getting worse and worse, if an invasive parasitic government that takes over private capital and everything it does makes things worse. when it makes things worse it does them again. yeah that does sound an awful lot like our world so you could almost say that ayn rand had some amazing prophetic powers in she sees the conservative nostra domicile, so we ought to embrace her ideas. those of you who have studied and brined's life -- she is an atheist, conservative movement is riddled with religious dress so she is never been popular with conservatives. it is politically expedient to bring her into the tent right now. we will talk in a minute about how that is actually a misreading of rand. the world described in "atlas shrugged" talks a lot more, talks a lot more things about what is wrong with government and wrong with big corporations

so we are going to get into all of that. but on the surface the narrative of the conservatives is actually very good. you read alba shrugged and i'm telling you sometimes you think you are reading some of today's headlines. one of the most memorable villains in "atlas shrugged" is a fellow named wesley mooch. now if you have seen the recent movie about "atlas shrugged" they chose to pronounce his name mouch. ..

>> they repeat the mistake bigger. let me quote barnesny frank. after the collapse of the u.s. housing industry in the u.s. mortgage industry, a collapse more than single individual engineered by -- from his position in the u.s. congress, getting fannie and freddy to loan money to and subsidize loans of money to people who couldn't possibly ever own a home or pay back mortgages. that was all barney franks work. when asked what to do with the mess he said, "the way to cure that is to give us broader powers." [laughter] [applause] you can't make this stuff up, but the amazing thing is ayn rand did 54 years ago. frank is more like mooch thane

can imagine. you might remember mooch was in the government in the first place as a lobbyist for henry, one the great heros of "atlas shrugged". this is one of these things when liberals are corrupt, it doesn't get well reported, 10 you might be surprised to know that barney frank was sentured by the congress for a scandal in which he ended up admitting to have used male prostitutes and paid them and sustained them in his apartment in washington as the 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. i have no problem with the sexual preferences, but a

serious objection to corruption. we're talking about a deeply, deeply corrupt man whose corruption very nearly destroyed the world. another villain alive in well in our world is alan greenspan. what character is he like? anybody remember dr. robert statler? a my -- minor, but key character, a mentor to the young john galt. when galt was still a young man, statler left academia to find the state institute to do physics three of the grubby supporters of capitalists and people who pay tuition and things like that, and john galt disowned him, he damned him. now, at the climax when the

world finally goes down the drape, the scene is when the government having expropuated the work to create a weapon of mass destruction, and that almost detonates in the presence, and the description of hit death at the hands of this weapon his science created is one of the moving passages. alan greenspan is the most damned because he knew better. it's one thing to make these mistakes out of ignorance or pure power lust like barney frank did, but alan greenspan knew better, he was a close follower of ayn rand. they were best friends forever. he had no excuse. he knew better. when he went to washington in 1976 as president ford's

chairman economic advisers, her and her husband were there in the white house as he was sworn in. why didn't ayn rand damn him? he said to the press that alan is my man in washington. well, she didn't live long enough to see him become chair of the federal reserve. she probably thought then that he was a double agent for capitalism right in the heart of washington. well, sounds good if you say it fast, but any of you spent time in washington, just the atmosphere there is an addictive drug, and washington is like an aquarium, but instead of filled with water, it's filled with power, and after you swim in it, you want more of it, and alan greenspan did. federal reserve chairman is the most highly empowered economic czar on planet earth. it's master of the universe, and

ayn rand acolyte got that job. well, the rest of history. an 18-year run as chairman seemed okay for awhile. a lot of bad things happened on his watch. he bailed us out. he was on the cover the "time" with the headline of "chairman of the save the world committee." i met him in washington. let me tell what happens -- you see a shriveled man that wears a sign saying broken. he's 85 years old. his mind is still totally there. his spirit is not there. he's a broken man. look, i'd be broken too if i was hauled before congressman henry waxman -- [laughter] you ever seen henry waxman? this guy looks like a combination of the original phantom of the opera.

