The war and the economy

While most Americans are understandably focused on our economic problems, Mark Steyn reminds us that there are even more serious concerns out there in Islamofascistland. His latest column in NRO touches on the twin dangers of demography and appeasement. And, of course, he brings up the Geert Wilders abomination.
Consider this - Imagine a short video juxtaposing scenes of Nazi violence with passages from Mein Kampf justifying the violence. Would it be appropriate to arrest the video's producer because of the possibility that Nazis might take offense and react with violence? This is analogous to the British government treatment of Geert Wilders for producing his video linking the violence of radical Islam with the Koran.

Another column by Phil Gramm in the WSJ on Friday (2/20), had the best explanation I've seen yet on how we got into our current economic mess. The column is more detailed but here is the paragraph that summarizes Gramm's main point.
I believe that a strong case can be made that the financial crisis stemmed from a confluence of two factors. The first was the unintended consequences of a monetary policy, developed to combat inventory cycle recessions in the last half of the 20th century, that was not well suited to the speculative bubble recession of 2001. The second was the politicization of mortgage lending.
Now look at how the Fed, Obama and Congress are trying to fix the mess. They're advancing the same easy money policy along with the politicization of mortgage lending.