Is our economy a modern day version of "Atlas Shrugged"?

By Noah Graff

A recent column in the Wall Street Journal made a comparison of U.S. government policies in the present economy to those in the classic novel, Atlas Shrugged, written in 1957 by the anti-government, ultra capitalist Ayn Rand. Rand’s dogma which transcends all of her works has the fundamental principle that when government steps in to “bailout” incompetent businesses for the sake of the “common good” it causes a tumultuous domino effect.

Wall Street Journal Columnist Stephen Moore summarizes the book’s moral as the following: “Politicians invariably respond to crises — that in most cases they themselves created — by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs … and the downward spiral repeats itself 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.”

Sound kind of familiar? Tarp? Auto company bailouts? A bunch more “stimulus plans”? I know. It’s scary right now. Desperate times. And I believe the government must step in somehow to stop a catastrophic loss of jobs and halted workflow that a bankruptcy of the Big Three would entail. And yes, it has to create liquid for the banks. But just like in the book, large companies are getting a free pass on their incompetence in management and law breaking. A money infusion gives them an opportunity to change their ways, but there is a definite chance it could create a downward spiral just as Rand envisioned. Does GM have a plan for how to spend the new money, other than to survive the next few months? Do the banks know what to do with their new capital? All of a sudden they have to figure out new ways to lend it, because now we know that the ways they were using it — such as granting sub-prime mortgages and trading recklessly with high leverage won’t work. The economy can only stabilize when these companies get their act together, and then, when the people regain trust in them. I don’t see either one happening soon.

Question: Do you have faith that the U.S. government’s new stimulus plans are going to create economic change for the better in the near future, or will they exacerbate our problems by allowing incompetents and crooks to continue their ways?