[laughter] waxman grilled greenspan, got him to admit that all of that self-interest stuff, all that virtue of selfishness and self-interest and self-regulation stuff didn't work well in the credit crisis, did it? greenspan said, yeah, i guess it didn't work so well. he basically recanted, so when i met him, i said, did you really recant? you know, i kind of saw it on youtube. he said, no, no, not at all. that's taken out of context. well, no it's not. it's like a year had passed. i had my copy of -- my favorite non-fiction book is "capitalism, the unknown ideal" two chapters written by greenspan -- one called gold, and the other is political freedom, and i have a first copy of that with rand's

signature on it and i brought it to get him to sign it. i said, do you still stand by this? he said, every word. i stand by every word rand said and i ever said. it's all stood the test of time. well, go to youtube because that is what he said to waxman. so one of the lessons you can learn from "atlas shruggedded" is if you don't want to be a broken man, have a little integrity. stick by your guns. now, one of the secrets of at las slugged enduring popularity is explores this nightmare world with these villains, but it's an inspiring book because it's the best of times and worst of times. the heros in it are absolutely inspiring. who can read that book and not identify with characters like

haggard and francisco and others? you know, it's a very, very inspiring book, and i'm here to tell you that our world as bleak as it seems is absolutely populated by those kinds of heros. now, like all heros, some heros are tragic heros like some in "atlas shrugged" in fact. let's look at the heros. the steel tycoon inventing a new metal had it taken away by the government who was blackmailing him. ring any bells? what about billgates? college dropout, created technology that transformed and extended our lives and wealth, richest man in the world in the process, well deserved. in 1999 using tax dollars that bill gates himself sent to washington, washington sent to bill gates a lawsuit from the

department of justice seeking to break up microsoft on antitrust grounds which is a polite way of saying you succeeded too much. now, just like henry, when that happened, gates couldn't be bothered to dirty his hands in hanging out with those people in washington. i don't blame him. microsoft is a huge company with only two or three lobbyists at that time. boy, did he learn a lesson. he won the suit, settled it on fairly favorable terms, but microsoft is still straightening out anti-trust issues in europe for example. there's another broken man. he stepped down as ceo as soon as the suit was settled. seen the microsoft stock prices? draw an x on the price where bill gates stepped down. that x is above the current stock price. it has not traded there since 11

years. it's a broken stock because gates is a broken man. bill gates created the world's largest fortune. if he was at the helm, he could have taken the largest fortune and made it larger, and now he gives it away. what do we call this? this is called stockholm syndrome when you identify with your kidnappers. our culture vilified bill gates for making money. now we love him because he's giving away money. that's sending the wrong message to our children. what's the lesson of bill gates? there's a light lesson and a dark lesson. the light lesson is you can drop out of school and become the richest man in the world. the -- by the way, the spillover effect to all of us, you know, people rail about income inequality. here's the good side -- when there is a guy as rich as bill gates, that sets the bar. that means that something is possible for everybody that

wasn't possible until he proved it could be done. it was like when the first guy broke the first four minute mile. thank you, bill gates, for showing what can be done. it can still happen in america. the other lesson of bill gates is watch your back. don't make the mistake of ignoring washington. let me switch to the fountain head for a minute and talk about a hero from the fountain head, my favorite character. that's howard rorke, one of the most fascinating characters in all of literature from page 1 to page 1,000 or however long the book is. he's the only major hero in the history of literature who undergoes no trance formation throughout the book. he's perfect on page 1 and perfect on the last page. what's perfect about him? he's an absolute individual, and every step he makes, every success he has, every trial he

faces is faced with absolute utter integrity in his 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. guy came out of nowhere. think what he accomplished simply because he loves it. he's obsessed with it. it's toys for him, canvas to paint on. when he founded apple computer, he completely transformed the computer industry from a command and control mainframe model to an individual empowerment desktop model. he made that happen. a few years later, he bought an obscure digital rendering company on fire sale when george lucas needed to get rid of it called pixar. he had the idea this could be

