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Atlas Shrugged - Updated
"Damn it, Dagny! I need the government to get out of the way and let me do my job!"
She sat across the desk from him. She appeared casual but confident, a slim body with rounded shoulders like an exquisitely engineered truss. How he hated his debased need for her, he who loathed self-sacrifice but would give up everything he valued to get in her pants ... Did she know?
"I heard the thugs in Washington were trying to take your Rearden metal at the point of a gun," she said. "Don't let them, Hank. With your advanced alloy and my high-tech railroad, we'll revitalize our country's failing infrastructure and make big, virtuous profits."
"Oh, no, I got out of that suckers' game. I now run my own hedge-fund firm, Rearden Capital Management."
"What?"
The story, which is awesome, continues here. A big hat tip to Phil Izzo at WSJ's Real Time Economics.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on November 26, 2008 at 11:01 AM in The Arts | Permalink
Comments
A total sacrilege. But still funny.
Posted by: John Goodman at Nov 26, 2008 11:17:29 AM
Is the hardcover McSweeney's still printed in Iceland?
Posted by: bbartlog at Nov 26, 2008 11:20:00 AM
It's only funny because it's true!
We have created an economy where an overly large amount of the hardest working and smart people go into finance and not business or engineering.
This is an unsustainable economy.
Posted by: mickslam at Nov 26, 2008 11:24:19 AM
I knew it was an Alex post when he called the story "awesome".
I love the contrasting styles y'all have. I just wished Alex posted more often. :(
Posted by: Student at Nov 26, 2008 12:48:33 PM
Extremely amusing. Thank you.
Posted by: ryan at Nov 26, 2008 1:03:40 PM
Didn't I see this plot in a Mel Brooks movie with Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel?
Posted by: Bill N at Nov 26, 2008 1:04:23 PM
Wow. This is the funniest thing I've read so far this week. Unfortunately, MR is probably the only blog on the internet with a readership that would get it.
Posted by: steve p at Nov 26, 2008 1:30:19 PM
I love how they point out the Donald Trump-style tackiness of a huge gold dollar sign. Yeah, it's a great symbol, but dang there's got to be a more tasteful way of doing it.
Posted by: Erik at Nov 26, 2008 1:53:14 PM
"Galt went on like this for what seemed to Dagny like hours..."
If only that brief.
Posted by: meter at Nov 26, 2008 2:09:23 PM
Great read. They've also got a brilliant bit with Noam Chomsky discussing Lord of the Rings. Pretty good stuff.
Posted by: mravery at Nov 26, 2008 2:14:20 PM
Welcome to the post-industrial economy.
Posted by: djg at Nov 26, 2008 3:01:46 PM
"Galt went on like this for what seemed to Dagny like hours, until, finally, something he said piqued her interest"
OMG! Beyond brilliant!
One small miss was on the lack of anyone smoking. ah you can't be perfect...
Posted by: mickslam at Nov 26, 2008 3:38:59 PM
Hah, great. The problem with stuff like this is that most of my friends who would enjoy this story have already followed the link from this post!
Posted by: Kat at Nov 26, 2008 8:05:08 PM
What is this trash? For the record, NONE of the quoted lines above are from Atlas Shrugged.
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Is it realistic?
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