I’ve heard stories of people speculating in the housing market.

You know, not everybody’s who’s got caught up in this mortgage crisis is poor, and not everybody was lent money that had no business being lent money. A lot of these people were speculators. They were buying houses and flipping them, never living in them, just buying them and flipping them. When the crisis hit.

They got caught in the flip. Several of them, I can’t give you an exact number, but there were speculators in the market who purposely, consciously, decided not to pay their mortgages when this happened, betting on the fact that they would be bailed out, because they knew that a lot of people got caught up in these adjustable rate mortgages.

They had no business being lent money in the first place, had no business borrowing it, but they were because government policy, and they just thought, “Okay, if we hang around here, if we lurk and we don’t pay, and the threat of foreclosure comes up, we think we’ll get bailed out eventually.” That was some of the thinking on the part of the speculators.

Now, if that kind of thing among wealthy risk takers begins to take hold, if they think they’re going to get bailed out, then they’re going to be less conscious of any risk and there’s going to be less responsibility in the risk that they take, and this is going to have sort of a domino effect if this keeps going.

The Republican Party, doesn’t want to work with Democrats to get anything done.

Is that true? No, not quite.

I’ll be happy to work with as many Democrats as possible, when they join us, not when we join them.

I’ll give you a great example.

This Al Gore initiative, $300 million initiative, global warming. Newt Gingrich is going to do a commercial with Pelosi, I think. That’s working with Democrats while compromising our own beliefs. Newt’s not the only one. There’s a bunch of people doing it.

I don’t want liberalism to triumph.

The Democrat Party is the home of liberalism. I’m all for bringing Democrats and independents into the Republican Party, but not as Democrats and independents.

The problem with working with Democrats is it’s never that way.

Republicans always work with Democrats. Democrats never work with us.

There may be compromises on judges now and then, but in terms of the real, meaningful policies and definitions of, say, the role of government, there’s no reason to work with Democrats on that! They have nothing in common with us on that; nothing of substance. I look at it as a sellout.

When Republicans want to work with Democrats, to get things done, generally, it’s the Republicans, or the conservatives, that are compromising everything. The Democrats never do, or very rarely, unless you have a powerful presence like a Ronald Reagan who was able to get a lot of things done working with Democrats, but it was the Democrats who caved with Reagan.

We’re the ones caving now. This burns me up!

Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park; he has this little passage: “A hundred years ago, we didn’t have cars, airplanes, computers, or vaccines.”

A hundred years. He’s right. We didn’t have those things, and I mention this because here we are in a so-called recession or on the verge of a so-called recession.

We have the most prosperous country in the history of human civilization, and in particular, the last 100 years, the last 50 especially. Only because of people’s point of reference beginning life as Americans and having expectations, do people get mad, depressed when economic downturns (which are certainly cyclical) occur, because their expectations are much higher than any other people on earth.

The telephone. It took 71 years after the invention of the telephone for 50% of the American people in homes to be able to afford one, to get one; 71 years before half the country had a phone.

It took 52 years before the half the country had electricity.

Radios. Twenty-eight years before half the country had radios.

Personal computers. Nineteen years before half the country had a personal computer.

Can you see the progression? Seventy-one for telephones, 52 for electricity, 28 for radios.

You know what that is? That’s prosperity. That is rapid economic growth.

Color televisions: 18 years before half the country had a color tube in their house.

Cable television: 15 years before half the country was wired.

Cell phones: 14 years before half of American homes had cell phones.

VCRs: 12 years before half the country had VCRs.

CD players: 11 years before half the country had one.

Internet access: 10 years.

DVD players: five years.

iPods: Four years.

You can see, 71, 52, 28, 19, 18, 15, 14, 12, 11, 10, 5, 4.

That represents massive economic growth, massive prosperity, massive discretionary spending on the part of at least half of the country — and for this kind of growth to continue, energy prices have to be market related, and energy has to be plentiful and so forth.

Evidence of the absolute power and greatness of this country economically.

There’s a rule of thumb in marketing when a new product is introduced:

When an innovation reaches 10% of the population, that’s when the floodgates open, and the acceleration to mass demand kicks in. When 10% of the population accesses a new technology or a new product, that’s when the manufacturer says, “Okay, we got something here, we got a hit on our hands,” and that’s when the mass marketing begins, the prices start coming down.

Now, if that figure is still relevant, 10%, think of how long it took, if it took 71 years for the telephone to reach half the American homes, how long did it take for 10% of them to get a phone, or any of the other items on the list? It took a long time. Because the floodgates open after about 10%, that’s when the prices come down and a vast majority of people can afford whatever the new technology is.

I would venture to say that the fact that the world economy is now linked to us, that will limit any downturn that we have. The rest of the world cannot tolerate, it cannot survive if we go down. They’re not going to let it happen. Just in terms of the prosperity of the American people via their hard work — the amount of money and wealth the average American family has, as opposed to a hundred years — no other county on the planet, can compare.

Hillary Clinton brushed aside any notion of bowing out yesterday during a fund-raiser in Albuquerque.

‘I’m going to campaign hard in all the remaining states,’ she said. She flew in and flew out of New Mexico for the fundraiser. ‘I want to tell you the campaign’s going well.’ She said anybody who believes that she should bow out of a race against Obama, who leads in the delegate count, should take a lesson from college basketball’s final four. ‘Why should anybody play North Carolina? You saw what happened last night,’ said Hillary, referring to Kansas’ upset win over the Tar Heels.”

No accident here that she goes out to New Mexico, flies in, flies out, does a fund-raiser, saying that she is not going to leave the campaign. She is not going to get out.

Folks, I find it fascinating that Mrs. Clinton, on the one hand, says that we have to get out of Iraq, we just have to, and so does Obama, we gotta get out of Iraq.

Our country has a better chance of winning in the Middle East than she has of winning the Democrat primary, yet she wants to fight to the end in her campaign, but quit in Iraq.

Go figure the liberal mindset…

Candidates and pundits keep talking about “bringing the country together.”

Yes: According to an AP story, this has left Americans wondering “if divisiveness will again prevail or if — just maybe — a window is open for a more civil, constructive era” in politics.

Well, for you “wondering” Americans, I have the answer for you:

It’s a capital “NO.”

Regardless of the outcome, the November elections will not mark the end to “divisiveness.” I mean, the notion that after an election — which by definition is divisive — we’re all somehow going to come together and sing Kumbaya? That’s sophistry.

Discord is the nature of politics. Those who take the future of the nation seriously aren’t going to stop competing in the marketplace of ideas; they’re not going to abandon principles, or retreat into some fairy-tale world for the sake of going along to get along.

Anybody wishing for “an end to divisiveness” exhibits a woeful misunderstanding of our history. Partisan debate was essential to our founding; it was present during George Washington’s tenure as president, and it will be around long after we’re gone.

The freedom to dissent, to oppose, to persuade, to defeat political opponents — even sometimes in your own party — it’s our birthright, it’s our blessing. This very freedom nurtured America’s rise as the world’s superpower, dwarfing nations that existed thousands of years before us.

All that said, if you liberals want to have harmony, here’s how it can happen: Just stop pushing your left-wing agenda — and come join us in the glorious pursuit of conservatism!