The Political Derivative of a Romney-Ryan Presidency in the Kleptocratic Age!

Welcome to Capital Account. Mitt Romney has anointed Paul Ryan as his running mate for his presidential bid in 2012. What does this VP choice really mean for free market capitalism and fiscal reform, the pillars of Mitt Romney's electoral platform? We ask Market Ticker's Karl Denninger, if Paul Ryan really has a plan to reign in the debt, and if Denninger, as a libertarian, is excited about Ryan as a Vice President or if he is just another establishment politician. Plus, as we see analyses of plans to reign in government deficits, we wonder if any of the plans really do this or if they just shift the costs and fail to address the actual problems? We talk to Karl Denninger, author of "Leverage: How Cheap Money Will Destroy the World," about Ryan's budget, addressing Medicare and Medicaid. One surprise addition to the Romney-Ryan ticket is Ayn Rand, the supposedly tax-hating, capitalism loving, libertarian-inspiring, objectivist philosopher. Although Paul Ryan has recently publicly distanced himself from Ayn Rand, that's neither here nor there (he is a politician after all). And so, many are dissecting the Rand-inspiration Ryan has cited publicly over the years. We thought we should look at how her objectivist, anti-socialist ideology has manifest itself in Ryan's record so far: Paul Ryan voted for subsidizing the banks with TARP, voted for the prescription drugs in Medicare Part D, and gave a greenlight to the Iraq war, which added billions to the deficit he purports to want to cut. How's that for socking it to the government looters and moochers? Also remember the time you helped launder money for an entity the government had imposed sanctions on, and got called out by authorities? And then you fired back, somehow leaking to the press that your lawyers thought you could sue for reputational damage, and you ended up settling charges and continuing on as usual? No? Maybe because that would never happen to an individual, but if you're a big bank, you can get away with it. We talk to Karl Denninger about Standard Chartered, banks and the rule of law, or lack-there-of, in this country.