used to create full length animated movie. he thought that would be cool. he found john lsaiter and they worked on a movie called "toy story," and they spent so much money on it, he came near to bankruptcy on it, finally, he did a hail mary pass and did a deal with disney, and toy story is the top ten biggest grossing movies of all time, two sequels also on the top ten lists, and he did it not to make money. he just thought it was cool. i remember meeting steve jobs in the kitty pool in a resort in hawaii years back when we both had young children, and i went with my daughter into the pool, and steve jobs is in there. he sticks out his hand and said, hi, my name's steve, i make movies, what do you do? look, man, the secret is just

love your work. what else did he do? he created itunes and the ipod. that's his third industry. he completed transformed computers, transformed movies, and then transformed music. he's not done. he created the iphone and completely transforms the phone, and now he's made the ipad and went back to transforming computing. don't tell me there are not heros in this world. on the panel yesterday, i was the only optimist in the room. well, look, you can't meet steve jobs and not be optimistic. that's what's possible. i know there's a lot of problems in this world, but there are a lot of solutions too. another great silicon valley figure is tj rogers, the ceo of cyprus -- he's been a guest here in the past. if you have a cell phone, crack

it open and look at the miracles inside it. quite a few of them come from something he conducted. they are a leader in that field. t.j. rogers is like the character of francisco. remember, he showed up in critical scenes whenever the main heros were having a moment of doubt and needed moral clarity. he showed up to show him what's what. one of the most often quoted page sages is the famous speech about the nobility of money where he's at a cocktail party and some heiress says that money is the root of all evil, and he proves in 20 pages that money is the root of all good. t.j. rogers is that guy, completely politically incorrect, and he says things ceos shouldn't get away with, and he does it by having absolute moral clarity. i'm going to quote some t.j. for you.

like many ceos, he's under assault by political correct people trying to get them to have more gender diversity, racial diversity on the boards and work force. a couple years back, a nun attacked cyprus insisting they diversify the board more for gender and race. t.j. responded in the "wall street journal," "choosing a board of directors based on race and gender is a lousy way to correct a company. cyprus will never do it or be pressured to do did because borrowing to interest groups is an immoral way to make money begin how many people it hurts. we cannot allow laws to be pushed on us who lack business expertise. i would rather be unkind to religious group rather than a coward who harms his employees and investors by not following

right and wrong." and he survived! [cheers and applause] in 1999, jesse jackson came to silicon valley as a program he had at that time where he went to wall street and wall street was declared race cyst and detroit was racist and came here to declare technology race i. t.j.'s company had 35% minority employees, every one of whom was a shareholder, and 44% were minorities and gave a quote to a news station, and i say, "jesse jackson reminds me of a sea gull, flies in, craps on 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'll kill you. don't show weakness.

just believe what you believe. these heros i've been talking about are businessmen, and a lot of people misread the book to say what it's telling you is that all businessmen are good and all government people are evil. well, go back and read "atlas shrugged," and who is the main village? it's the president of transcontinental. the great tension throughout the book is the conflict between the bad executive and his sister, the good railroad executive. all of the political machination s created by government parasites are because james is pulling the strings with his own crony capitalist gains. in our book when we looked for an analogy to james, we happened on a fellow named anglo mizillo. that familiar? he's founder and ceo of the former company of countrywide

financial. it was the poster child of everything you could possibly do wrong in subprime lending. after he secretly sold the stock in countrywide in 2007, the same week he gave a shareholder presentation saying everything was fine, from that point, seven months later, the company lost 80% of the value, acquired by bank of america, and i'm sure they thought they were really getting quite a bargain. turns out, there's no bargain big enough to buy countrywide financial. not only was there unknown littles, but bank of america is still paying. two weeks ago they paid $8.7 billion to settle lawsuits and regulatory complaints about the fraudulent documentation of countrywide mortgages. let me tell you how fraudulent the mortgages were just for anybody who thinks all business is noble. it's not. a lot of businesses -- and look,

some government is, a lot of business isn't. countrywide lent $339,000 to a part time chicago housekeeper who made $200 a week. after receiving the mortgage, she went home to poland and never made a single payment. $350,000 to an ill literal california dairy worker making $11 murks 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 than the actual mortgage itself is transferred to all of us through government sponsored organizations like fannie mae and freddy mack, thus the connection between anthony and barney frank, the unholy alliance of corporations and

