The Libertarians offer an interesting, alternative perspective on our financial troubles as a nation:

Libertarians call for more finance industry freedom

The salient excerpt:

“It is remarkable that so many people have blamed the banking and financial company failures on the ‘free market.’ The American finance industry is probably the most regulated industry in human history. It doesn’t remotely resemble a free market, and that’s been true for many decades. “

What nation has more financial laws on the books than the USA? Anyone dare to tell me? Anyone?

<…crickets chirping…>

And yet many claim we’re not regulated enough! What a load of BS.

The problem isn’t too little regulation, and I don’t entirely agree with the Libertarians that there should be none at all. The problem is that there is way too much regulation, it is too complex and misdirected, and that the American free market (as the Libertarians claim) just doesn’t exist. To say that we are a capitalist economy is to tell a bald-faced lie (if you know better) or to reveal a shameful ignorance of reality (if you don’t).

Now your tax dollars and mine are being used to bail out mismanaged manufacturers and financial firms, which is both a Democrat and Republican fault, and which constitutes waste on the most massive of scales. National debt spirals to incomprehensibly vast sums that, I guarantee, will be the downfall of America if not somehow corralled. And we pile on more and more regulations, as if quantity matters more than quality. Apparently, it does.

Capitalism is dead, and has been for a long time. It doesn’t exist in America! Therein lies the root source of the troubles we’re having.