ODirective 10-289 Update

clipped from www.bloomberg.com In Rand’s magnum opus, the “men of the mind,” as she calls the nation’s producers, quit. Literally. They walk away from the mines, factories and businesses they built as the government tries to deprive them of their wealth through increased regulation and taxation. (Whether financial engineering constitutes production is an issue for another column.) Rand’s men in Washington believe they’re entitled to the output of these minds and the material rewards, enacting an Equalization of Opportunity bill, which is really about equality of outcomes; a Railroad Unification Act, to prop up weak carriers and destroy competition; and ultimately, as the economy collapses, “Directive 10-289,” which makes it a crime to stop working. The “looters,” as Rand calls them, fail to understand that the men of the mind may vote with their feet, refusing to work for the benefit of others. All that’s left for life to imitate art completely is for these CEOs to quit. Let Barney Frank and Chris Dodd run AIG.