Greenspan is that one-in-a-billion [expletive deleted] who made America the dissembling mess it is today . . . laying the intellectual foundations for a generation of orgiastic greed and overconsumption and turning the Federal Reserve into a permanent bailout mechanism for the super rich. (His) rise to the top is one of the great scams of our time. Greenspan pompously preached ruthless free-market orthodoxy every chance he got while simultaneously using all the powers of the state to protect his wealthy patrons from those same market forces. He was a member of the Ayn Rand ‘Collective’ that believed in ‘objective reality’, which boiled down to a belief in self-interest as an ethical ideal and pure capitalism as the model for society’s political structure.

Required
a. Explain the ‘self-interest’ principle.
b. Debate the use of the ‘self-interest’ principle in practical terms in the business environment.
c. Taibbi accuses Greenspan (a former US Federal Reserve Chairman) of protecting his wealthy patrons. Make some conclusions as to why he would think that way.
d. Suggest what the effect on an economy would be when the free market principle is practised together with the government protection of some interests.