The problem in modern America is not that an individual can't make a difference, but that nearly all of us are too distracted to even consider trying.

The most powerful lessons occur where studies intersect with real life.

The founding American generations did something that almost no others have ever done. They read the fine print! They taught their children to read bills, laws, court cases, legislative debates, executive decrees, and bureaucratic policies. They read them in schoolrooms and at home....They said they would consider their children uneducated if they didn't read such things.

Until the American majority is willing to live within its means, it can hardly force its political leaders to do so.

If Americans are frustrated with Congress, imagine their frustration with a group of international bank officials running our ecomomy-bankers who may not have as their motive either to see us out of debt to them or to strengthen our economy, society, international influence, or other elements of our way of life.

Small business people have gotten us out of nearly all modern recessions - not by waiting for others to fix things or turning to government, but rather by applying leadership, inventiveness, creativity and originality.

Perhaps our most debilitating rut as a culture is a dependence on experts. Until we kick this dependency, how can we rise above the statistics and become a nation of entrepreneurs and leaders? The answer, as challenging as it is, is for entrepreneurs to show us the way, and to keep at it until more of us start to heed.