ATLAS SHRUGGED UPDATED FOR THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS. BY JEREMIAH TUCKER
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1.
"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?"
He stood and adjusted his suit jacket so that his body didn't betray his shameful weakness. He walked toward her and sat informally on the edge of her desk. "Why make a product when you can make dollars? Right this second, I'm earning millions in interest off money I don't even have."
He gestured to his floor-to-ceiling windows, a symbol of his productive ability and goodness.
[...]
-- Andy