>> they came to cohabit the cells of our bodies much the way out to cohabit with the coral on the reef. but they have become so closely tied with ourselves, and are so intricate now that they can't exist for a millisecond without the cells they live with. and now our bodily cells cannot survive without them. and that's just the beginning really of the complexity of what we call human beings. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> up next on booktv come a program from freedomfest 2011.

don luskin discusses his book "i am john galt" with profiles people as heroes and villains in ayn rand's novels. this is about 50 minutes. >> how many of you can respond to the question who is john galt? if that means something to you you're going to love this next program. by the way, i don't know who is doing it, but when i drive south from jacksonville there's a billboard on i-95 that says who is john galt your baby our next speaker will be able to explain it to us. if you heard our all-star prediction bill yesterday, you know there were fireworks. well, don duskin was john who led -- let the first magic of things really going. he is if you for the program notes, an avid believer in technology, but what happens if

it stops? anyway, details today with the future could become please join in welcoming don luskin's "i am john galt." [applause] >> thank you. thank you for the great introduction. there's one substantial in accuracy. i actually am john galt. but you all are, too. and that's the secret of ayn rand's enduring popularity. her books are lessons. her books are self-help books. her books archives to how to live. we can all be john galt. we can all be heroes, just read what's in their carefully. my new book, "i am john galt," is a readers guide to atlas

shrugged and the fountainhead, to help you learn to live like it and grind here. and at the same time to teach you what happens in the world when there are ayn rand type villains out there. now, i is him that in this room has probably heard of ayn rand. how many people here have read "atlas shrugged"? i'm actually stunned not to see every single hand in the room go up. here, we have two big thumbs up for the purchase list of selfishness. okay. if you haven't read "atlas shrugged," in a way i india because you before you a fantastic treat. the first reading of "atlas shrugged" is a transformative experience in poll after poll when americans are asked, what is about the influences influenced you the most, "atlas shrugged" is always in top two or three, the fountain head is always in top two or three.

i've got to do it is a in that. it is that we libertarians can we individuals, one of the curses of being an individualist we think we're alone. i can say i start to feel that way. i live in northern california where libertarian canfield very, very alone. i live just south of san francisco so i'm not literally in nancy pelosi's congressional district but i can smell it from where i live. i feel very alone. it's fantastic to be here at freedomfest. it's great to see that there are like-minded people. they just don't happen to live in my zip code. go back to ayn rand. "atlas shrugged" was written 54 years ago. is probably the best selling book in english language which is an amazing thing. itself more copy every years. it sold more copies last year than ever before in its history. when it first came out nicely so it was a bestseller than. now, there's a narrative about that that is being promoted by

the conservative community, and we all know that's different from the libertarian community, saying that the recent ayn rand is having the surging popularity is because "atlas shrugged" portrays a world that is eerily like our world. so for those of you who haven't read it let me tell you what that world is but it is a world of decay, of economic collapse, of corruption, of despair, i think just getting worse and worse, of invasive parasitic government that takes over private capital at everything it does, makes things worse. what makes things worse it just does them again. that does sound an awful lot like our world. so you could almost say that ayn rand had some amazing prosthetic powers, conservative own nostradamus. we are to embrace her ideas. toledo studied ayn rand's life know the conservative movement has always lowest ayn rand. she is an atheist, conservative movement is riddled with religious threats. so she's never been popular with conservatives.

we're going to talk in a minute about how that is a bit of them is reading of rand. the world described in "atlas shrugged" talks a lot more, talks about a lot more things and what wrong with big government. a talk at which wrong with big corporations. so going to get into all of th that. but on the surface of the narrative of the conservative is very good. you read "atlas shrugged" and i'm telling you, sometimes you think you're reading from today's headlines. one of the most memorable villains in "atlas shrugged" is a fellow named wesley much. now, if you've seen the recent movie about "atlas shrugged," they chose to vanessa thing ouch. i don't get that. when i read "atlas shrugged" the first time in high school it was mooch. it's always going to be mooch for me. we have our own real-world wesley much. his name is barney frank.

