Vikings:

Like I said, "outsourcing" is in every aspect of the economy. Both political parties represent different large corporations and monopolies. Government and private companies are so tightly intermingled that one could not survive without the other. If the government did not spend on infrastructure, construction companies would go bankrupt. If the government did not spend on defense, defense contractors would go bankrupt. It goes on and on.

We say that lobbying is bad, but it is how contracts are awarded and how private companies protect their own interests. Companies will lobby to kill some legislation that could cut down on their profits, and they will lobby to get lucrative contracts. At the present we have healthcare insurance giants crying foul over the healthcare bill. That is just because their lobbying efforts to kill the bill failed. Taxpayers groups are angry at the expense of the healthcare bill involved, but interestingly they have no problems with wasteful defense spending.

Individual interests are what rule lobbying and contracts, but then capitalism is about individual interests. The US could eliminate its deficit and pay for healthcare if it cut defense spending in half, but then in some cases the same people who oppose healthcare will fight against cuts in defense spending. There is a lot of hypocrisy in the system. It is OK to maintain weapons of mass destruction, but it is not OK to take money and use it to give healthcare to ALL the poor.

In the end, all western democracies suffer from the same problems. People focus on the US because it is the biggest economy in the world, but just about every country suffers from the same conflict between the public good and the economic and poilitical interests of individuals.