government. that's what ayn rand opposed and that's what "atlas shrugged" was about. that's when they got you -- when corrupt companies and corrupt government get together. now, ang lo was so deep in bed with fannie and freddy it's ridiculous. there was an exclusive deal to pass on toxic mortgages at bargain rates. why anybody wanted that, i don't know, but fannie and freddie did. there's a program called vip loans called frandz of anglo. they got loans from countrywide on favorable terms. when you lend $350,000 to a part time housekeeper, i don't know what you do to be more favorable than that, but they were doing it. there's a list of people in washington who were ben beneficiaries of loans. it's a who's who list such as

john edwards. some surprising characters who survived and are in positions of special power. senator kent conrad who at this moment is the chair of the senate budget committee. i love this one -- chris dodd, the guy who is part of dodd-frank the financial reregulation bill that was necessary because the stuff blew up. jackson, the secretary of the housing and urban development. this is the best -- daniel h. mud, the guy who grew up having to deal with that famous saying your name is mud. his name was mud. he's the chairman and ceo of fannie mae. 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 you with the idea that all corporations are bad and all bankers are bad because anglo is. the hero is a fellow named john alison, the former chairman and ceo of bb and t, one of the top dozen banks in the united states ranked by asset size. they are absolutely dominant throughout the 13 southern states of the united states. out here, you won't see a branch; but if you are in mississippi, tennessee, or washington, d.c., you certainly will. alison built that company on utterly different principles than ang lo built countrywide. countrywide blew up in the financial crisis, caused the financial crisis. bb and t totally survived the financial crisis. it and jp morgan were the only two large banks that did.

how did alison do it? he happens to be an ayn rand fanatic. in 1995 when he was ceo, he had a policy of having the whole executive group read "atlas shrugged," and he created a statement of mission, purpose, and values for the company. i have a copy of it here. this is a remarkable book. i'm proud to say this is inscribed to me by john. speaking of being inscribed by john, after i'm down here, there's a book signing of the book, and john alison who is here and speaking at 10:30 in the silver room on the financial crisis is joining me for the signing, if you want the author and the main subject to sign the book, we'd be happy to do it for you. john's a wonderful charming man, and this is the opportunity to interact with him.

atlas shrugged is the best selling book, but there's 10 employees at bb and t now and over 25 years, who nows how many hundreds of thousands of copies of this book was produced. this embodies john galt's famous speech. this is basically a summary of objectivism applied to how to run a business, and all 30,000bb and t employees right down to the teller are evaluated every six months based on how they are complying with these randan ideals. i want to quote to you from this, and tell you what bbt's statement of purpose is. now, think about this for a second. 23 you worked for a large company, you know the purpose statements, it's to serve the communities or save the whales. here's bb and t's purpose, "our

ultimate purpose is to create sue peoria economic rewards for our shareholders. we're in it for the money, who knew!" [applause] folks, they are all in it for the money. this is a guy who is honest about it. what happens when you are not honest about it? instead of having 30,000 employees, you have 30,000 liars. that works for countrywide. don't try that one. be honest with the employees. this is a noble mission. we all want to succeed. we all want to make money. we all understand that shareholders have to make money. just say it. there's ten values that support this. i'm going to read them one at a time and tell you how this helped bb and t avoid the financial crisis. value number one is reality. boy, why say that; right? don't we all live in reality and have to respect reality in our work and every phase of our

lives? apparently not, ang lo and lehman brothers and aig didn't respect reality. i don't know what fantasy world they were living in, but you look back at the stuff they did, it just makes no sense. it was not about reality. reality is their prime virtue. the second virtue they ask from every employer to the teller line is reason. okay. starting to see the rand connection? what did she call her philosophy? objectivism? she characterized here's herself as a character of reason. reality is out there. reason is what's in here. it's our tool for apprehending and dealing with and profiting from what is out there. you have to use reason to run your business. aig didn't use reason. lehman didn't use reason. what did they use? fancy computer models. that worked well. maybe if there were more greek

letters, it would have worked out. we'll have to try that again sometime. i hope not. the third virtue is independent thinking. how about that? a bank that wants its employees to think independently. let me tell you what that meant -- while the entire u.s. banking industry was figuring out how to compete with countrywide and earn those big fees, in other words to be short term greedy, what were they doing? inventing crazy new so-called exotic mortgages, and the word "exotic" is now anagrammed into toxic, and those mortgages consistented of the so-called take a payment. this is the way all banks in the united states made their money in the 2000s except for bb and t because there was an independent thinker who was not particularly high up in the executive list. he said this is a bad idea for customers.

