Off group email discussion has resulted in the following points
about several of my earlier statements/observations. the
following may prove helpful in this discussion/context.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_state

As stated in paragraph 5
"The term is also used in the sense of a state that has been
rendered ineffective (i.e., has nominal military/police control
over its territory only in the sense of having no armed
opposition groups directly challenging state authority; in short,
the "no news is good news" approach) and is not able to enforce
its laws uniformly because of high crime rates, extreme
high-level corruption, an extensive informal market, impenetrable
bureaucracy, judicial ineffectiveness, military interference in
politics, cultural situations in which traditional leaders wield
more power than the state over a certain area but do not compete
with the state, or a number of other factors. Cameroon, Liberia,
Nigeria and Papua New Guinea are often mentioned in this
category."

Unfortunately, as indicated by other newsgroup postings about the
inability of the police to prevent repeated burglaries (and
general news items), this description can be applied to
increasingly large, generally metro areas of the United States.
I note in passing that the inability to control a countries
borders as indicated by uncontrolled immigration and/or
importation of goods, either because of a lack of resources, or
more importantly because of a lack of will (caused either by
bribery or political correctness), is also another critical
indicator. Thus the United States meets the objective criteria
of at least a "failing state," as distasteful as this conclusion
is to me and many other people.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptocracy

From a longer explication of this term:

"The economies of kleptocracies tend to perform badly, as the
systematic corruption engendered by kleptocratic governance means
that the economy is subordinated to the interests of the
kleptocrats. Kleptocrats realize that they have more to gain from
taking a large share of a stable or shrinking pie than from a
shrinking share of an increasing pie. Economies based on the
extraction of natural resources (eg. diamonds and oil in a few
prominent cases) can be particularly prone to kleptocracy, as the
kleptocrats simply tax the Ricardian rent. Historically, the
socio-political environment associated with colonial rule - in
particular the dominance of colonial economies by a small number
of commodities - has been particularly conducive to the later
creation of kleptocracies, especially in Africa and South
America.
The creation of a kleptocracy typically results in many years of
general hardship and suffering for the vast majority of citizens
as civil society and the rule of law distintegrates. In addition,
kleptocrats routinely ignore economic and social problems in
their quest to amass ever more wealth. As kleptocrats do not
attempt to build or maintain functioning states, or even maintain
large security forces for fear of coups d'état, kleptocracies are
generally incompetent in the face of social crises, and often
collapse into prolonged civil war and anarchy."

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy

"The term plutocracy indicates a form of government where all the
state's decisions are centralized in an affluent wealthy class of
citizenry, and the degree of economic inequality is high while
the level of social mobility is low. This can apply to a
multitude of government systems, as the key elements of
plutocracy transcend and often occur concomitantly with the
features of those systems. The word "plutocracy" itself is
derived from the ancient Greek root ploutos, meaning wealth."