"Read 'em and weep"

The favorite expression around the Sigma Chi house in college after a winner in a poker game laid down his cards, was "Read 'em and weep."

We're two years into the vast economic and social re-engineering experiment that was labeled as Obamacare, and now we are learning the real costs. The winners then aren't so sure today. This week the Obama administration admitted its math was flawed in its assumptions about a key provision of the bill. The "Community Living Assistance Services and Supports" proved to be unsustainable. It was a disability program actuaries panned even before Obamacare passed, but it was thrown into the final bill, some say, as a tribute to its champion, Senator Ted Kennedy.

Nancy Pelosi once famously said, "We have to pass this bill so we can find out what's in it." Stunning! And now we know. The winners and the losers in the Obamacare fight are all weeping now:

OBAMACARE

By The Numbers

$2.6 Trillion:	True Cost Of ObamaCare Once Fully Implemented. (Office Of The Speaker Of The U.S. House Of Representatives, Report, 1/6/11)
$701 Billion:	Amount ObamaCare Will Add To The Deficit. (Office Of The Speaker Of The U.S. House Of Representatives, Report, 1/6/11)
$575 Billion:	Cost Of Medicare Cuts In ObamaCare. (CMS Chief Actuary Richard S. Foster, Memo, 4/22/10)
$491.7 Billion:	Taxes Raised In ObamaCare. (Letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 3/18/10;Joint Committee On Taxation, 3/2/10)
$450 Billion:	Cost Of ObamaCare “Glitch” Allowing The Middle-Class To Qualify For Medicaid.(Avik Roy, “The 450 Billion Glitch: 3 Million Extra Middle-Class Americans Eligible For Medicaid Benefits,” Forbes, 6/21/11)
$401 Billion:	Increase In Federal Entitlement Spending From ObamaCare. (“The Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update,” Congressional Budget Office, August 2010)
$210 Billion:	Amount Of Income Taxes Collected Over 10 Years Through ObamaCare.("Estimated Revenue Effects Of The Manager's Amendment To The Revenue Provisions Contained In The 'Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act,"Joint Committee On Taxation Report, 3/20/10; Editorial, “Taxes Upon Taxes Upon…,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/11/11)
$145 Billion:	Cost Of ObamaCare Cuts To Medicare Advantage. (CMS Chief Actuary Richard S. Foster, “Estimated Financial Effects Of The 'Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act,' As Amended,” Memo, 4/22/10)
$80 Billion:	ObamaCare’s CLASS Program “Zombie” Savings In The Federal Budget. (Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, “‘Zombie’ In The Budget: Long-Term Health Care Plan,” The Associated Press, 10/8/11)
$60 Billion:	Health Insurance Tax On Businesses. ("Estimated Revenue Effects Of The Manager's Amendment To The Revenue Provisions Contained In The 'Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act,"Joint Committee On Taxation Report, 3/20/10; Editorial, “Taxes Upon Taxes Upon…,” The Wall Street Journal,7/11/11)

As I suggested in an earlier post last week, no one really can predict the future, but I know this much - if Obamacare is not struck down by the Supreme Court on the legal issue of the individual mandate, it must be defunded, repealed and buried deeply in the bowels of Mother Earth before its costs bury us as a nation.

Thanks to Senator Mike Lee's website for this summary.

Democrats and Their Non Sequitur Nonsense

In Latin a "non sequitur" is literally translated as "it does not follow." In effect it is a statement that makes no sense and many such assumptions are constantly on display among Democrats these days.

It seems their solution for solving our debt and deficit problems as a country is to raise taxes. They have proposed or championed during the ongoing debt-limit debate and negotiations some ridiculous ideas about how they think the deficit spending and the total debt can be addressed in this session of Congress.

Here are four proposals to increase taxes and a table showing the approximate amount of time each proposal might "plug" the federal budget deficit, projected in 2011 to be $1.48 trillion (or roughly $4.05 billion per day).

“The four tax increases Democrats have publicly or privately advanced in the deficit reduction debate would reduce the federal deficit by – at most – $40.35 billion a year, a little less than the United States currently borrows every 10 days.

“Even if fully implemented, and even in the unlikely event that these tax hikes do bring in their full projected amount, they will barely make a dent in the deficit, and almost none in a $14.3 trillion national debt.

“These are unserious deficit-reduction proposals -- but they are very serious jobs-reduction proposals.  $40.35 billion is equal to roughly 69,000 average middle class jobs, which cost private businesses about $58,500 each to create.”  (Memo from the Joint Economic Committee).