now, i don't normally use notes and i apologize when these notes room but i have to because i want to make exact locations without error here. you might remember one of the refrains in "atlas shrugged" is every time wesley mooch did some ridiculous things that made the economy even worse, he and his cronies would meet in washington and they would say we need broader powers. and we know government is the only enterprise that when it makes a mistake, repeats the mistake bigger. let me quote barney frank. after the collapse of u.s. housing industry, the us mortgage industry, a collapse more than any other individual, he engineered from his position in the u.s. congress getting fannie and freddie to loan money to and subsidized loans of money for people who couldn't possibly ever owned a home, could never

pay back the mortgages. that was all barney frank's work. when asked we should do to cleanup the mess, he said quote unquote, the way teacher that is to give us broader powers. you can't make this stuff up. but the amazing thing is ayn rand did 54 years ago. frank is more like mooch and you can imagine, starting to get into "atla atlas alice structur. he started as a lobbyist. he was the lobbyist for henry written from one of the great heroes of the "atlas shrugged." he gets into betraying riordan. a certain kind of corruption. this is one of these things when liberals are corrupt it doesn't get welcome portage they might be surprised to know that barney frank was censured by the congress for a scam and which ended up admitting to have used

male prostitutes and pay them, and sustained them in his apartment in washington as a base of operations for them. did you know that as a member of congress regulating fannie mae and freddie mac he placed one of his gay lovers as a financial analyst at fannie mae? as a libertarian i have no objection whatsoever to his sexual preferences. i have a serious objection to corruption. we're talking about a deeply, deeply corrupt man whose corruption very nearly destroyed the world. another villain from "atlas shrugged" alive and well in the world is alan greenspan. what character in "atlas shrugged" is alan greenspan like? anybody remember dr. robert statler? kind of a minor character what a very key character. he was one of two college professors who was a mentor to the young john galt. and when golf was a young man,

statler left academia to found the state science institute. so he could do his experimental physics free of the support of capitalist and people who pay tuition and things like that. and john galt disowned him. he damned him. at the climax of "atlas shrugged" when the world find it totally goes down the drain, the climactic scene is when the government, having expropriated dr. starr's work to create about -- create a weapon of mass destruction, it almost detonates, and a description of his death in the hands of, his science and certainly created, one of the moving passages in "atlas shrugged." alan greenspan is dr. robert statler. is the most damned because he knew better. it's one thing to make these the

stakes out of ignorance or pure power lust like barney frank did. alan greenspan knew better. alan greenspan, for 30 years, was a close associate, an apostle of ayn rand. he was with ayn rand the day she died in 1982. best friends forever. he had no excuse. he knew better. when he first went to washington in 1976, as president gerald ford chairman of the council of economic advisers, ayn rand and her husband were right there in the white house as he was sworn in by gerald ford. why didn't ayn rand damn him? she actually said to the press that alan is my main in washington. she probably thought then that he was sort of a double agent for capitalism, right in the heart of washington. it sounds good if you say it fast but if any of you guys ever spent any time in washington, the atmosphere there is an addictive drug.

washington is like an accordion. but instead of being filled with water it's filled with power. after you've swum around and for a while you want more of it. alan greenspan did. the federal reserve chairman is the most highly empowered, most unaccountable economic czar on planet earth. it's better than economic czar. he is master of the universe. well, the rest is history. an 18 year run as chairman. seems like it was okay for a while. a lot of bad things happen on his watch. it seemed like he always bailed us out. i remember seeing him on the cover of "time" magazine where the title is chairman of the committee saves the world. you see a shriveled little man who was wearing a sign saying broken.

85 years old, mind you still totally there. his spirit isn't there. easy broken man. but i would be broken, too, if i was all before congressman henry waxman. have you ever seen henry waxman? this guy looks like a combination of the original phantom of the opera with lon chaney senior and mortimer's nerd. waxman growth greenspan. i have to admit that all that self interest stuff, all the virtue of selfishness tough, all that self-regulation stuff didn't work very well in the credit crisis, did it. and greenspan said i guess it didn't work so well. he basically recanted. so when i met him, i say did you really we can't? i kind of saw it on youtube. and he said no, no, not at all. hathat's completely taken out of

context. know it's not their pitches like a year had passed. so i had my copy of -- my favorite ayn rand nonfiction book is capitalism and the unknown ideal which is two chapters written by alan greenspan, one of which is called the gold and political freedom. i have first edition copy. i said to still stand by the score should i be asking you to sign this? he said every word. i still edward ayn rand is that the it's all stood the test of time. well, go to youtube. one of the lessons you can learn from "atlas shrugged" is if you don't want to end up being a broken man, have a little integrity.

