"What Does It Say about the Party When Its Intellectual Leader Evidently Gets His Ideas Largely from Deeply Unrealistic Fantasy Novels?"

"Since then, inflation has remained quiescent while long-term rates have plunged—and the U.S. economy would surely be in much worse shape than it is if Mr. Bernanke had allowed himself to be bullied into monetary tightening. But Mr. Ryan seems undaunted in his monetary views. Why?

"Well, it’s right there in that 2005 speech to the Atlas Society, in which he declared that he always goes back to 'Francisco d’Anconia’s speech on money' when thinking about monetary policy. Who? Never mind. That speech (which clocks in at a mere 23 paragraphs) is a case of hard-money obsession gone ballistic. Not only does the character in question, a Galt sidekick, call for a return to the gold standard, he denounces the notion of paper money and demands a return to gold coins."

 

Paul Krugman in The New York Times points to further Ayn Rand influence upon Paul Ryan.