30.10.11
I've got it figured out. The 'occupy wall street' movement will form a political party. They'll call themselves 'occupy the white house,' and will start receiving campaign donations for the two thousand and twelve elections. Having established themselves as a bonafied party, in particular a for-profit business, they'll receive a grade from all the rating agencies. The S&P and Bank of America rating agencies will start the company at the lowest grade ever seen: 'for the love of God, don't give these people your money,' which is just a step below 'you'd do better burning your cash in a barrel for heating this winter.' But then Warren Buffet will suggest that these people are on to something in regards to the banks having too much power, and throw their campaign a few hundred million dollars. That will raise a few eyebrows, and people will start donating their money to the young party (after all, when politics is concerned, donating and investing are the same thing), and the rating agencies will rethink their initial assessment. Finally, the Goldman and Sachs rating agency will give them a grade of mega quadrupal super A+, more people will invest, the party will turn into an investment bank, and the bank's political problems that the party might have caused will be solved. The founders of the 'occupy wall street' movement, having become multibillionaires, will suddenly understand that there are no two ways about it: money makes the world go round. And Ayn Rand will be able to rest in peace.
As it is, she's rolling in her grave. I've only read one of her novels, "Atlas Shrugged," but it has proved to be very thought provoking. I also found it rather well-written, though I wouldn't recommend reading the unabridged edition unless you're rich in free time, as I was last summer. Some of the demonstrators in Germany have recently hit the streets with the message that 'the only crisis is capitalism,' and others have called for something like a 'Robin Hood' tax on the richest banks. I couldn't help but laugh at reading the latter, since Rand took a few pages to explain how Robin Hood was really an evil socialist, which itself was kind of entertaining.
The heroes in her book are very hard-working people, genius inventors, and would be successful businessmen in a capitalist environment. But the socialists gain too much power, let modern society crumble with their demonic policy, and force the heroes to start anew in their own capitalistic haven that they founded just for themselves.
I think Ayn Rand would be mistaken to say that a person's value to a capitalistic society is measured by the amount of money the person has. I hardly believe that all rich people are valuable, and, conversely, I'm inclinced to believe that there are some valuable people who are not rich. The difficulty is, who decides what's valuable? In Peterland, teachers would be richer, but in the real world, many of them get by with next to nothing.
Getting back to the 'occupy wall street' movement, the question arises, are bankers valuable to society? If not, then why do some of them have so much money? I was thinking about how banks make money the other day. It's actually really easy. People give them their money to keep safe, and with all that capital, banks give out loans and collect interest. There's nothing to it! There's no work involved! Does one even have to graduate from high-school to become a wall street banker? I mean, if you give out the wrong loan, and you're about to crash, the government will help you out, as long as you're among those that are too big to fail.
Anyway, it's this type of rich people that Ayn Rand doesn't address. They're not geniuses, and they seemingly don't have to work very hard. They don't invent new materials, they don't make sure that trains get to where they need to be on time, they don't manage anything, except other people's money. So what is a banker's value to society?
A banker, or a rich investor, might say that they are the people who put money where it needs to be in order to keep the economy strong and help society progress. Unfortunately, a strong economy and societal progress might be at odds with one another, depending on what progress entails. Again, that depends on who you ask. In any case, it shouldn't be up to the bankers, or anyone who stands to gain from making that decision. For the bankers, progress is when their bank account grows larger.

This weekend I went walking along the banks of the Moscow River, a rather unfortunate name for a river through a capital city. You'd expect something a little more Russian sounding, like Kl'yazma, or even Volga, but as far as I know this river has no other title. I started my walk at the metro station 'Leningrad Avenue,' where I quickly went shopping at a huge mall. Upon leaving the complex, I had little idea of where to turn, so set off in a random direction to see if I could find a map of the district, which they often post at busstops, among other places. I quickly found the Avenue. You don't exit onto it directly from the metro. Rather, you go straight onto Gagarin square from which very little is visible. At one corner there are giant smokestacks spewing clouds of carbon biproducts into the sky. At another corner is the mall where I can get roasted almonds at a good price. Another corner is dominated by a building with a huge sign across its top, I forget which one, since there are lots of such gigantic signs thoughout the city; this one might be Росгосстрах, an insurance company, I think. Another corner has a monument to what could be the bicentenial man, but more likely is of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. The monument is really tall. It has a large silver-colored statue of a man, itself maybe two stories high, on top of a column which is many times larger than the statue. In effect, it looks like the man is taking off into space, as though he has jet-packs in his feet.