Do Democrats simply have a death wish? Do they think Americans are stupid? Other countries have figured it out, and America can't? I don't believe it.

They had better get serious soon. Everyone in Washington D.C., including Republicans like Orrin Hatch, have amassed this debt load for many, many years, and now it's time to dismantle the socialist entitlement programs that are really at fault.

Raising taxes just isn't going to do it. They're still playing the class warfare tune that expired a long time ago. If all you can do is get 9 days and 23 hours worth of benefit for all those tax increases on the wealthiest of Americans, better go back to the counting house and keep counting.

Baby Boomers, Entitled?

Having arrived at early stage "geezerhood," this cartoon made me smile the other day. Our generation has made waves ever since the end of World War II, because there were so many babies made after the fathers returned from war.

New elementary schools were built to contain us. Then middle schools and high schools burst their seams to accommodate our burgeoning numbers. A draft was instituted to fight a war in a country nobody had ever heard of -- Vietnam -- because there was an ample supply of young Americans. It was easily the most hated and wasteful war (aren't they all?) ever waged. Those of us with a modicum of intelligence found ways to avoid that war altogether.

We protested against authority. We lived through the sixties with abandon and self-indulgence. We rebelled, we wore flowers in our hair (well, some did, not all of us), and our generation was responsible for assassinating John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert, Martin Luther King, and we grew to love murder and violence more than our own mothers' milk it seemed.

We initiated bloated budgets for colleges and universities. We prompted government education financing plans, then we defaulted in record numbers in faux gratitude to a giving welfare state that made it possible for us to be well taught.

We launched industrial waves and bubbles throughout our illustrious careers as baby boomers. We lived way beyond our means. Savings became passe. Easy money and debt financing was the norm of the day. More homes were needed as we grew into young adulthood. but instead of filling those homes with a new and responsible generation of replacement Americans, we filled them instead with "stuff." We forgot the most valuable things aren't things.

We didn't reproduce enough children to keep the grist mill of greed turning and thriving. We self-sabotaged by reducing the numbers of taxpayers who could support us in our old age.

We've now reached a point where the birth rate has dropped off the edge of the table, barely high enough to replace a mother and a father. There just aren't as many people paying into the Social Security Trust Fund as there are people now receiving (or soon to receive) benefits out of the system. The trends for the future do not look promising. In Russia today there are cash incentives for those willing to reproduce more children, because they realize (too late probably) that zero population growth was not a wise fiscal policy after all.

This is one of the hot potato political issues no one wants to take on. Fact is, no one even wants to define whether Social Security is "an entitlement program" or not.

We baby boomers paid good tax money into the system for decades in anticipation of having something there for us when we approached retirement age. The current rules state you are eligible to begin drawing benefits on your 62nd birthday if you paid in enough to the system to qualify. All you need to do is register on line.

Because we're living longer than ever before (thanks to the generosity of our fellow Americans who have funded Medicare through their payroll deductions), we will likely outlive the old actuarial probabilities under which benefits were structured and our "guaranteed" government Social Security checks that can be electronically deposited like magic every month until death will go far beyond what most of us paid in.

I'm at least willing to acknowledge the problem in simple terms, more than most politicians will admit.

Most in my generation will tell you they are "entitled" to receive their government sponsored retirement check, because, dag nabit, we were taxed to qualify for it and, dad burnit by golly, we're entitled to collect it when we reach geezerhood status.

So, if we classify Social Security as an "entitlement" so be it, but truthfully it's not "something for nothing" until our benefits go beyond what we paid in plus interest. At least that's how I do the calculations.

There's a lot of talk about socialism these days. Let me say this about that. If you for one minute think we are not already a socialist country, having adopted the socialist agenda one bite at a time for the last century, then my friend, I have a lovely bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you (dirt cheap, I might add).

Speaking of Medicare and Medicaid (not to mention Obamacare), all these "entitlements" are bought and paid for by a massive government sponsored redistribution of taxes extracted from the pocketbooks of hard-working Americans so the less fortunate among us may be blessed by the largess of the taxpayers. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administers Medicare, the nation's largest health insurance program, which covers nearly 40 million Americans! And Obamacare insures those ranks will grow, attempting to mandate coverage (ruled unconstitutional, but pending a final SCOTUS ruling). Medicare is a Health Insurance Program for people age 65 or older, some disabled people under age 65, and people of all ages with End-Stage Renal Disease (permanent kidney failure treated with dialysis or a transplant).

