Asia's economic recovery is losing momentum and Europe's slump is proving deeper than expected, raising concerns that soaring stock markets globally have jumped ahead of economic reality.

Japan's closely-watched index for machinery orders fell 13% in January, nearing levels last seen after the Lehman Brothers crisis. "It is a shockingly poor number and illustrates the divergence between the improvement in sentiment in financial markets and what is actually happening on the ground," said Julian Jessop from Capital Economics.

China's industrial output rose 0.6% in January and 0.8% in February, the slowest pace since early last year. Retail sales growth dropped to 12.3%, the weakest since early 2004. "The goal of consumer-led growth remains a pipe dream for now," said the group's China economist, Qinwei Wang. "The economic rebound may already be stalling."

The US economy is holding up, as cheap shale gas drives a manufacturing revival, but Charles Dumas from Lombard Street Research said America still has to navigate the most drastic fiscal squeeze since the Second World War. "We think tightening will be 2.5% of GDP this year and that will hit profits," he said. "We expect a 10-20% correction in the S&P 500."

The former presidential candidate these days is in a real bind. He can’t decide between his putative love for America or his hatred of Jews and Israel.

Before the Democrat-led Senate rammed it through in the dead of night, Christmas Eve 2009 – Senate President Harry Reid used a House bill unrelated to Obamacare, struck all the language and the title so that only the former HR number remained, and then inserted a new title and over 2,000 pages of job-killing, economy-crushing, health-care-rationing compost.

Sneaky? Yes. Typical? No doubt. Unconstitutional? Absolutely. It’s like dropping a Ford Pinto engine into a totaled Ferrari body, patching it up and then selling it to some unsuspecting dupe as a “brand new Ferrari.”

Unfortunately, America was that unsuspecting dupe.

Well, the jig’s up.  Although the mainstream media paid it little attention, back in November (11/26/12) the U.S. Supreme Court shocked many in the legal community by granting Liberty Counsel’s motion for a rehearing on its multi-pronged challenge to Obamacare. The high court ordered the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear arguments. We will present our oral arguments May 14-17.

Liberty Counsel’s brief argues that Obamacare is invalid because, since it’s a tax – as the Supreme Court already ruled in June – it violates the Constitution’s Origination Clause. To pass constitutional muster, tax bills must originate in the House, not the Senate.

No matter how the 4^th Circuit rules, it will be appealed to the SCOTUS.  Chief Justice Roberts will get another bite at the rotten apple – this time, with a whole new quiver of legal arrows.

It was yet another lousy week for Zero, but to tell the truth, it's getting reeeeaaallly boring talking about this guy.  I am so excruciatingly bored with him and his grimacing wife and his moonbat supporters and his groveling media sycophants and his union thugs and his crony business-shysters and his airhead celebrities.

So let's get outta here and go somewhere else.  How about France?  That should be fun - for it's simply awesome to witness the French immolate themselves.

When I was growing up, there were two Frances.  One was that embodied by Maurice Chevalier (1888-1972) - completely captivating, oozing French charm and savoir-faire, impossible not to like. Here's a link to him singing Thank Heaven For Little Girls in Gigi (1958).

The other France was embodied by Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) - completely pompous, oozing arrogance and pretentiousness, utterly ungrateful to America for saving his country in World Wars I and II, yearning for the days of French gloire (glory) centuries ago and pretending they still existed.       

De Gaulle's France is the only one left now, still pompous, still the arrogant beggar, with a hopelessly incompetent champagne socialist running the place.

Last week, ABC News ran a story that led with the statement, ‘Mitt Romney has millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven.'

What the reporters failed to mention was that ABC, a unit of the Disney Corp., also has millions of dollars in Cayman-registered funds. Probably most employees at ABC, including the reporters who wrote the story, have some of their money in Cayman-registered funds, as probably do many of you reading this column, even though you don't know it.

This is how the real world works.  There is a very good reason why fund managers place a portion of their portfolios in the Caymans.  It's that the Cayman financial regulatory system is far superior to America's.

The US military has promised “an overwhelming response” in retaliation for the Fallujah Atrocity of March 30. "Coalition forces will respond," the U.S. army's deputy director of operations Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told a news conference. "They are coming back and they are going to hunt down the people responsible for this bestial act. "It will be at a time and a place of our choosing. It will be methodical, it will be precise and it will be overwhelming."

Here’s a way to begin.

Earlier this month NGO Monitor released its report on foreign government funding of radical political Israeli NGOs which work to undermine Israel's international standing and subvert Israeli society.

Along with the usual European suspects who give millions of shekels (or euros or pounds) to Israeli groups like this, it works out that the US government is also funding extremely radical organizations, courtesy of American taxpayers. Notably, the three groups that reported receiving funding from the US are all in the business of waging political warfare campaigns directed at the Israeli public.

According to the report, in accordance with the NGO Transparency Law which requires NGOs to report on donations received from foreign governments, three Hate-Israel Israeli NGOs received funding from the US, i.e., Obama's State Department. They are:

Ambergris Caye, Belize.  The Cayman Islands are rich, and Belize is poor. Why?

Both are small Caribbean countries with the same climate and roughly the same mixed racial heritage, and both were English-speaking British colonies. Belize (the former British Honduras) received its independence in 1981, while Cayman is still not fully independent but is self-governing at the local level, with its own currency, laws and regulations.

Belize should be richer: It has a larger population than Cayman (345,000 as contrasted with Cayman's 54,000). Belize has a much larger and more varied land area with many more natural resources, including gas and oil, and some rich agricultural land that Cayman lacks. Both have nice beaches, but Belize has the second-largest barrier reef in the world after Australia and also has Mayan ruins. Yet Cayman, with fewer points of interests, has done more to attract tourists.

Back in the early 1970s, Cayman was as poor on a per capita basis as is Belize today. Both countries had ambitions to be tourist and financial centers. Cayman succeeded and has about six times the real per capita income of Belize. What did Cayman do right and Belize do wrong?