Welfare, Food Stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Farm subsidies (including tobacco), apportioning mineral rights to companies rather the land owners, grants, loans for veterans, protections for minorities, subsidizing the defense of NATO countries and Korea’s Japans’ etc.
Any talk about losing capitalism is absolute nonsence.
We never had capitalism. Just a goverment willing to partake in the fleecing of the land, people, one’s savings etc.
Now that the *** has hit the fan, the illusion of separating the goverment from its partners-in-crime is beginning. Who is afraid of State Capitalism? Not I.

I wish Communist China was running our economy. You would have had the Wall Street Barons and some goverment officials on death row, not negotiating bonuses for showing up at work.
Imagine having budget surpluses and jobs.
Socialism mixed with high end corruption does not work.
That we have proved. For anyone who thinks too loudly that a goverment run business cannot succeed, look to Toyota. Some of you are driving the very thing you pretend to be afraid of. A state owned automaker’s product. If you do not like it, you should have bought American products while they were privately held. Now you are paying for it and still have no car on the driveway. The propaganda about Obama and state capitalism is empty and tired. Obama is not the cause of this disaster. Nor is he the savior of America to be sure. Print more money, destroy the dollar and start again with no deficits and a new tax code, powerful regulations and no lobby influence. Then we can succeed whether we are capitalists or any other form.

Leo Maduro
Aruba

That will require some brain strain, attention span, and persistence to comprehend the problem and become knowledgeably informed, stay informed, find and get actively involved with others who are willing to do the same … and vote.

The first wave of politicians to be voted out of office for irrational adherence to party agenda will be a strong message to those remaining, that John Q Public is back.

Today I am startled and a little amused to find an error like
the following:
“The danger now is that welcoming the seeming
suave of government intervention may embolden
some misguided politicians and the vested-interest
big-government/big-money crowd to permanently
corrupt our once free markets.”

I suspect Shah Gilani intended to say “salve,” though I must
admit the definition of suave does play a part in selling the
programs which would not be so easily accepted if not sold by “smoothly gracious or polite; polished; blandly ingratiating;
urbane” explanations of the latest dire need.
Reminds me, someone said, “If you think our problems are
bad, wait till you see our solutions.”
The unintended wry humor does to some extent salve the grammatical bruise.

Respectfully,
Morris Hancock
Arizona

The attempt to radically restructure the US economy by the Obama administration in the midst of the worst depression since the 1930s reflects only two possibilities: 1) extremely bad judgment because it risks the economic welfare of an already weakened people of an entire nation; or 2) an opportunistic decision to take advantage of and exacerbate the current crisis to engineer a power grab whose end game is a socialist outcome. The most corrupt governments in the world are all socialist. Why would we want to take one step in that direction, when we have a constitution that has served us so well? The American people neet to wake up to the wolf in sheep’s clothing. The current health care bill, the restructuring of the automobile and financial services industry are all a trojan horse for more government control (and ultimately more corruption).

Scott S Powell

Though I want governments to watch over business activities I do not want government to run businesses. That would only constitute a conflict of interest and worsen already rampant cronyism.

Mr. Schumpeter is a theorist. That may be a good thing but theories do not always apply. The main problem is that there is no free market. Even if the government does not interfere – the competition will create a dirty side effect: Companies want to secure there business and therefor try to monopolise their markets. The dumbest thing in recent history is digital TV. Europe promoted digital TV fairly early when the US companies wanted to still cash in on their old stuff. Then the US government woke up and instead allowing regular competition a new US system was cooked up to give companies a moat. Is that a free market economy that is touted all the time by brain-damaged senators?

The problem in this country is that everything is seen as an opportunity to “make” money. There is little thought about creating a better society. As far as that goes we still live in the stone age.

We have been progressively and systematically and wrongly led to this very moment in time. We have been led to believe that we are a “nation of laws” and accordingly we are unwilling to violate the rules which govern us.

Unfortunately for us, while we worked and paid our taxes and lived a “wonderful and free life”, we placed too much trust in the “lawmakers” as they progressively “messed up” the Republic and its Constitution.

As Mr. Galani states it would seem as though we need to do battle in order to preserve the very heart and soul of our way
of life. Try that one after we have lost the protection of the Second Amendment.

I certainly hope that enough good and talented people immediately come forward and legally stop this Hitler type Blitzkreig party that is now very successfully dismantling the government ot these seemingly inattentive [as I once was] United States of America.