we're just not going to do this. john alison didn't make that decision. he heard about it after it was made, and then he said, yeah, yeah, right decision. we trained the guy well. these guys didn't blow up the world, and they didn't blow up when the world blew up because of independent thinking. next value is productivity, probably nothing needs to be said about that. next value is honesty. of course, banks are supposed to be honest. let me tell you, dishonesty pervades business especially when you lie at the beginning about what the purpose of the business is. dishonesty pervades businesses when you promote and give power to and perks to and look the other way when somebody fudges and bends the rules and happens to make a lot of money that year for the company. that doesn't happen at bb and t. the next virtue is integrity. it's one thing to say fancy words, but let me tell you how

this is put into practice. everybody remember the supreme courts kelo decision? k-e-l-o? it was the decision adpirming the ability of governments to seize private property and hand it over to -- not use it for government use like to build a freeway, but to hand it over to other private parties like for real estate development. scandalous, scandalous decision against property rights. when john heard about that, he said, oh my god, there's nothing more fundamental to banks than property rights. we can't support this. what do we do? i know, let's declare that bb and t will never make a loan to a real estate developer to put up one brick or mortar on property acquired through imminent domain. [applause] now, it just so happened that, you know, the guy got about a million letters from customers

saying you know, yeah, baby, way to go, oh my good, a banker with integrity. i'm moving by checking account to you. you can do well by doing good. another principle is justice. it's very important for a company like bb andty. they grew by acquisition. they have done takeovers. it's a hard thing to do because when a big company takes over a little company like xyz the the employees are scared they will lose their job. at bb and t, they look at the employees of xyz and say you're in that area, and you do it better than the bb and t person who does that, so it's only justice to give you the job. that makes bb and t a preferred acquirer means it can acquire companies at a lower price rather than predatory companies can. bb and t is head quartered in

winston-salem where racial discrimination is a huge issue and racial awareness is a big issue all the time, a national obsession. let me read to you from the book about what they say about their policy on race. >> we do not discriminate based on nonessentials such as race, sex, nationality. is that cool? to call race a nonessential? [applause] it gets better. they go on to say, oh, we do discriminate based on come pen ten silicon valley, performance -- competency, performance, and character. [applause] you got to love these guys. now, bb and t is the bank that atlas built, absolutely bullet proof. it came through the crash smelling like a rose, but there's a tragic end to the story. in 2008 after lehman fell and

henry paulson came up with t.a.r.p., during the three week period when that was debated in the congress and among the american public, john took a stand to oppose t.a.r.p.. his bank didn't need it. he opposed it in general, opposing it on the ground of moral has hazard, and he didn't want government taking over banking. when t.a.r.p. passed, henry paulson had the idea that if the treasury said, okay, this bank needs it, this one doesn't, this one does, this one doesn't, then all the ones who did need it would be identified as all the depositors run. all of you in the room are not sick, but you're all getting 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 the bank. the government made you sign a 250-page contact that said the government would develop in the future rules for executive compensation that you would abide by, and the government could have other rules with respect to you which under this contract you will not question. bb and t had been audited the previous week, passed with flying colors, and then one evening, bb and t's regulator met with john alison and said you really need to sign this contract. he said, i don't need to sign it. my bank is absolutely bullet proof. you just add ited us -- audited us. the regulator said, oh, this was last week. we changed the capital requirements. okay, what are they? maybe we passed the new capital requirements. well, we don't know, but we know you didn't pass. please sign this. what's john alison to do?

