people like that art laffer dude, they are ideological capitalists. they are not reasonable, they believe everything labelled "unregulated" to be fail-safe.
the problem is not purely american, its general. In 1980 there was a world wide money flow of 18 trillion dollars with approximately the same value of products as counterweight (gsp-global social product).
now in 2007 we had about a 120 trillion dollars circulating, but only 50 trillion in products.
70 trillion dollars are based upon pure belief. you have to be either nuts or very convinced of the system to not see the implications.
ron paul is a very bright guy, but unfortunatley people are scared of him, because he cant be pigeonholed. so he must be an alien