If a Republican wins in 2012, and if the economy doesn't markedly improve by 2016, a Democrat (quite possibly Hillary) will almost certainly win in 2016. What would it take for the economy to markedly improve by 2016? To understand that, one needs to understand elementary classical (Austrian) economics. The fundamental problem is that governments, both in the US and around the world, have politically misallocated tens of trillions of dollars of capital to economically lower valued uses because these uses were of higher political value. Wasting so much seed corn year after year, decade after decade, has inevitably resulted in progressively leaner harvests. Unfortunately, this extensive capital misallocation is being done by many different methods and the misallocated capital is going to many politically favored groups, so there is no one silver bullet that will fix the mess. A partial list:

Since Governor Scott Walker signed the Budget Reform Bill, limiting collective bargaining for state employees to wages only on March 11, Wisconsin school districts and cities have been rescuing their budgets.  No longer, for example, were the districts forced to purchase health insurance from the teachers' union insurance company (WEA Trust Insurance) at exorbitant rates.  The savings have been substantial (all figures and quotes compiled from local news reports): Ashland  School District - saved $378,000 on health insurance. Kimberly School District - saved $821,000 by dropping WEA Trust Insurance. Edgerton School District - dropping WEA Trust, expecting to save at least $500,000. Pittsville - will see a 9%  decrease in the school portion of their property tax levy. "This is the first  year we have not needed to short-term borrow," stated Board President  Strenn. Appleton School District - will save $3.1 million just in health  insurance costs due to being able to bid out the coverage and being able to  drop WEA Trust.

The product of a long -term relentless indoctrination in the progressive radical school, President Obama has never varied from his life mission. Yes, a portion of Americans absorbed the staccato of the "One" , the chant of "change we can believe in" and the seduction of the healer. Many simply "wanted" to believe in something that never existed. It was a mirage. An imagery and technique right out the text book of tyrants from across the ages. However the truth was always there for all to see. The only surprise is they didn't. Now as the Obama Presidency is in free fall, the gesture and notions of accommodation are being fully discarded. Now the creation of imagined enemies and emasculation of the virtues that made this country great be it free enterprise, individual rights, or capitalism are laid out as evil in the quest for that fool's gold of the left:  "fairness". This twisted logic is at the fraudulent core of the soul of socialism. It is a primary mover of their mania and a mantra which overshadows each act.

The presidential debates are looking more like symptoms of our problems than they do like part of the solution. Maximum style, minimum substance. Focus on sizzle, forget about the steak. These events are supposed to be about quality information, raising the bar, and producing a thoughtful, informed electorate. But they are being produced to provide entertainment, and we are barely getting that. Technology doesn't take the place of substance. YouTube and real-time polling are not substitutes for thoughtful, provocative questioning. Can it really be, after all the heat he has taken on Social Security, that Rick Perry was not pushed on how specifically how he would reform it?  Can it be, as expert after expert has laid out the long list of failures of Romneycare in Massachusetts and its unquestionable similarities to Obamacare, that Mitt Romney was not called out on his sidestepping and denials? Can it be that, on a day (9/20) where the stock market in our country dropped 3.5 percent and in China by 5 percent, that candidates were not asked what they think is wrong with the global economy?

In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "The Guns of August," Barbara Tuchman chronicles how a cascading series of seemingly minor developments led inexorably to World War I and the worst carnage known to man up to that time. In the future, historians may point to the present "Diplomacy of September" as the catalyst for the next horrific conflict now in the offing in the Middle East, and potentially beyond. Specifically, this means three agenda items slated to take place in the United Nations or on the margins of its meetings in coming days.  Combined, their synergy could lead to a horrific war.

Why have conservatives become such captives of fear? Before 9/11, conservatism stood for stalwart courage and confidence in the United States of America. Across the past decade, however, we succumbed to a weird mania that wildly exaggerates threats and revels in our purported strategic vulnerability to furtive religious perverts sinking along with their doomed civilization. The enthusiasm with which many of my fellow conservatives paint militant Islam as a mighty movement capable of a takeover of Europe and America is a grotesque wallow in political masochism. Islam is on the ropes of history, battered, bleeding and disfigured. And it's never going to be a contender again. Yet, many Americans appear determined to cower in our corner of the ring. It's baffling:  We're winning in every possible respect, but tell ourselves we're losing.

US election season is clearly upon us as President Barack Obama has moved into full campaign mode. Part and parcel of that mode is a new bid to woo Jewish voters and donors upset by Obama's hostility to Israel back in the Democrat Party's fold. Trying to portray Obama as pro-Israel is not a simple task.  From the outset of his tenure in office, Obama has distinguished himself as the most anti-Israel president ever. It is an open question whether American Jews will be willing to buy the bill of goods the administration is trying to sell them through their media proxies in next year's presidential elections. But if next Tuesday's (8/13) special election for New York's Ninth Congressional District is any indication - remember Weinergate with Anthony Weiner resigning his seat? - the answer is apparently that an unprecedented number of American Jews are unwilling to ignore reality and continue supporting this anti-Israel president.

