It seems to me the money the government spends not collected from taxes amounts to a communist styled command 'economy'. In our case, we have mandated programs, worse than communist five year plans, taking the place of a dictator. They are longer and don't die with their author. Our 'dictator' body of mandates decides what me must spend, not what we can afford to spend. Smart people get confused and begin to think all you need to do to grow an economy is spend more money, not taking into account scarce resources must be allocated to those best able to create the greatest aggregate cardinal utility from those resources. They also fail to see that only individuals aggregating in free markets can achieve this greatest aggregate cardinal utility. Here is an example of one such man I know to be smart: Miguel de Icaza Why Mitt does not need an Economic Plan
He's just spouting Keynesianism. It's as discredited as the belief that the world is flat, but many so-called intellectuals still buy into it like it's gospel.
Our current government approach is less like the Soviet Union and much more like the Latin American countries in the 70s and 80s. Our government relies on foreign financing of deficits to keep government programs in place. It doles out pork-barrel spending that it does not have the internal resources to justify in order to retain political influence with voters. Our populace is a vigorous defender of these programs. Our Central Bank has become a serial currency manipulator. Usually the clock runs out as foreign nations refuse to roll over financing and NGOs come in to get the debtor nations books in order. that is at least until some socialist or leftist moron (Evo Moralez, Christina Kirchner, Hugo Chavez, etc.) starts railing about the evil west and nationalizes things and kicks out the 3rd parties and the process starts all over again. Our situation is different in that we are the bedrock of the global financial system and things start to fall to pieces if we are not in the middle of everything. Also, our sheer size has allowed us to indulge in self-destructive practices for a longer period of time.
