Ankesh,

Here's the thing.

A business must have a clue what it is doing, because it has competitors. A business must make some % of good choices when it spends money. Most businesses cannot make bad choices for long, or they will sink below the waterline and drown.

A government has no such restrictions. People in government are not spending their own money, so they have no worries about drowning. In the US, government reps work out deals with each other to benefit each other's re-election chances ... spending your money and mine.

And what they spend it on doesn't matter to them. Not only is it not their money, but if they make 100 or 1000 bad choices in a row, they just print more money. The only losers are everybody not on the government payroll.

And all that money comes from you and me.

So absolutely, more government = less money, 100% of the time.

And how do you get more government? Because the legislators - and in the US, well over half of them are lawyers - pass more laws. Lawyers LOVE more laws. Every new law is more work for lawyers. Every new law takes money out of your hands and my hands and transfers it into the hands of lawyers ... and congress. And every law is a restriction on something we used to be able to do, 100% of the time.

So absolutely, more government = more laws = less freedom.

Richard