They clearly have the ability to do compound interest. That is not the problem.
The problem with the government can be mostly attributed to two things:
(1) our government is based on checks and balances, and because of this, we often have a divided government that fights with itself and frequently is stymied because of this.
(2) The people and corporations love to get government benefits, but no one likes to pay extra money for added benefits.
Our governmental system is defective. If we had a parliamentary system like Canada or Australia, many of the difficulties would disappear, as the leader and the principle legislative coalition would be of a common mind. Compromise would be encouraged, instead of the opposite, which is what we have now.
Electing a political neophyte like Cain will not solve any problems. The old fool would have more problems than Jimmy Carter, and from the looks of him, he'd just get on the news and rant about it. After two or three months, even the morons would have realize what a monumental mistake it had been to elect him.
But that will not happen, because he's not getting the nomination. The Oligarchy will not approve of him, and he will fall by the wayside, a la Ross Perot.
The Government is not accidentally divided, you may understand it as a defect but the writers of the constitution hobbled the government on a purpose.
Our own government is the most likly villian to take our libertys from us, it is good that the people can quite easily frustrate the government.
It is true , I think you are right that the people like largesse but there are a lot of people who understand that the government has to take from the people before it is able to give to the people. Some politicians engauge in class warfare to divide the people and benifit from the greater resorces of the rich or the greater vote of the poor to middle class. This doesn't work well on those mature enough to overcome jelosy and fear.
Being for jobs and against business is like being pro egg and anti chicken, the class that hires and the class that works are interdependant and membership in neither is exclusive to the other.
The class that rules without risk is the government , the government makes a big fuss about the few jobs that the government can create, but each one of these is so inneficiently funded via taxes that it can be considered to be at the cost of three or four jobs that the same money would have created if that money had been left in private circulation.
The class that need not count the cost should not have power without limits and balences, the American people seem to like divided government in times of peace but not tolerate division in time of crisis, I consider this to be proper nad well balenced.