"Wicked problem" is a phrase used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems. - Wikipedia
I have considered many smart (and stupid) people's perspective on the financial crises. After carefully considering their arguments, I identified 4 broad observations:
Observations on the Financial Crisis:
1: Nobody agrees on what the current state is.
2: Nobody agrees on why we got into the current state.
3: Nobody agrees on what the future should be.
4: Nobody agrees on how to get to the future state.
5: Nearly everybody agrees that something BIG has to happen to fix the problem.
If that observation is correct (and I think it's fairly obvious and uncontroversial), then a conclusion naturally follows.
The scale of the problem outweighs man's ability to truly understand it. In short, we're not smart enough to know how to solve it. Our best bet then is to have someone (a la benevolent dictator) to make a huge bet in one direction and hope that it works out.
This conclusion coincides with my decision to stop reading
dealbreaker.com, after concluding that the people who frequent the site know little more than the rest of us.