Atlas Shrugged: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years

Did you catch the headline in USA Today about Obama limiting executive pay to $500,000 a year for companies receiving federal assistance? I was just about to write yesterday about how livid I was reading how Citibank spent $50M on a private jet after receiving $45B in federal bailout funds of our tax payer money. Since I helped pay for their jet, do you think they will give me a lift to New York for my next business meeting?

I read this Wall Street Journal article yesterday titled Atlas Shrugged: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years. My husband asked me when Atlas Shrugged was written because he started to get the eerie feeling that it was a prophecy of our current time. So I googled it and the WSJ article appeared.

I am starting to a feel a bit torn between two sides: those of the brilliant minds and those on the side of socialistic fairness. I can't exactly articulate what that means right now without setting off a series of flame-mails. And some coming from my dearest friends who seem to have sworn off personal wealth in the name of fairness. Being Ms.Money means I will never do that. If I make less money does not mean the world will be better off. In fact, the more money I make, the more money I give away. For every $2 of disposable income I spend personally on myself for my own gratification, I give $1 to charity (to help make the world a better place).

Let's suffice it to say, I have been an entrepreneur for most of my working career and if the government started to limit how much money I made, I might stop being an entrepreneur and go live in an Ashram. After all, why take the big risks if there is no big rewards. I think there is a lovely little community nestled in the hills of Colorado (with Harry Potter's visibility cloak covering it up so no one can find me and the other creative fun entrepreneurs) just waiting for me to go flip tofu burgers and do yoga all day in peace and quiet versus the chaotic stressful life of an entrepreneur helping to advance the world in a myriad of ways.

Ok - I would be happy making $500,000 a year and still be an entrepreneur so those executives better not be whining about any pay cuts during these tough times.

Atlas Shrugged was the most influential book of my early 20's as I was starting my entrepreneurial life. The heroin was a woman too. Read it ... it might change your opinion about "fairness" and "brilliance" in a way you never thought possible.