Reading, Reading, Reading

It was fun over the Christmas break to have the time to follow-up on reading and topic paths that I wanted to further investigate.  I posted lately on the book "The World if Flat" which is a must read for the decade.  Well, after reading that I followed up with "The Shock Doctrine" which is pretty much the antithesis of the first book.  It was interested to read these books concomitantly because each text provided dramatically different viewpoints of the same world events and economic climates.  This left me with a million unanswered questions about right/wrong, capitalism/government intervention, globalization/isolationism, foreign policy/state of the union and who should be the next president of the United States.

I decided to read Alan Greenspan's "Age of Turbulence" to get some answers and another perspective.  While Greenspan's book is interesting, it did not provide the answers that I wanted.  I have even considered emailing Greenspan to have him clarify some issues.  I think that he tried to be too politically correct that it prevented him from getting to the meat of anything in the body of his book.  In any case, Greenspan kept mentioning Ayn Rand and her literary works and philosophies.  As a result, I turned to reading her most famous books starting with "The Fountainhead" and then her magnum opus "Atlas Shrugged."  Wow, never have a read a book that was so timely and relevant to the issues that our nation faces today.  I recommend reading both books if you have time.  In fact, I wonder what Ayn would say about John Edwards and Huckabee.  It is interesting to hear their platforms in light of the concern for socialization and government sponsored welfare that Ayn proports and for that matter Thomas Friedman in "The World is Flat."  So, while I still need to do some more historical research on clarifying some of the world economic events that I have concerns about, Ayn Rand has provided me with some much needed philosophical background to understand the issues presented in the most recent books I have read.  In addition, it as helped me to clarify what I am looking for in my next president.

I can't wait until I have another break from teaching and school, for now I am back to reading that which is necessary.  However, I am finishing up a fun book called "The Black Swan" which I am almost done with and will be my last read for awhile.