The economic world has changed. There are new trends, megatrends if you will, now at work in our economy. They are "mega" trends because they overarch and impact everything else in the economy and will do so for quite a while.

There are other major trends at work as well, but they have been operating as a part of the basic framework of our economy for decades. These megatrends have emerged from the credit cycle because people change their behaviors in response to a crisis, and it would be foolish to assume that everything will just go back to the way things were before.

These aren't predictions of the future, because circumstances change. How many economists predicted this crisis? Very, very few. Think of these megatrends more as chalk marks on the playing field that will guide human economic behavior for some years.

Do you think the Republicans or the Democrats are winning the race to prove they are the dumbest and most incompetent political party?

The Republicans were clearly winning the race until January 2007. They threw away their majorities in both houses of Congress, by not only failing to have a realistic postwar strategy in Iraq but by such things as greatly expanding government spending when they had promised the voters the opposite.

The Democrats won the congressional elections by promising they would have a clear and coherent plan to end the stalemate in Iraq and to be "fiscally responsible" by holding down the growth in government spending and not increasing taxes.

So, what have they done since they have been in power? Having fulfilled virtually none of their campaign pledges, the Democrats' obvious incompetence and incoherence have managed to give the Congress an approval rate of only 29 percent, even lower than the president's.  That's quite an achievement.

One of the many great things I took from my Army career was the rule that "the maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters." But excuses are all we have in Afghanistan.

Among the worst of the countless follies that make an old soldier sick is the endless excuse-making for the sloth and cowardice of the Afghan National Army and the extortion culture of the Afghan Police -- while Taliban warriors fight to the bitter end.

The bottom line is that Taliban fighters are willing to die for their cause, while the Afghan soldiers we've tried to train don't even show up for formation. And the NATO-trained cops are so corrupt they've driven Afghans into the arms of the Taliban.

Meanwhile, nearsighted generals and clueless politicians make excuse after excuse... while leaving our soldiers on their own on the battlefield.

With the current spectacle of the corrupt World Bank trying to rid itself of its president who is trying to de-corrupt the place, based on politicized corruption charges against him, it is time to ask:

Should the World Bank (WB), and indeed, its sister organization the International Monetary Fund (IMF), be abolished?

Both organizations had their annual spring meetings in Washington this past weekend. It is obvious to everyone that both are in deep trouble. 

Eight years ago today, our homeland was attacked by fanatical Moslems inspired by Saudi Arabian bigotry. Three thousand American citizens and residents died.

We resolved that we, the People, would never forget. Then we forgot. We've learned nothing.

Instead of cracking down on Islamist extremism, we've excused it. Instead of relentlessly hunting Islamist madmen, we seek to appease them.

Instead of acknowledging that radical Islam is the problem, we elected a president who blames America, whose idea of freedom is the right for women to suffer in silence behind a veil -- and who counts among his mentors and friends those who damn our country or believe that our own government staged the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

With evil day of April 15 nigh, it is time to demand of the various presidential candidates to show how they propose to lift the unconscionable burden of the IRS off our oppressed shoulders.

As is well known, the current U.S. income tax system and the Internal Revenue Service are a huge and unnecessary drag on both the economy and individual liberty. The IRS code and regulations have become hopelessly complex and grown to about 7 million words.

No one can possibly understand the present code, including even those at the IRS. Thus no matter how well-meaning, the taxpayer is always at risk for noncompliance -- such laws are characteristics of totalitarian, not free, societies.

Such laws need to be abolished.  There are two serious proposals for doing so:  the "Flat Tax" and the national sales tax, better known as the "Fair Tax." (See Flat Tax Revolution by Steve Forbes, and  The Fair Tax Book by Neil Boortz and Congressman John Linder.)

President Barack Hussein Obama's State Department waited until the cusp of Labor Day weekend before publicly backing Latin America's dictators in their assault on democracy.

Our thug-worshipping diplomats figured they'd slip it by us. With the nation focused on barbecues and the beach, they announced that, if Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez's client, Manuel Zelaya, isn't returned to power in Honduras, the United States won't recognize the results of that country's upcoming free elections.

Mr. Obama hasn't uttered a single word of criticism for the dictatorships of Chavez or his protégés in Ecuador and Bolivia, nor once demanded free elections in Cuba.  But he's going to show those wicked Hondurans, by Hugo! They can't boot out a crazy leftwing president just because he's trying to subvert their Constitution.

We open the HFR this week by asking:  Dare we hope for Hillary?

It's a fun debate over who would be easier for McCain to beat, Obambi or the PIAPS, almost as much fun as watching them rip each other's political guts out.  McCain could score a Reagnesque electoral victory over either of these two losers, but I want him to go up against Her Shrillness.  There's suddenly real hope that he will...

... Which brings us to the delightful subject of the North Carolina GOP Anti-Obama ad.  It is fabulous -- And it is really funny to see how many smart conservatives - even Rush Limbaugh who's normally really smart - have been suckered by John McCain's denouncing it...

... Let's raise a more than half-full glass of congratulations to the brave leaders of the North Carolina Republican Party.  We need more Republicans with their courage.  What we need fewer of is the editorial writers of the New York Times, whose op-eds provide the propaganda marching orders for the entire liberal media.  Looks like we get our wish...

... We close the HFR this week with absolutely the most thrilling and uplifting headline of recent times:  Food Crisis Starts Eclipsing Climate Change Worries

How great is that?  Nothing like a little mass world-wide starvation to make people doubt in the religious dogma of warm-mongering.  Finally - finally - it just may be that people aren't willing to go back to the Stone Age in order to placate Algore.

If you knew how to make life better for your fellow Americans, would you? The political class in Washington constantly claims it "cares about you," but when it comes to policy many do just the opposite.

Most people understand the Republicans messed up by allowing nondefense spending to grow faster than the economy. The Democrats ran against the irresponsible Republicans by claiming they would be "fiscally responsible."

So, rather than present a budget that would reduce the growth rate of domestic spending, they have just proposed one that would increase it, even above Republican proposals, and require increases in taxes.

You can only wonder if they are even more brain dead than the Republicans.