Re:'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
by natrius on Friday January 09, 2009 @11:39PM
(#427618)
Some banks didn't want to take the government's money but were basically forced to.
Re:'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
by nazgulnarsil on Saturday January 10, 2009 @04:39PM
(#428377)
It's called nationalizing and any serious business concern would like to avoid it.
The appropriation of Rearden metal by the government in Atlas Shrugged was compared to Hank Paulson's insistence that the banks (which the government would bail out) had to hand over a percentage of their future profits back to the government. Apparently, these situations are eerily similar because in both cases the government did it for the "public interest".
Notwithstanding the fact that in Atlas Shrugged, Rearden actually invented something of value (which the govt appropriated), whereas in real life, the bankers fucked up their own balance sheets and were coming to the government cap in hand for help. As far as I'm aware, one is theft, the other is repaying a favour.
The only thing eerily similar about these two situations is that they both have a guy named Hank involved.