stick by your guns. now, one of the secrets of "atlas shrugged"'s popular it is a disguise this night will mayor world but is also a profoundly inspiring book. it's the best of times and the worst of times. that he was in it are absolutely inspiring. who can read that book and not identify with characters like dagny and hank reardon and francisco, got it's a very, very inspiring book. i'm here to tell you that our world, as weak as it seems, is absolutely populated by those kinds of heroes. like all heroes, some heroes are tragic heroes like some of the heroes in "atlas shrugged," in fact. so let's look at some of the heroes in "atlas shrugged." henry written, the steel tycoon, had it taken away from him by the government.

how about bill gates? is exactly like henry written. college dropout, create and publish a technology that transforms all our lives, extended all our lives to extend all our will to begin the richest men in the world in the process, well-deserved. in 1999 using tax dollars that bill gates himself it's up to washington, washington since to bill gates a lawsuit from department of justice seeking to break up microsoft in antitrust grounds which is a polite way of saying because you succeeded too much. now, just like reardon, when that happened, gates couldn't be bothered to dirty his hands going and hanging out with is your key people in washington. i don't blame them. microsoft was a gigantic company but i think it had two or three lobbyists at that time. boy, did he learn his lesson. he kind of won the suit.

he settled it but microsoft is still struggle with the echoes of the vessel struck out their antitrust issues in europe, for example. but there's another broken man. he step down as ceo as soon as the suit was settled. have you seen the price of microsoft lately. you can draw an x. where bill gates stepped down. that x. is way above the current stock price. it hasn't traded their for 11 years. it's a broken stock because bill gates is a broken man. bill gates great the world's largest fortune. if he had stayed at home he could've taken the world's largest fortune and made even larger. now he is giving it away. doctors call the stockholm syndrome when you identify with her kidnappers. our culture vilified bill gates for making money. now we love him because he is giving away money. that sending a wrong message to

our children so what's the lesson of bill gates, the life lesson is you can drop out of school and become the richest man in the world. the kind of -- by the way, the spillover effect to all of us, people rail about income inequality. let me take the good side. when is a guy as rich as bill gates, that's the bar. that means that something is possible for everybody that was impossible until he proved it could be done because like the first guy who broke the four-minute mile. thank you, bill gates, for showing what can be done because it can still happen in america. another lesson of bill gates is watch your back. don't make the mistake of washington -- ignoring washington. let me switch to.net for met and talked about here from "the fountainhead." you have to be my favorite character from whole ayn rand candidate is howard work, the rebellious architect, the ultimate individual. one of my most fascinating

characters in all of literature from page one page 1000 or however long the book is. he's the only major hero in the history of literature who goes under out to be no transparency in the book. what is it that is perfect about him? he is an absolute individual, and every step he makes, every success yes, every trial he faces, he is faced with absolute utter integrity in individualism and a sheer joy in his work. in our world that man is steve jobs. steve jobs dropped out of college. he's an orphan. the guy just came out of nowhere just like howard roark. think what he accomplished. simply because he loves it. he's obsessed with this stuff. this toy is fun to play with. i can't assume to paint a.

when he founded apple computer he completely transform the computer industry from a command-and-control mainframe model to individual empowerment desktop model. he made that happen. a few years later he bought an obscure little digital rendering company on fire so when george lucas did to get rid of it called pixar. he had this idea that this could be used to great full-length animated movies. he thought that would be pretty cool. he would like to see a movie like that actually found this guy named john lasseter and to work together on a move that would eventually be called boy story. is that somebody is years on and so much of steve jobs money, he came here to personal bankruptcy fun epic they almost discontinued toys door at the last day. he did a military path and did deal with disney. it is when the top grossing movies of all time. it's had two sequels which are also on the top list. he did it not to make money, he

just thought it was cool. i remember beating steve jobs in the cable in a resort in hawaii years back were both adjunct children. and i went with my daughter into the pool and steve jobs is in there. i recognizing. he sticks out his hand and says hi, i'm steve, i make movies. what do you do? what else has he done? he created itunes and ipod. he completely transform computers. completely transforms movies and then completed transforms music. he's not done. integrates the iphone and completely transforms that. that he has created the ipad and gone back and re- transform the first industry he transformed, computing. so don't tell me there are no heroes in this world. on that panel yesterday i was the only optimist in the room. you can't meet steve jobs and

not be optimistic. that's what's possible. i know there are a lot of problems in this world but there are a lot of solutions, to. another great silicon valley figure is a man named tj rodgers. he's the ceo of cypress or something. he's been a freedomfest is in the past. i don't think he is here this year. if you want a cell phone, crack it open like all of miracles inside it. quite a few of them probably come from him. tj rodgers is like francisco. he showed up in critical scenes in "atlas shrugged" whatever the main heroes were having a moment of doubt, need moral clarity. he would show up and tell them what's what. one of the most often quoted passages in all of ayn rand is francisco same speech about the nobility of money. wayzata cocktail party and some

