You wrote: “Many erroneously consider bankers (especially central bankers) working, non-parasites. You miss the point that , in fact, those responsible for the creation of CDO’s MBO’s and CDS’s ARE non-working parasites- as are short sellers and bear raiders and other con-artists.”

Not so fast. Did creators of CDOs, MBOs, CDSs, sort-sellers, bear raiders, and pushers of no-doc loans and sub-primes hold a gun to anyone’s head? Were they beneficiaries of some vast subsidy from taxpayers (before the meltdown, I mean)? Everything they did was completely legal (with rare exceptions, e.g. Madoff) and uncoercive — securing freedom from coercion is the goal, right? That’s all that Galt asked of government, right? “Get out of my way.” (paraphrased) Government responded in this case, and eliminated restrictive banking/finance/securites/insurance regulations.

The fact that “banker-parasites” you mention were, in your opinion, not Real Scotsmen because they don’t eat Haggis, is irrelevant. When high finance was liberated from “oppressive” government rules and oversight, very much as Obectivists demand, the masters of finance went on a feeding frenzy like there was no tomorrow.

How can a given ideology be a good basis for society’s laws, if everyone must be a pure-of-heart ideologue lest society collapse?

The Creature from Jekyll Island
Unequal Protection: the Theft of Human Rights and the Rise of Corporate Dominance.
The Little red Hen.

Ordo Ab Chao is the motto of the Government these days.

Our elected “reps” are no longer even pretending to represent their constituencies. They are purchasing their place at the trough with our production. What we all produce in the context of this discussion is tax dollars. Most of us prefer to do what we want to do with our production, rather than turn it over to Dear Leaders and have them unconstitutionally buy more votes from non-producers. (Nearly 50% of the population pay no net income tax.)

The surest way to ameliorate this situation is to cut or diminish the flow of these tax dollars. Then, demand that tax dollars contributed be used only for those activities allowed for in the constitution. The states will be able to manage their own citizens and budgets and private charities will be able to help those who need it in an efficient manner. All of your complaints about the “Galtish greed” would be moot without a Fed or confiscatory income tax. Many erroneously consider bankers (especially central bankers) working, non-parasites. You miss the point that , in fact, those responsible for the creation of CDO’s MBO’s and CDS’s ARE non-working parasites- as are short sellers and bear raiders and other con-artists.

To this end, many of the “producers” have reached a point where we feel the need to make an effort to reconnect with what this country was founded to do. Promote the individual freedom to live your life and prosper in whatever form that takes.

While no one is under the illusion that the literal form of “going John Galt” is practical or necessary, even small but widely applied efforts at minimizing our “production” can have a significant effect on the largesse that our government is misusing.

If you are not planning to attend a Tax Day Tea Party you should reconsider. These are an excellent opportunity to show those who would be re-elected how many are willing to take time away from “production” to express displeasure with their direction. They will also provide opportunity for recruitment to subsequent tax action. A coordinated and extended tax holiday, if well represented, would be especially effective in many states where financial strain is already evident. Government that cannot pay for its promises are not looked favorably upon by voters. Think Gray Davis and now Arnold. These are forms of “going John Galt”.

It will, ultimately be up to us “third stringers” to win the game.

Stop talking and start doing.

Wow.

In absence of laissez-faire gun laws the melodrama would be comedic but lighten up because you’re scaring the kids. You might want to burn some incense, turn on some new age music and do a little ashtanga. You poor thing, you’re going to blow a fuse.

I work in the industry and I do mean the business and I agree with Jim R. The rational self interest which you hold in such high esteem is at the nexus of the current meltdown. The masters of the universe risked the entire financial infrastructure to place a bet in which they had little personal exposure to the downside. These are the real parasites as they had full knowledge that the unregulated system was unsustainable but also knew that they’d be long gone when counterparties finally properly evaluated the risk.

The same goes for the elite that UBS helped to hide billions.

I’d love to know to whom you’re referring when you use the words “Atillas” and “Witch Doctors”. It’s intellectually dishonest to make the allusion without stating your true meaning.

Pack your bags, head to the Gulch and leave the rest of us to find a solution. Rousseau is not mutually exclusive from Belsham.

Perhaps you didn’t get the memo from one of Rand’s oldest, dearest fans, Alan Greenspan. When we let the wealthiest pirates run the engines of the economy unfettered and unwatched, far from planning for their own companies’ long-term future, they looted them into insolvency, and the country as well. Who’d'a thunk it? Certainly not Ayn Rand.

If you think the crash was caused by non-working “parasites,” your grasp of reality is fantastic (literally). Instead of clinging to a paradigm you swear must work if given a thorough chance, observe and learn the object lessons of today. As a good friend of mine likes to say, “In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they aren’t.”

We need 20th-century banking/finance/insurance regulation restored (e.g. Glass-Steagall). We obviously can’t trust the SOB’s to behave with our money when left to their own recognizance.

I am an American, in the purest sense of the world. I have no pity for those who killed Liberty. I will see them smashed to bloody pulp before I am done. But I would rather be torn to pieces than to see any work of mine benefit those rapist-murderers. And I can’t wish you well in your endeavors because of that.