I have no idea what Obamacare is really going to cost on top of what Medicare and Medicaid is already costing, but I have a feeling it's going to be a very big number. As I stated, we baby boomers are always making waves whenever we move through the demographic nozzle.

Am I "entitled" to have those generous subsidy programs because I am part of the entitled "landed gentry" of baby boomers? Does the younger generation of Americans owe me anything because of my newly attained "geezerhood" status? Do I deserve to be treated with dignity and respect in my old age because I live in America and I've worked hard and paid my way without complaint? Do my children and grandchildren and unborn great-grandchildren owe me adulation and adoration because I've left the world a better place for them than the one I inherited? Do they owe me one red cent for my existence?

Our parents would have said, "Hell, no!" That's who they were.

And we would say, "Hell, yes!" Especially if we live in Wisconsin and we're part of a public employee union.

My generation is an embarrassment compared to the "Greatest Generation" of my parents. They saved the world from Nazism and fascism. They fought bravely and sacrificed much as the children of the Great Depression. When there was nowhere else for the world to turn for help, American G.I.s invaded Europe on D-Day to put down the persistent oppression of Hitler and other dictators of their day. Fearlessly, they answered the call. Their wives and children remained behind to work three shifts day and night in factories to build the implements of war. The government offered debt then, "war bonds," to finance the war, but the bonds were bought by Americans. When the war was over they came home, rebuilt their lives on the knowledge that freedom would be vouched safe for their children who could live an existence without the threat of the loss of freedom in this land.

And my generation? What of us? What will be our claim to greatness? That we recklessly spent our inheritance? That we ran up unsustainable deficits and debt that will never if ever be repaid? That we lived as though there were no tomorrow, and never a day of reckoning? That we lived in homes we did not build with our own hands, ate from the abundance of harvests we neither sowed nor nurtured, that we drank from wells we never drilled, that we drove chariots filled with refined crude oil we purchased from the house of Saud and other dictators who despised us with borrowed money from the Chinese when our own resources laid untapped beneath our feet because we were determined to generate wind, solar and other "green energy" resources to fight a fictitious political global warming boogieman?

Let me answer all those questions this way: When Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, they left without a Social Security card clutched tightly in their fists and without demanding their entitlements from a government sponsored retirement safety net complete with the finest medical care delivery system the world has ever known.

Naked and penniless came I into the world, and I'm likely to leave the same way. Everything in between is just detail, most of which will be unheralded by those my generation leaves behind. Too pessimistic, you say?

My faith resides in much more certain outcomes beyond all the entitlement programs to which I feel anything but entitled. The sooner my generation awakens to that reality, the sooner we'll be able to grapple with the task before us. We need to stop being spoiled brats whining about what we think we are entitled to receive but never will because we have taxed ourselves into oblivion without an extrication plan.

We are guilty of generational theft. We live on borrowed light, borrowed money and borrowed time. . .

My generation is entitled to reap the whirlwind of our poor choices. And we will. May God have mercy upon us, and may we never receive that to which we are entitled.

From Here to Where?

The good news first:  The 112th Congress was sworn in last week.  Control of the House of Representatives swung predictably into the hands of the conservatives, the "tea party movement" largely receiving most of the credit.  For me, back in March 2010, it all started here first on Utah caucus night.  In the land of Oz (see above), one now hopes at least the brakes have been applied to the dream wishing debt financing for bigger government solutions regardless of the cost.

The Senate remains in control of the Democrats, as does the White House.  The stock market has taken off on a rising trajectory since November, anticipating and relishing the thoughts of gridlock once again. The financial markets love gridlock only because it signals something better than the unpredictability we have witnessed for the last two years.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

The 112th Congress began its first session by reading the Constitution on the floor of the House.  Many guffawed at the idea.  By the time it was over, most had left the chamber.  You can call it mere symbolism if you wish, but at least the new leadership is signalling a belief that the inspired document is more than merely a good idea.  It's really the document determining how we are to be governed as a free people.  Orrin Hatch (R-UT) opined this way.

For far too long this country has been polarized into two discernible and seemingly divisive camps.  However, there has been a private and all-too-easy accommodation between the two factions.  Publicly they excoriate one another.  On the right conservatives have advocated self-determination and small government, tax reductions and less regulation.  The left has routinely done everything within its power to form a framework of big government and high taxation to buy delicious wealth redistribution benefits for the 9 - 5 working folks.  The two sides have always had to compromise to some degree to get a little of what each has wanted.