heiress says money is the root of all but anything goes on for 20 bridges proving that money is the root of all good. tj raj is that can do. it's public and correct. is the ceo of a major company who says things that ceos are not supposed to get away with it and he does it by having absolute moral clarity. but i'm going to quote some tj for you. like many ceos his consulate under assault by the politically correct people trying to get them to have more diversity on the board in the workforce. a couple years back a franciscan nun named mary corley, sister gormley attacked cypress semiconductor consisting that they diversify their board more in gender and race. tj respond in "the wall street journal" choosing a board of directors based on race and gender is a lousy way to run a company. cyprus will never do. from will never be pressured into it because bowing to

well-meaning special interest groups is an immoral way to a company, given all the people it would hurt. we simply cannot allow arbitrary rules to be forced on us by organizations that lack his expertise. i would rather be labeled as a person who is unkind to religious groups than as a coward who harms his employees and investors by mindless following high sounding but paul standards of right and wrong. and he survived. [applause] in 1999, jesse jackson came to silicon valley. he was part of this program he had at the time where he went to wall street, declared wall street erases. then he went to detroit and then he came to silicon valley and declared technology to be racist. t.j., is covered at the time in 35% minority employees, everyone of them who was a shareholder, and 44% of his executive vps were minorities gave a quote to

one news station, and i say quote unquote, jesse jackson reminds me of a sequel. he flies in, craps all over everything and then flies out. [laughter] [applause] lesson here is simple. just believe it. have the courage of your conviction. just say it. if they sense weakness they will kill you. don't have weakness. he shows up and talk about our business than. a lot of people misread tranninety see that what it's telling you is all businessmen are good at aqaba people are evil. go back and read "atlas shrugged." who's the main villain. the main villain is a businessman, the great tension that runs throughout the book is a conflict between james taggart, the bag executive and his sister dagny, but good executive. all of the political imagination

executed by wesley mouch and all the other government parasites in "atlas shrugged" are because james taggart is pulling the strings with his own crony capitalist again. so in our book were looking for an analogy to james taggart, we happened i felt made angelo mozilo. is the name that is familiar? he's the founder and former ceo of a company, former company, countrywide financial. countrywide financial was the poster child for everything you could possibly do wrong in subprime lending. as basic result is stock and countrywide 2007, the same week he gave a shareholder presentations and everything is wrong. from that .7 months later it lost, the couple is 80% of its value at which point it was acquired by bank of america. and i'm sure they thought they were getting quite a bargain. well, it turned out there was no bargain big enough to buy countrywide financial.

not only did it carry all kinds of unknown liabilities, but bank of america still paying. two weeks ago they paid $8.7 billion to settle lawsuits and predatory complaints about the fraudulent documentation of countrywide mortgages. let me take just a fraudulent some these mortgages were. just for him but who thinks all this is noble. it's not. a lot of business is. some government it. a lot of business isn't. countrywide led $339,000 to a part-time chicago housekeeper who make $200 a week. $339,000, $200 -- $2000 a week. she went on to polling, never made a single payment. $350,000 to undiluted california dairy worker making it $1100 a month. $398,000 to a woman unemployed since 1988. now, why would anybody lend

money to people like that? it is simple. because you make a fee when you write the mortgage, and the actual mortgage itself get transferred to all of us. through government-sponsored organizations like fannie mae and freddie mac. the connection between angelo mozilo and barney frank. the unholy alliance of corporations and government. that's what ayn rand of those. that's what "atlas shrugged" was about. that's when they got you. when corrupt companies and corrupt the government get together. angela mozilo was so deep in bed with an infantry, it's ridiculous. countrywide had an exclusive deal with fannie and freddie to pass on toxic mortgages at bargain rates and what am i would want to i don't know, but then effort to. i do know. is because of the program at countrywide called v.i.p. lounge note as friends of angela.

