>Both ordinary peoples and governments are pushed one way or another to spend beyond their means, which leads us to massive world wide indebtedness.
>
>This implies that ordinary people are stupid and incapable of thinking for themselves. I would say that this is a pretty low opinion of ordinary people.

They may be capable of such intellectual endeavor, but the mere existence of such massive debt shows the sellers of debt know well enough where the switch lies to turn that thinking off.