Gary Weiss

An interesting but not particularly sensational accounting of the massive fraud pullted of by Eddie Antar, the Eddie behind the Crazy Eddie stores that proliferated then imploded in the 1980's. Because of the stores name and crazy shout out loud advertising many people are quite familiar with this retail chain that hawking mainly consumer electronics.

Through a complex and seemingly secretive inside operations pulled off my a number of family members Eddie was able to pull the wool over pretty much everyone's eyes for a number of years while salting away millions most spirited off to Israeli banks. Despites some probing around by the SEC and eventually FBI the fraud was finally uncovered and the book narrates all the twist and turns of the players and the legal system that seeks to administer some form of justice.

Eddie was a master of deception in every aspect of his life and it took some concerted effort by some talented and dedicated investigators and attorneys to finally rein him in. Despite this however he seems to still have come out not necessarily on top but with not much of a severe penalty leaving the nagging suspicion that maybe for the years he lived in comfortable means that at least he felt in the end it was all worth it.… (más)

Weiss is a investigative reporter, focusing on financial matters (Barron's and Business Weekly). Ayn Rand Nation is a kind of mea culpa, as Weiss admits he was not initially aware of the influence of Ayn Rand on the upper echelons of business management. Weiss interviews both the leading people in the Rand Movement, as well as Tea Partiers who espouse Rand's philosophy without having read Rand, and 'fellow travelers' who accept Rand's beliefs on Capitalism while rejecting other parts of Objectivism. Weiss makes a good argument that Rand's thinking and ideas give an intellectual underpinning to what many people feel and believe, making her works far more influential; people who wish to be Selfish (in the Randian sense) can justify their behavior and even think themselves heroic while committing heinous acts. Weiss also devotes some time to Alan Greenspan, who carefully disassociated himself from Rand while reaching a position where he could implement Rand's policies on a grand scale. Weiss thinks that like any true believer, Greenspan is still a Randite, and despite some waffling testimony, still doesn't think that he did anything wrong while chairman of the Federal Reserve. Weiss's concern is that Rand's philosophy continues to energize political movements, and is well-financed by those who would benefit from wholesale adoption of Rand's ideas. (Complete to free copies of [Atlas Shrugged] being donated to public schools; the same schools who are struggling because of budget cuts made to avoid raising taxes on the wealthy. Note that the vast majority of Randites first read her books while in high school...) If the disparate forces that believe Rand was correct can put aside their differences and work together, we might live in a vastly different (and bleaker) America. (And as improbable as 'born again' Christians working with outspoken atheists and pro-abortion Randites might seem, stranger allies have worked together before.) A troubling, informative book.… (más)