Feels the need to refute.
California failed because of lax business regulation, dangerously low taxes, too little government infrastructure spending and a corrupt financial, housing and tech sector. Not because of the opposite.
Japan was ruined by conservatives failing to respond to their economic crisis for fifteen years, not their trains.
Greece was ruined by an obsession with short-term debts over long-term economic growth, the German beggar-thy-neighbour policy backed by an incompetent German ECB and an inappropriate monetary union. Leading to a failure to use monetary or fiscal policy.
The Soviet Union had a government that acted in demonstrably different ways than the US government under Obama. Sure, that was inefficient, which is why nobody does that any more. But free-market fundamentalism is actually more inefficient, as shown by the Russian Federation.
Again, Spain was ruined by the ECB, monetary union, short-term debt obsession, ect. Not solar panels (which are made in Germany).
England was ruined by the austerity program of their conservative government, austerity pursued despite a lack of need and in the face of massive costs- a policy that, to the extent that it was avoided in the US, was dodged over the violent objections of the Republican party. Britain's efficient health insurance program did not force international conservatism to institute wasteful, hugely costly austerity.