thus maintain the fictional value of—overpriced assets. Of course because they refuse to fix the toilet, it is overflowing and the excess dollars are spilling out into China and India and Brazil and most everywhere else, roiling those countries’ economies.

Meantime, our government, amid the first detonations of the baby boomer demographic time bomb, has spent two years pondering the looming entitlements funding chasm and has ultimately decided to increase our commitments via Obamacare. Meanwhile, we are still bleeding money in Iraq and Afghanistan, still running a huge trade deficit, and with unrelenting salvos of anti-small-business bombardments (Obamacare regulations and levies, financial reform regulations, reinstitution of the estate tax, increase of the income tax), have helped to stymie private sector job growth, and real unemployment is stuck around 17%.

Andsilly enough to apply in circumstances like Mr Brownlee's."

Mr Brownlee's case stemmed from his attempts to eject Mr Abel after he disrupted the National Party's 1999 election campaign launch.

Mr Brownlee said he was acting in his capacity as a junior whip when he took on the task of removing Mr Abel.

"In hindsight, I would have thought 'oh well, I've got this big bill, I may as well see what is possible'. But quite clearly it wasn't appropriate."

He had sent a request for reimbursement to National leader Bill English in 2001, one month after the rule was introduced.

He sent a subsequent set of invoices in May 2002 after the court case, including one for $13,375 for damages and costs to Mr Abel.

In total, Mr Brownlee's own legal costs totalled