I see occasional cyber murmurs about going Galt.  The reference is to John Galt, the protagonist in Atlas Shrugged, written by Ayn Rand in 1957. 

Coincidentally, there is an e-mail exchange in my private account regarding Atlas Shrugged.  I read this more than 30 years ago, but I never forgot it.  It is climbing the Amazon best sellers chart since November.  Interesting.  Were it not ringing true to today's malaise I doubt that would be the case.  

In a nutshell it is about how a renegade group of free market purists opt out of an overly regulated economy.  Rand uses a fictional narrative to explain her objectivist (commonly understood as libertarianism today) philosophy and shows what would happen if it were applied.  That after 50 plus years the message still resonates speaks volumes.   

As for going Galt there are anecdotes of Doctors, Engineers, Architects, you know, professionals making that arbitrary $250K / year which the Obamaessiah decided was rich, who are openly ruminating on how to limit their reportable income.  Galt light perhaps? 

Personally, as I emerge from my primary occupation as house Daddy and begin to implement various income streams I will face the decision of having to either limit my income or make more just to offset higher taxes.  As an objectivist I find taxation immoral but it's really it's not the taxes, it's that the government even enters into the equation.  Does anyone truly feel confident they are getting their moneys worth in taxes these days.  Some of the loudest complainers I know are my liberal friends.  Go figure.    
 
A comment on the current fiscal calamity from a business owner sorta stuck in my craw. "The derivative mess based on the poorly crafted sub-prime loans was a system out of control and void of any real and proper government oversight and intervention". 

I beg to differ. This mess is the unintended spawn from the forced coupling of government inserting its overly fertile wanker into the free market.  They named this offspring "Fair Housing".  An overly activist government attempting to create a market from thin air that could never germinate, let alone survive, in the free market, home ownership for people unable to buy them, is what got us here.  So basically if the problem is a direct result of government intervention I fail to see how more government can possibly be the solution.

The free market is not unlike the human body which will reject foreign objects.  Ask any transplant patient about their regimen of life-dependent anti-rejection medicines.  When the market, host, commenced with the natural rejection, failure followed by bankruptcy, of the foreigh object, hybrid derivatives, the government intervened again and, predictably enough, both the organ, AIG in this case, and host sustained further damage.  The problem here is the government thinks it's the host  when really it's just another organ.  The government is dependent on the free market economy, not the other way around.   
 
Regulating business is one thing, but when, in all their self-importance, they think can actually regulate the economy it's a whole different matter, a fool's errand, and invariably makes the problem worse.  Dr Thomas Sowell, Phd. Economics, explains it nicely here: False Solutions and Real Problems
h/t townhall.com
 
Equally scary is the number of people who actually believe the economy is controllable by the right people with the right intentions pushing the right buttons and pulling the right levers.  Never mind that this mindset necessarily requires that all this was either preventable and allowed to happen or prepetrated on purpose. 

I've always said economic illiteracy is this country's biggest weakness - - by no coincidence, it is also the Democrats, and all politicians to be fair, biggest strength.  I just hope those who believe elections have no consequences are paying attention.      
 
Presumably we have the government to reign in the wretched excesses of big business - - but who is supposed to reign in the wretched excesses of big government?  The former will succeed or fail on it's merits and either be rewarded or punished by the market.  But the government goes on forever regardless of performance. They use their rewards to buy votes and offset their losses by raising taxes.  Why should we expect otherwise when they make all their own rules and the prime directive of any bureaucracy is self perpetuation?   
 
The answer, of course, is the host, a free market economy, and to a lesser extent us, every 2 and 4 years.  I only hope the country can withstand the accumulated damage in the meantime, and that these anti capitalist measures are reversable.
 
If Atlas Shrugged moving up Amazons best seller list, a 20% increase in gun sales since November, and a sudden shortage of ammo are any indication, one might speculate a populist uprising is underfoot.  I dig Jefferson but that tree of liberty being fertilized with the blood of revolution thing, I would hope, is a notion from which we have evolved and will not be necessary.  That being said the argument that the wholesale elimination of our present government would be a net gain in terms of intelligence, integrity, morality, and productivity, seems to be gaining credence at an accelerating rate these days. 

Failing that, I am locked and loaded and hoping the military will side with the heartlanders on this one.   
 
When we see the current White House occupant on his high horse chastising AIG for paying contractually obligated bonuses, that predate the crisis by a year, that he knew about for months, and amount to less than 1 one thousandth of their bailout, for three days solely to fan the flames of class envy, our friend Craig's hopes for "independent oversight and proper amount of regulation" will leave us wanting. 
 
The new administration blatantly proclaimed that a crisis justifies over reach and have demonstrated precious little restraint yet. The only thing I believe from this President is when he said it will get worse before it gets better. I wish that was a campaign promise so I could rest assured it would be broken along with so many others.  But it looks like this is the one promise he seeing to keeping personally.  Whether that is the result of incompetence or design is another debate.
 
For a little lighter reading on the subject everyone should bookmark this sight: and read it.  There too you will see a plethora of present day comparisons. 
http://www.george-orwell.org/Animal_Farm/index.html