The statue doesn't face the square named after him, however, and I figured, after having completed my shopping, that maybe he was looking towards downtown Moscow. I was one the right track with the thought that he was looking at something important, though it wasn't the center of town. I crossed the avenue through an underground tunnel, embarked down another street along which Yuri was looking, and immediately noticed in the distance, about two kilometers away, a building I had seen about a year before, Moscow State Univeristy of Lomonosov. It wasn't downtown Moscow; if anything it was a little further away from downtown, but it was a landmark I had seen before, so I set off for it for the sake of making the connection between two known points. Along the way, I crossed not a place I knew, but the name of a familiar place, called 'Sparrow Hills.' I knew there was a metro stop with that name, and that that stop was one closer to central Moscow than the University, so I left the avanue and entered the park 'Sparrow Hills' to see what else I would find.
The metro stop is located on a bridge across the Moscow River, and exits right into the park itself. But you don't have to enter the metro to cross the bridge, there are crossings on either side outside of the metro station, and that's what I used to get to the other side of the river. I kicked myself for not bringing my camera, for even though the sky was overcast, the trees in the park made for a nice Autumn photograph, with the top of the university in the background. As I came to the end of the bridge, I noticed another thing which I love to see in any city, big or small. Along the bank of the river there was a wide sidewalk with a green and yellow painted bike-lane. That's the only one I've ever seen in Russia, let alone Moscow. The bike lane ended not far from one side of the bridge, so I took off in the other direction, although part of me wanted to make another connection with a huge cathedral, that of Jesus the Savior, that I had walked past the week before. In the opposite direction I walked along the river, which winds around an olympic sports complex where I suppose atheletes competed in the 1950's or 60's (a sign said the complex was fifty five years old; who knows how old the sign is?). The park extends on the other side of the river. In its middle there is a tall structure, which I soon realized was a ski jump, like the one they use in the olympic games. The park isn't so broad as it is long, and I thought some strong jumpers might fly right into the river if they don't restrain themselves. But in the winter maybe this isn't a problem, since the river probably freezes. The bike lane came to an end with the park on the other bank as I exited the olympic sports complex, and came back into civilization with broad avenues, too many cars and not enough trains. I walked a few more kilometers, not knowing where I was going, but expecting to come across a metro station soon enough, expecially since I could see a castle in front of me, which meant I wasn't far from downtown.
Eventually I approached a glass pedestrian bridge across the river, took the deserted stairway to its top, and crossed. I could see I was approaching a train station, but which one exactly I couldn't tell until I had crossed completely. It was the Kiev station. There were hoards of people, people travelling somewhere, others shopping at the giant mall next to the station. There were venders on the square in between the station and the river. I used the bathroom at the mall, one of 'european' standards, as I heard another man comment, and I can only agree. I've had to pay for a urine-soaked hole in the ground at one of Moscow's train stations. The bathroom at the mall was free and civilized.
Having an idea of where I was in the city, I set off to make a new connection, crossed the bridge again, and went down some quieter streets before approaching what looked like another large avenue. I came out from the side street, noticed a huge castle to my left, and guessed, correctly, that the old Arbat street was not far away. I didn't check my guess, but took another street in the direction I wanted to go, reached, as I had expected to, the station Kropotinskaya, which is located right across from the cathedral of Jesus the Savior, continued on in a new direction from that station, and after passing a few museums with lines of people waiting for the evening exhibition, found myself approaching the Kremlin. I didn't go through Alexander garden, or cross the Red Square, but turned a corner and entered the Metro at Borrovitski station, rode back to Timir'azovskaya, and caught the train back to Dolgoprudny just as it was stopping on the platform.