Atlas Shrugged 2008

In her novel, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand (a short, frumpy, heavily-accented self-alienated drug-addicted madwoman) used a blackout of New York City (unthinkable at the time) to dramatize the collapse of the system.

The plane was above the peaks of the skyscrapers when suddenly, with the abruptness of a shudder, as if the ground had parted to engulf it, the city disappeared from the face of the earth. It took them a moment to realize that the panic had reached the power stations--and that the lights of New York had gone out.

Dagny gasped. "Don't look down!" Galt ordered sharply.

She raised her eyes to his face. His face had that look of austerity with which she had always seen him meet facts.

She remembered the story Francisco had told her: "He had quit the Twentieth Century. He was living in a garret in a slum neighborhood.

He stepped to the window and pointed at the skyscrapers of the city.

He said that we had to extinguish the lights of the world, and when we would see the lights of New York go out, we would know that our job was done."

This time, the collapse will be signaled when every ATM stops working.

Now you know.