this is where influential people in government were able to get loans from countrywide on especially favorable terms for when you live 300,000 mostly part-time housekeeper to of dollars a week on which is to be more stable than that, but they're doing it. let me give you a list of the people in washington were beneficiaries of friends of angelo bones. this isindustries like a who's who of some of the starting characters of our age such as john edwards. some surprising characters have actually survived and interposition for special power. senator kent conrad who at this very moment is the chair of the senate budget committee. i love this one. chris dodd, the guy whose name is part of dodd-frank of the financial rig regulation bill that was unnecessary because the stuff blew up. alphonso jackson, the secretary of housing and urban spoken. this is the best. daniel h. mudd, this is a guy

who grew up having to deal with that famous saying, your name is mud. his name was mud. he was also the chairman and ceo of fannie mae. so, this is what we libertarians need to watch out for. the unholy alliance of government and corporations. now, to draw the contrast though, i don't want to leave the idea that all corporations are bad or all bankers are bad. the hero is a fellow named john allison. he is the former chairman and ceo of bb anti. bb&t is one of the top dozen banks indiana states ranked by assets size. they are dominant throughout the 13 southern united states of the nested. so out here you will see a bb&t

branch but if you're in mississippi, alabama, or tennessee or washington you certainly will. allison build a bb&t i'm utterly different principles than angelo mozilla build countrywide. countrywide blew up the financial crisis. cause the financial crisis. bb&t totally survived of the financial crisis. it and j.p. morgan with only two largest banks that do. how did allison do that? allison happens to be a ayn rand phonetic. in 1985 when he became ceo county is it a policy of having his whole executive group read "atlas shrugged." he created a statement of mission, purpose and values for bb&t pick out a copy of it here. this is a remarkable book. i'm proud to say this is inscribed to me by john. speaking of inscribed by john,

after i'm done year, there'll be a book signing of my book over at the booth. john allison who is here would be speaking at 10:30 a.m. on the financial crisis. you be joining the for the books i. if you'd like to have not only the author of the book but the main subject of the book signed about, we would be happy to do it for you. john is a wonderful charming man. this is your opportunity to interact with them. "atlas shrugged" has been the best selling book but our 3000 employees of bb&t right now, and over 25 years, the know some hundreds of thousands of copies of this book have been produced, this book embodies john galt in a speech at the end of "atlas shrugged." this is basically a summary of the objectivism apply to how to run a business. and all 30,000 bb&t employees, right down to the tellers, are evaluated every six months based on how they are complying with

these randy and ideals. i want to quote to you a from this and tell you what bb&t's statement of purpose is. think about this forever. if you have ever worked for a large company know their statement is picked to serve our community or save the gray whales are something like that. here's bb&t's purpose. our ultimate purpose is to create superior long-term economic rewards for our shareholders. we're in it for the money. two new? who new? they're all in it for the money. this is a guy who is honest about it. what happened when are not honest about their questions to having 30,000 plus you have 30,000 flyers. and works for countrywide. don't drive without them. this is a noble mission. we all want to succeed it will

want to make money to put all understand that shareholders have to make money. just say it. there are 10 fundamental values that support this at bb&t. i'm going to read in one of time and tide how this helps bb&t up with a financial crisis. value number one is reality. why say that? don't all live in reality? don't we all have respect for reality in the work? apparently not. angelo mozilo didn't expect really. people in lehman brothers didn't respect reality. people who ran aid didn't respect reality. i don't know what fantasy world they were living in but you look back at some of the stuff they did, it just makes no sense. it was not about reality. so reality is their prime virtue. the second virtue that as an employer right down to the to line is reason. okay, starting to see the ayn rand connection? what did she call this philosophy? object in the them. she says she's a philosopher of

reason. this is what it's all about. reality is what's out there. recent is what's in your pic gets our tool for apprehending and dealing with and profiting from what is out there. you've got to use reason to run your business. aid didn't use reason. lehman didn't use reason. what did they use? fancy computer models. that worked really well. made if it's shown in a few more greek letters it would've worked out. will have to try that again sometime. i hope not. the third virtue of bb&t is independent thinking. how about that, a bank that wants its employees to think independently. let me say what that meant to bb&t. while the entire u.s. banking industry was checking out how to compete with countrywide, and earn those big fees, in other words, to be short-term greedy, what were they doing? doing? they were inventing all these crazy new so-called exotic mortgages. the word exotic has not gotten anagrammed into toxic.

those mortgages can sit and into negative amortization, and you get so-called take a payment. this was the way all banks into united states made the money in the 2000s except per bb&t because there was an independent thinker who wasn't even particularly high up in a executive hierarchy. said this is really a bad idea for a customers. we're just not going to do this. john allison didn't make that decision. he heard about that after was made. he said that's the right decision. i trained the sky well. so these guys didn't blow up the world. they didn't blow up when the world blew up. because of independent thinking. the next i is productivity. probably nothing needs to be said about that. the next guy is honesty. of course, banks are supposed to be honest. but let me tell you this honesty pervades business, especially when you lie at the beginning of it about what the purpose is.

