On September 2, Jim Taggart asked Dagny to his office for a discussion. He spoke ramblingly and disconnectedly about the unprofitability of the railroad and the untenability of the situation. Jim then said that Dagny must "do something" to prevent almost certain disaster, and even suggested that she somehow owed him this as a favor because he was her brother.
In the middle of this conversation came an announcement on the [[radio]]. At first Jim asked Dagny to stay, saying that this was the announcement he had wanted her to hear. But as the announcer went on, Jim became horrified. The announcement was about the attempted [[nationalization]] of D'Anconia Copper by the People's State of [[ArgentinaChile]]—and the discovery that the D'Anconia Copper Company was now totally worthless. Francisco d'Anconia had destroyed every remaining asset in the days leading up to the nationalization.
The last thing Dagny heard as she left Jim's office was Jim calling someone named "Rodrigo" and protesting about having lost a lot of money, while at the same time yelling at Orren Boyle on another telephone to "shut [his] trap." Dagny probably never learned the full particulars of those conversations, but she might have guessed that Jim had bought into the government holding company that had been set to receive the nationalized assets of D'Anconia Copper SA, and now those assets amounted to zero.