Next to the Nobel, the richest and most prestigious economic award is the £250,000 ($400,000) Wolfson Economics Prize, awarded by the Wolfson Foundation, founded by British entrepreneur and philanthropist Sir Isaac Wolfson in 1955.  It currently has an endowment of $1.2 billion.

Unlike the Nobel, the final contenders for the Wolfson are known in advance.  This year, out of 425 entrants, five were chosen as finalists - and they all have a shared nightmare on how to "manage" a full or partial disintegration of monetary union. They agree on little else.

"The consequences of a completely unplanned 'Exit' are likely to be catastrophic," said Neil Record from Record Currency Management, one of the five qualifiers.

Catherine Dobbs, a former algorithms expert at Gartmore, said the global shock could be five to 10 times worse than the Lehman earthquake in 2008, given the scale of contracts and counter-party exposure.

The Lehman lesson is that authorities must have contingency plans in place to stop a seizure of the global credit system. The crucial point is exactly how a break-up occurs, not whether it does so.

Imagine that you have a serious drinking problem, which has caused your job performance to decline.

If your doctor said to you, "Don"t stop drinking now, because going sober may cause you discomfort and may not immediately improve your job performance" - while failing to tell you that if you keep drinking, you will become totally dysfunctional and may die - what would you think of your doctor?

The U.S. government has a serious overspending problem. If the spending and the resulting deficits are not soon stopped, the U.S. economy will become dysfunctional, and our prosperity and freedoms will disappear.

Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence that the government is headed for a debt crisis, there are still a few economists who are saying: "Spend more."  They have a serious economic drinking problem.

A few weeks ago the Obama administration put out a video extolling Obama's record on Israel. They took excerpts from speeches by Israeli leaders praising Obama and used them as proof that Israelis view Obama is a great friend of the Jewish state. 

On the whole it was an obscene production. What can Benjamin Netanyahu or any other Israeli official say other than that Obama is a great friend of Israel? We have to face the dismal fact that Obama may remain in the White House until 2017. No Israeli official can afford to say openly what they think of this man. 

While Israel's leaders cannot say the truth about Obama, American Jewish groups can say the truth. Unfortunately, since the majority of American Jewish leaders are more concerned about maintaining their liberal bonafides than defending Israel, the voices opposing Obama's hateful treatment of the US's most vital ally in the Middle East have emanated mainly from the underfunded margins of the American Jewish community.

Here's one voice that tells the truth.

Bagnoli, Naples, Italy.  Who knew Hell could be so beautiful?

I'm sitting in a flower garden overlooking the Mediterranean.  In front of me is the islet of Nisida, where at his villa, Marcus Junius Brutus (85-42 BC) and his conspirators planned the assassination of Julius Caesar.  Off to the left looms Mount Vesuvius, and in the distance is the Isle of Capri.

On the other side of the hill behind me lies The Solfatara, a volcanic crater filled with boiling mud pools and vents hissing and steaming with sulfuric gasses.  For the Romans, it was feared as the home of Vulcan, the god of fire.

Next to Solfatara lies a crater lake called Avernus, Lake Averno.  For thousands of years, from Homer in The Odyssey, to Virgil in The Aeneid, to Dante in The Divine Comedy, it was revered as the entrance to Hell.

My wife and I are not here to go to hell, but to visit our son who, as a USMC Captain, is stationed at the NATO Command nearby that is running the war in Libya.  Nonetheless, this seems a uniquely appropriate place from which to write this HFR as America is descending into economic and political purgatory.

The Obama administration's policies are causing Americans to pay far more for gasoline and other fuels than necessary.

America is awash in fossil-fuel energy sources with almost 30 percent of the world's coal and 80 percent of the world's oil shale - which contains an estimated three times the recoverable oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Canada, with its oil sands, has the world's third-highest oil reserves, after the United States and Saudi Arabia.

New technologies that enable low-cost natural gas production from shale mean that many countries, including the United States, will have gas for centuries at current production rates.

Most countries try to produce oil, gas and coal and sell it on the global market as a way of increasing the real incomes of their citizens, but not the United States. The Obama administration has a hatred of fossil fuels and is determined to reduce their use despite the economic damage.   The President is deliberately making Americans poorer.

It was only a matter of time before one of our men broke down.

On Sunday, March 11, just before dawn, an American staff sergeant walked away from his post in the badlands of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, went into a nearby village, and methodically murdered sixteen civilians, including women and children. This didn't happen in the confusion of a firefight amidst the "fog of war." It was the brutal act of a veteran who cracked. The deed cannot be excused. But I believe it can be explained.

That staff sergeant-who turned himself in after the killings-is guilty of murder in a degree yet to be determined, but the amazing thing is how disciplined, patient and tenacious our troops have been. Given the outrageous stresses of serving repeated tours in an environment a brand-new private could recognize as hopeless (while his generals fly back and forth congratulating themselves), it's remarkable that we have not seen more and even uglier incidents. 

The problem in Afghanistan isn't our troops - although craven generals routinely insist that everything is the fault of "disrespectful" soldiers - it's a leadership in and out of uniform that is bankrupt of ideas, bankrupt of ethics, bankrupt of moral courage, and rich only in self-interest and ambition.

No doubt who's the HFR Hero of the Week this week, is there?  Who else but Congressman Allen West (R-FL)?

This guy is becoming the essence of pro-American cool.  Pretty soon Allen West jokes will replace Chuck Norris jokes, like "Some people wear Superman pajamas - Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas," or "Chuck Norris will never have a heart attack - his heart isn't foolish enough to attack him."  Insert Allen's name in these.

On Tuesday (7/19) in response to an attack on him by hyper-lib, hyper-obnoxious Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL, whose district adjoins West's, and is also the current Chair of the Democrat National Committee) on the House floor, West wrote her a letter that has long been deserved.  Here's the money quote:

"Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile, unprofessional, and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up."

Dem demands that West apologize are thunderous, to which West is responding with a shrug.

At last we have a Republican with major stones, who understands the best defense is a go-for-the-jugular offense, that the way to win is to put your opponent on the defensive, and to stand your ground with no apology.  GO ALLEN!

If a person pulled a gun on you, demanded your wallet, and then said: "I am going to use 50 percent of your money for good purposes, and I am going to waste and mismanage 30 percent, and the final 20 percent I am going to use for my own pleasure and to pay off my cronies who protect me," would you think the robber should be sent to jail or praised as a public servant?

Feel free to alter the percentages in the above example based on your own impressions of how well the government spends your money, remembering that much of the stimulus money went to unions and political allies of Mr. Obama.

And note that Thomas Jefferson said, "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

Unless the advocates of ever-more government spending are exposed for the self dealers and/or socialists they are, the economy and our liberties are doomed.

The blistering asset rally of 2012 has run ahead of economic realities in Europe, America and China. It is exhibiting symptoms of a schizophrenic market, with technical indicators flashing signs of exhaustion.

Graham Secker from Morgan Stanley said it is rare for global stocks, oil prices and government bonds to rise in lockstep, and such exuberance becomes a "very reliable sell signal for stocks" once speculators join the party.

Equity long positions on NASDAQ have reached 1.5 standard deviations and long bets on oil are at an extreme of 1.9, according to data from the Commodity Futures Exchange Commission. This is occurring at a time when yields on 10-year US Treasuries are still at 1.96%, signaling depression, deflation, or both.

The historical relationship between bonds and equities has completely broken down over the past six months. "You can't have a sustained period where equities are going up, while bond yields are flat or trending down," said Mr Secker.

One or the other must give, and bears have no doubt which it will be.