dishonesty pervades businesses when you promote and give power to improve student and look the other way when somebody fudges and pins the rules. craft to make a lot of money that year for the company. that doesn't happen at bb&t. the next virtue is integrity. it's one thing to say fancy words but let me to they put this into practice. does anybody remember the supreme court's kilo decision? this was the decision affirming the ability of governments to seize private property and hand it over, cannot use it to government use like build a freeway, but handed over to other private parties, like for real estate development. scandals, scandals decision against property right. when john allison heard about that, he said oh, my god, there's nothing more fundamental to the bank and property rights but we can't support this.

what will we do? i know. let's declare at bb&t whenever make love to a real estate developer and to put up one brick or garter on any property that was acquired through eminent domain. [applause] now, it just so happened that the guy got about a million letters from customers saying, you know, go -- yeah, way to go. there's a bank integrity. i'm going to my checking account to you. so you can do well by doing good. another principle is justice. very important for a company like bb&t. they have grown by acquisition. they have done lots and lots of acquisition. that's a very hard thing to do because when of a company like bb&t takes over a little company like xyz, the employees of xyz are afraid they will lose their job.

at bb&t they look at the employees of xyz and say you're in that particular function and you do it better than the bb&t income but who does that, so it's only justice to give you the job. that makes bb&t a preferred acquirer which means they can acquire companies at a lower price than more predatory companies can. justice has another meaning. bb&t is headquartered in winston-salem. that is an area where racial discrimination is historically big. racial awareness is a big issue everywhere all the time it is a national obsession. let me read to you from that book about what they say about their policy on race. at bb&t we do not discriminate based on nonessentials. such as race, sex, nationality. is that cool to call race a nonessential? it gets better. they go on to say we do discriminate based on competency, performance and

character. you just got to love these guys. now, bb&t is the bank that atlas bill. absolute poker. came to the crash but there's a tragic end to this story. in a sum of 2008 after lehman fell and treasury secretary henry paulson came up with t.a.r.p., during three to four we could when i was very violently debated in the congress and among the american public, john allison took a very courageous stand opposing t.a.r.p. the fact is his bank didn't need it. but he posted in general that he opposed on the grounds of moral hazard on the grounds he did want to see government taking over in asia including 19. a very sad thing happened. when t.a.r.p. fast, henry paulson had the idea that if the treasury said okay, if this bank is a, this one doesn't, this one

doesn't, then all the ones who did need it would be identified as arise. often depositors would run. so, you know, what we're going to do? all of your condition are not sick but we will give you all the medicine because we don't want you to know which ones of you are sick. so, what was that medicine? that medicine was that the government became a preferred shareholder in your bank. the government took options on common equity in your bank. the government may design a 250 page contract from the last session of which is the government was developed in the future rules which you would agree to abide by. and further the government might come up with all kinds of other rules with respect to which under this contract you will not question. bb&t had been audited the previous week, passed with flying colors. then one evening bb&t's regular met with john allison and said you really need to sign this contract. he said i don't need to sign

this contract. my bank is absolutely bulletproof. you have just audited us. and the regulator said, that was last week. we change the capital requirements. okay, what have you changed into. maybe we passed the new kappa requires. we don't know what they will be but we know you didn't ask, please sign this. so what is john allison to do? a terrible position to be in. absolutely morally opposed to signed that contract, but if he doesn't sign that the government destroys the bank. so he signs it. he is now the former chairman and ceo of bb&t. he is john gall. he walked away, retired. when john galt let the economic world, he became an agent for the rally of capitalism. that's what john allison is now doing to the bb&t foundation he is anti-programs that doesn't

university threat bb in seize the footprint of the south to teach them round of capitalism were a signed reading is "atlas shrugged." he is doing the work. [applause] the last rand character everyone i want to talk about, i'm talking about a villain, back to the "the fountainhead." the main villa was ellsworth to let it is a socialist was a scheming dwarf. he was a newspaper columnist who used his columns to tell lies and manipulate. you guessed i'm talking about paul krugman. back to the you can't make up stuff, the analogy between them are so striking it's just downright eerie. they are both socialist.

