Show me the money ...

When complaining here yesterday about Queenstown's meddling arseholes rebuffing Shania Twain's proposed house, I paraphrased Ayn Rand's observation that when the productive have to ask permission from the unproductive arseholes in order to produce, then you know your culture is stuffed. I said something similar in a press release here.

I had a few requests for the exact source of the Rand quotation, which is the 'Money Speech' from Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. You can find the speech online here.

Here's how the speech starts (no baloney here):

So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil? [Read on here.]