a terrible position to be in. absolutely morally opposed to signing the contract, but if he doesn't sign that, the government destroys the bank, so he signed it. he is now the former chairman and ceo of bb and t. he is john galt. he walked away. he retired. when john galt left the economic world, he became an agent for the morality of capitalism, and that's what john alison is doing through the bb and t foundation. he is endowing programs at dozens of universities throughout bb and t's footprint in the south to teach the morality of capitalism where assigned reading is "atlas shrugged," so he is doing the work. [applause] the last rand character with the real world i want to talk about, it's a negative note, talking about a villain, back to the

fountain head. everybody remember the main villain was ellsworth tilley, a socialist, a scheming dwarf, a nap columnist using it to tell lies and manipulate. you guessed it, that's paul krugman. [laughter] now, back to the, you know, you can't make it up stuff, the analogies between the two are so striking it's just downright ere -- eerie. they are both socialist. he's a defender of the welfare state, the best arrangement devised and advocates a state that offers everyone who is underpaid additional income. he and touey both hate rich people. krugman wrote in a column that rich people have to be defenders of the downtrodden, otherwise

they have no hope of, quote-on-quote, justifying their existence. we have to kill them if they disagree with him? now, there's a hypocrite thing. are we surprised? paul is a wealthy man. from public record, he has a million dollar home and a million dollar apartment in new york, a multimillion estate in princeton new jersey where he teaches, a 6,000 square foot home with a music room, and there's a fire pit outside where he and other faculty members have been known to burn in effigy various republican politicians. he hates the rich other than himself. they exalt incompetent at the expense of the competent. ideology of america's elite is one of air toke silicon valley. that will not last.

they both are simply outright liars. no less the first than daniel, the public editor of the new "new york times" saying he is the habit of citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes. both paul and ellsworth are physically very small. they have napolian complexes, anatomy is destiny, i agree with that. i'm not impose r enough in person to be inspiring, and if only i was a few inches taller . "newsweek" called him gnomishly hand smit. [laughter] i want to know is is the reason you oppose the bush tax cuts -- when he said they are a step on the way to a system in which only the little people pay tax.

[laughter] you be the judge. i report. you decide. krugman is also probably a little crazy. he wrote, "my economic theories are influenced by the relationship of my cats." this explains a lot. [laughter] okay. now this is the part where somebody says, well, didn't he win the nobel prize, and a respected economist? come on. yassar and president obama won the nobel price. anyone can win the nobel prize. all you have to be is a liberal or a terrorist. the real test is whether you can make a correct prediction. in 1982 when krugman was part of the counsel 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, ever since he wrote that paper, inflation's been lower, practically at zero. he hates big government deficits as long as they are in the bush administration. he's terrified there's going to be sky high interest rates. he loves interest now with the obama administration. the u.s. has inmy gnat borrowing capacity. in 1983, i created a project called the krugman truth squad. nowadays the fancy word for what we did is crowd sourcing where you use the internet, blogs to get dozens of like-minded people to participate in a joint project, and the project at the time was every time paul writes a column, all of you on the

truth squad stay up all night fact checking it catching every lie, distortion, misquotation, out of context, e-mail me, i'll have it published on national review online the next day as a krugman truth column. we did 1 # 00 columns over seven years, and it resulted in dozens of mayor retractions by krugman of errors, lies, distortions, and misquotations, but before it did that, it had to result in not once, but twice getting the new new "new york times" for the first time to institute an official policy under which the opinion columnists are obliged to correct their errors. they did not 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.

[laughter] i just got the two minute mark. i'll end by saying that i had a personal experience with paul that was not entirely pleasant. [laughter] in the midst of all of this, i went to a book signing of his, and i listened to him give a lecture to an audience that just hung on every word. at the end, i went up and had him sign a copy of his book for me, and i identified myself to him. the next week, he went on national tv and said that i was stocking him. [laughter] stocking is a felony. he went on national tv accused me of committing a felony because i paid for his book and

asked him to sign it. what happens in the age of the internet when you are accused of committing a felony. for the next three weeks, i lived in a 24 # by 7 world of hate. death threats, 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 are the kind of insensitive people who just are not hurt by those kinds of things, or they are just fanatics that you can't get anything on them. either way, you don't want them ruling you. what's the ayn rand lesson here? well, you can fight the power. you can -- you identify a force of evil like paul krugman. if you want it to be your hobby or mission like i did to take this guy down a peg, pull fangs

