Atlas Shrugged: The 50 year-old prediction of the collapse of America

July 21, 2011 - NEW YORK –  The book explores a dystopian United States where leading innovators, ranging from industrialists to artists, refuse to be exploited by society. The protagonist, Dagny Taggart, sees society collapse around her as the government increasingly asserts control over all industry (including Taggart Transcontinental, the once mighty transcontinental railroad for which she serves as the Vice President of Operations), while society’s most productive citizens, led by the mysterious John Galt, progressively disappear. Galt describes the strike as “stopping the motor of the world” by withdrawing the “minds” that drive society’s growth and productivity. In their efforts, these people “of the mind” hope to demonstrate that a world in which the individual is not free to create is doomed, that civilization cannot exist where people are slaves to society and government, and that the destruction of the profit motive leads to the collapse of society. –Wikipedia

1959 Mike Wallace interview with Ayn Rand on CBS

Latin America lectures U.S.  on debt crisis: “When did the American dream become a nightmare?” gloated Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez, whose own country defaulted on about $100 billion in debt a decade ago. In a speech at the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange on Monday, she contended that Argentina had prospered since then by focusing on exports and controlling financial speculation — a lesson that Washington has yet to learn, she said. The Americans “thought that money just reproduces by itself, and only in the financial sector, without having to produce any goods or services,” Fernandez said. -Reuters