Sir;...Wouldn't revolution be cheaper than trying to make failed capitalism work??? You cannot calculate the cost of the damage capital has done to this society... Pro business nut heads talk about wealth creation; but usually they mean the wealth they have levered out of the hands of working people.... I would like now to hear their latest figures.... What has happened now to all of that wealth they have created???I know what has happened to a lot of other wealth, investments, jobs, family farms, homes.... We have spent our loot on interest, and have nothing left for prinicipal.... And we have been living on borrow because our wages have been depressed, and that too was all part of the story of wealth creation....The thing is; what you said of Mr. Greenspan and Ayn Rand is true of many of those sorts... That is as close as many people have gotten to philosophy... The individual is all... Well, now we see that individuals have societies too... We see that individuals are outlaws, and that morals are the point at which every person joins their society.... Mr. Greenspan said that the ideology of forty years had failed him... That is not a quotation; but he was not alone in guiding his life by ideologies... The whole country has been guided by ideology... Whether you call it Christianity or Capitalism it is all much of the same thing, a bunch of good ideas intead of a living hand on the tiller...We need to break free of good ideas... We need people in government with the intelligence to see good ideas all played out in their minds so people can avoid disaster... But best, is to find forms that work, and to be willing to break free of our forms when they clearly do not work...Human history is the history of changing forms/ideals... No perfect form has yet been discovered...No form has been found that some one would not turn to their own personal benefit...Since no one can stop forms from being corrupted, people have to feel free to reform their societies, or their economies, and even their religions if need be...People do it all the time... Marriage is a form too... If that does not work out, people start over.... We need to start over.... Thanks...Sweeney

First of all it is not exactly a massive triumph of liberal ideology when it takes a time of great crisis for these changes you propose to even be considered. America has always been, and continues to be a nation steeped in the classical liberal mode of thought.
You speak of universal health care and financial central planning as if they were completely free from flaws. Central planning has many, which I am sure have been numerated before by people far more capable than me. One issue I would like to raise is the ideology which accompanies centralized banks and universal health care carries many other things with it, including a host of problems. In France the same line of thought that leads to central banks has also lead to labor laws which stifle the job market. In Germany there are a host of people in their late 20s and early thirties who continue to go to school because they have little or no job opportunities in their fields. A centralized, egalitarian state has a myriad of disadvantages which you conveniently look over. If you can honestly say that the European model is better when considering not only the advantages, but the disadvantages as well, and also factor in the differences in logistics when comparing countries of different sizes, then please say so, but don't present such a one sided view and then speak of its obvious superiority.

Insurance should be limited to private property, something a person's health is most assuredly not. There is no more need for health insurance to be placed between a patient and a health care provider than there is a need for a pimp between yourself and your love interest.