Zurich, Switzerland.  Economists, political scientists, reporters and pundits spend too much of their time looking at dysfunctional societies and trying to explain why there are poverty, joblessness and hopelessness. In many ways, Haiti is easy to explain - no rule of law and 200 years of corrupt and incompetent governments. Switzerland is the polar opposite.

It has almost no corruption and has the rule of law with honest, competent judges and government administrators. The question should be, "What can we learn from the Switzerlands of the world about how to do things right" rather than, "What is wrong with the Haitis of the world?"

Switzerland manages to run a smaller government as a share of gross domestic product than the United States and most other countries while providing a higher level of service, security, prosperity and freedom. How does it do that?

Both the United States and Switzerland are federal republics. If one reads the Federalist Papers and the oworks of the American Founding Fathers, it is clear they envisioned a nation that operates much more like Switzerland than one with the large central government the U.S. now has.

I've become accustomed to dealing with folks who claim to have done things they haven't done and to be people they aren't.  In a near-perfect world, one would just write these people off as nutcases who don't deserve second thoughts.

Let me explain.  I was a Navy SEAL for 27 years, and one of my hobbies in retirement is exposing those cretins who falsely claim to have been SEALs.  You can see how we do this at our website, stolenvalor.com.

In fact, just day before yesterday (5/15), newspapers across the country ran an AP story about us, Sleuths Who Expose Pretend SEALs.

What really gets my dander up though, is when these sad sacks use fabricated military histories, complete with made-up war stories about how they got PTSD or bad backs or trick knees, to justify receipt of Veterans Administration disability benefits.

I could cite example after example of stories these phonies tell their friends and VA counselors (who are sometimes one and the same), but the critical point is how VA fraud is predictive of what will happen when Obamacare wraps its tentacles around the health industry. 

The expression "Failure is not an option" may be a motivator for very high-risk situations, but failure must always be an option for players in a properly functioning market economy.

If you had a choice between buying a bond issued by a company considered "too big to fail" - which is an implicit government guarantee of its debt - would you buy that bond or one issued by a company without a government guarantee? Companies with government guarantees will be able to borrow at less cost, and, ultimately, their unfair competitive advantage will drive the companies without guarantees out of business.

You may believe that the housing bubble and the subsequent financial meltdown were caused primarily by the Fed or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the two multitrillion-dollar government-sponsored secondary mortgage buyers), or by the very largest commercial and investment banks.

But whichever theory you choose, note that it was either the government or those heavily regulated by the government that were the source of the problem - and all were considered "too big to fail."

Pakistan - the Land of Spies, Lies, and Terrorists in (not much) Disguise - has done the impossible: It's bumped Saudi Arabia from the top slot as America's number-one enemy. 

Al Qaeda is, at most, sixth or seventh on the list, a symptom, not a cause. Without Saudi money and Pakistani protection, al Qaeda would be about as relevant as VHS cassettes. 

Pakistan's intelligence service (ISI) and its military leadership have managed to hide Osama bin Laden since he fled Tora Bora; continue to harbor and support the leadership of the Afghan Taliban; collude with the savage Haqqani terror network; and nurture a range of anti-Indian terror organizations the ISI created. 

Iran plays in the terrorist bush leagues compared to our Pakistani "ally."

Meanwhile, Washington continues to do the implausible: Kid itself that Pakistan, the world's leading terror sponsor and haven, will ultimately reform and give up its vast investments in terrorism if only we send more money to Islamabad. So here's the one word solution to dealing with Pakistan.

If President Obama and Congress have their way with the so-called health reform bill, the American people will have had their pocketbooks and liberties plundered once again.

The basic purpose of government is to protect individuals and their property and to ensure their liberties. However, Congress and most other legislative bodies spend the bulk of their time doing just the opposite.

They take, primarily through taxation, from one group of people what those people worked hard to produce and give it to some other politically favored group. They pass a never-ending series of regulations, which chip at our liberties until little is left.

When Congress seizes your money, it claims to be creating jobs by giving it to someone else who did not earn it. There is more honesty among those in the Mafia, who at least do not try to claim they are stealing from us for our own good.

The Western world is rapidly devolving into an electronic police state.  There was a time when it was commonly accepted that people had a right to privacy and a right to their property.  Today, laws routinely allow the surveillance state to violate your rights, sold to an uninformed public under the guise of "security." 

From cameras watching you walk down the street to global tracking of your finances to eavesdropping on your calls, illegal wiretapping, tracking and surveillance have become commonplace.  No longer are you presumed innocent until proven guilty - in practice you are assumed guilty and monitored to determine how guilty you may be. 

In a software-based communications infrastructure, tracking you no longer requires the phone company to physically place a bug on your phone line.  There is no need for Big Brother to view you from the television.  Almost all of your transactions, your money, and your communications are electronic and leverage the same fundamental IP-based infrastructure. 

The most valuable business commodity today is personal data.  Your daily electronic communications are under attack from a variety of sources ranging from governments to businesses to malicious hackers.  How in the world can you protect yourself against this onslaught?

Many government officials like to pretend that the effects of tax rates on the willingness of people to purchase goods or services, or work, save and invest are far less than the empirical and historical evidence shows. The Obama administration is now engaging in this type of misrepresentation and forecast fraud, which will result in much higher deficits and lower levels of economic growth and job creation than it claims.

To understand how serious this type of fraud is, think about how government officials would react if a company forecast a huge increase in revenues - and sent press releases of the forecast to the investment community, but failed to reveal that this forecast was based on the intention to double the prices for the company's products while assuming it will not reduce demand.

Such actions by company officials would be considered irresponsible misrepresentation, for which they could be held legally liable.  Shouldn't government officials be held liable for their fraud and misrepresentation?

We begin this week with a letter of profound gratitude.

Dear TTP Family,

My Marines and I cannot thank you enough for the dozens of care packages you have sent us here in Afghanistan.  At least 50 have come in so far and more arrive almost every day.  They have been an immense morale boost, and we are able to use, eat, and drink everything.  Everything you sent is so appreciated.

Just as appreciated are your prayers and spiritual support.  We are a long ways from home, and to know that people back home are praying for us every day means so much to us all.

Be assured that the Marines are proud and strong.  We have the best training in the world and it is paying off here.  We are fighting every day, getting grenades thrown at us, RPGs shot at us, and engaging in intense firefights.  Despite all of this, the Taliban are running scared.

Simultaneously, we are able to protect the local population who hate and fear the Taliban.  We are engaging and employing villagers here who often live just a couple of hundred meters away from Taliban positions.  Know that every day, the US Marines are making progress on moving forward a culture that has neither running water nor electricity, that hasn't progressed in 2,000 years.

I wish I could be with you at the TTP Rendezvous this November in Washington.  But I will still be here with my Marines.  Thank you all so very much once again.

Ethos anthropos daemon

1^st Lt. Brandon H. Wheeler
United States Marine Corps
Afghanistan

Which was the only country in the 27-nation European Union to register economic growth without going through a recession last year? The surprising answer is Poland.

Over the past couple of weeks, Greece has been grabbing the headlines as a poster child for bad fiscal management. The Greek tragedy is threatening to undo the Eurozone and cause a pan-European financial crisis.

There is no mystery as to why Greece is in the financial soup - its politicians have continued to spend far more than the government receives in taxes. The more interesting question is: What did Poland do right - and will Poland be better off or worse off if it joins the Eurozone?