Oh thank god people stopped with the generic flaming and misguided attempts at economic plans.
As an American, I was pretty much always taught and I do believe that an enlightened dictator is the best form of government. Power in the hands of a single person means that things get done. Power in the hands of an enlightened person means that power is used rationally for general benefit. The trouble is that enlightened dictators are a supremely rare breed.
I don't follow your logic. I too, am an American. How the heck did you get taught the exact opposite of what I got taught, and manage to call it an American traditional way of thinking?
I was taught that an Enlightened dictator can only support the majority of those under his power at best, and in most decisions supports at or below the majority threshold.
I've always been impressed that at some critical times in history, there have indeed been people who have done this. Some might declare me stupendously biased for admiring an important person from my country's own history, but George Washington could probably have easily claimed sovereignty after the American Revolution, but turned down rulership based on the ideals that he and his peers believed in about the responsible wielding of executive power.
At least when the time comes to switch executive power into someone else's hands other than those that have been steering this country like a drunken teenage driver in a blizzard, we can try again with someone else. Maybe things will get better.
Ahh, the joys of democracy. What America has is in effect a system that attempts to overthrow the ruler every 4 years. This allows for us to get rid of unpopular rulers. The gift of our founding fathers is the gift of the bell curve. We may not get the spikes of glory that other governments do, but on the other hand, we don't get the pitfalls either. And when we do, they even out, since the timeframes are set instead of randomized by the quality of the opposing revolutionaries.
Cynicism about large groups of people and hostility towards large groups of people really just amount to pointless bickering until someone takes action based on those ideas. Once you start to do that, stop to think about whether taking action based on those ideas makes you any better than the people you're trying to attack.
That is generally true.
I can go into depth about what I think went wrong with the economy, but i will put it simply, it is how credit and investment is done. Personal relationships between those that have the money and those that have the idea don't exist. The CEOs of the Nuclear Plants are living too far away from the reactors.
Economic growth and theory is dreadfully and horribly wrong, as well as significantly out of date. Anything we do is a shot in the dark, hoping that the pound of whtever is used is in fact a cure, since there was no understanding to provide real prevention.
Third World Nations (Defined by me as any country that has a stunted economy, an economy where the "average joe" in the country wouldn't be expected to be seen as a target demographic for packages to go visit the great barrier reef or some other location) are stuck in the rut of being where they are, or they cast off common economic theory and skyrocket into the global stage in a way that baffles the economies of the countries who are rocked by such issues.
All the economic tormoil in the world right now is set to the tone of leaders in nations whom think they have the "perfect" solution, and ignore everything, including common sense, to get things back onto the track that they think they should be on. *Cough America Cough*
The solution to the problem is the Anarchist's view. Let them all fall down. When the world recovers, we can emulate the successful rebuilders. Perhaps then we will have a understanding on how to make a functional economy. Just like a forest, our global economy needs a good fire to stimulate new and diverse growth.