he says quote i am an unabashed fan of the welfare state which i regard as the most decent social punishment yet devised. he advocates state that offers anyone who is underpaid additional income. he hates rich people. krugman wants wrote that rich people must be defenders of the downtrodden. otherwise they have no hope of quote unquote justifying their existence. so we have to kill them if they disagree with paul krugman? there's a low bit of a hypocrite thing here. i we surprise? paul krugman happens to be a very wealthy man. we know he has a million dollar home. as a million dollar apartment in your. of the multimillion dollar estate in new jersey where he teaches. it's i think it's 6000 square foot home with 12-foot ceilings and a music room. and according to an article in "the new yorker" it has a fire that outside week and other faculty members have been known

to burn in effigy various republican politicians. so he hates the rich except for himself. toohey and krugman exalt and competence at the expense of the competent. is what my favorite krugman quotes. the official ideology of america's elite remains one of meritocracy. that will last. both toohey and krugman are simply outright liars. no less than daniel, the public editor or ombudsman of the new york times once wrote quote paul krugman has a disturbing habit of citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes. the both paul krugman and ellsworth toohey are physically very small. they've got a napoleon complex. and krugman once wrote a just

unimposing enough person to inspired by a vote over a few inches taller. "newsweek" once called him know initially handsome. [laughter] i agree with a gnomish part at least. so what i want to know is, is the reason you post the bush tax cuts, when he said they are a step on the way to a system in which only the little people pay taxes? you be the judge. krugman is also probably a little crazy. he once wrote and i quote of my economic theories have no doubt been influenced by my relationship with my cats. this explains a lot. okay, this is the part where somebody says didn't he win the nobel prize? isn't he a respected economist? come on. yasser arafat won the nobel prize. jimmy carter won the nobel

prize. barack obama won the nobel prize that anyone can win a nobel prize. the real test of the of the economist is what you can make a correct prediction. in 1982 when krugman was, get this, he was part of the council of economic advisers in the reagan white house. and he wrote a paper in 1982 when we had just come off like the all time peak in u.s. inflation, at least since the civil war, he wrote a paper called the inflation time bomb predicting that inflation would skyrocket and throw the world back into depression. basically evident since he wrote that paper, inflation has been lower. it's been practically at zero. he hates big government deficits. as long as they are the bush administration. and he is terrified they will create skyhigh interest rates. he loves deficits now in the obama administration. he says don't worry about interest rates.

the u.s. has infinite borrowing capacity. in 1983, i created a project called the krugman truth squad. nowadays the fans were for what we did would be called crowd sourcing where you use the internet, blogs, to get dozens of like-minded people to participate in a joint project. the project at the time was every time paul krugman writes a column, all a few minutes of the krugman truth squad stay up all night, fact checking it, catch every lie, every era, every distortion, every misquotation, every out of context quotation to e-mail me with a. i will have to publish on "national review online" the next day at the krugman truth column. we did about 100 over seven years but it resulted in dozens of major retractions by krugman of errors and lies and misquotation's. but before it did that, it had to result in not once but twice

getting "the new york times," for the first time in its more than century long history, to institute an official policy under which its opinion columnists are obliged to correct their errors. they didn't have that policy. [applause] now, let me tell you what's so powerful about that. when they can't lie, liberals have nothing to say. [applause] i've just got the two-minute mark some just going to end by saying that i had a personal experience with paul krugman does not entirely pleasant. in the midst of all this that i've been talking about, i went to a book signing of his. i listen to give a lecture to an audience that just hung on every word. at the end i went out and had

him inscribed to me a copy of his book. and i identified myself to him. the next week he went on national tv and said that i was stalking him. stalking is a felony. he went on national tv and choose me of committing a felony because i paid for his book and asked him to sign it. now, let me tell you what happened in the aged and it went somewhat paul krugman goes on tv and it uses some like me of committed a felony. for the next three weeks i lived in a 24 by seven world of hate. death threats, death threats against my family. this stuff is blood sport. make no mistake about it. this is why such rotten people are in public life. because either they're the kind of insensitive people who just are not hurt by those kind of

things, or they are just as pure canticle fanatics that you can't do it on them. so what's the ayn rand blessing your? well, -- lesson here. well, you can fight the power. you have identified force of evil like paul krugman. if you want to make it your hobby or your mission like i did, take the sky down a peg, pull a few things out of them, make them less powerful. pay a price. but you can do it. now, we've got a book signing coming up with me and john allison. it will be in the booth right after here. want you all to come. sure i want you to buy a copy of the book but i want to get the books are good and i promise i will accuse none of you of stalking me. [applause] >> thank you very, very, very much. >> and more from frankfort,

kentucky, now, mike pq wrote the forward to the socialist bertrand discusses the impact burden has had on american history. >> the early distillers would've been just like anywhere else, farmer distillers with hostility, 20 gallons to 200 gallons, and they were making their whiskey in the fall, in the winter after the crops were in and the court had reached a good percentage of dryer so they could grind it and make whiskey out of it. these distillers made their whiskey for their own consumption, and they also made their whiskey to sell. and they would sell it to groceries basically, who would then turn around and sell it to bars, whatever.

