We want to live in freedom. We want this country that was founded on individual liberty to once again become a country that champions individual liberty. America was founded on an this ideal; an ideal that holds tremendous meaning for most everybody reading this column. But while an ideal is great for offering direction, there are dangers to holding too tightly or dwelling too deeply upon the image of what you would like to see fulfilled. Researchers have found that when you are aiming for a personal goal, the practice of visualizing the end product can actually have a negative effect on your ability to achieve it.  This finding runs counter to decades of self-help advice. If you are holding in your mind an image of what a totally free society would look like; if you are measuring the political system in which you live, and comparing everything about it to that ideal, you will succeed in being eternally disappointed, dissatisfied, and even bitter. The truth is...

You may have been reading how the Federal Reserve has been buying huge quantities -- almost a trillion dollars' worth -- of "mortgage-backed securities" (MBS). There is a relatively high probability that this program is going to end in disaster -- and here is why. The Fed is a government institution, fully owned by citizen taxpayers. The dollars it creates only have value to the extent people believe that the Internal Revenue Service can extract real wealth from taxpayers to equal the value of the new dollars being created. Either Congress will have to vote for more taxes (or engage in less spending) to obtain the wealth to cover the new money, or the Fed's printing of money will cause inflation, thereby reducing the value of the money that individuals and businesses have or receive in exchange for the government bonds they have purchased. There are many reasons why inflation could suddenly surge and the Fed would lose control.

Happy New Year!  As 2012 staggers off today's stage and into history as the most bewildering year of modern times, and 2013 will be fascism on steroids for America, how is it possible for conservatives to wish their friends a happy new year? It's not going to be easy, but this final HFR of 2012 will show you how. The first step in solving problems is not to sugarcoat the problems.  We can play the Glad Game of Pollyanna Whittier, and look for something to be happy about in any situation - but that runs the risk of ending up like the guys in Monty Python's Life Of Brian singing, "Always look on the bright side of life" while being crucified. It's little wonder there's a headline story this week (12/26), Public Turns Gloomy, Fearful As 2013 Approaches.  That part of "the public" who were idiots enough to vote for Zero will stay gloomy and fearful, as they won't own up to their responsibility of being the cause of what they are gloomy and fearful about. But we don't have to be gloomy and fearful, and that gives us a distinct advantage over those who are.  Being gloomy and fearful doesn't solve anything.  Most often, it makes things far worse.  The last thing we should fall for is fear-mongering - and be especially wary of it when it comes from our side.  Take, for example, this article from yesterday's Canada Free Press, December 27, 2012: The Day Freedom Died in America.  This is seriously dumb.  Because some ditzy Dem senator says she's going to drop a bill that has no chance of going anywhere in either the Senate or the House, it's The End?  Nonsense. DiFi's bill will be strangled in its crib by Red State Dems like Joe Manchin (WV).  It'll never reach the House.  It's an act of grandstanding desperation, made clear by Kurt Schlichter (12/26) in Liberals Panic As They Lose The Gun Narrative. Additional evidence is the enormous backlash against the Brit anti-gun nut Piers Morgan, and the Journal News in White Plains NY that published the names and location (with Google Maps) of 44,000 gun owners in its area. Those backlashes are harbingers of 2013.  They are the opportunity 2013 gives us to have a happy new year.  2013 is going to be The Year of the Backlash.

Conservatives speak disparagingly of "Keynesian economics."  If he were alive today, I suspect John Maynard Keynes would be critical, too, of policies advocated in his name - even more than he was when alive. Lord Keynes (1883-1946) was the most celebrated economist of the 20th Century, chiefly because in his "General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money" (1936), he told politicians exactly what they wanted to hear. Despite that, Keynes deserved his fame.  He was a genius who made a fortune in the stock market (he made most of his picks while lying in bed in the morning, that day's edition of the London Times in hand).  He was fun at parties.  He had a quick wit.  He was fond of reminding investors, for example, that "the market can remain irrational far longer than you can remain solvent." And he had an important insight very relevant to today.

How is it possible that the government can spend almost twice as much as it takes in without having high inflation? The fact is that over a long period of time, it can't. In the short run, which can be a few years, the government can paper over its fiscal irresponsibility by expropriating most of the productivity gains in the private sector through regulatory and central bank actions. This is precisely what has been happening in the United States. The recent gains in productivity growth have been taxed away by government. The increases in taxes are all non-legislated taxes, largely invisible to most people. There are four of these hidden taxes.  All four of them are huge and hugely destructive.

He owes his escape from poverty to the work ethic and the values his mom drummed into him -- and to Chic-fil-A french fries, Tim Scott says. His single parent mother often worked 16 hour days as a nurses assistant "cleaning up other people's feces," so Tim and his brothers would have food in their bellies and clothes on their backs. As a freshman in high school in North Charleston, Tim Scott couldn't afford to buy a sandwich at Chic-fil-A.  But he'd often make a meal of the fries at a restaurant near the movie theater where he worked part time.  One day the restaurant's owner struck up a conversation.  John Moniz became Tim Scott's mentor. "My mother taught me how to shoot for the stars, but he taught me how to think it through," Mr. Scott said. "It's about thinking your way out of poverty."  Having a job is good, John Moniz told Tim.  But creating jobs is better.  After college, Tim Scott started his own insurance agency.