Gift Certificates

Remember the passage in Atlas Shrugged where Floyd Ferris "asks" Hank Rearden to "give" Rearden Metal to the government - excuse me - "the country"?

The chief executives of the nine largest banks in the United States trooped into a gilded conference room at the Treasury Department at 3 p.m. Monday. To their astonishment, they were each handed a one-page document that said they agreed to sell shares to the government, then Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said they must sign it before they left.

But by 6:30, all nine chief executives had signed . . .

Are we all Venezuelans now?

And what would John Allison have done under these circumstances?

Read the gory details here.