YzhhYTk3ZjM0M2NkZGI4MTY=




FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression
http://www.amazon.com/FDRs-Folly-Roosevelt-Prolonged-Depression/dp/140005477X




“But the political crisis was caused by the double-digit unemployment, and in my new book, FDR's Folly, How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression (Crown Forum, 2003), I report mounting evidence developed by dozens of economists, at Princeton, Brown, Columbia, Stanford, the University of Chicago, University of Virginia, University of California (Berkeley) and other universities, that double-digit unemployment was prolonged by FDR's own New Deal policies. …”

…There's a fascinating split between economists and political historians about the New Deal. The idea that FDR cured double-digit unemployment, wrote author and commentator Thomas Sowell in a recent column, "was never pervasive among economists, and even J.M. Keynes -- a liberal icon -- criticized some of FDR's policies as hindering recovery from the depression."

Meanwhile, pro-FDR political historians such as James MacGregor Burns, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Frank Freidel, William Leuchtenburg, and Kenneth S. Davis, have focused on the personalities, elections, speeches, "Fireside Chats" and other aspects of the New Deal's political story, disregarding evidence about the economic consequences of New Deal policies. This continues to be the case with younger political historians like Alan Brinkley, author of The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War, who called the New Deal "a bright moment." Disregarding the economic consequences, too, are children's book authors like Joy Hakim, whose recent bestseller Freedom: A History of US includes a glowing account of New Deal heroics. …”

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3327




“They say "truth will out" but sometimes it takes a long time. For more than half a century, it has been a "well-known fact" that President Franklin D. Roosevelt got us out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. That view was never pervasive among economists, and even J.M. Keynes — a liberal icon — criticized some of FDR's policies as hindering recovery from the depression.”

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell100903.asp




Many economists such as Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman and Murray Rothbard believed and documented that Roosevelt's economic policies actually prolonged the Great Depression and that his policies actually hurt the people they were meant to help.

http://www.jasonpye.com/blog/2006/08/democrats_love_the_word_univer.html




“The Great Depression also changed economic thinking. Because many economists and others blamed the depression on inadequate demand, the Keynesian view that government could and should stabilize demand to prevent future depressions became the dominant view in the economics profession for at least the next forty years. Although an increasing number of economists have come to doubt this view, the general public still accepts it. …

“Why was the recovery from the Great Depression so slow?...

…One of the most coherent explanations, which pulls together several of these themes, is what economic historian Robert Higgs calls “regime uncertainty.” According to Higgs, Roosevelt’s New Deal led business leaders to question whether the current “regime” of private PROPERTY RIGHTS in their firms’ capital and its income stream would be protected. They became less willing, therefore, to invest in assets with long lives. Roosevelt had first suspended the ANTITRUST laws so that American businesses would cooperate in government-instigated CARTELS; he then switched to using the antitrust laws to prosecute firms for cooperating. New taxes had been imposed, and some were then removed; increasing REGULATION of businesses had reduced businesses’ ability to act independently and raise capital; and new legislation had reduced their freedom in hiring and employing labor. Public opinion surveys of business at the end of the 1930s provided evidence of this regime uncertainty. Public opinion polls in March and May 1939 asked whether the attitude of the Roosevelt administration toward business was delaying recovery, and 54 and 53 percent, respectively, said yes while 26 and 31 percent said no. Fifty-six percent believed that in ten years there would be more government control of business while only 22 percent thought there would be less. Sixty-five percent of executives surveyed thought that the Roosevelt administration policies had so affected business confidence that the recovery had been seriously held back. Initially many firms were reluctant to engage in war contracts. The vast majority believed that Roosevelt’s administration was strongly antibusiness, and this discouraged practical cooperation with Washington on rearmament. …”

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GreatDepression.html




This is not to say, Ron, that all economists believe this way. But the majority of serious economists believe the New Deal policies prolonged the depression. As historical evidence we know that the U.S. was the last major industrial power to come out of depression. This new UCLA study will really come under scrutiny. Let’s see if it holds water with today’s knowledge of economics.”

“Credit Card Madness based on overly inflated Unreal Estate is wealth? The rest of the world was lied to about the debt we sold them. The fed not only held rates at 1% too long , but then started raising them far too quickly, because congress didn't raise cap gains and dividend rates to help slow the economy.”

“Arclite makes long posts that basically say little.

This is the key words - 'serious economists' - replace serious with 'conservative' or 'supply side' and your there.

He's basically highlighted the revisionist history of the great depression, which rather like conservatives are doing now, makes a series of excuses which seek to blame everyone else for the down sides to free markets.

Free markets have great upsides - but do have some down side. Not sure why they're unable to take this on board, but they can't.

You know, it's kind of a historical version of all the whines and squeals coming from the conservative movement now as to how the financial and economic crisis is not their fault.”

“heh.... you may need to check your definition of "Conservative".... It can have a variety of meanings depending on who uses it. Calling Bush a conservative is seriously in error.”