You may not like it, but neither has been able to get everything each wanted, so compromise has been the basis of the accommodation each has made for the other.

We are now left with a "hybrid" bastard child government in many ways.  The right has been unsuccessful in creating free markets for individually-owned businesses as they once envisioned while holding at bay the creeping welfare state, and the left has failed to fully implement a Western European-style socialist government they seem to love so much.  I never dreamed we would ever revisit those socialist ideals, but the last two years have proven they are not dead yet.

Both sides publicly hold their noses, pandering to their respective political base of believers.  The left has compromised on tax cuts, while the right has voted for increased government involvement.  It's nothing more than political kabuki theater at its best.  The compromise strategy has worked brilliantly to perpetuate the perceived value of a long-standing member of Congress for his constituency when he can get himself in a position to "bring home the bacon."  As she exited as Speaker of the House last week, Nancy Pelosi was still blaming everything on George W. Bush -- she apparently believes the Democrats lost control of the House in the November mid-term election because of the bad economy they inherited from Bush.  So far, so good.  Blame the other guys and continue to compromise to get a little bit of what you want.

Turns out, she has little to complain about -- she got EVERYTHING she wanted.  One could make the case her success as Speaker is unprecedented based upon the number of bills passed.

But the future from here is uncertain and unpredictable.  The old ways of getting things done are likely to implode.  Here are some thoughts about why:

Bob Bennett

Here in Utah last year Bob Bennett was soundly and unceremoniously tossed.  He remains a canary in the mine shaft as a harbinger of things to come.  The other long-standing compromiser from Utah, Orrin Hatch, is trying to avoid the harsh judgment of his 36-year Senate career by his constituents in 2012.  I predict he will not be able to survive if the current mood persists, though he is making a valiant last-ditch stand to lengthen out his stay (he would be 84 years old at the end of his next term if re-elected, and would become the oldest Senator ever elected in Utah).  That's tall timber to have to chop.  Bennett couldn't do it and Hatch has  already served longer than any of the twelve U.S. Senators from Utah.  Originally, he ran against Frank Moss, calling him a "career politician."  There will be many willing newcomers anxious to remind Hatch the roles are now reversed and it's time for him to step aside.  I wish Hatch would just voluntarily retire, knowing it will never happen.

Both Hatch and Bennett are emblematic of the frustration voters feel, knowing in our heart of hearts as we do that each was part of the problem -- the "great compromise" between the parties happened on their watch and they enabled it as two old political hands can and must do from a small state.  They went along to get along and survive until the next election.  Business as usual in Washington D. C. has given us the worst case scenario.  What's the worst scenario?  High taxes, bankrupt government, out-of-control spending, and costly entitlement programs as far as the eye can see.  They can say they opposed it all and point to "those other guys" to assuage their base in Utah, but the record says otherwise.

We have a bloated federal government.  There are 2,748,978 federal civilian employees.  Most of them work for the executive branch, and the government is easily the largest employer in America today.  Not exactly what the founders favoring limited government had in mind.

While both sides will say they are committed to a government that only spends what it takes in, there are increasing numbers of voters who do not accept the statements of their elected officials any longer.  Frustration over election year rhetoric not translating into constructive solutions thereafter is at an all-time high.  It's likely the reason Hatch and other incumbents will be added to the rolls of the unemployed in 2012.

Once again this year, attempts will be made to put forward a "balanced budget amendment" if such a thing can even be accurately defined (it failed by one vote in the Senate a few years ago), but perhaps a new beginning can emerge this year.  It remains to be seen.  I remain optimistic.

Ask either side who's responsible for the current deficit and finger pointing from each is all you'll get.  They have been partners in this Ponzi scheme crime of the century in profligate spending, then handing the bill to future generations.  "Pay as you go" government is nothing more than a wink and a nod in Washington.  That's what has got to change, Americans are increasingly saying to themselves.  Both sides created it with their tendency to compromise with each other.  Both sides must accept accountability for their actions.  The voters will be certain they do.

The liberals on the left contend (correctly) that conservative tax cuts contribute to the deficit.  Conservatives on the right assert (correctly) that unrestrained government growth has pushed us into the sprawling ocean of red ink.  Remember when Bill Clinton said, once the deficit reached zero by cooperating with the Republican-controlled Congress, that the era of big government was over?  Uh, yeah, that didn't happen.

The numbers do not lie.  There was a budget surplus for four years during the late 1990s -- unrestricted good budget news broke out, each side claiming credit for that outcome.  Except for those four anomalous years the federal deficit has fluctuated between 1.5 percent to 6 percent of GDP.  Relative to the size of the American economy, historically the largest in the world, that size of a deficit was not enough to give much angst to the green eye-shade people who watch such things.

