Ayn Rand on money. (sort of).
The following is an excerpt from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It is part of a rather long speech by one of the characters in the book named Francisco D’Anconia.
“Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: ‘Account overdrawn.’
“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world?’ You are.”
How right Ayn Rand was. We are on the verge of seeing that happen. The dollar is crashing because there’s nothing of value to back it up. A dollar is just a worthless piece of paper. It is only valuable because some bureaucrat says it is, and people believe him. But people are slowly waking up to reality. Something big is coming. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Leave a Reply