out of him, make him less powerful, you pay a price, but you can do it. now, we got a book signing coming up with me and john alison. it's in the booth right after here. i want you all to come, i want you to buy a copy, get a signed, and i'll accused none of you of stocking me, i promise. [laughter] thank you very, very much. [laughter] [applause] >> what are you -- >> james o'shea, forming managing editor of the -- [inaudible] he takes an ideas -- >> catching up on something i've been wanting to read, and one i just finished is too big to fail. it's a very good book. this book detailed the financial

crisis of the last few years. i read a lot of books on various topics. things like the big short and financial shock. there's been a number of other titles, but this is the last one i read, "too big to fail," and it's a book that kind of details the series of events that led to the financial collapse starting from the early roots of the crisis which were born in sub prime lending, loans, anyone jay loans, no income, no job type loans, and how people made money selling those, and they those -- those marges were sold on the idea they could refinance, but when the housing market broke, that was impossible. there's a lot of detail, and a fascinating book. i enjoyed reading it, but i'm on the financial services

committee, so i kind of lived it, but it was actually very fascinating to see this take hold, and also i read henry pallson's book on the financial crisis as well. this is an area that i really want to become a much better student of, and this book helped me to do that, "too big to fail." another book i'm reading right now, i'm just about down with it is "a life, liberty, and love", and i admire her willingness to question tradition and conviction, and she promotes this islamic idea of up qir richest man, questioning, and at a time when you find some people who offer ideas based on tradition and just precedent and what has happened, she's one who

says, no, there's another tradition of inquiry -- excuse me -- and questioning. her book basically is, you know, talking about how the modern islamic world has an opportunity to really incorporate ideas of liberty and freedom, and as we look at the arab spring, you know, there's no doubt that the books she's writing is actually an important perspective because that's exactly what the people of tahir square and tunisia and all over the region are saying, you know, that they believe they can have their faith and they can have liberty. they don't have to live under authoritarian government, and she is one who is really raising some important questions, so i, you know, i really -- reading is

a huge part of my life. i do it all the time, and i'm sure i'll be done with this booing in a few hours or maybe even quicker than that, and then i'll be on to something next. i have a bunch of books in the queue. i have another book to do with goldman sachs, the investment firm. there's other books i've been reading about the financial crisis, and i have a whole list of other books that i have up here, and i'm getting ready to crack them open. actually, hopefully, august, i hope to reread a few books too. you know, there's a book i read years ago called "100 years of solitude," and i love that book, enr and if i get my vacation in august, i'm going to crack that book open and read it. i have a history on the ottoman

empire that i want to read. they are not currently being read, but i hope to get to them. >> send us a tweet @booktv. >> senator mike lee, a senator from utah is reading "it's dangerous to be right when government is wrong". >> visit booktv.org to see this and other summer reading lists. >> host: in your book you talk about one of the life changing moments. you're watching the justice thomas and anita hill hearings. what happens to anderw breitbart? >> guest: i just graduated from college where like it was my bar mitts. i left feeling empty because i just learned how to chapter. i felt -- i was open for a

spiritual experience. i didn't get it. i felt the exact same way in college where i was an american studies major, and the stuff that i was reading was in inincomprehensible and it was jar begin with a lack of comprehensive to a person who doesn't understand the language, and it was demoralizing, and i graduated less skilled, less motivated, and i was a waiter. >> you robbed yourself? >> guest: i did. my education was a lack of an education, and so i was waiting tables right after graduating college, and i finished my shift and would go home. >> host: your fends say, why are you doing this? you're better than this. >> guest: it was embarrassing and humiliating, the best time of my life, and the people i was looking up to and trying to impress were looking down on me, and i started to pay for my own

shoes. >> host: your parents cut you off. >> guest: they did. it was brutal, and that's why i dedicated the book to my father who cut me off and clarence thomas at the same time. both of their guidance in my life coincided. >> host: that's a good segue back to the hearings. >> guest: yeah. well, i went for my waiting job, and i watched the hearings wanting to root for the take down of clarence thomas. i watched the tv, and the tv set told me this was a bad man and the newspapers told me he was a bad man, and i remember eleanor and patricia walking up the steps and saying we're taking a stand against this guy for sexual harassment, so i watched these hearings like a spectator who wanted to see somebody mulled, you know, like lions mulling romans, and i watched day one. i watched day two.

