We Are Living in an Ayn Rand Novel

A year or two ago, only the most radical leftists would have dreamed that we’d be living in a country where the government owns a majority share in GM, bailed out private insurers, took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and handed over billions of dollars to the financial sector.

It continues to bailout homeowners doing more of the same policies that put us in this mess in the first place. The government now plans to bailout seniors and small businesses and it won’t be long before Obama proposes to bailout children. Also, as the debate over health care reform continues, we are left to wonder: how much is this going to cost us? One trillion dollars or two?

But as I am listening to the hearing on executive compensation and TARP special master (how crippy is this title?), I realize we are now officially living in a world that resembles an Ayn Rand novel. One man, one unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate, has the power cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent in the banks the government now “owns.” A single individual is given too much power without accountability. But more importantly, this charade masks the fact that the world we live in has nothing to do with capitalism. It’s nothing more than crony capitalism. The government went around bailing out out automobile companies that were producing cars that people didn’t want to buy, bailing out banks that were careless with their capital and assets, and bailing out homeowners that couldn’t afford the houses they were buying.