As if you hadn't figured it out already from the perma-links in my sidebar, I don't really follow the A-List bloggers. Off the top of my head, I can't even name them, but I do know that Kottke is one (as I believe are Meryl Yourish, InstaPundit, and Megnut; no linkage -- look 'em up yerself).
Anyway, I happened across Kottke's site via Pete Bevin's blog (Pete is listed on my sidebar, and I still owe him a couple of martinis), and found this handy little blurb and accompanying linkage on the symptoms of groupthink. Ever seen this phenomenon in action? You probably have.
Via another blog which I do read -- MemeMachineGo!, comes this article about executives turning to the writings of Ayn Rand to "justify" their actions. I'm not too too familiar with Ms. Rand's works -- the only one I've read is Anthem (it's short). It's my understanding that when she wrote about parasites who leach off productive society, she was thinking of big government.
Funny, when I read her description of parasites, I immediately thought of people in the managerial ranks of big business -- from the CEO who slashes jobs at a profitable company because he wants to wring more profit out of the balance sheet, to the low-level baby manager/supervisor who pushes their team to churn out as much work as possible, while doing very little of it themselves. I guess it's a matter of perspective.