It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.

Both HUD and the Department of Justice began bringing lawsuits against mortgage bankers when a higher percentage of minority applicants than white applicants were turned down for mortgage loans. A substantial majority of both black and white mortgage loan applicants had their loans approved but a statistical difference was enough to get a bank sued.

The welfare state has always been judged by its good intentions, rather than its bad results.

There are few talents so richly rewarded - especially in politics and the media - as the ability to portray parasites as victims, and portray demands for preferential treatment as struggles for equal rights.

No one pushed harder than Congressman Barney Frank to force banks and other financial institutions to reduce their mortgage lending standards, in order to meet government-set goals for more home ownership. Those lower mortgage lending standards are at the heart of the increased riskiness of the mortgage market and of the collapse of Wall Street securities based on those risky mortgages.

The talkers and writers resent being left on the sidelines by the doers.

A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas.