With its regulatory overhaul of the U.S. financial system, the Obama administration has granted the federal government new powers to take over systemically important businesses, but has done so in a way that may well mask a potentially dangerous drift toward American state capitalism.

“Little else is required,” Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, once remarked, “to carry a state to the highest degree of affluence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”

Washington continues to flush tax dollars down the toilet in the name of ‘fixing’ the economy. It’s now up to Europe to keep free-market capitalism alive.

As the U.S. government spirals toward Soviet-style economic practices, the American capitalism we once knew and loved is becoming as endangered as a bald eagle…or a GM car dealership.