Today is Good Friday, when Christians commemorate the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus.  It should be of solace to the millions doing so in America that there are so many millions more sharing this commemoration with them all over the world. It should be of solace to them all that Christianity has more adherents and is more widespread across the planet than any other religion on earth today or in history.  33% of all people on earth say they are Christians.  Islam is a distant second, accounting for 21%. Further, Christianity, in terms of absolute numbers, is the fastest growing religion in the world.  The World Christian Database, which compiles the most respected research on world religions, reports that from 2000-2005, Christianity experienced an annual world-wide growth in adherents of 1.38%, while Islam had a growth rate of 1.84%.  At that rate of 0.46% more a year, it would take over 200 years for there to be as many Moslems as Christians. However... the WCD reports that from 1970 to 1985, the Moslem growth rate was 2.74%, and from 1990-2000 it was 2.13%.  The Moslem growth rate over the past 25 years is falling, while the Christian rate is rising (up from 1.36% 1990-2000). And there's more.

Obamacare will cost them a ton of money and could force them to drop the prescription drug coverage they've been providing to their retirees, several corporations have announced. AT&T said it is going to take a $1 billion write down.  Caterpillar announced a $100 million hit, Deere, $150 million. This made Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Cal, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, angry.  He announced plans to hold a hearing April 21 on:  "Claims by Caterpillar, Verizon and Deere that provisions in the new health care reform law could adversely affect their company's ability to provide health insurance to their employees.  These assertions appear to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs." Rep. Waxman demanded executives give his committee internal company documents related to health care finances.  A Republican member of Mr. Waxman's committee told Byron York of the Washington Examiner that this was "an attempt to intimidate and silence opponents" of Obamacare.  Mr. Waxman pretends to be a Democrat.  What he really is is a Fascist.

President Barack Hussein Obama is an ignoramus and a boor, White House senior adviser David Axelrod said on CNN Sunday (3/28). Mr. Axelrod did not, of course, use precisely those words.  What he did say on CNN's "State of the Union" program is that there was "no snub intended" when the president abruptly walked out of a meeting at the White House Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to have dinner in the family quarters. Most news accounts described the event as did the London Times: "Binyamin Netanyahu humiliated after Barack Obama ‘dumped him for dinner'."  But it is not the object of boorishness who ought to be embarrassed by boorish behavior.  Barack Hussein Obama is plainly a boor, with no understanding of diplomacy.  You don't treat your brother in law like that, much less a head of state who is a guest in your country.  For more than a year now, this president has treated America's friends as enemies -- and America's enemies as friends.

Zurich, Switzerland.  Economists, political scientists, reporters and pundits spend too much of their time looking at dysfunctional societies and trying to explain why there are poverty, joblessness and hopelessness. In many ways, Haiti is easy to explain - no rule of law and 200 years of corrupt and incompetent governments. Switzerland is the polar opposite. It has almost no corruption and has the rule of law with honest, competent judges and government administrators. The question should be, "What can we learn from the Switzerlands of the world about how to do things right" rather than, "What is wrong with the Haitis of the world?" Switzerland manages to run a smaller government as a share of gross domestic product than the United States and most other countries while providing a higher level of service, security, prosperity and freedom. How does it do that? Both the United States and Switzerland are federal republics. If one reads the Federalist Papers and the oworks of the American Founding Fathers, it is clear they envisioned a nation that operates much more like Switzerland than one with the large central government the U.S. now has.

The expression "Failure is not an option" may be a motivator for very high-risk situations, but failure must always be an option for players in a properly functioning market economy. If you had a choice between buying a bond issued by a company considered "too big to fail" - which is an implicit government guarantee of its debt - would you buy that bond or one issued by a company without a government guarantee? Companies with government guarantees will be able to borrow at less cost, and, ultimately, their unfair competitive advantage will drive the companies without guarantees out of business. You may believe that the housing bubble and the subsequent financial meltdown were caused primarily by the Fed or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the two multitrillion-dollar government-sponsored secondary mortgage buyers), or by the very largest commercial and investment banks. But whichever theory you choose, note that it was either the government or those heavily regulated by the government that were the source of the problem - and all were considered "too big to fail."