For the first time since this Greatest Recession Since the Great Depression (GRSGD) began, bank delinquencies on the books of the more than 7800 banks that report to the FDIC are on the decline.  And Exhibit 1 shows the first point on what should continue to be a downward trend as loan delinquencies return to pre-GRSGD levels over the next few years.

Late in the fall of 1988 the accounting firm, Coopers & Lybrand (C&L), won a competitive award to construct a computer system that collected the monthly security and loan information relating to Ginnie Mae’s mortgage-backed security program. As a C&L consultant with a math major and a Wharton M.B.A., I was put in charge of testing the system as it was being developed.

The interpretation of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution has been a wild ride with serious implications. The clause grants Congress the power to “regulate commerce . . . among the several States”. For decades it has been used to justify the federal government’s regulation of certain aspects of the economy. Recently, ObamaCare legislated the individual mandate, which will fine people for not obtaining health insurance beginning in 2014. The administration points to the Commerce Clause as their Constitutional right to impose the individual mandate and referred to the fine as a “tax” in court to defend the action as government’s “power to lay and collect taxes”.

Yet there is an even easier and more efficient way for government to collect tax revenues: a Fair Tax; a single broad national consumption tax on retail sales to replace all federal income taxes. A Fair Tax would be collected by merchants and then distributed to the government. Imagine it: a world with no tax returns for individuals, only for retail businesses. It sounds so simple. Surely it wouldn’t work, or wouldn’t produce enough revenue, or somehow make the United States fall to her knees, right? Well, no actually, simple works just fine in this case.

Where is Howard Beale when we need him?  Two years into the Greatest Recession Since the Great Depression (GRSGD) and our financial leaders are still telling us that we need to be patient while waiting for our economic recovery.

Dean is right about the public option; it is unpopular and it should be. Obama is now trying to defend it in the courts as a tax even though he denied it was a tax for over a year! A poll by the Progressive Campaign Change Committee found that while people favored the public option 59% to 31%, people opposed the individual mandate without a public option 56% to 33%. According to Rassmussen, a slight majority actually supports health reform now. However, this is after Obama launched a $700,000 ad campaign (taxpayer financed) to “correct the record” after the bill had already been passed. Back in September, 56% of people opposed it.

Rand Paul just cannot catch a break in the media. It all started after his primary victory over Trey Grayson when he told Rachel Maddow he philosophically disagreed with one out of the 10 titles to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he was pretty much tarred and feathered constantly for an entire week of 24 hour news cycles.

Mortgage debt in the United States (currently more than $10 trillion) has grown to the point that it is nearly the same size as our national debt (in fact, a few years ago, U.S. mortgage debt actually successfully passed our national debt), and it has only been as a result of the new Administration’s debt spending that our national debt has regained the lead in the race to see which can account for the highest amount of our economic debt.

Peter Schiff just lost the Republican nod for US Senator in Connecticut. If someone ever embodied the antithesis to the nation’s current approach, it is Schiff.

Currently, public initiatives offer free, or heavily subsidized, birth control in some states through organizations like Planned Parenthood. With most state budgets in the tank, these options may not be there forever. Some religious groups scoff at the idea of publicly-funded birth control as it flies in the face of their spiritual beliefs; and more seriously, public financing for abortion. We can save abortion for another day, however, it’s safe to say you won’t find too many public health experts on the platform that distributing birth control is a bad idea.