all through the 19th century it was an extremely profitable business. there was a lot of it being made. there was a lot of it being sold. and they were making good money off of it. there were problems through the 19th century. you got to mimic of the 19th century, the main package for selling bourbon wasn't the bottle. bottling of bourbon didn't really become something that was standard and fill the 1890s. the main package was the barrel. and back to a question about frankfort, this is where taylor becomes a very important figure in the bourbon industry. he started off in the banking industry in the 1850s, but

then migrated into the bourbon industry. he was the company in gains very and company that bought the old program. and the first thing they did is they sent him to europe to look at the distilling practices in ireland and scotland, in england, and france and germany. he came back to the united states and applied this knowledge that he learned about the practices to define the most modern perfect distilleries that they could in kentucky for old crow. then he takes that minds and goes independent in 1870 and creates a distillery that was the ofc disarray, old-fashioned copper history which begins buffalo trace of today. to what he would do, to show his genius at the time, he took the

distillery which he bought when he wishes to small operation, and he built into a modern distillery. he billed it as nice as he could because he realized the importance of having a really nice distillery so when salesmen of people came to the distillery to see how it was made, it would look really nice, not some barn with a distilling any. so that's the first thing he did. the second thing he did is he realizes the barrel was the main package. so he designed a real fancy trademark to put on the barrel head. you do realize that the term brand name comes from the distillery industry so they brand their names on the head of the bill. so he designed and realized brand. he use brasses instead of iron or wood. so when he sent a barrel out to

the customer he would take the barrel and shine up everything and make it real fancy so when you walk into that saloon and you saw six barrels across the back, his would stand out, the real fancy barrel head brand name and the shiny brass. he was really, realize how important the packaging. so when you came in with your flask or your jug and want to buy a pint or quart of whiskey or whatever, you know, you lock up and say oh, i want that one. kentucky is very fortunate in that they have a lot of people who knew how to make good whiskey. and it also had a very nice geographical balance. you've got the limestone water which is iron free. and iron is very bad for making whiskey. you take a nail and drop it into a glass of bourbon and come back 12 hours later and the bourbon

will be blacked with color. it's going to taste nasty. so with the iron free water in kentucky, plus you have a very nice balance of hot summers and cold winters, which allowed whiskey to work into the barrel and out and bring up those nice barrel flavors. so kentucky just have a nice proper balance in people and how to take advantage of all this, and they just made good whiskey and built their reputation. >> how is the bourbon industry doing out? >> it's doing quite well now. it wasn't long ago that you couldn't say that. in the late '60s and early '70s, the bourbon industry went through a huge decline. you have a generation of people that were saying don't trust anybody over 30 and were not going to drink what our parents bring. and what their parents drink were brown spirit.

they started experimenting with other new products such as vodka and tequila, two products that the government didn't even bother to keep track of and to 1970. because there were so few sales of its. so the industry was in huge decline into the 1980s, and it really is the single malt scotch industry that helped bring bourbon back, because one of the things that people were drinking in the '60s and '70s were wine. they're having wine tastings and wine dinners. they have magazines devoted to wine. and people were writing books about wine and things like that. well, the scotch whiskey industry decided to play up on that, to show people that their single malt whiskey's, which are fully uncommon in the united states before the 1970s, late '70s, early '80s. they started showing, started having whiskey dinners and

whiskey tastings. they started encouraging books and magazine articles and thin things. and doing the same things the wine industry has been doing to grow the product of the bourbon industry caught on to that and started creating products such as single barrel products, smallbatch products and extra aged products that could be treated the same way. and as those products grew in the early '90s, they were starting to bring up the sales of the other products. people would say oh, this is really great. i wonder what some of their other products taste like? so no bourbon is actually growing at a pretty good rate, even in this modern economy, the bourbon industry is actually commanding. >> mike veach o on the social history of bourbon. and for more information on this and other images from frankfort, kentucky, is at c-span.org/localcontent.