But something dramatic (I am understating) happened in the 2009 and 2010 federal budgets.  I've been watching, trying to learn, and coming to some sobering realizations.  In those two years the deficit rocketed up to 10 percent of GDP.  Blame whomever you will for profligate spending -- both sides point at each other -- the simple fact is tax receipts plummeted into the basement during those two years.  Linked to reduced revenues flowing into the Treasury, we learned there were $288 billion in tax cuts paired with $500 billion in additional "stimulus" spending.  That doesn't include a $1 Trillion price tag for health care reform that's been added to the fiscal witch's brew.

I believe our reality points to the end of the ying/yang political compromises we have heretofore witnessed.  The left and the right are going to be compelled to change their ways, not because they really want to but because the voters will demand it.  The days of a Teddy Kennedy and an Orrin Hatch making nice to spend more money for social programs must and will come to a screeching halt.  The only question is will there be enough political will among the members of Congress to bring it about.  Will Americans demand the change of direction with their power at the voting booth?

The three biggest segments of the government's spending today involve defense, Social Security and Medicare.  When my father attempted to explain Medicare to his local Rotary Club in a prepared speech when it was first introduced in 1966, as part of the "Great Society" envisioned by President Lyndon B. Johnson, he used language much like what we are hearing today in connection with Obamacare.  Dad's words, "We just don't know what this is going to do to us, only time will tell."

Well, all these years later we are now beginning to understand just how costly medical care has become.  In 1966, Medicare was 16 percent of the annual federal budget.  In ten years (2020) the projection is that number will explode to 40 percent as baby boomers like me continue to flood the system, Obamacare notwithstanding.

Left unchecked, the actuarial assumptions for these socially engineered government "safety nets" for an aging population with fewer worker bees in the hive than ever before are not promising.  Socialism fails to deliver on its promises, because society just can't have it both ways -- the "good life" without somebody paying the bill ultimately.  One would think Europe's experiments with socialism could have taught us that lesson.

As other budget items necessarily get pushed aside to continue to maintain the "big three," the room for compromise will erode exponentially only because it must and there will be few options.  It might be years yet in coming (we always defer the day of reckoning as long as we can), but come it will.  The choices will be simpler -- either raise taxes to sustain social entitlements or lower taxes and reduce the entitlements.  The level of taxation where we finally settle relative to benefits extended will be interesting to observe.

Necessity being slowly forced upon us will dictate the new direction.  That's why the historically great "compromisers" who fathered the current situation like Bennett and Hatch must give way to new members of Congress from both sides who become steeled in their resolve to find a new path together to preserve the Republic through greater fiscal discipline.  The good ol' boy network must be dismantled, the seniority system scrapped, and Constitutionally-directed thinking about smaller government re-enthroned.

I believe the same God who inspired the Constitution inspired tithing and self-reliance.  Adam and Eve were not clutching their Social Security cards as they set about to survive in the lone and dreary world by the sweat of their brow.  Neither were your ancestors when they first set foot upon this protected and preserved continent.  Believing somehow that big government will deliver its solutions in our old age is exactly what our forefathers warned us about, and that premise is foolishness.  We are seeing the realities of big government "solutions" every day.  Despite efforts to impact the number by the government, unemployment rates are dropping slightly (now at 9.4 percent nationwide) only because people are dropping out in their job searches.  Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is predicting employment will not return to "normal" for another five years.  Those facts should tell you all you need to know about government interventions in recessions.

I'll be watching in the years ahead as one of many who has lived to witness this inevitable train wreck as a baby boomer.  What interests me is how the government benefits I have been promised by a government now unable to deliver as promised will be perpetuated.  It cannot, can it?  Will we step up and responsibly put our government house in order and shoulder the generational debt we have incurred to spare our children the burden it will impose upon them?  Or will we go on raising the debt limit indefinitely, confident America is big enough to pay its obligations forever?

Whatever course we take as a country, political rhetoric from either side blaming the other cannot and will not stand forever.  It must be supplanted by the political will of Americans imposing their will upon their elected representatives to carefully and judiciously dismantle the fiscal house of cards before it falls precipitously on its own.

The big dream of a Government providing a cradle to grave existence without individual toil and accountability is a myth as fanciful as the Emperor's New Clothes.

Those days are over.

