Last week (12/28), the Financial Times announced, "China has again outshone the U.S. as the top venue for IPOs, initial public offerings." How is it that since 2008, a self-proclaimed communist country raises more capital and has more new firms going public than the great bastion of free-market capitalism, the United States? Answer: Members of Congress have been killing the U.S. financial markets because of hubris, incompetence and a lust for power and money. The official Washington line has been that it was "Wall Street" that caused the Great Recession. Thanks largely to the tireless efforts of a former general counsel of the Treasury, Peter Wallison, and his American Enterprise Institute colleague Edward Pinto, we now know the financial crisis would not have occurred but for government housing policy implemented principally through Fannie and Freddie and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). And that government housing policy was created by Democrats in Congress.

I've wished "Happy New Year" to a great many people.  But for most of us, I doubt it will be. Unemployment is high and economic growth is sluggish as we enter 2012.  Virtually all forecasters predict that at the end of 2012 unemployment will still be high and economic growth will still be sluggish. Our economy will be affected by developments in Europe and China, where the outlook ranges from cloudy to bleak.  Most of all, it will be affected by the untiring efforts of Barack Hussein Obama to ruin it.  Which is why we can't hope of having a happy year as long as he remains in the White House.

In my Christmas column last week, No Happier Day, I noted that -- with the curious exception of Islam -- liberals are trying to drive religion from the public square.  Public display of Christian symbols is "offensive," they say.  Christians are "intolerant;" they seek to impose their values on others. This mostly isn't true about Christians -- or about Jews or Buddhists.  But almost everywhere where Moslems wield power, religious minorities are persecuted.  On her web talk show, actress Victoria Jackson criticized the Moslem Brotherhood, a powerful Islamist group whose founder admired Adolf Hitler.  Her comments were "ignorant hatred with no foundation in reality," charged one of her guests, Hollywood gossip blogger Perez Hilton. Christians are "horrific" and "despicable" because they disapprove of homosexuality, said Mr. Hilton, who is homosexual.  Apparently he is unaware that if the Moslem Brotherhood were in charge here, he'd be executed.

Happy New Year!  You may be wondering how to cheerfully greet the coming darkness of 2012.  Sounds like the folks getting crucified by the Romans singing Always Look On The Bright Side of Life in Monty Python's Life of Brian. Well, screw the darkness.  Screw Obama and his fascist minions, his fascist regulations, and his fascist enemedia lapdogs.  Life is about rising to the challenge, and that's what we're going to do in 2012. Other people are.  Like in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad has had his goons gun down Syrians by the thousands, yet the Syrians keep fighting for their freedom.  They are not giving up.  Each day Assad gets weaker and they get stronger.  Next year, they will win, with Assad ending up in a coffin or exile. Let the Syrians be an inspiration to us.

Shortly after he gave General Motors a $53 billion bailout in 2009, President Barack Hussein Obama said the plug-in Chevrolet Volt would be salvation of the beleaguered automaker. Consumers will buy 120,000 Volts each year from 2012 onwards, the Energy Department predicted then.  But through November, only 6,142 Volts have been sold.  And that pitiful figure is inflated by purchases for government fleets. Johan de Nysschen, president of Audi of America, isn't surprised. "No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a (Toyota) Corolla," he told Lawrence Ulrich of MSN Autos in 2009.  "So there are not enough idiots who will buy it." The idiots who do, Mr. de Nysschen said, are "the intellectual elite who want to show what enlightened souls they are."  Dolts and their Volts.

Even though some are predicting the end of the world in 2012, there is a possibility it could turn out better than 2011 (a low bar). Many people who are not part of the political class continue to advance civilization and make things better for us -- like the late Steve Jobs. Potential good news is that not all members of the political class are unprincipled, self-serving, ignorant and shortsighted. We are seeing a growing band of smart, responsible and knowledgeable people being elected to Congress and other political bodies. One example is Rep. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, who is chairman of the House Budget Committee. In democratic countries, many politicians get themselves elected by making promises for spending programs that the citizens cannot or are unwilling to pay for. The result is persistent deficit spending that ultimately spirals out of control. The good news is that some democratic countries have learned how to avoid the spending/deficit trap, and those countries can serve as examples for the less prudent majority. (See chart below.)

This Sunday, December 25, nearly 2.2 billion people celebrate the birth of Jesus.  For Christians, there is no happier day. Christianity is the world's largest religion, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.  Islam, with 1.6 billion adherents, is a distant second.  Christianity is also the world's fastest growing major religion, whether growth is measured by conversions (Islam is a distant second) or births (Islam is a close second). This may surprise many, since it is contrary to the perceived wisdom.  As much as it may anguish secular liberals, billions of people all over the world agree with the words of Thomas Jefferson:  "The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man."