Raise the Hammer

Don't Forget, in the early nineties, under Bill Clinton, military spending as a percentage of the economy decreased and yet the economy grew much faster than it had previously and has since. Conversely, under Bush II, military spending has expanded by almost 50%, with smaller increases in the areas of on health and education, , however the net effect has been to increase the size of direct government spending decisions within the economy, to the detriment of private spending decisions. Basically, more central planning and less decentralized individual consumption. In 2000, total government spending in the U.S. economy was 30.59% of GDP. Today, it comes in at 34.93%.

The result has been mass disappointment with the handling of the economy and markedly slower gains in real economic output. Therefore, unless you can show me some numbers that support your assumption that government spending on the military is better than leaving that money in the hands of consumers, I will have to disagree with your line of thinking.

Brandon, criminal prosecution for fraud has nothing to do with regulating financial markets. Fraud can happen in any human to human interaction and therefore crafting financial regulations in order to prevent it is redundant at best. The threat of prosecution by itself is enough to keep most people from gong down that road anyway, but the cost of financial regulations to the investor is over confidence and that's why they probably cause more harm than good.

Ryan, there are many countries in the world with far higher growth rates, both absolute and per capita, which have governments that spend far less on things like public health, education and alike. Countries that come to mind are those that are currently switching from government based spending to private sector consumption.

These include China, Vietnam, Russia, Brazil, India, Bangladesh, and most of the countries of Eastern Europe. The main driver of these economic success stories has been the expansion of the private sector as a percentage of the economy. Furthermore, countries such as France and Germany which have very large public consumption models, bigger than North America, have very weak economic growth. The fact that they are already rich does not mean they got that way by having the government make most of the spending decisions. The welfare state has been a product of increased wealth and not the cause of it.