You have to read this Opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal to believe it:
'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
By STEPHEN MOORE
Some years ago when I worked at the libertarian Cato Institute, we used to label any new hire who had not yet read "Atlas Shrugged" a "virgin." Being conversant in Ayn Rand's classic novel about the economic carnage caused by big government run amok was practically a job requirement....
It looks like a rather desperate "free market" pushback and spin control has begun. When all else fails, drag Ayn Rand out of the closet. The diehards just won't give it up. Despite the catastrophic failure of free market extremism, despite the chaos and carnage it has unquestionably caused, they're still trying to blame government intervention and regulation not only for the current economic crisis but for trying to pull us out of it:
Many of us who know Rand's work have noticed that .... our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that "Atlas Shrugged" parodied in 1957 .... For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created .... [with big government programs] until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.
(in brackets mine)
Well, no. However strenuously and simplistically Mr. Moore and his Ayn Rand co-religionists at the Cato Institute try to reframe the current economic picture, this crisis and collapse was not caused by socialism--which is always Rand's underlying villian--or by big government. It was caused by an unfettered and uncontrolled free market (Rand's solution to everything) running amok.
After taking a wild potshot at President-elect Obama's economic recovery plan, Moore shoots himself in the foot with rather better aim:
In one chapter of the book ["Atlas Shrugged"], an entrepreneur invents a new miracle metal -- stronger but lighter than steel. The government immediately appropriates the invention .... [and] demand that the metal inventor come to Washington and sign over ownership of his invention or lose everything.
The scene is eerily similar to an event late last year when six bank presidents were summoned by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to Washington, and then shuttled into a conference room and told, in effect, that they could not leave until they collectively signed a document handing over percentages of their future profits to the government. The Treasury folks insisted that this shakedown, too, was all in "the public interest."
(bolding mine)
Let me get this straight, Mr. Moore: you are trying to equate the fictional government theft of a fictional invention with our real government demanding a fair return for real taxpayers in exchange for billions in real taxpayer money used to bail out private banks?
Give it up, Mr. Moore.