i watched the entire thing. i went from wanting him to be taking down to wondering where's the beech? what's going on here? i don't understand what i'm watching here. i don't understand the comments on the screen. this is outrageous. i didn't understand the bumper stickers saying i believe anita. i said i believe i knee that what. what's going on here? everything that i knew, everything that i picked up at college in my american studies, culture marxist, oppressor oppressed, black people are always right, white people are always wrong -- i didn't understand how ted kennedy, these ted kennedy, how howard, joe biden, and a series of white privileged men sat in judgment of this man, the son of grandparents who were sharecroppers who raised him, and he went to yale law school. he did everything right

including allowing for anita hill to rise through the ranks of the legal profession through jobs with him where she never had a sexual relationship with him at all. he did nothing untoward, and she was party to this take down, and i did not understand how it could be that these white people of privilege were attacking this black man who was in this historic position while the mainstream media took him down while the naacp and the urban league and other black liberal leaders sat and seemed to relish this take down. >> host: who are your mentors? you had a mentor at that time who we'll get to later who was brutally murdered, but it was a mentor, and it was along that time that you started questioning the indoctrination. >> guest: the smartest person i met was this guy named mike. i was delivering pizza in high school, and he was just different. he was alternative, and he was

the smartest guy i ever knew. hindsight, he was not the most ethical guy. he took the acts for my friends and was the smartest guy you could meet. he dropped out of uc santa barbara, and while i was going to college, he was doing drugs. during the period of time he was my mentor, he took me to alternative bookstores to read about left wing ideas. you know, he was into the class struggle. when i started to have these epiphanies, when i started getting my job, as i was aspiring to be an intellect, understanding the world view and embracing the struggle, my dad said something at a point that nobody told him. he said, you need to get a job, clean up, get your act together, stop doing drugs. there was a point where i started to challenge my mentor.

i didn't feel i was an intellect and could beat him at the game at sat scores. i was still 400 points below him on that level, but i started to gain the self-confidence and the self-respect i could call him out on his misbehavior, and i just started to move away from the guy, and i got a phone call as i was starting to move towards independence and away from this victimology that dominated this guy's consciousness. i got a phone call that he was murdered at a hotel room in los angeles, and i imagined that it was during a drug deal that went bad, and to this day i think about how i never cried about that, that -- >> host: you know, but i was thinking about your parents, thinking about your story, the humiliation, and how you had to negotiate with the professor to give you a higher grade so you

could graduate because if you did not graduate, it would be humiliation, and more of your life would be lost, but then a friend of yours at yale, who was bright, called and said, anderw breitbart, i have the perfect job for you. tell us about that. >> guest: he was from harvard, an astrophysics major who always caredded for me. he always knew that in prep school i was not going to be the at student, but i was the class clown, but i meant well. you know, even though -- that was how i skirted around my add and was able to maintain my place in a prep academy where everybody was harvard bound. i knew i was not going to an elite academy. i didn't want to leave my friend. seth knew my burden. seth knew that i, you know -- >> host: you would visit him. >> guest: he visited me and said i need to take you on a walk. i said sit down. he said let's walk. we walked around the street in

santa mon carks and -- monica, and i was utterly wayward. he said, i've seen your future. it's this thing called the internet. it works the way your brain works. at this point, i had been diagnosed with adult add, and i tried rid lin for a month, and i hated it. i felt hideous about it. i was trying to figure out how i could conform to the workplace where people had to work in cubicles, and i knew that i couldn't do that. i'd rather drive around l.a. listening to talk radio or music -- >> host: oh, but you listened to rush limbaugh. >> guest: uh-huh. anyway, he said i saw the future, and he -- i still to this day think that there's something almost too eerie about that because he's right. the internet works the way my brain works. >> you can watch this and other programs on