LOL.

I like her, http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?id=1221176 , but ideology and day dreaming are pretty useless for real world application.  I forget, are you on my myspace? If you are, then look at my groups, you'll see.

The key is read it too much and you think you're Fransico d'Anconia or Hank Rearden.  Or Dagny Taggert... I hope he doesn't think he Dagny though.  Then he'll never win a Republican Primary.

The real world doesn't work that way.  Putting money on the Gold Standard is just as pointless as any thing else.  Things only have value because we believe they have value, the market is basically the way we collectively vote on the value of common goods and currency.  The problem with markets, what each person does effects everyone else.  Including the government.  So when ever a government, bank, or any rich individual or organiztion act, they effect market in a big way whether they intended to or not.  When the goods and services (especially housing, food, clothing, or fuel) become unaffordable to working people and don't return to normal, it's market failure.  In the 1930's the problem was much more severe than today's recession because there was absolutely no government balance.  Spending went down and stayed down; and would have stayed down.  Since then governments have been meddling, so that we can have something close to a free market while managing the market so fluxuations don't cause starvation and homelessness.  If you look as pre WWII and comare it to post WWII you will see a much calmer economic world.

And that's the key argument, Rand wanted total economic freedom for maximum growth(in RL she did support basic regulation and laws; she wasn't an anarchist like her novels make her seem), while most of us want to balance stability and growth, because most of us don't have a enough real property to sustain our standard of living in any market.

Answer in two words? Corporate interests.

It's not that simple.  Most people wouldn't benefit if you reduce government involvement in my list below (Granted I do think there should be a debate on whether it is a federal or state issue):

• Education, including funding grants and loans for higher education.
  
• Interstate highways, rail roads, water way management.
  
• Subsidising children's health care, as many states do.
• Social Security, most people benefit from it.

Education should be a consumer subsidized system as opposed to the current producer subsidized system. Education is an inherently private good and, although government should subsidize the consumer, providing the services by subsidizing the producer is not a good idea. I am not going to debate the other issues, but being able to opt out of Social Security would be a great benefit to many people. I, for one, am a wise investor, and I could receive better returns on my investments as opposed to the low returns I will  receive from social security. I understand some people prefer the security and ease that social security offers them, and social security should be offered to those who wish to invest that way.  If I, however, do not wish to contribute my money to such a horrendous retirement program, I should not be forced to. 

I broke your statement in to two paragraphs because I want to address the ideas separately.

1. I don't agree.  Public education is one of the great developments in human history. It is not "broken" despite the number of people who say it is, except the inbalance of where the best equipment and teachers go.

2. What would then happen when the market crashes and banks go out of business?  All your savings would be gone and you'd be relying on the government; whether they write a check to you or to your banks and brokers.

1. Education is an inherently private good. There really is no way to disagree with that. It is both rivalrous and excludable. I would say public funding of education is one of the greatest developments in human history. Subsidizing the producer is never the optimal choice. Subsidizing the consumer, however, allows for choice in schooling and will efficiently allocate educational resources. There are other areas where the government chooses to subsidize the consumer as opposed to the producer. One such instance is food stamps. Instead of creating government owned grocery stores, we subsidize the consumer through food stamps.

2. I diversify my investments. Whether it is bonds, a Roth IRA, a 401K and so on. To suggest, however, that someone should invest in social security because the market may fail-haha-is surprising. The (potential) wealth created by other investments should be more than enough to offset the costs of the low rate of returns on social security.

1. How is subsidizing consumers to send their kids to religious school and home school their kids help the nation?

2. The Banks, Airlines, Agriculturlal firms, Auto makers, and subsidized commodities make up both the bulk of 401k, IRA, and mutual funds and receiving most of the bail outs in the past 50 years.  Also, if everyone starts putting their money into the stock market it artificially inflates the value of stocks.  It's welfare, the government pumps money into the markets to keep your portfolio afloat.

I am not going to debate investments on here. I will, however, fight for an improved education system. I will let Milton Friddman explain why subsidizing the consumer is a better choice than subsidizing the producer. "In education, we subsidize the producer—the school. If you subsidize the student instead—the consumer—you will have competition. The student could choose the school he attends and that would force schools to improve and to meet the demands of their students." All students have different needs and desires. It is best to allow them and the parents to choose the environment they learn in as opposed to forcing them into a cookie-cutter government school. 

I think education is a basic human right, and I think your education should be safer than the shopping skills of your parents and how much money they have.  Not every parent can afford to pay more for a better education for their kids.  That means poor families put their kids in poor schools.  That would be very bad.

Or am I missing something here?  What if a parent doesn't want to buy an education for their stupid expensive baby?  Is the magical Libertarian government going to invade my privacy and tell me how to raise my kid or force me to put them in school?  I'll shoot the sons of bitches.  They can't tell me how to spend my money.

That's why I stated earlier, that point one is open to much more debate.

I'm actually more interested in your response to point two.

To take this logic further: we should subsidize consumers in education but not in transportation, housing, retirement, or health care and when dealing with defense only give contracts to a handful of companies.