With apologies to Clint Eastwood, we're facing a real-life version of his famous movie that could be entitled The Responsible, The Timid, and The Ugly.

For the past year, the Federal Reserve has been the largest single purchaser of U.S. government securities, buying well more than half of all new debt. The Fed calls this program quantitative easing (QE2), or what normal people would call printing money. The Fed has stated that this program will stop in June. Who is going to purchase all of the new government debt when the Fed stops?

The Chinese and other foreign holders of U.S. government debt are well aware of the increasing probability of higher U.S. inflation and the corresponding further decline in the dollar. Since September, the Chinese have been gradually reducing their holdings of U.S. government securities (i.e., becoming net sellers). The Japanese had been net buyers of U.S. government debt, but they also will now likely become net sellers as they will need funds for rebuilding.

Again, who will fill the Treasury bond-buying gap left by the withdrawal of the Fed, the Chinese and the Japanese?

"I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."  --Barack Obama, April 2, 2012

I don't think that President Obama believes a word of his remarks about what the Supreme Court can or cannot do about any given piece of legislation.  Attorney General Holder said as much when he agreed that the Supremes are there specifically to protect against laws they consider unconstitutional. Holder's not picking a fight with his boss.

It's not about that.  It's about power.  And freedom.

Power, because the president and his people think that, since they are smarter and better than the rest of us, anyone who tries to limit their power is bad, and has to be brought into line.  Thus, the tough words of warning to any Justice contemplating voting against Obamacare.

Freedom, because the accumulation of power in the hands of the executive branch comes at our expense, bit by bit and law by law, precisely as Alexis de Tocqueville feared.

"Fiscal crisis hits the states" has become this year's most boring and repetitive headline.

But what is largely overlooked is that some states are doing relatively well - such as my home state of Virginia - and are, in fact, balancing their budgets without draconian budget cuts or tax increases.

What are the well-managed states doing right and the others doing wrong? And what lessons could those running the federal government learn from the better managed states?

The accompanying table shows the rankings of seven of the major states by various organizations.

If you don't read the TTP Forum, then you may not have heard the announcement of the Obama Administration's that the US Geological Survey has identified the source of the earthquake that shook Washington DC last Tuesday (8/23).

The USGS is saying that it occurred on an obscure fault line that runs directly under the White House known as "Bush's Fault."

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Speaking of Zero... the HFR Word of the Week is palilalia.  It's a speech disorder, the involuntary or obsessive repetition of the same words or phrases - such as "millionaires and billionaires," "corporate jets," "redistribute the wealth," or "Bush's fault."

Clearly, we have a palilaliatic president, who is incapable of saying anything creative or new, but endlessly repeats the same moronic liberalisms over and over.  What was Einstein's term for doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

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The most uplifting news of the week comes from Wisconsin.  On Monday (8/22), the Washington Examiner reported: Union Cash Cutoff Has National Implications.

Last week, Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, again came out against the pending trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, claiming they would cost U.S. jobs.  Yet every respectable economist, from Adam Smith way back in 1776 until the present, has argued the virtues of free trade.

Those in the Obama administration continue to waffle on these agreements by catering to the ignorance or deliberate know-nothing stance of their labor and other left-wing supporters. Many of the anti-free-trade types also argue for sourcing things locally.

Does any of this make sense?

Should we have protective tariffs on pencils? As simple as a pencil is, it contains materials from all over the world (special woods, paint, graphite, metal for the band and rubber for the eraser) and requires specialized machinery.

How much would it cost you to make your own pencils or even grow your own food? Trade means lower costs and better products, and the more of it the better.