How much can the government be stealing from you if you have no money? The government is in a position to help you, by providing you with social services, with financial benefits, by providing police to protect you, not to mention debt forgiveness (you mentioned your family is in bankruptcy). None of these things come from free market capitalism; they come from socialist policies intended to help those at a disadvantage. And there should be more of that -- health care, education, etc. Of course, corruption and inefficiency in government exists and is a problem, but the ones stealing money from you are those at the top who are constantly seeking to pay less in taxes, do less to protect to the environment, lobby or contribute (aka bribe) to profit at the expense of public good, outsource or automate away their labor, etc. You mentioned the negative impact of common practices of bankers and Wall Street -- those kinds of things are natural consequence of free market activity.