John Allison

This is a very interesting POV because John Allison is a conservative (free market proponent) who happens to be a senior executive past and preset, of a large bank.  He speaks quite simply and clearly about the problems with social engineering policies of the government and their impact on the financial system.  He gives the impression of one who has seen the impact of big government on the economy up close and personally, so-to-speak, and who believes that the government involvement in markets is always a mistake, long term.  It all seems to come down to there are no short cuts to building a society, country, economy.  Entrepreneurs have to be unleashed one by one and companies have to be built one by one, providing jobs as a consequence of their growth.  Once the government gets into the business of allocating resources, picking winners and losers based upon some social ideal, we end up with a misallocation of credit and resources and the mess we are now experiencing.  Allison is kinda gloomy about the future.  However if the push back against the Obama socialist agenda proves lasting, it is possible the country can regain its footing and move forward.  It the push back is not lasting we'll end up like Europe.

More on the Debt Issue

The description and explanation of the federal debt in the Wikipedia pages here is interesting.  Wikipedia's methodology is suspect among some, but at least it tries to deal with controversial and complicated issues which it has done in this case.  It would appear that the debt load is approaching the critical point at which the economy simple can no longer expand, create new jobs and provide for rising incomes.  Although the exact point at which this happens is not universally accepted, the magic number to one economist quoted in this explanation is about 90% of GDP and by one of two differing measurements of debt we have  already reached this number.  In any case we are on a path to reach the levels of debt Japan has been experiencing for the last decade (130% of GDP) and that country has not seen an expanding economy for nearly two decades now.  So the cause for concern is real and not just a political position being taken by one party.  The reality is that which ever party is in control, they are going to have to make major changes in the level of government spending and debt in order to return us to a growth scenario for the economy.  Bottom line:  Too much government debt chokes off the private sector and results in stagnation.  It's pretty clear that's where we are now.