Real (inflation adjusted) median household income last year was $51,371, 4.44 % lower than when Mr. Obama became president in 2009, the Census Bureau says. The number of Americans living in poverty rose by the equivalent of the population of Massachusetts during Barack Hussein Obama's first term.  By the time his second ends, "black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category," television talk show host Tavis Smiley said last month. From 2009 to 2012, the top 1% received 95% of income gains, a study by University of California-Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez indicated.  But during the presidency of George W. Bush, the top 1% garnered just 65 % of income growth, Prof. Saez said. "While the populist rhetoric of modern (Democrat) politicians is all about redistribution and inequality, the reality is that (their) policies entrench privilege," said Walter Russell Mead, editor of The American Interest.  So who's the "party of the rich" again?

For Democrats and especially their leader, the American people -- including those who vote for Democrats -- are sheep to be sheared, cows to be milked, suckers to be swindled.  Exactly as does con-man fraudster Kevin Trudeau. Last week (11/12), a jury in Chicago found Kevin Trudeau guilty of "criminal contempt" for making misleading claims in television infomercials for his weight loss book.  The prosecutors cited as false and fraudulent Mr. Trudeau's claims of "easy" and "secret" (secret because of a government and Big Food conspiracy to hide them) techniques that actually called for daily injections of a prescription-required hormone (human chorionic gonadotropin or HCG), a 500-calorie-day diet, and a month of colon hydrotherapy.  Trudeau also claimed that after completing the diet, consumers could eat anything they want without regaining weight. These surely are deceptions, but seem mild compared to "if you like your health plan, you can keep it; if you like your doctor, you can keep him or her; Obamacare will reduce insurance premiums for the average family by $2,500 a year."

"I wouldn't start here if I were you," is the punch line of an old Irish joke, which monetary scholar Kevin Dowd cites to illustrate the deeper and deeper hole the Federal Reserve is getting us into. Mr. Dowd, in a paper delivered last week (11/14) at the Cato Institute's 31st annual Monetary Conference, concluded:

"The modern financial system has not only kicked away most of the constraints against excessive risk-taking, but positively incentivized systemic risk-taking in all manner of highly destructive ways . We have gone from a system that managed itself to one that requires management, but cannot be managed. We have gone from a system that was guarded by market forces operating under the rule of law to one that requires human guardians instead -- but we have not solved the underlying problem of how to guard the guardians themselves."

What wonderful teachable moments there were this week.  Two in particular were supreme examples of the power of affirmations.  There are two kinds: positive affirmations, like "Remember to go to the store"; and negative affirmations, like "Don't forget to go to the store."  Any shrink will tell you the latter are dangerous, because it's the key word that sticks in your brain:  "Don't FORGET to go to the store" is really telling someone to forget, not remember. Yesterday (11/14), the man whom every libtard in America believes is the smartest man ever to work in the Oval Office announced on national television, "I don't think I'M STUPID enough" to mislead people on Zerocare.  Great messaging, genius.  You just told the entire country you are. That's just the start of the fun this week -- big fun, and you won't believe who the HFR Hero of the Week is. In fact, it's so much fun that I'm making, for the first time ever, this HFR a Free Access.  Enjoy!

The administration is spending $67 million to hire thousands of "navigators" to help people sort through the Obamacare maze.  Some could be convicted felons, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted. "HHS decided to build political support for the Affordable Care Act by pouring money into supportive organizations so they could launch poorly trained workers into their communities without obtaining criminal background checks or creating systems for monitoring their activities," said former Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue.  "It will not take long for navigators to become predators, and HHS has no plan to deal with the new breed of predators it is creating." "Navigators" in Texas were caught on video advising clients to lie to obtain subsidies. Fraudsters and scam artists take advantage of the frequent crashes of Obamacare web sites. "If an insurance shopping website is usable, it's not the federal government's," the Wall Street Journal warned. There is no greater consumer fraud than Obamacare itself, which I suppose is why Ms. Sebelius wants to exempt it from laws which fight fraud in Medicare.

For some, happiness is a word that conjures up visions of selfish people concerned only with their own pleasure; but this sort of hedonistic approach to happiness is a recipe for serial bursts of pleasure at the expense of long-term happiness. As you know, when I speak of happiness, I am describing a much richer concept; more akin to what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia or "success at being human." One of the central elements for living well is how you relate to other people. In this regard, happiness is literally the opposite of self-centeredness or self-absorption. In fact, contrary to many Las Vegas advertisements or Hollywood-lifestyle fantasies, self-absorption is a key ingredient for depression, and single-minded focus on personal pleasure is a recipe for long-term misery. So here's the single most effective thing you can do to get an immediate and significant boost to your genuine happiness - and to set the stage for a deeper, long-term happiness as well. It's simple. It's not mysterious. But it is substantial:

What do you think the minimum wage per hour should be? How did you come up with that number? The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, and the Obama administration proposed raising it to $10.10 per hour last Thursday (11/08).  Last week, the voters in New Jersey passed a $8.25 per hour minimum wage, while the voters in the town of SeaTac, Wash., passed a $15 per hour minimum wage. A noted labor economist, Walter Williams, has written: "Among academic economists, there is little or no debate over the unemployment effects of minimum wages. Our only debate is the magnitude of unemployment." In 1977, Mr. Williams authored a classic paper showing that one of the major reasons for the original federal minimum wage back in 1938 was the desire of racist, white-only unions to keep skilled black tradesmen from getting jobs owing to their willingness to work for less than the union rate. It should be no surprise that those who argue most strongly for higher minimum wages are unions, seeking protection from those who need the work and would be willing to work for less, and members of the political class who spout lofty slogans about how they are out to protect the working poor. Do both these groups want more unemployment?