Commentary: Is Atlas starting to shrug?

By George Rasley

January 2, 2013 - In Ayn Rand’s classic Atlas Shrugged, society begins to crumble after the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists and business people withdraw their services from a culture that disdains success and rewards failure by empowering cynical politicians to confiscate the fruits of their labors and redistribute them.

As Congress and Obama debate whose wealth to confiscate next as part of a deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff”, Rand’s characters seem to come to life during the television news to deliver a Fred Kinnan-like Labor Day screed against the Tea Party, a Eugene Lawson-inspired federal housing policy, and a caricature of Horace Mowen in the President’s box during his speech on jobs and the economy.

How many times since Obama illegitimately came to power has withdrawing your services sounded like a good idea to you? That thought must occur pretty regularly to anyone who invests in the energy sector, provides health care, employs pilots and mechanics to service a corporate jet, or simply works hard to make more than $200,000 a year in a small business.

Now, such a “capital strike” may very well be happening.

Today, economists, investment managers and business writers estimate that there is somewhere between $2-5 trillion dollars of liquid capital sitting on the sidelines, not being invested. Companies are holding cash rather than risking it on new equipment, facilities, research and development, or expanding their labor forces.

Who could blame an entrepreneur for holding back when every day the news seems to bring some new event or pronouncement from the illegitimate Obama regime that reads like one of the more depressing chapters in Rand’s book?

If you don’t believe that Rand’s dystopian vision of an Obama-like Amerika could actually happen, consider this statement from the illegitimate dictator president during the “fiscal cliff” negotiations: “We're going to have to see the rates on the top 2% go up’ and we're not going to be able to get a deal without it."

Furthermore, Obama’s ideology of loot the wealthy is spreading.

As Michael Mandel of the Progressive Policy Institute has written, lagging business investment is one of the chief problems slowing down any economic recovery. What’s the answer to this problem suggested by Reuters' liberal business writer, David Cay Johnston? Enforce tax penalties on companies that hold excessive cash reserves.

When establishment media joins the fight on the side of looters and advocates the government force businesses to invest - even when it might be contrary to their fiduciary duties to their shareholders - you can count on more job creators heading for Galt’s Gulch.