FFM

I am a free market conservative. I voted republican in every presidential election since 1968, except one. It is obvious that our government must live within its means and do so in a manner as not to interfere with a functioning free market economy. If we desire to take control of government, we must demand government carry out one of its primary functions; protecting free markets from tyranny, both public and private. We are vocal about defending it from public tyranny, but silent when it comes to tyranny in the private sector. “Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficial. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” Justice Louis Brandeis 1928 Today our focus seems to be only on the tyranny of government when it comes to free markets. We need t

We have a long way to go with allot of pitfalls to be avoided. Everyone is forgetting a depression was averted and it was not without cost. Believing that we had a depression that never was puts a different perspective on where we were and why we are here now. It is not that we over stimulated; it is that we were saved from a depression. It takes time and money to come back from hell. The difference between this depression and the last one in the 1930's is that we did not wait for the total meltdown before action was taken. The consumer will continue to act rationally and restrain the level of his consumption.What do you expect when his largest asset, housing, having a high degree of leverage, falls by 33% of value?

If we are going to fix America, we need to fix our education system. None of these experts talk enough about two critical issues: Parents and Poverty. We are wasting human resources! Watch the full episode . See more Need To Know.

It was almost a depression! It takes longer to recover from pneumonia than it does from a mild cold. It takes longer to recover from a near depression than it does a mild recession. It not only takes more time, it requires stronger medicine and bolder cures. Furthermore, after recovering from a near fatal illness, the memories of the pain and fears linger for a long time and the patient takes a long time before he drifts back to his old habits of slacking off preventive measures to avoid a relapse of pneumonia. Our politicians tend to hide the bad news from the citizens. They also use the bad news against their political opponent by blaming him for the lack of recovery. They hope the voters will buy into an argument that things will improve much faster and with more vigor if they were in charge. The truth is we all are at fault and things are not going to get better overnight. We as a nation and individuals overspent. 70% of our economic growth over the last couple decades resulted

NATO has been acting just the way we have trained them. I agree with Gates, see post of November 29 , it is time Europe start paying more for defense. However, within a span of 25-years there were two world wars in Europe and we were happy to demilitarize Europe and Japan. It was part of our strategy to prevent a 3rd war. Today w e cannot afford it and it is handing them an economic competitive advantage not needing to spend on defense.

The best article I read discussing how to improve the performance of teachers, and thus the performance of students, is called Helping Teachers Help Themselves . We all need to read it. The best news is that it is being used and it works. Teaching is a profession. However, Individual teachers must recognize that not all teachers are professionals. Other professions have review boards to hold members to certain standards. The teaching profession needs the same thing.

Every article and editorial I read about education these days has two themes:. 1. Someone must be held accountable for the success or failure of the school and, 2. The solutions discussed say nothing about the key element of achieving that success, poverty and the parents’ role in education. The measuring stick for how well a school and/or teacher is usually some kind of standard test of the student and if the students are doing well it is concluded the teacher must also be doing well. This concept is seriously flawed. Albert Einstein had the following quote hanging on his office wall: “Not everything that counts can be counted; not everything that can be counted counts.” Unlike what we like to say, not all children are born intellectually equal. We all know this; however, we must acknowledge it. One test does not fit all. Not all children have the same parents and background. When results are being measured this must be taken into account. This is why standardized test scores

Everyone is forgetting a depression was avoided and it was not without cost. Believing that we had a depression that never was puts a different perspective on where we were and why we are here now. It is not that we over stimulated; it is that we were saved from a depression. It takes time and money to come back from hell.

"We extended the tax cuts to the wealthy that will do nothing to stimulate the economy out of the financial down turn. This extension does add to the deficit problem facing this country; as does the additional spending provisions of extending unemployment insurance, temporarily reducing employment taxes and other spending provisions. Obama effectively said to the Republicans, "I will let you spend more, if you let me do the same." In other words he caved into the hostage takers. Guess what, the hostage takers will be back." Free Our Free Markets, December 23, 2010 Obama deserves some of the blame for the hostage situation we are in. The Republicans were successful once so they are trying again.

Lei’s See! Moody's and Standard and Poor's, the companies giving sub-prime loans an investment grade rating, is considering lowering the credit rating of our government. Simultaneously, the republican party is holding our government hostage over the need to raise the debt ceiling to be able to pay obligations that many of them voted for. Further, they refuse to cancel the bush tax cuts for the super wealthy. This is when the income disparity in this country is near an all time high because of the lawmakers refusal to enforce anti-trust laws against the many oligopolies that are buying votes with campaign bribes.