Upheaval and Investment

There are countless websites devoted to the topic of personal finance because, I think, this is such a problem. This is something you can learn--and I can help because I have been through it all. My fear is that this is a harsh culture created by strong men. Their strength and vision may be bred a little thin now but the demands created by their philosophy persists. The concept of personal freedom guaranteed by the state is revolutionary but it is not immutable because it all but guarantees incidental personal failure. As time has gone by, some cultures have compromised freedom in order to mute the possibility of personal failure: it is illegal to work an extra job on your 6 week designated vacation in France. Illegal. The upside is compressed in an effort to elevate the downside. In this world the ideal bell shaped curve is a line straight up and down.
This battle between personal freedom and social responsibility will never end and will be tweaked and massaged forever by the well-meaning and the avaricious, the optimists and the pessimists, the exceptional and the kind proxies of the incompetent. You don't have to go any further than those horrifying pictures of those poor people staring out at helicopters in flooded New Orleans to know the truth: some people can not take care of themselves. What should we do about them?
Countries have dealt with their problems in a lot of ways but remember that the poor, the disenfranchised, the inept must be given something someone else made. Furniture. Food. Money. Security. If they can't create it, they must be given someone else's. This government in the past has outlawed gold ownership, capped money withdrawal, arrested and interred American citizens under some stressful circumstances.
At any rate, please indulge me my concerns here and take my ravings with a smaller grain of salt than you might ordinarily.
Here is the first thing to read, a notion that emerged by accident as the people at Google were searching for an investment approach for their soon-to-be-millionaire employees:
http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/best-investment-advice-youll-never-get