America is the story of people arising from adverse circumstances, achieving great success and helping others along the way. If you like stories about overcoming adversity - and who doesn't? - I have a suggestion for a last-minute Christmas stocking stuffer or a great gift to brighten the New Year for someone.

It is the just-published autobiography "Up from the Projects", by the influential and even revered economist Walter E. Williams.

Mr. Williams is perhaps best known for being a substitute host for Rush Limbaugh. He has been substituting for Mr. Limbaugh since 1992 because, he says, as a professor of economics, it gives him the biggest classroom in America.

How does a 6-foot, 5-inch black man born in inner-city Philadelphia well before the civil rights movement and raised by a single mother become one of the country's best-known conservative/free-market/libertarian economists, head of a leading academic economics department and an adviser to presidents?

The two most anti-capitalist groups in America today are university professors and big businessmen.
--- Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics

Our nation is at a genuine crossroads. Even if we could scale back the trillions in new spending that Obama has larded into our federal budget, we would still be in trouble.  Government has taken over major parts of American life and to regain our vitality, significant reforms must be made.

Reforms of major areas of American life where Americans have grown accustomed to the heavy hand of government will be impossible if a large percentage of our population is mistrustful of free markets and business.  To get this kind of change, leadership that inspires trust in free enterprise is essential.

There's good reason for skepticism when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney showcases his business background as the reason he will inspire this kind of trust.

Never has the expression "What planet are these people from?" seemed more appropriate than when it refers to the actions of the majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives this week on the proposed tax bill "compromise."

In the real world, their choice is that they either vote for the compromise, which means no one will suffer a tax increase as of Jan. 1, or that everyone will have a huge tax increase. Also, the lowest wage earners will see a 50 percent jump in their tax rates, from 10 percent to 15 percent.

The main point of the House Democrats' pique is that some "rich" Americans may be able to avoid having more than 50 percent of their incomes confiscated by the government and that those people's heirs may not have to pay a 55 percent tax on their inheritance if the compromise bill passes.

President Obama and his left-wing friends keep telling us that the "rich," meaning any family whose combined income is more than $250,000 annually, can "afford" to pay more. "Afford" is an interesting term in that it refers to the ability to pay but denotes nothing about the willingness of the person to pay or the justice in making the person pay.

Coral reefs around the world are suffering badly from overfishing and various forms of pollution. Yet many experts argue that the greatest threat to them is the acidification of the oceans from the dissolving of man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

The effect of acidification, according to J.E.N. Veron, an Australian coral scientist, will be "nothing less than catastrophic.... What were once thriving coral gardens that supported the greatest biodiversity of the marine realm will become red-black bacterial slime, and they will stay that way."

This is a common view. The Natural Resources Defense Council has called ocean acidification "the scariest environmental problem you've never heard of." Sigourney Weaver, who narrated a film about the issue, said that "the scientists are freaked out." The head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls it global warming's "equally evil twin."

But do the scientific data support such alarm?

he Federal Reserve is supposed to maintain the value of the currency and keep the banking system sound and stable - which it has not done (more on that below). Yet, in 1978, Congress passed the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, which, in part, also gave the Fed some explicit responsibility for maintaining full employment but did not provide the tools to do so.

The Fed does have the tools to increase or decrease the money supply, which means it can control the rate of inflation or deflation. However, the Fed has done a poor job of maintaining the value of the currency, as the dollar is now worth only about one-twenty-second of its 1913 value.

The Fed also was supposed to maintain a sound and stable banking system; however, since the Fed was created in 1913, bank failures have been at a higher rate than during the pre-Fed period.

Despite its record of failure, the Fed (as noted) was given the additional responsibility to maintain full employment. Washington operates differently from the real world, where failures are punished. In Washington, failure deserves a promotion.

I'm trying to think of good reasons why Rick Santorum did so well in the Iowa caucus, only losing to Romney by 8 votes. So far all I can come up with is:

1. He's not Mitt Romney.

2. He's not Newt Gingrich.

3. Iowans feel more intellectual voting for the only candidate with a surname which sounds like a Latin genitive plural.

What this doesn't mean, though, is that we're going to end up with President Santorum. Or, if we do, it will be a disaster. Santorum is the very opposite of what the US wants or needs right now. He's a big government conservative.

First, an apology for the fake "OBL Dead" photo.  You'd think, having been taught by the master himself, I'd follow Ronald Reagan's advice to "trust but verify."  But I didn't this time, being caught up in the excitement of getting what I thought was a pic of OBL shot in the head in the arms of a Navy SEAL.

If you knew who my source was and his bona fides, you'd be blown away.  But even he got suckered - the pic was photoshopped from the movie Blackhawk Down - and forgot RR's advice as well.  So I screwed up and am really sheepish. Sorry about this.  I'll never forget Reagan's words ever again.

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One good way to recover from too much cheap tequila celebrating Cinco de Mayo last night is to read Cinco de Reality (May 2010).  It will sober you up for sure.  (Plus it's a great nutshell history of the creation of Mexico.)

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Back to the Obama-Osama Saga.  What Jack Kelly calls a "botch" is getting more farcical and fun by the hour.  Through his sheer incompetent perversity in refusing to release the OBL death photos, Zero has manufactured this ridiculous "deather" controversy that's taken off like wildfire.

The quote of the week:  "Obama killed Osama and we got 72 versions."

Here's the essay question for today's exam, class:  Are Members of Congress and their staffers the ultimate insiders, making money off advance economic knowledge?  Discuss.

Stock or commodity trading on "inside information" has been illegal since the early 1960s. Yet there is one group that frequently has access to nonpublic information that can greatly affect stock prices, to the extent of making or breaking a company or even an industry, and these "insiders" are considered exempt from prosecution by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The insiders I refer to are members of Congress and their staffs. They have prior knowledge about which companies or industries will or will not be "bailed out," have their taxes raised or lowered, be subject to costly new regulations or exempted from such regulations, receive government contracts, etc.

However, because the members of Congress and their staffs do not obtain their information from employees of the companies affected, they are not considered insiders.