Utah Digging Out of Recession

The Associated Press August 24, 2010, 8:14AM ET

SALT LAKE CITY

Utah is adding jobs faster than it is losing them for the first time in several years, state economists said Monday.

Utah's unemployment rate remained steady at 7.2 percent in July amid signs the state is digging itself out of the recession.

Utah added 17,200 jobs over the past year, with the state work force expanding by 1.5 percent to 1.19 million jobs, according to the state Department of Workforce Services.

The recovery, however, is slow. And the unemployed are filing more than 2,000 jobless claims a week, double the historic average, said Mark Knold, chief economist of the Department of Workforce Services.

Those claims were as high as 5,000 a week at the start of 2009.

Signs of job growth are encouraging, although the survey data is subject to revision and could backslide, Knold said.

Utah is still playing catch-up. About 75,000 jobs have been removed from the state economy over the past three years, he said.

Three of Utah's economic sectors are still showing net job losses -- manufacturing, construction and government.

Knold said the construction sector could stabilize by year's end. Utah has lost a third of its construction jobs since July 2007, and it could take another 10 years before the state returns to the previous high mark in that industry, he said.

During the recession, Utah manufacturers scaled back employment by 4,100 positions to 20,000 -- the worst-hit industry in the state, Knold said.

Other employment sectors made modest gains over the past year.

The department said nearly 98,000 people in Utah were considered unemployed in July.

Utah's July unemployment rate was well below the national figure of 9.5 percent.

* * *

Now that school has begun and the fall season is upon us, we have a better handle on what the unemployment situation is.  I'm using the number of attendees at our Monday morning networking meeting as the gauge here.  Last January the room where we meet was filled to overflowing.  We were seeing around 175 -180 participants every Monday monring.  I have joked that we would only hold that meeting for as long as it took to get the numbers down to the size where we could meet in a phone booth.

The drop since January has been gratifying.  We've got the only job in the Church I know of where you succeed if no one shows up for the meeting. . .  For the last several months we have seen the number of participants decline to 70 or 80 each week.

Even when David Checketts was our featured speaker a couple of weeks ago and I expected to see some "ringers" who weren't really unemployed show up to hear him speak, the number only ticked up slightly to 95.  A year ago, David spoke to a standing-room-only audience in excess of 200.  His stake in New Canaan, Connecticut, had 120 heads of household out of work last year.  This year he reported that number is down to 10.  Despite what the gloomy national statistics are telling us, improvement is discernable and real but still slower than necessary.

Growth is slow because of government intervention.  Get government out of the way and the economy will take off.  Free markets hate uncertainty, and no one has injected more uncertainty into the equation more than the President of the United States and his majority leadership in both Houses of Congress.  Force feeding a fast diet of economic fat fueled by debt, sugar-filled programs, regulatory bills filled with new agencies designed to bypass Congressional oversight and debate, coupled with expanded entitlement spending has been disastrous.

Despite all that, there is significant evidence I can point to that Utah is leading the way out of this recession.  Because Utah's constitution mandates balancing the budget each year, businesses here are hiring, growing and defying the odds.  The growth is slow but discernable and sustainable despite the malaise in evidence in other parts of the country.

There, I delivered some good news.  And there's more. . .

It was reported earlier in the week that 14 Utah businesses are in this year's list of the Inc. 500's fastest growing companies, further evidence Utah is rising above the recession doldrums.  Funding Universe leads the way in Utah at number 34.  And what's the business model for Funding Universe you ask?  Matching angel investors with budding entrepreneurs and their startup businesses. 

Now if we can just reverse the disturbing effects of socialism, entitlements, bailouts and handouts, we'll progress even faster.

David Brooks wrote a thoughtful piece in the New York Times this morning comparing Germany's approach to the financial crisis with America's.  Under conservative leadership in Germany, notably German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany elected to spend significantly less on stimulus borrowing as a percentage of GNP, and their unemployment numbers are back down to pre-crisis levels.  Germany's economy is expanding right now at a blistering pace.  However, America's bloated experiment with massive debt and unbridled spending has frozen economic recovery by contrast.  Germany rejected the thinking of America's "best minds" on economics and has proven their case.  She has shown the example to America -- if you're the government, you can't borrow and spend your way out of a recession.  Hip, Hip, Hooray for capitalism, Ms. Merkel!!

Let's hope Americans have seen enough data to reverse course in November and follow the example of Germany.  I never thought those words would come out of my cyber pen, but there you go. . . America should take an economic lesson from Germany.   

Unthinkable. . . until now.