Love is Like Oxygen

Carbon monoxide, CO, is a colorless, odorless and tasteless gas that is poisonous to mammals. It has a peculiar property so cleverly incorporated into the novel "Coma": Its human victims appear healthier than average because the gas replaces CO2 on the hemoglobin molecule with CO and gives the blood a rosy quality despite the fact that no oxygen is transferred at the tissue level. Essentially CO binds to the hemoglobin, makes the blood look red and rich yet never releases oxygen. The victim suffocates despite his bright and flushed countenance. Describing it as insidious underestimates it; it is a killer with a disguise. It looks like what it is replacing so its homicidal effects are camouflaged. It mimics the appearance of well oxygenated blood while functioning as its opposite. It is the ultimate conflict between form and substance.
I've heard this used as an analogy to government acting as a substitute for private enterprise but it does not hold up well. Government can behave as a producer, an inventor and as an engine of economic growth--it is just very inferior. The motive for substituting government into an economy is never to improve it; it is always to sacrifice the economy to some other purpose, usually a bigger social safety net, sometimes simple personal aggrandizement or, worst, a theory. But CO is a lovely analogy to inflationary debt. The borrowed money provides leverage; the economy expands and shows all the appearance of good health. Carelessness, imprecision and overgrowth follows. Not until the value of the underlying assets are exposed as insufficient does the anemia become apparent. Then, decline and death.