@Funcioneta:
but we need able politicians first or any solution we try is damned to fail utterly.
Ah, the classic argument - we need better people!
Funcioneta, I agree with many of your points, but you tend to draw the wrong conclusions. Government is corrupt I agree. Your solution is better politicians, mine is less government. Power corrupts, and the more power granted to one entity the more corruption possible. The beauty of economics is that individual forces acting for themselves bring about that which you want.
Does government have a role? Of course! We need government for basic services, such as courts, roads, police and fire, etc, and also a limited framework to eliminate monopolies and cartels in business.
One other point about your more democracy comment I agree we need more educated democracy. The problem is a large percentage of voters are apathetic and vote for whatever name they remember best. Also, few people have any idea of economic principles and tend to vote for nice sounding ideas with disastrous consequences.
Ill give two examples: Minimum wage and welfare. Minimum wage is a great idea in principle (workers should be paid a living wage, sufficient to provide for a family). In practice, however, it leads to massive under-employment. Why? The prime beneficiary of minimum wage jobs is teenagers and college students (over 50% in the US). At a minimum wage job, you learn vital skills and build experience for a real job further down the road (historical equivalent apprentice). When you institute a minimum wage, you condemn many of these youths to no job whatsoever, with disastrous results for the future.
Welfare is similar it is a give a fish instead of teach to fish idea. If all unemployed people are given welfare sufficient to cover their expenses, what incentive is there to work (or build job skills?). Sadly, many people here in the US in their 20s and 30s are on welfare, doing nothing and collecting checks from the Government. While this is sustainable in the short term, they are really harming themselves in the long run, as they are supposed to be earning wages and saving during those years so as to pay for their retirement in the future. Such a scheme eventually collapses, with dire results for all (Greece). I draw the parallel of a wild and a captive tiger. A captive tiger, once born and reared in a zoo, can never be released to the wild, as he does not have the requisite skills to survive. The captive tiger is the modern day welfare recipient would you set them free?