Thursday, January 22, 2009

Is Atlas Shrugging?

Today's Wall Street Journal discusses how AIG is losing talented executives to other insurance companies. Earlier this month, a number of key executives at Merrill Lynch left - after the firm acceded to political pressure to pay certain key executives no bonus.

Many in the country, including some conservatives, have advocated reducing or eliminating bonuses at financial firms who have received government assistance. These departures are the logical consequence of imposing government mandated or threatened restrictions on financial firms.

As I have discussed in an earlier column, if you pay people below market wages, they will leave their employer - even in this environment. And the companies will be weaker, hurting all of us as taxpayers who have invested in these firms through TARP and as citizens who need a successful financial sector for the economy to thrive.

Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged, depicted a world where the successful went on strike to protest the confiscations and impositions they faced by government policy.

It looks like Atlas is beginning to shrug.

1 comment:

  1. awesome book Adam and even more profound idea ---- will be a very sad state of affairs if those ideas do come to pass as our society and economy will suffer even more

    ReplyDelete