That Objectivist (Ayn Rand's philosophy) is me. I was an Objectivist fanatic from 1989 to 2008. I read 95% of everything she wrote many times and listened to hundreds of hours of lecture tapes by her, Leonard Peikoff and many others. I carried John Galt's speech in my pocket. Studied every word in Atlas Shrugged multiple times.
Guess what cured me? Woke me the fuck up?
2008.
Follow me below whatever that thing is.
Austerity is an economic philosophy from a free market, small government perspective. Austerity might work in limited ways in a normal economic world. This is NOT a normal economic world.
This is an emergency.
Unemployment and pretty much everything else is just getting worse. Soon, maybe already, exponentially worse. Articles in the New York times in the past couple of days said graduating students - even from Ivy Leagues - are begging for UNPAID internships. Getting an unpaid internship is the new "success" to brag about.
This is an emergency. The voters in Europe are screaming this to the world as we speak, and they're getting results. Even the moderate Socialist party in Greece lost to the further left one.
Ideally we need a massive influx of blood - dollars - or the patient is going to die. Great if it's through new government jobs. But even that's too slow at this point - and no one's even seriously talking about that. Best is new money; an exponential increase in the money supply. Say, ten trillion for starters, just in the US.
But Nooooo. Obama is trying to get initiatives going but the rest of our government is just fucking sitting there. And a Romney government will actually be sleeping for four years. He said so. Austerity. Sleeping. Same thing. Sleeping on the deck of the Titanic.
The free market types are like little children. They memorize austerity is best - because why? Because all their friends say so. It's a square peg and now we're a round hole and they keep trying to smash it in. Smash it in by default - because they're all sleeping.
Again.
This is an emergency now. Treat it like one. Fucking DO something.