by va
Whether it is because they are stupid or they think we are, the U.S. Treasury refuses to take charge of failed financial institutions. The enormous losses of these institutions are being socialized, and the people responsible for those losses are not being held accountable. Recognizing that sad fact, I propose that we seek satisfaction where we can find it and nationalize Atlas Shrugged.
According to The Economist, sales of Atlas Shrugged have spiked recently; it is ranked #38 on Amazon, and sales hit an annual record 200,000 copies in 2008. It's basically the only product in sight for which demand is rising. We should therefore act quickly to capitalize on current public interest (plus there's going to be a movie in 2011?). Furthermore, since sales of Atlas Shrugged seem to increase when governments intervene in the market, we can project that they will skyrocket when the government intervenes in Atlas Shrugged, driving that much more money, paradoxically, into public coffers.
The nationalization of Atlas Shrugged may strike Americans as foreign, even Swedish or something. However, the nation is already subsidizing the book's dissemination. A banking company, BB&T Corp. of North Carolina, has given $30 million in grants in the last decade for various universities to teach the book. Most recently, in March, 2008, BB&T gave UT-Austin $2 million for a Chair in the Study of Objectivism. Then in October, BB&T took (wait for it) $3.1 billion in bailout money. It only seems fair for the nation to recoup some of its investment in future generations' Rand-inspired economic havoc by nationalizing Atlas Shrugged now.
