in my own flippant way.

undue influence of the Fed itself, through current members and alumni, over the economics discipline, leading to a uniformity of thought on how to approach or ignore growing problems in the macroeconomic system (the editorial board problem, the get a job with the fed or get a new career problem, the grants problem in economics departments, the pervasiveness of neoclassical economics in the face of its obvious failures).

Which brings you to this political/economic reality:

an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.

Maybe it isn't a problem of building a more "efficient mouse trap" but maybe that the paradigm of what "real wealth is", how it is "really created", "what types of wealth really provide societal security" . . . the systems as they stand are operating perfectly doing precisely what it is they are designed to do.

If the fundamental precept is that "wealth is created through usury" by and large and that the "financial sector" is the prime driver of the "real economy" then no amount of tinkering is going to change what it produces--little to nothing tangible (ethereal "profits" in a ledger somewhere and a small cadre of financial workers and shareholders dependent on the "industry" for jobs designed to do little but hoover out any excess wealth distributed/accumulated by middle/lower class).

Capitalism always leads to the same place--monopoly/monopsony both of which are problematic in the extreme (unless highly highly regulated and democratic systems redistribute wealth and facilitate competition) for everybody but the monopolists/monopsonists.

Marx was wrong politically. He was pretty close economically (and no I don't mean a command/centrally planned economy as the solution--I mean better balances being struck and the nastiness of capitalism being reined in because it can only yield one set of outcomes).

What the balance to be struck is I'm not quite positive but my gut instinct is that is clean energy independence (the economic advantages and the production potential of near clean near free public energy would be a monumental economic driver) and something politically and tax-wise like Scandanavian countries (small military big on actual security--education, family friendly employment policies, health care etc. etc.) who generally seem to enjoy most of our personal/political independence and intangible liberties but politically and economically they see themselves as more unified in common purposes and shared distributions of the societal wealth created.

Seems more self-sustaining, egalitarian, and human(e) than what America is attemmpting to do and the nasty results that keep cycling around on a regular basis.

I can surely ensure that noone can ensure anything. Most assuredly. Fer sure.

or maybe try the Chickpea/Falafel Standard.

And if that doesn't work I'm pretty convinced Garden Gnomes or Green Stamps will save the day.

It all has the same intrinsic value. Sorta.

Shiny metals v. breathable air. Potable water v. fiat currency. Natural fibers v. polyester/rayon. Structures made of organic renewables v. metals derived from ore. Energy from the sun/wind/tide/geothermal v. burning whatever burns.

I'm sure we just need more and better synthetic technologies. Maybe rethink the merits of alchemy vis a vis chemistry. Bioengineering is promising. We can just speed up and clean up the processes of evolution a tad. No real risks there.

Might be missing the point. Maybe it is just a problem of building a better mouse trap.

Independent of her ideas which isn't really the topic here, I've always thought her prose sucks wind. And I'm certainly not afraid of her or her ideas.

Tedious, repetitive, tendentious, overwrought, overwritten, tawdry, over-long comic book style manifesto stuff (which isn't to say I don't like comic books just not Ayn Rand's).

Maybe her works could have been illustrated by Kirby or Ditko it would have been cooler. Maybe Bernie Wrightson or P. Craig Russell. Hell I hear R. Crumb is doing illustrations for the Bible (that'll be weird).

But each to his own.

She couldn't shoulder Vonnegut's jock strap much less Nabokov's IMHO but I'm sure it has an appeal to a certain type of reader.

When are we going to have a complete autdit of the military-industrial complex?

Answer: when monkeys fly directly out our collective asses into geosynchronous orbit of the planet.

Can't have the rubes figure out how it is that a serviceable 1 inch diameter rubber O-ring can costs $4, a toilet seat $400, and an "up-armored" humvee $400,000.

Pretty soon they'd figure out F-22s that can't fly in the rain or talk to each other in flight at $40 billion is kind of a waste of money when the only "enemies" you have are a criminal conspiracy of nutjobs hell bent blowing shit up with whatever it is the can cobble together on the munitions black market of which USA arms ironmongers control 60-65% as a direct taxpayer subsidy.

That would lead them to the CIA and DEA and pretty soon America would quit wasting money on $238 million on "bridges to nowhere", museaums honoring the largest ball of twine, and phony wars on scary sounding nouns like the "war on drugs".

And pretty soon they'd lose all confidence in government and we'd have radical change. Which doG knows is the worst possible thing that could ever happen. Just the word "radical" is scary. Then you'd have all kinds of dilemmas like choosing between continuing to do what doesn't work and what isn't necessary, engaging in real world risk and cost/benefit analysies, to see which stuff benefits the many as opposed to the few. Radical, radical scary thoughts that must be suppressed at all costs.

Baby Jesus might be forced to climb down off his brontosaurus and weep mightily at our having recognized some fundamental truths. Finally. Tears of joy obviously.