[This is the full text of Sarah Palin's speech in Indianola, Iowa, on Saturday, September 3. I consider this to be one of the greatest political speeches of modern times.  The video follows after the text. ---JW] The reality is that we in America today are governed by a permanent political class, who derive power and wealth from their access to our money - to taxpayer dollars.  They use it to bail out their friends on Wall Street and their corporate cronies, to reward campaign contributors, and to buy votes via earmarks. There is a name for this: It's called corporate crony capitalism. This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts, of waste and influence peddling and corporate welfare. I believe in the free market, and that is why I detest crony capitalism. And Barack Obama has shown us cronyism on steroids.  It will lead to our downfall if we don't stop it now. We will not solve our economic problems until we confront the cronyism of our President and our permanent political class. Between bailouts for Wall Street cronies and stimulus projects for union bosses' security and "green energy" giveaways, he took care of his friends. And now they're on course to raise a billion dollars for his re-election bid so that they can do it all over again. Are you going to let them do it all over again? Are you willing to unite to do all we can to not let them do it again so we can save our country?

Many in Washington care little or nothing for the well being of Americans, other than themselves and their cronies. The widespread continued lying about the soundness of Social Security and Medicare isn't due to ignorance -- it is due to politicians aggrandizing  power regardless of the cost to others. Either their careers will have to be terminated by a better informed electorate - not impossible, as demonstrated by Canada and Sweden - or the US central government and the scores of millions who depend upon it will crash and burn.  The US central government is on the road to either radical reform or self destruction. Continued kicking the can down the road would soon send it over the economic cliff where the USA would join the USSR on the ash heap of history. Radical reform could be as simple as refusing to increase the debt ceiling, auctioning the Ponzi scheme operator's assets off for the benefit of the Social inSecurity and MediScam victims, allowing unlimited expensing for all business capital investments, requiring that all regulations be voted on by Congress before becoming laws, and legalizing competing precious metal currencies.

Warren Buffett is a world class investor. He is also entitled to his opinion even when it demonstrates larceny with the truth. His grand and magnanimous genuflection to "fairness" is fraught with dishonesty and does no service to the debate on the nation's economic future.  "We have abundance but we don't have as much fairness as we might have in the system," he announced at a fund-raiser he held for Mr. Obama in Omaha last week (8/16). "Fairness" is a code word of the left which has its origins in the class hatred so beloved by Marx . It is meant to arouse the "masses" (another term of haughty illiberal insult to citizens ) to demand their illusory "rightful" share from the rich . It fabricates an enemy out of capitalism and implies some form of theft that must be redressed. This is the essence of Barrack Huessein Obama's indoctrination and Mr. Buffett is simply feeding the beast.

Election of our nation's first black president is delivering an unexpected message to our black population. Blacks are discovering that what a man or woman does -- their actions -- is what matters, not the color of their skin. It is not hard to understand why black Americans were happy that a black man was elected president of the United States. It was kind of final and most grand announcement that racism has finally been purged from America. But for the highly politicized parts of black America this was certainly not the only message. Because for the highly politicized parts of black America, the point has always been to keep race in American politics. For black political culture that dominated after the civil rights movements, the point was not just equal treatment under the law, but special treatment under the law. Plus the assumption that more black political power -- defined by more blacks holding office -- would mean that blacks would be better off. Now blacks have a dilemma. We have a black president and blacks are worse off. Not just a little, but a lot worse off.

Who would have thought just 18 months ago that a member of the eurozone, the most elite club of economies in Europe, could have a worse credit rating than Pakistan? And yet this is the case for Greece today, perched on the verge of a debt restructuring; two other eurozone countries (Ireland and Portugal), meanwhile, are already in Europe's intensive care unit, receiving large bailouts. And who would have thought that a rating agency would dare question the sacred AAA credit rating of the United States, the sole supplier of global public goods such as the international reserve currency (the dollar) and a financial system that serves as the nexus of international capital flow? There are, of course, several custom-made reasons for these developments. But together, they speak to major realignments that are fundamentally changing the character of the global economy and how it functions. Three things in particular have had a significant influence, and they will continue to shape the world we live in for years to come.

A few months ago, I gave a talk to the U.S. Naval War College. This venerable institution is home to a student body of the future leaders of the world's navies, who preserve our freedom through strength on the seas. Toward the end of a spirited question-and-answer session, a young officer stood and asked the final question: "What keeps you up at night?" The simplicity of the question struck an emotive cord. In a flash, I thought of my boyhood growing up in an America where every morning I could get on my bike, and as far as the eye could see, there was President Reagan's "shining city on the hill," standing bright and tall on the horizon. The majesty, bounty and exceptionalism of America provided opportunity for all to climb that summit and share in the glow. Yet now, for the first time since the Civil War, this God-blessed experiment is in real jeopardy of not being preserved for our children and the "huddled masses" seeking to embrace the American way. I saw the concern in that lieutenant's eyes -- a soldier-citizen, seeking an answer. Mine was clear: "Debt out of control, entitlement spending out of control, and the loss of economic freedom and opportunity." Why and from where had this malady come, and, most important, how can we restore our God-given national birthright?