Give me chastity and continence, but not yet, said Saint Augustine. Chancellor Merkel’s concern for her taxpayers seems to be of the same postponable kind.

If the Obama administration can’t finalize this FTA - with its immense benefits, minimal costs, accelerating time-sensitivity and very, very public deadline for completion (which just so happens to be almost 2 years before the next election) - then they probably can’t resolve anything but the tiniest, most insignificant trade issue in the coming years, even with a new Congress that promises to be more hospitable to trade. And if that’s the case, then US trade policy is completely dead until 2013 at the earliest.

Ireland used to say “We are not Greece.” These days it is Greece saying “We are not Ireland.”

This G-20 meeting has been a disaster for President Obama and his Administration. It shows you how great countries decline. By pursuing reckless fiscal and monetary policies, the dollar has been substantially devalued, our citizens will be burden for generations by high debt and high taxes, our ability to compete on world markets is weakened, and we lose our status and influence. I can’t blame this on Obama alone. He was preceded by a hundred years of politicians who have chipped away at our freedoms and the free market. They have spent and promised more than they can deliver and we will have to pay for it through the destruction of our capital and/or high taxes.

A statement praising motherhood and apple pies is not the same as a plan to bake pies.

The Federal Trade Commission has signaled it will demand greater control over the Internet — even over the objections of the Obama administration.

The political market will select for policies that raise the status of the political leaders who advocate them. There is not much one can do about that.

But the people who are fighting to keep Social Security as it is and to expand Medicare are fighting an uphill battle against arithmetic.

Expect a travesty of justice in regards to sending fraudsters to jail. Also expect a travesty of justice whereby some judges give breaks to homeowners who successfully game the system over a perverse sense of “justice”.