Government intervention is not solving the problems, and in fact the governments around the world that are intervening the most in their economies are struggling more.

In our day, a vast majority of people is dependent either on an employer or the government-or both. One way to rate your level of independence might be to measure how long you can survive, feed your family and live in your home after your employer stops paying you anything.

Indeed, we have reached a level of complexity where simplicity itself is suspect. For example, the simple reality is that jobs migrate to less difficult nations. It's the old Rule of Capital: Capital goes where it is treated well.

The best thing government can do now is get out of the way and let small businesses innovate, hire and grow. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen unless Washington stops increasing regulations, taxes and other blocks to business growth.

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.

Great teachers and schools expect and nurture quality work and quality performance. Great teachers inspire and demand quality, ever urging their students to higher levels of excellence. They shun mere conformity and expect their students to think and perform to their ever-increasing potential.

Thinking is like exercise, it requires consistency and rigor. Like barbells in a weightlifting room, the classics force us to either put them down or exert our minds. They require us to think.