Earmark incubator

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Florida) has coined this apt term for companies such as Concurrent Technologies during a debate about earmarks for a center Concurrent was to run.

It’s really a great term for companies that keep their hands in the public tiller, playing the policy game, and producing little of worth. Reading this extensive article on Concurrent’s money exchanging games with the federal government reminded me of Robert L. Bradley’s speech on business ethics from the Atlas Shrugged at Fifty event a few weeks back, where he analyzed the fall of Enron in view of Atlas Shrugged.

Playing the policy game was one of the commonalities he found between Enron and the scenario Rand outlined in Atlas Shrugged.